Twitter has been flooded with reactions to the arrest of a Tornado Cash developer in the Netherlands.
Today’s news from the Netherlands Crime Agency arresting a suspected Tornado Cash developer is making waves online. Privacy advocates and crypto community members decry the move as a declaration against those who just write code.
“I am short of words. I am short of breath. He was writing code. Writing code. Writing code.
I’m short of words.
— Luis Cuende ☁️🇺🇳 (@licuende) August 12, 2022
I’m short of breath.
They detained him for writing code. Writing code.
These terrorist organizations called traditional nations must be dismantled. https://t.co/paRA5WkEQX
Daniel Buchner, a decentralized identity solution specialist, said that the arrest of a developer because he was involved in a project that was allegedly misused by bad actors “transcends Ethereum, and applies to every decentralized system.”
It is an overt attack against human rights that has chilling effects on open-source software developers. wrote Buchner: “Authoritarians who commit human rights violations must be disowned by all means.”
declared Cobie (a prominent Twitter personality who is also the co-host of “UpOnly”) podcast, “Welcome To The War on Code”
Tom Robinson, chief scientist at Elliptic’s blockchain analytics firm, shared a similar view. He stated that the arrest of Tornado Cash developer “starts to play out the discord between decentralized financial protocol and law enforcement.”
Robinson asked Robinson, “Is this the beginning of the War on Code?”
The debate was also joined by some Bitcoin maximumists, as Stephan Livera, host of a popular podcast, called the developments surrounding Tornado “concerning News.”
Imagine if road builders were arrested “because criminals use them?” Or home curtain installers. wrote Livingra. “Waiting for privacy shouldn’t be considered a crime.”
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Tornado Cash on Monday. This service, which hides the origin of Ethereum transactions through the pooling of large amounts of transactions and mixing them together, was also associated with a number of addresses.
Jake Chervinsky is a lawyer and Head of Policy at Blockchain Association, . He commented that he had spent the entire week researching the sanctions imposed upon Tornado Cash and that he has not yet heard a satisfactory justification.
“The main argument is that criminals used it a lot. They use all the law-abiding citizens’ rights. What’s the limit? This slope is so slippery! “The uncertainty is a step back,” said Noah Ruderman, a crypto researcher. He also stated that it is likely the whole thing will be about surveillance issues.
Ruderman stated that if you get too good at disrupting surveillance, there will be internal pressure from national security and foreign policy to stop it.
“Arresting cryptographers to write software is the end for west’s credibility. Bad move. Worse timing. Naive,” wrote Simon Taylor (head of strategy for fraud prevention and compliance infrastructure provider Sardine).
Only time will tell what the future holds.
