Kevin O’Leary supports banning Tornado Cash mixer

What’s new? Canadian entrepreneur and investor Kevin O’Leary believes that the digital asset sector needs more regulation and fewer “crypto cowboys,” such as Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixer creator Alexey Pertsev. In his opinion, such services prevent the inflow of real institutional capital into the cryptocurrency space. O’Leary said that applications like Tornado Cash have no place in the industry. The entrepreneur said this in an interview with Crypto Banter.

Crypto Banter’s interview

What else did O’Leary say? The investor believes that cryptocurrencies need a “rules-based environment” to attract real institutional capital. According to O’Leary, regulation should stamp out protocols such as Tornado Cash that allow users to conduct anonymous transactions and therefore potentially engage in criminal activity.

O’Leary also commented on the arrest of an alleged Tornado Cash developer. He said that the crypto industry “have to sacrifice him” for “some stability.” According to The Block, the developer detained in the Netherlands is Alexey Pertsev.

However, many members of the crypto industry disagreed with O’Leary’s stance on US sanctions against Tornado Cash. One of the defenders of the mixer is Stefan George, co-founder of Gnosis Chain, an Ethereum sidechain. He said that Tornado Cash brings “much-needed privacy” to Ethereum and that writing open-source software should be recognized as “an expression of free speech.”

2/ The investigation of Zimmermann was closed after several years without filing criminal charges against him.Meanwhile Zimmermann "decentralized" the knowledge by publishing the entire source code of PGP in a mass-printed book circumventing regulations.— Stefan George (@StefanDGeorge) August 12, 2022

Uniswap protocol founder Hayden Adams also criticized the banning of the entire service because of the actions of individual attackers and called the arguments that privacy is only needed for illegal activities absurd. He believes that the actions of US authorities are a threat to freedom of speech and privacy.

The developers of the anonymous cryptocurrency Zcash from Electric Coin Company also noted that this precedent could negatively affect the civil liberties of Americans. At the same time, they declared full compliance of their asset with international AML/CFT standards.

Who is Kevin O’Leary? He is a Canadian businessman, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, politician, and broadcaster. In April, he stated that the price of bitcoin would never fall to zero. O’Leary explained that he saw cryptocurrency as a means of savings and noted that he set aside equal shares of his portfolio for bitcoin and gold (5% each). In June, the entrepreneur called payment systems the most promising segment of the cryptocurrency market. In this, O’Leary noted that regulatory measures must be taken for its successful use. In July he predicted a massive collapse of the crypto market. According to O’Leary, this would have a positive effect on the industry by eliminating companies with risky business models.