Tornado Cash co-founder explained the impossibility of blocking Russians

According to the project’s representative, this is impossible from a technical point of view

14.03.2022 - 07:20

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What’s new? The users from Russia will continue to be able to use the popular Ethereum mixer Tornado Cash. The project’s co-founder Roman Semenov told Bloomberg in an interview, the company will not be able to join anti-Russian sanctions and block funds or transactions of certain users.

The full version of the material on the Bloomberg website

Why is blocking in the service impossible? The operations in Tornado Cash are based on smart contracts on the blockchain and are fully decentralized. The use of the zk-SNARK protocol makes all transactions anonymous and confidential. As Roman Semenov emphasized, the creators of the project have exactly the same access rights to the service as ordinary users.

“All we do is write code and publish it on GitHub. This fits the definition of free speech, so writing code cannot be illegal,” the Tornado Cash co-founder added.

Earlier, restrictions for Russian users were imposed by Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. On March 10, the platform disabled support for VISA and Mastercard cards issued in Russia. Coinbase exchange, the mining pools BTC.COM and Ethermine are on the list of companies that joined the sanctions.

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