\nWhy Twitter anons are sending crypto to celebrities<\/br>
\n2023-01-20 22:20:14<\/br><\/p>\n
Welcome back to Chain Reaction.<\/strong><\/p>\n Last week<\/a>, we talked about a hack that gave new, ironic meaning to the word \u201ctrustless.\u201d This week, we\u2019ll get into one of the most polarizing aspects of crypto \u2014 privacy.<\/p>\n If someone forwarded you this message, you can subscribe on TechCrunch\u2019s newsletter page.<\/a><\/p>\n A weekly window into the thoughts of senior crypto reporter <\/i>Anita Ramaswamy<\/i><\/a>:<\/i><\/p>\n Tornado Cash has been the talk of the town this week in crypto circles. The U.S. government\u2019s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), a watchdog within the Treasury, leveled sanctions against the cryptocurrency mixer<\/a> for its role in helping facilitate money laundering. North Korean-backed hackers, among others, have used the Tornado Cash platform to mask stolen crypto associated with some of the highest-profile hacks in web3 to date, including last week\u2019s Nomad heist and the hack of play-to-earn video game Axie Infinity earlier this year.<\/p>\n But in imposing sanctions, OFAC was essentially using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The agency\u2019s official notice on the topic said that the platform had facilitated $7 billion worth of money laundering \u2014 which happens to be the total value of crypto assets that have been sent through Tornado Cash since it was created in 2019. Meanwhile, blockchain analytics provider Elliptic says only ~$1.5 billion of funds on Tornado are actually linked to crime, including ransomware attacks and fraud. The rest, Elliptic argues, could include\u00a0\u201clegitimate uses of mixers such as Tornado, such as to preserve financial privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n So what are some of those legitimate uses? One example came from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who confessed on Twitter<\/a> that he has used the service to send donations to aid Ukraine securely without the knowledge of the Russian government.<\/p>\n I’ll out myself as someone who has used TC to donate to this exact cause.<\/p>\n \u2014 vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 9, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n The OFAC\u2019s dictum does not differentiate between criminal and legitimate use cases, though. As a result, many law-abiding crypto users are likely suffering. Two major crypto infrastructure providers, Alchemy and Infura, blocked access to their API from any wallets that used Tornado Cash. Circle has reportedly frozen ~$75,000 worth of its USDC stablecoins that were connected to Tornado through a shared wallet, according to Dune Analytics data<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of course, internet pranksters got in on the fun, as is usually the case in the crypto world. Some have been sending crypto<\/a> through Tornado Cash to known wallets held by celebrities such as Jimmy Fallon and Shaquille O\u2019Neal in an attempt to troll them by getting their wallets banned under the sanction rules.<\/p>\n OFAC\u2019s heavy-handed action comes across as a bungled approach that raises more questions than it resolves when it comes to enforcement. Only time will tell how the latter plays out, but in the meantime, the crypto community is, understandably, pretty upset.<\/p>\n This week on Chain Reaction, Jacquelyn<\/a> and Anita<\/a> ran the show while Lucas was on vacation. Jacquelyn was coming off of an exciting Friday night call with Vitalik himself, so she shared some of his comments on where crypto is headed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We then dove into the news of Tornado Cash getting sanctioned in the U.S., Coinbase\u2019s disappointing second-quarter earnings and the beef between Binance and India\u2019s largest crypto exchange, WazirX, over a transaction that supposedly took place two and a half years ago (or did it)?<\/span><\/p>\n Be sure to give it a listen to get up to speed on the latest tea in crypto and tune in next Tuesday for Anita and Lucas\u2019s conversation with Li Jin, a web3 investor focused on the creator economy at Variant Fund.<\/span><\/p>\n Subscribe to Chain Reaction on <\/span>Apple<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Spotify<\/span><\/a> or your alternative podcast platform of choice to keep up with us every week.<\/span><\/p>\n Where startup money is moving in the crypto world:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Here\u2019s some of this week\u2019s crypto analysis available on our subscription service TC+ from senior reporter Jacquelyn Melinek<\/a>:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n 5 takeaways from Coinbase\u2019s disappointing Q2 results\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Coinbase, once hugely profitable in the wake of its 2021 direct listing thanks to a run in crypto-related trading activities, is now working to limit costs and brave the ongoing \u201cwinter\u201d in its market and stick to prior profitability targets for the full year. What follows are five takeaways from Coinbase\u2019s report that stood out to TC\u2019s Alex Wilhelm and Ram Iyer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As Telegram grows in size, so does crypto traders\u2019 dependence on the app<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n The crypto community has relied on social media sites like Twitter or messaging apps like Discord and Telegram to interact. But some say Telegram is the ultimate hub for communication and information \u2014 an imperative place to be in the crypto community. \u201cTelegram usage is the bedrock of the crypto community,\u201d the founder of Telegram channel unfolded, who goes by the username nakamotocat, said to TechCrunch. \u201cProjects have come and gone, players have risen and fallen, but much of the discourse between various projects and market participants resides on Telegram, and that remains a constant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Ethereum co-founder sees role diminishing as blockchain becomes increasingly decentralized<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n As the layer-1 blockchain Ethereum continues to focus on a road map toward greater decentralization, its co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, thinks that moment might come sooner than expected. Also looking to the future, Buterin thinks the next decade will be pivotal for crypto. \u201cI think in general, the next 10 years, crypto has to transform into something that is not based on promises of being useful in the future but is actually useful.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Solana co-founder says NFTs have \u201850 different use cases\u2019 that can onboard millions this year<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n It feels like yesterday that the NFT boom captured the attention of the crypto community, making waves even outside the web3 world. But a year or so down the line, the NFT hype has somewhat died down. But that isn\u2019t stopping some in the crypto world from staying optimistic about non-fungible tokens. \u201cI think within NFTs, everything is just really scratching the surface,\u201d Raj Gokal, co-founder of Solana, told TechCrunch. \u201cI think NFTs have 50 different use cases that seem to be lumped into one. I think we expect the majority of the [crypto] projects to make use of NFTs.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Thanks for reading! And \u2014 again \u2014 to get this in your inbox every Thursday, you can subscribe on TechCrunch\u2019s newsletter page.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n <\/br><\/br><\/br><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/chain-reaction-newsletter.jpg?resize=1024%2C288&ssl=1\")
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\nall mixed up<\/h2>\n
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\nthe latest pod<\/h2>\n
\nfollow the money<\/h2>\n
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\nTC+ analysis<\/h2>\n
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