Entrepreneur and investment advisor Kevin O’Leary spoke about Tornado Cash as “cowboy crap” in the cryptocurrency market. He said that the blockchain sector needs to implement rules to make crypto feel like proper institutions than a “wild west” environment filled with outlandish systems.
Tornado Cash allows any user to do transactions incognito, which led the Treasury to believe there were numerous suspicious payments.
Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary called out on the Ethereum-based mixing service as a short-term platform and will die out in the future of cryptocurrency.
He also showed no remorse for the arrest of Alexey Pertsev, the developer for Tornado Cash. According to Mr. Wonderful, sacrificing Pertsev is alright if it would mean segregating the legitimate digital assets from the scummy ones.
Most of the Crypto Community Disagrees with O’Leary
Crypto experts contradicted O’Leary’s opinion about crypto mixers as platforms like Tornado Cash provides privacy and keeps the purpose of “decentralization” for transactions. Even though governments are against secret payments, developers continue to create more privatization for both the buyer and seller without the state’s prying eyes.
When the Tornado Cash GitHub account was removed, Patrick Collins, the Chainlink Lead Developer, called this move worse than a sanctioned website. To him, the first amendment of the US constitution is violated.
Gnosis co-founder Stefan George said that the Tornado Cash protocol provides privacy for the Ethereum blockchain and its open-source app works as freedom of speech. Meanwhile, Anthony Sassano, an Ethereum researcher, was suspended from the AAVE DeFi platform after receiving 0.1 ETH from an anonymous Tornado Cash address.
Sassano called this temporary ban a “problem” for governments as Ethereum is taking full advantage of decentralization: a purpose lost in Bitcoin. Since 2019, Tornado Cash has cycled over $9 billion worth of smart contracts based on a Dutch regulator. This huge amount made the US Treasury shut down Tornado Cash and accused it as a platform for money laundering.
