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Comment by rini17 | Hacker News Reader

"...if you did something bad 10 years ago you can be caught and arrested for it today".

There is no period of limitation? And what is "something bad"? For example someone 10 years ago, accepted bitcoin in exchange by paying fiat pizza delivery to an US citizen, is that classifiable as money laundering?

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For most financial crimes in the US the federal statute of limitations is 10 years. There’s also a “knowledge” element to the crime of money laundering. So let’s say someone sold a pizza for bitcoin a decade ago and it just so happens that bitcoin was obtained through unlawful conduct. Now the pizza seller might have technically, arguably, “laundered” the funds but as long as the pizza seller didn’t know the bitcoin was from criminal activity the pizza seller didn’t commit the crime of money laundering. They lacked the requisite criminal intent.

This knowledge element is why the FBI’s email to Tornado is critical to the case. The agent specifically told Tornado the funds were obtained through illegal means so the DOJ can demonstrate Tornado had actual knowledge of the purpose of the transaction: structuring rather than privacy. (In theory at least. According to the post the email was never acknowledged or responded to.)

Does Tornado.cash even have the ability to block transactions?

I have no idea but from a legal perspective I don’t think it’s relevant to the question of whether or not they’ve committed the crime of money laundering. Although I’m not sure anyone has tried the “my algorithm is beyond of my control” defense yet?

There exists code that functionally cannot be deactivated, disabled, or removed on the blockchain (Uniswap is a good exmaple, no admin keys). Let's say the SEC prosecutes Uniswap Labs for running a securities exchange. What they cannot do, and what no one can do, is shut down the underlying code behind Uniswap.

Yep, the FBI is unlikely to nail you to the wall for doing something inadvertantly (unless it was really really bad).

A friend of mine is a field agent who spent years prosecuting financial crimes, and a lot of her time was spent knocking on doors and telling people to stop doing stupid stuff. Like one lady in particular was elderly and kept getting taken advantage of by money launderers (people putting cash in her account and telling her to deposit it somewhere else). My friend had to visit her on multiple occasions to explain that she needed to stop doing that.

"This is really blatant money laundering? How are you planning on beating the FBI?"

"Seriously? Oh, I'm old and confused and this nice young gentlemen on the telephone called me and said he accidentally put a bunch of money into my account that was supposed to go to his mother. Such a nice boy. Just keep up your side of the deal. If my cut isn't in the Cayman account within the week, then I can guarantee that you won't be worrying about the FBI."

EDIT: Just to be clear. I'm hoping that we don't unknowingly live in a universe where all elderly people are secret underworld mob bosses. However, I'm honestly not sure how you would tell the difference between a sufficiently proficient elderly mob boss and someone who's just old and hasn't kept up with changing trends.

haha, that scenario definitely crossed my mind when I heard about it, but she's not an idiot (my friend) - I assume they had other reasons to think the lady wasn't all there, but I didn't ask.

Prior to working in financial crimes she spent a lot of time dealing with catching drug dealers/smugglers/cartels, which I think is where most agents go to cut their teeth, so she's heard pretty much every ridiculous excuse/justification you can imagine.

Are you sure that you aren't confusing Tornado with Bitcoin Fog?

I’m too late to edit but you are indeed correct, thanks!

Bitcoin Fog, not Tornado. To my knowledge there's no case against Tornado. It's doubtful that there'd be any point to one - Tornado is just a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain, so it will exist as long as the blockchain exists, and putting its developers in jail is not going to change that.

There is no statute of limitation on civil tax fraud in the US. There is a limitation on criminal tax fraud, but for example, filing a false return to evade taxes (such as by not reporting cryptocurrency related capital gains) is a civil matter and the IRS is unrestricted in being able to attempt to collect the correct amount of tax at any point in time.

edit: see https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/6501 for the exceptions.

There is a statute of limitations. But in the general case: if you're going to do crimes, it's probably not so smart to do them on a permanent immutable public ledger of all transactions.

The "crime" might be you made a modest profit on some crypto and "forgot" to report it to the IRS.

That's a non-air-quotes crime. But the statute of limitations is 10 years.

For a modest unreported profit, assuming you converted it back to USD at an exchange that reports to the IRS, you'll probably get a CP2000 in the mail many years later with your recalculated back taxes (probably assuming a $0 cost basis that you'll have to provide records to dispute) + interest.

yes, that is indeed a crime, and not a "crime".

You are protected by the Statue of Not Worth It. Stay small. Fly under the radar. You are not gonna make them famous or advance their career.

Until you write a critical article on someone important or sleep with a cybercrime guy's wife. There is no under the radar in big data, you are present and accounted for by default.

With big data, everyone is the list. It still matters where you rank on it, but instead of just the top10 being fairly accurate, the top8b is fairly accurate.

> You are protected by the Statue of Not Worth It.

It can be automated and fined. This is why I'm totally against central band digital currencies, the potential for abuse is tremendous.

Alternatively, donate to political candidates, spend a few thousand dollars on events and fundraisers. Meet and greet, just to get your name out there.

If you ever face criminal troubles, you might have someone in power who you can call. And they might make a call to the DA or field office, and they may have a change of mind.

Dunno why this was downvoted. This is how things tend work when humans are involved.

Note often statute of limitations often does not begin until discovery or "when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action.", and if they can't charge you criminally then that discovery rule may apply to civil or state law.

Statue of limitations might apply.

Seinfeld covered that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq8gfaFqFpI

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