The apprehensions are increasing regarding the recent sanctions enforced by the authorities in the United States against Tornado Cash. With the elimination of privacy protocols from this sector, it seems that the whole Web3 world will as a result become meaningless.

Manta Co-Founder Dissuades Tornado Cash Ban

The co-founder of Manta Network (a privacy protocol), Shumo Chu, disclosed concerns that stringent sanctions over Tornado Cash could place a severe impact on each of the protocols operating on Web3 technology taking into account the ones which offer privacy. Manta Network (known as a Polkadot-based privacy protocol operating on layer-1) provides the opportunity to carry out transfers in the world of decentralized finance (DeFi).

Tornado Cash is a privacy protocol based on Ethereum (ETH) offering the services of doing anonymous transfers. The other protocols are Zcash (ZEC) and Monero (XMR), which are specified for masking the data related to crypto transactions’ receivers and senders. Formerly this month, the Treasury Department of the United States efficiently prohibited US citizens from utilizing the protocol.

On 5th August, the agency listed 44 USD Coin (USDC) and ETH addresses linked to the protocol among the Specially Designated Nationals. As pointed out by Chu, the prohibition by the United States authorities was supposedly carried out while focusing more attention on national security because Lazarus (a hacker group from North Korea) has been utilizing Tornado Cash for their malicious activities of stealing the funds.

Tornado Cash Ban Sets a False Narrative about Privacy, Manta Co-Founder

Chu moved on to say that there is a possibility that the regulators do not have any knowledge about the blockchain technology, potentially thinking that the North Korea-based hackers have deliberately been assisted by the developers of Tornado Cash. The previous week, the developer of Tornado Cash was hand-cuffed by the Dutch police for being suspected of laundering funds.

In the words of Chu, several instances have taken place in history where the developers of cryptographic technology were arrested, taking into account Virgil Griffiths (the Ethereum developer), however putting an outright prohibition on a protocol is something that hasn’t happened previously, indicating that authorities are trying to control the mathematics and code themselves. He added that these measures are just to generate a new narrative that only the people with bad attention utilize privacy protocols.