The Treasury Department's Real Attack - It's Scary

and of course that technology is bitcoin. It's changing the world as we know it, and we're looking at it through those lens. And today we have, uh, we got something big and something serious to talk about, um, something that is uh reshaping the world right before our very eyes. And I don't think most people are seeing what's going on. And so I'm gonna take this chance to take a situation that developed this week that was all over the news, and I'm gonna peel this thing back so you can

understand what's really going on. Um. It's something that everybody should learn how to do. And we would we would call it like past first order thinking, so you needn't look into like second order and third order thinking consequences. Things like that So I'm gonna take this issue that's blown up this week, um, and then we're gonna break

it down. And what am I talking about? While I'm talking about in the cryptocurrency space, Um, there was a protocol called Tornado Cash and it was sanctioned by the US Treasury. So this is about politics, this is about finance, and it's about technology. It's all three as I talked about each and every week. So in the cryptocurrency market, Tornado Cash is a protocol that was sanctioned by the

US Treasury Department. And this is big, big news. Like I said, it's gonna change It's going to change the United States. Um, either way, this is a big deal and we're gonna we're gonna cover that, all right, So let's break this down a little bit for you. So what happened. So there's a protocol. First of all, what do I mean? What's the protocol? So a protocol as a piece of code, and a piece of code just sets rules for how things happen. So in the Internet,

there's a bunch of protocols. So the Internet, Um, you've probably heard of like an IP address, like if you set up a route at your house. So there's like something called the t C P I P and that's like your address on the Internet. That's a protocol, and that protocol tells the Internet technology how to route packets

of data. UM. Then we have an email protocol that's called s M t B. I'm sure you've probably come across that before setting up your Gmail or whatever, and so s M t P is a protocol that helps that computer code route email. UM. Then we have like let's say security on websites. If you go to your website and your browser, it's always starts with h T t P S. It doesn't always have the S but almost always. Most of the time it always has the s NOW. And that's a new protocol that helps the

code know how to secure the website. So these are protocols now. Nobody owns the SMTP protocol for email. Nobody owns it. But if I wanted to start an email company like mail Chimp or Active Campaign or Claudio or Gmail, then I would I run Gmail or I run mail Chimp, but I build it on the SMTP protocol. That protocol that isn't owned by anybody. It's just a piece of code. It's a it's a generally agreed to code that everybody uses.

It's a standard. Okay, It's not owned by anybody. There's no company, there's no business, there's no president of the kind of the protocol, there's no marketing department. It's just a protocol. Does that make sense? All right? So I wanted to define that first. Okay. So in the cryptocurrency space, Um, we have lots of protocols. Bitcoin is a protocol. Bitcoin is a piece of software. It's a piece of code that was developed and it's a it's a public good.

Anybody could use it. It's permissionless. It's just it's just a piece of just like SMTP. Anybody could use SMTP. It's permissionless. Um. It's not owned by anybody. There's no president, there's no corporation, there's there's it's just a piece of code. It's a piece of software. Now, um, it's it uses a lot of different things Bitcoin does, um, one of which is a blockchain. People say, oh, it's not bitcoin,

that's revolutionary, it's the blockchain. Well that's not true. Bitcoin uses lots of things to make it revolutionary, one of which is a blockchain. As a matter of fact, in the Bitcoin white paper. They never used the word blockchain. They use the word time chain. That's a whole different conversation. Hit me up on social media and let me know if you'd like me to do a video on that. But UM, it uses the blockchain or time chain. It

also uses something called cryptography. We're gonna talk about that because that's a big deal for what we're talking about today. That uses other things like peer to peer. UM game theory uses the Internet, right, uses lots of different things. All right, So we have a protocol like SMTP or HTTPS or t c P, i P or bitcoin owned by nobody, a public good right and this specific protocol, tornado cash UM is a protocol for the Ethereum network. And what it does is it um It allows people

to um selectively spend money. So UM, I have a hundred dollars, You have a hundred dollars. That's both put it in the pot and we'll pay out fifty bucks to that person und fifty bucks back to that person. Now, what they argue it's used for, and I would agree it typically is used for is to mix transactions. So I have a stack up huntre dollar bills. You have

a stack of hunted dollar bills. Let's put both stacks in the in the pot, let's put them in the dryer to fumble them all around, and let's just divide up the hundred dollars each. But we now walk away different bills than we had before. And so that's kind of how it works. And people use it to put ethereum in or they also have them for bitcoin. This one specifically was for ethereum Tornado cash, and it it mixes them. It it it's a joined spend, is what

it is. But it's it's a protocol. It's the piece of coat. You can use it if you want, you can use it if you don't. And so what happened this week is the US Treasury sanctioned a protocol called Tornado Cash. But what's big about this is that this has never happened before. Sanctions go against people, people who do bad things, or maybe businesses or governments, so like

Russia is under sanctions right now. For example, Iran has been sanctioned, right So governments, regimes, people are sanctioned, but not tools, not not public goods. And I'm gonna explain to you why that is in a minute, But before we dig into what really happened here. Well, let's finish.

Let's let's finish what happened, and then we're gonna I'm gonna expand it out, and then I'm gonna bring it all the way back down to why it matters to you right now today, no matter where you live and why, this is going to change your life and probably not for the better, probably not for the better. But you need to be aware of what's going on. So I'm always gonna tell you what I wish I would hear if I was on the other side of table someone. I'm not going to hold back on you to day right, So,

um Tornado cash Um. The second the U. S. Treasury moved into sanction it, and um they said that anybody that interacts with this will be guilty of avoiding sanctions. Now, um, sanctions is a very serious charge. Of a matter of fact, if you evade or go around sanctions, you're you're potentially facing thirty years in prison, even if even if there was no intent and it happened without your knowledge. Now that's a key piece to hit on. Why well, because in order to prove a crime, there has to be

criminal intent. That that intent word is a big thing that means I have to I have to have intended to, to have to cause it, to do a crime, I've do intended to. If it was an accident, um, then you could charge me with like manslaughter, right if it was a vehicle, for example, But manslaughter as an accident, I killed somebody, but it wasn't criminal intent. I didn't. It wasn't premeditated where I went and drove over that person.

Right now, if I'm a trained professional, there is something called criminally negligent, and that means that you should have known better, but you did it anyway, So then you're criminally negligent. Otherwise you have to have criminal intent. But what this says with this um, with with the sanctions, is that you're facing thirty years in prison even without

intent and without your knowledge. So if, um, if you happen to use this by accident, even without your knowing, you didn't intend to use it, you didn't even know you used it, it doesn't matter. You're still facing thirty years, which sounds pretty strict, doesn't And if you agree with me, then that's part of the problem. And we're gonna dig into this a little bit. And so what happens is

um this protocol um. When you use cryptocurrency Ethereum, Bitcoin, etcetera, it leaves a trail because it's open source, and so we can always see the network. And so maybe I didn't use the protocol. But let's say that somebody paid me with ethereum, and somebody had paid them with ethereums. Want to pay them, and I'm gonna pay them. Six people ago had used it, but the six people in between that person and to me, none of us knew.

But all of a sudden, I'm in trouble even without cry I didn't intend to do it, but that's exactly what it did. And so a lot of um, a lot of companies, a lot of businesses, all of a sudden started sanctioning or blocking all these types of transactions. Big exchanges started blocking it. Anyway, I'm gonna break this down for you. Want to show you what the government's really doing, what their real motivation is with this, and

what this means for you. You're listening to the Markma Show talking about the decentralized Revolution, talking about a very big subject today. You don't want to miss what I have to say about this. I'll be back with more in a minute. Don't go away. I'll be right back, all right. Welcome back. You're listening to the Markma Show. We're talking about the decentralized Revolution each and every week, of course, same thing, talking about the way the world

is swinging from centralization back to decentralization. Looking at always to the lens of politics, finance, and technology. Typically we're looking at a political issue or a financial issue or technology issue. Today this is all three. We're talking about the U. S. Treasury Department UH moving against the financial institutions UH and and technology. I mean, it's all three repped in together and one. This is the type of

issues we like to talk about. So um, I'm not gonna go back and rehash everything we've already talked about. If you missed it, check it out on the podcast, your search MARKETMA podcast on your favorite player. You'll find it all right. So, Um, the Treasury Department went to sanction a protocol never happened before in history. Um, and most likely it's not gonna work. But I'm gonna come back to that, all right, but they did it. Um. What happens is the government tries to do all kinds

of things that we would consider unconstitutional. The government wents to lock you down. The government must to force you to put something in your body. The government wentst to force you to put something on your face. The governments to do all these things that are unconstitutional. The problem is somebody has to challenge them. So now I have to go to court and has to go up to

the Supreme Court. And as we've seen over the last two years, over and over and over again, all these mandates that the president, the Biden administration, local governments put into place, we're all found unconstitutional. They've all been not well not all. Lots of them have been um found on costution. Lots of them have been overturned. But it took two years. It took two years to get there. And so this I believe will eventually probably be overturned.

But this is gonna stand for years, Okay, but let's keep going, all right. So UM, the U. S. Treasury moved against this protocol, which has never been done before. I don't think it works. I don't think it stands as unconstitutional UM. And they said, anybody who interacts with this UM is gonna be in trouble. And so then now all these cryptocurrency exchanges and stuff have begun blocking transactions. One big exchange d y d x that it blocked user accounts with even a token link to Tornado Cash.

So even any kind of a link, any type of an attachment to Tornado Cash, you're instantly sanctioned. Boom, you're instantly shut off. UM. A lot of people using stable coins, these are dollar back stable coins like u S d C for example, UM had their accounts frozen, seized, blocked just because they think maybe you might have engaged with this, and they don't want anything to do with that because again, your face in thirty years, even if you didn't intend

to engage, and it was done without your knowledge. So they're just completely just blocking all this out. Okay, that's what happened. Now, before we dig through that, I want to just back up a bit. I'm gonna frame this up. We're gonna jump into a little bit of a political side for a second. Because you, you, you, whoever you are listening to this right now, you are under attack. When I say you're under attack, I mean your freedoms. Now I get it all of a sudden. Now freedom

is supposedly a dirty word. They've been able to reframe that somehow. UM this country that I grew up in, that my grandfather and my father went to war to protect for our freedoms. Um, Supposedly, now freedom is a bad word. So I guess all those deaths, my grandfather's death and my father's war efforts, those were in vain because they fought for our freedom. But now freedom is a bad words. So anyway, I reject that notion. But

your freedom is under attack. And what we're seeing is, um, it's a full it's a full fledged attack from every angle. And what they're trying to do is they're trying to corner us in from every single angle. And I'm not going to dig into all these issues, but I'm gonna frame up a couple all right, Um, this week, Alex Jones is the most hated man in the world, all

over the news, Sandy Hook and all this. Okay, what they're doing with this, um, with this trial is they're trying to set court precedence on what he said and saying that what he said was illegal. So they're trying to box in freedom of speech. Right under the under the Constitution, we're guaranteed freedom of speech. But they want to they want to box that in, and they want to say, no, well, this type of speech is harmful or hurtful or hateful, this type of speech doesn't qualify

under that. And so it's it's one direction. It's one way you box it in. All right, I'm not gonna dig super deep into that exact topic. We could if you wanted. All right, then we have, um, we have like the Trump January six situations going on. All right. So um, we had Trump on stage saying well, first of all, before January six, he requested them to add more police. Nancy Peloson denied it. Then from stage he said,

do not go there. Everybody go home. So they have all the evidence to show that he didn't but they're trying to say that he didn't say violence. But then with the Supreme Court when they overturned Roe v. Wade, you actually had Schumer and AOC call for violence literally against Supreme Court justice, and people actually went to Supreme Court Justice's house and tried to kill them. They went to state capitals with the people with the public servants

in the building and banged on the windows. Incided from the words that were said. But yet they're trying to frame this January six thing as again it's not about Trump, and I'm not trying to trans conversation about Trump. It's another way they're trying to box in the freedom. And then we have this treasury situation we're gonna dig into, and it's a lot. It's about a lot more than eyptocurrency. Okay, I want to break that down. And then we have

the I R S news. I'm not gonna take super deeper in that today, but I'm sure you if you're you're halfway paying attention. You saw the i RS just got a big budget. They're gonna hire whatever, like any seven thousand new agents, seven thousand there have more agents. The IRS will have more agents than the Secretary of State, the FBI, and the Border Patrol all combined. And big news over the last week. I'll talk about it later

in the show. Um, the I R S put out all these job ads and they say you must be willing to carry a gun, you must be willing to use lethal force. And then under the lethal force guideline, they said that you're allowed to use lethal force even if a sub subject is is a fleeing from you, So you they're allowed to shoot somebody even if the suspect is fleeing, so not in self defense. It's an attack from every angle. All right, I'm not gonna dig

into each those topics were sitting. You're talking about the Treasury Department sanctioning Tornado cash. What does this mean? All right, let's break this down a little bit more. All right. So Tornado cashally sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Asset Controls the o FAK O f a C. All right. And it's the sd END list, which is a list especially designated nationals with whom Americans and American businesses are

not allowed to transact. So it means no American consider to receive money to or from those addresses without dividing those sanctions laws or else. Like I said, face thirty years in prison. Pretty big deal. Now, what's different about this is, like I said, we've never seen software be put on the list before. Right, what we see is, like I said, people or governments or things like that,

not a tool. All right. Now the problem with this is that any American who might have used Tornado cash, um, even if they reject this, could be pulled into is. So what's happened is we've seen this already happening. So UM, I put this on Twitter. What we can see is that somebody is out there quote unquote dusting a bunch of wallets from tornado. So what does that mean? So what you can do is you can get little fractions of ethereum that are worth just maybe a couple of dollars.

It's called dust, right, a fraction of of of of an ethereum, and then you can dust them. You can just send them out. And what they did is they sent them to all these high level, high visibility accounts, and now all these accounts are now tainted with um dust or coins from this sanctioned address. So now everybody's in trouble. Now it's almost like a d D o S attack on what the Treasury sanctions is pretty big deal.

So now all of these people are going to be potentially facing thirty years in prison because it was done without even their knowledge or or consent. They didn't even know about it, they had no intent, but it doesn't matter. That's so this is so it's escalating really quickly. Um, you listen to the Mark Moa show, I'm breaking down one of the biggest stories this week and what it really means to It's pretty deep. It's pretty big, and it is super important. Do not go away. You need

to hear what I have to say. When I come back, I'll be right back in a minute. All right, welcome back here, listening to the Mark Moa Show, and we're talking about one of the biggest stories this week. And really, UM, it's way bigger than that. I mean, this is going

to be a key story for years to come. This is going to be a key story in history books in the future because this move that they're trying to do right here is going to and uh, when what Obama wanted when he ran on what he said quoteing him fundamentally transform America. This is fundamentally transforming America. It's fundamentally transforming the constitution and the law of the land, and they're using these little tricks to try to erode that as best they can. So let me finish talking

about this. So we're seeing this cat and mouse game here where the governments are trying to crack down on UM, on this technology. UM, and it's not really working all right. But what we see is that, um, all these sanctions started happening, all these people started blocking. But here's here's why, UM, this is really messed up. So the Treasury added tornado cash, which is a piece of software. It's a protocol like

SMTP or HTTPS. All right, uh, and they left against a faceless, nameless piece of software, not a person like it should be. But the problem is is that computer code is neither a person. They're not a legal entity, okay. And software is code, and code is speech, and speech is protected by the Constitution specifically, and as a matter of fact, it's been challenged multiple times and it's been upheld multi of all times, so we know that code

is speech. So they tried to outlaw cryptography. So cryptography is a way that I can cryptographically secure my message. If I want to use Signal as an app to message you, for example, it's encrypted. Bitcoin is encrypted. They the government said, no, you can't use encryption. It's illegal for you to encrypt things. And um, they said that

at the time, it was considered munitions or weapons. And it went to the Supreme Court and um, the cipher punks as we called them at the time, they printed out the code on paper and they brought the paper and they put it up on the Supreme Court's desk and they said, look, it's it's speech. It's it's text, it's letters and numbers. And they said, you're right, code is speech, it's protected Bernstein versus the d o J.

Look it up. Similarly, there was another one and then they determined that money is speech, or more precisely, what you do with your money is speech. And you can look it up. Check out Buckley versus Valuo Um. You can also look up citizens. You know, I died versus the f e C. So, look, this has happened, this has gone to the Supreme Court. We already know the Constitution guarantees free speech. Code is speech, what you do

with your money speech, it's protected. Yeah, doesn't doesn't matter in Obama's America that it wants to fundamentally transform it by eroding the constitution. Now, the legal doctrine of prior restraint holds the pre emptive government censorship is almost always unconstitutional. Okay, the prior, the legal doctor and prior restraint. So that's the precedent that's been set. Shows that any time the government tries to get in front of censorship, it's always

been found unconstitutional. And even government acts that have have a substantial chilling effect on speech are also I've also been found to be unconstitutional. Again, look up Americans for Prosperity versus Banta. All right, look it up, Americans for

Prosperity versus Banta. Now back to sanctions. Now, sanctions law is a strict liability regime, meaning again, this is the punishment side did if American transaction with a sanctioned person, even without attent, even without knowledging, We're facing thirty years. It's pretty bad, all right. So this is what's considered a quintessential prior restraint or chilling effects. So what does this mean by them saying, hey, we're gonna kill you on site if you do this, even if you don't know,

well what's going to happen. A lot of people are gonna chill. I think it's gonna have a chill effect. People are going to have a restraint. I'm not gonna go anywhere near that because I could unknowingly even get caught up in that, and then I could be facing thirty years. So I'm not even gonna go anywhere near it. So it's a prior restraint or chilling effect. But as I just said, even government acts that have a chilling

effect on speech have been found to be unconstitutional. So even them doing this that even causes us to act accordingly have been found to be unconstitutional. Americans for Prosperity in versus Banta, all right, So I'm just framing this up for you. But beyond beyond the very obvious First Amendment violations, very obvious, I just I decided for four court cases, and I am an attorney. All right, four

court cases right there. Beyond the very obvious First Amendment violation, what they've done here also raises all types of other concerns that are unconstitutional, Like, um, let's see innocent until proven guilty or do process, you know, things like that. So, um, let's see it has do process concerns if the code wasn't afforded adequate notice or opportunity to appeal, and individuals may be implicated without any means to comply. That's not

how our justice system works. UM. Now, Like I said, uh, this has been found to be unconstitutional. It's been tried multiple times. I give you multiple precedents. Um M. I hope I feel pretty sure based off of the way the law is today, not on how it's under attack. But I hope um, that this is not in the Treasuries favor. I believe as the law stance today, this would be overturned. But the problem is, as I said, but we've started going, is that litigation can take years

to play out. Going back to the COVID restrictions, Biden's vaccine mandate, it was overturned. Judges found it to be unconstitutional, the mandatory mass on airplanes were overturned. All these things were restaurants here in southern California were shut down and judges found it unconstitutional. They reversed it, they opened the back up over and over, but it didn't mean all those people didn't lose their businesses. Didn't mean they didn't

lose their jobs, lose their homes, whatever they lost. Two years went by before those things were reversed. So I think that this does not work out in the Treasury's favor. I think that the Supreme Court finds them to be unconstitutional and reverses this, but it could take years and there can be a lot of damage done in years now. This is also based off the Supreme Court that we have. Of course, the Biden administration is trying to change the Supreme Court. After the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and

and they they've come out and say that. Um, I think AOC and Maxine Waters have come out and said that the Supreme Court is an enemy. Now they're they're they're a threat to the democracy. They said they need to uh, they need they needed now change the makeup, take away the power of the Supreme Court. So as it stands today, I think this doesn't end up in the Treasury favor if AOC and Maxine Waters and UM crew get their way. I mean, who knows. Now, let's

dig in a little bit deeper. Okay, this is where it starts getting really serious. Okay, Now, UM, let's say that Tornado cash is used by criminals though, Mark, like people like like I heard North Korea. I heard North Korea laundered money through there. And you certainly don't want North Korea to launder money, now do you, Mark? I mean North Korea is an enemy. They could, you know, shoot a missile at US, And I would say, sure,

I certainly don't want to help North Korea. Um. And I think any sensible person wouldn't want to help North Korea or any bad actor for that matter. I would agree, I agree, But let's play this out a little bit all right, because it was used by criminals, it deserves to be shut down. Right, Is that what we're gonna agree on. Okay, well, let me explain why that completely misses the point. And this is where it goes into. Remember I said, stop thinking about things in first order thinking.

Now take them to second and third or fourth order. So let's thank do this. Um, if the Treasury had sanctioned the criminals or the hackers that had used this tool, this protocol, this public good, Hey, no problem. Um, Hey, North Korea, you're a bad actor. We're afraid you're gonna do a bunch of terrorism. You have nuclear weapons, whatever, we're going to sanction you, right or x y Z you're bad actor, used Tornado cash to do bad things.

We're gonna sanction you. We're gonna arrest you, We're gonna, you know, indict you whatever. Okay, great, no big deal, right, but that's not what happened, all right, Um, And I'm gonna I'm gonna gonna turn this on his head and you're gonna see exactly what I'm talking about, and then we're gonna put it, put it, put a bow in it, so you can understand how big of a deal this is and you didn't know about it. Um, you're listening to the Mark Moa Show talking about the decentralized revolution.

Each and every week, I talked about the way the world is swinging from centralization to decentralization to the lens of politics, finance, and technology. And the story we're talking about today is all three of these things. And I'm trying to show you pass the headlines, you can see just how big of a deal this is and why it doesn't make any sense. We're back with all of that and more in a minute. And like I said, this is gonna fundamentally transform America and not for the better.

So I'll be back with all that and more in a minute. Do not go away. I'll be right back. All right, Welcome back. You are listening to the Mark ma Show. We're talking about, of course, each and every week, the decentralized revolution, looking at through the lens of politics, finance, and technology. Of course that technology is Bitcoin, the decentralized technology. And we're talking about a story today that is one of the most important topics I've talked about in a

long time, if not ever, on this show. This is a big deal. Now. I talked about it from a bunch of different angles. We are we are seeing a full scale attack on our freedom UM from every agency, from the I r S, from the FBI, UM, the and now even the Treasury Department. And this Treasure Department deal isn't what it seems on the surface. You have to dig below second, third, fourth layers to understand this. That's where if you've missed what I've said, if you're

just tuning in, you've missed a lot. I can't recap it all, but you can go check it out on the podcast um search Smart moss Um podcast on your favorite podcast player, or on the YouTube. Just search Mark Moss on YouTube and you'll find it on the Market Disruptors channel as well as you can watch me live if you want to see what I look like, or

check it on the podcast. Okay, so jumping back in, So, if the Treasury had UM sanctioned to criminals, because of course we have laws against doing bad things, that would be okay. That's not what happened. They sanctioned a piece of open source code, which means it's not owned by anybody, just like SMTP for your email, just like HTTPS for your website, and just like h T, C, P, I P for your Internet or whatever. Al Right, it's not not owned by anybody. It's freely available for anyone to use,

which makes it a public good. Okay, Now this is the crux of the argument right here. It's a public good. So look, we all me you. We enjoy the benefits of public goods all the time, every day in every area of your life. All right. Before I went on the radio, I had to go up to l A. I drove on the freeway, the five Freeway. That's a public good, all right, Um, right now I'm using the Internet to communicate with you, to record this. Um, that's

a public good. Right. The banking system, the roads that we drive on, the highways, the transfer space, infrastructure of the airplanes, those are all public infrastructure. Those are all public goods as infrastructure that everybody uses all the day. And if I had to guess, I would imagine that criminals use those things. I bet you criminals drive on the highways. I bet you criminals use the internet. I bet you criminals use um dollars. Um. I bet you

they use transportation infrastructure. I bet you they drink water and eat food too. I bet all right, I mean, how else would you stay alive. So we all enjoy the benefits of these public goods, we all use them every day. Criminals do too. Now again, I'm not advocating avocating for breaking laws. As a matter of fact, we have laws in place, and I believe that those should be enforced. I'm mad that we have attorney generals in this country that do not prosecute laws that are on

the books. But that's a different topic. So I'm not advocating for not being hard and crime. I say we should. We have laws, and we should pursue criminals. We should pursue people who use public who misuse public goods. Right, we should do that. We have laws, but we don't sanction the tool. Right, I can use a screwdriver to fix my car, or I could really harm somebody with a screwdriver really bad. But we're not gonna We're not

gonna sanction the screwdriver. Okay, nobody can use screw drivers now, No, A screwdrivers a tool. It can be used for good and bad. We don't sanction smt P for email because a hacker sent you a phishing email and then they hacked your computer. Right, we don't sanction the five free Way I drove on earlier because criminal drove, you know, with the whatever drove on it earlier. Drug dealers, you know, drug dealers use the highway. If it wasn't for highways,

we'd have no drug dealers. So we should just ban all highways. You know, drug dealers they use self cell towers, so we should just ban all cell towers. Terrorists I mean, ter heaven forbid, I mean, terrorists use cell phones. No, so let's just ban all cell phones because terrorists use it in self. Terrorists they drink water. We should just ban water too. Do you see what I'm talking about? None of those things, cell towers, the freeway, SMTP for email,

None of those things are people. And neither is Tornado Cash. It's a software protocol now, like email, like highways, like um, you know whatever. Tornado Cash has maybe potentially been misused by criminals for criminal ins. So for example, if I misused the mail system, the U S Mail to defraud people in other states, then I'm guilty of and I'm found guilty obviously innocentil proven guilty, and then I have to be convicted. But then I could be convicted of

interstate crimes or whatever whatever, federal crimes. I'm not sorry, I'm not attorney there, but they'd say, hey, now you've used this public good and now you've gone over over the out of your state. So now you're even more guilty of even bigger things. So if I've used one of these tools like the U S Mail to do a crime, then I'm guilty of even bigger problems. If I've used email, maybe I'm guilty of bigger problems. But it's the crime that I committed. It's not banning the U.

S Mail. That's the whole point that I'm talking about, all right. Tornado Cash is a tool that enables law abiding citizens to maintain their privacy on the blockchain for a whole host of legal purposes, including political speech, which is, as I've said, has been protected multiple times, not only by the Constitution but upheld by the Supreme Court. So

it's a tool. Law bodies use it for things that are explicitly protected, and yes, some bad people use it too, but bad people use all types of things, and they should be prosecuted for the bad things they've done, not for the tools they use. Now, if we take this to its log dot logical conclusion. This is where it starts getting scary. If the U. S. Treasury can sanction Tornado cash, then they can sanction any piece of code.

No software is safe. So now shoot, you know, um, people are using the T C P I P Internet to spread disinformation. That's dangerous. So those people are criminals. They so anybody who's the Internet now is just instantly criminal. No mark, You're you're being you're being uh, you're you're being crazy. There's just no way that will ever happen. Mm hmm. Things don't always started as extreme. It's a

slippery slope. You start small. If they can, if they can sanction any if they can, if they can sanction this, they can sanction any code. No software is safe, No encryption on your phone, no encryption on your no VPNs on your computer, no signal or What's app um or Telegram on your phone. If sanctions are no longer limited to people like they're supposed to. If being uh, if if being wrong, if doing something wrong criminally wrong isn't

isn't attributed to people but instead tools, that's a big deal. Now. Privacy and free speech are the bedrock of free and open societies. This is the key piece here. Stop and think about what I'm saying. Privacy and free speech are the bedrock of free and open societies. Without the freedom of speech, without the freedom to communicate with each other, we have no communication. We have no innovation, we have

no discussion. There's no way to find truth, there's no way to have progress, there's no way to have a free and open society without privacy and freedom of speech. And this is what's under attack. This is exactly what the Treasury sanctioned this week. It's not going after some cryptocurrency, it's not going after some financial transaction. It's not even going after some bad guy who maybe use this protocol. Go after the bad guy. If what he did is bad,

go after him. What they're going after is your privacy and your freedom of speech. And if this stands, then no piece of software is safe, and your freedom and your privacy are not safe. It's under attack from every angle. I broke him down to the bend of the show. If you missed it, go check out on the podcast and just search Mark Moss on your favorite podcast player or on YouTube. Um. But this is what's going on, and you need to know about it. You need to

stand up against it. You need to say something, to do something. Spread the word, tell your friends, tell your family. More importantly, talk to your local sheriff's, talk to your local representatives, council members, etcetera. If you're listening to the Markmas Show, trying to help you navigate the decentralized revolution the world is going through right now. Hopefully that made sense. I appreciate you listening today. That's what I got, all right, until next time,