Why Twitter anons are sending crypto to celebrities

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We talked about a hack last week that gave a new meaning to the word trust. Privacy is one of the most controversial aspects of digital currency.

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all mixed up

There is a weekly window into the thoughts of a senior journalist.

The talk of the town this week has been tornado cash. The Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), a watchdog within the Treasury, leveled sanctions against the Cryptocurrency mixer for its role in helping facilitate money laundered in the U.S. Some of the highest-profile hacks in web3 to date, including last week's Nomad and the hack of play-to-earn video game AxieInfinity, have been masked by using the Tornado Cash platform.

The OFAC used a sledgehammer to crack a nut. According to the official notice from the agency, the platform has enabled $7 billion worth of money laundered through it since it was created. According to Elliptic, only a small amount of funds on Tornado are linked to crime. Elliptic believes that the rest could be used to preserve financial privacy.

Some of those legitimate uses are up for discussion. One example came from Vitalik Buterin, the co- founder of the service, who admitted that he had used the service to send donations to help Ukraine.

I'll out myself as someone who has used TC to donate to this exact cause.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 9, 2022

Criminal and legitimate use cases are not different from each other. Many users are suffering because of this. Any wallet that used Tornado Cash had its access blocked by two major providers. According to Dune Analytics data, Circle froze $75,000 of itsUSDC stable coins that were connected to Tornado through a shared wallet.

It's not unusual for internet pranksters to get in on the fun. Some people are trying to troll celebrities by sending their coins through Tornado Cash in order to get their wallet banned under the rules.

OFAC's heavy-handed approach raises more questions than it answers when it comes to enforcement. The community is pretty upset but only time will tell how the latter plays out.

US Treasury sanctions Tornado Cash, accused of laundering stolen crypto

the latest pod

Lucas was on vacation and the show was run by two people. After an exciting Friday night call with Vitalik, she shared some of his comments on the future of the digital currency.

We talked about the news of Tornado Cash getting sanction in the U.S., the disappointing second-quarter earnings of Coinbase, and the beef between WazirX and Binance over a transaction that allegedly took place two and a half years ago.

Be sure to listen to the show to get up to speed on the latest tea in the world of digital currency, and to tune in next Tuesday for the discussion with Li Jin, a web3 investor focused on the creator economy.

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follow the money

The place where startup money is moving.

1. Jump Crypto led Injective‘s $40 million round to help expand DeFi applications.
2. Pinata raised $21.5 millon in a newly announced Series A and seed round from investors, including Greylock and Pantera.
3. CreatorDAO, a decentralized platform for content creators, raised $20 million in an a16z and Initialized Capital-led round with participation from celebrities including Paris Hilton and Liam Payne.
4. Blockchain gaming company Lysto raised $12 million in a round led by Hashed, Square Peg and Beenext.
5. Unstoppable Finance snagged $12.8 million in a round led by Lightspeed for its DeFi wallet.
6. Kurtosis, a crypto-focused developer tool system, brought in $20 million in a Series A round led by Coatue.
7. Blockchain payments platform Ansible Labs raised a $7 million seed round led by Archetype.
8. Zero-knowledge cryptography startup RISC Zero scooped up $12 million in a seed round led by Bain Capital Crypto.
9. Fair.xyz landed $4.5 million from investors including OpenSea for its NFT minting platform.
10.  Cashmere raised $3 million at a $30 million valuation from investors including Coinbase Ventures to build a Solana enterprise wallet.

TC+ analysis

Some of this week's analysis can be found on our subscription service.

5 things we learned from the disappointing Q2 results.

In the wake of its direct listing in 2021, Coinbase was once hugely profitable, but is now working to limit costs and stick to previous profitability targets. There are five things that stood out from the report.

Telegram is growing in size and so is the dependence on the app.

The community has used social media sites to communicate. Telegram is the most important place to be in the community, according to some. The founder of Telegram channel said thatTelegram usage is the bedrock of the community. Projects have come and gone, players have risen and fallen, but much of the discourse between various projects and market participants is still on Telegram.

The co- founder sees the role diminishing.

Vitalik Buterin thinks that a road map towards greater decentralization may come sooner than expected. Buterin thinks that the next decade will be a turning point in the field of digital currency. In the next 10 years, I believe that the next 10 years will see the emergence of something that isn't based on promises of being useful in the future but is useful.

There are 50 different use cases that can onboard millions of people this year.

It feels like yesterday that the NFT boom caught the attention of the community. The NFT hype has died down a bit. There are people in the crypt who are still positive about non-fungible token. According to Raj Gokal, co-founder of Solana, everything is just really scratching the surface. There are 50 different use cases that seem to be lumped together. The majority of the projects are expected to use NFTs.

Ethereum co-founder sees role diminishing as blockchain becomes increasingly decentralized

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