Talk:Tornado Cash

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 20:14, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

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• ... that Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency tumbler, was blacklisted by the United States Department of the Treasury for allegedly allowing criminals to launder more than $7 billion in virtual currencies? Source: “The Treasury Department on Monday prohibited Americans from using the cryptocurrency platform Tornado Cash, saying the service has helped criminals launder more than $7 billion of virtual currencies.” The New York Times
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles

Created by Thriley (talk) and PabloCastellano (talk). Nominated by Thriley (talk) at 18:30, 13 August 2022 (UTC).

• The article is currently at 1360 characters readable prose (it needs 1500), and it has a citation needed tag. @Thriley and PabloCastellano: This must be addressed first. Hook looks interesting, but ping me when the other issues are fixed. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 16:52, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

@Sammi Brie: The article has been expanded to over 1500 characters. I removed the line that was not cited as I could not find a reliable source for it. Thriley (talk) 19:59, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

@Thriley: Had to edit to put the hook fact in the article with its citation. Also did some copyediting. This is ready. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 20:08, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

@Sammi Brie: Thank you! Thriley (talk) 22:24, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

@Sammi Brie and Thriley: are there no BLP issues in saying on the Main Page that a company "allegedly" laundered $7 billion? I mean, especially when the Wall Street Journal writes that private journalists dispute that claim... theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 10:13, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

• @Theleekycauldron: you have a fair point. I missed that detail. Perhaps this ALT1. I also note a "How it works" section with no sources has been added, and @Thriley and PabloCastellano: need to fix that. I have found a source [1] that is not a Forbes contributor, so you can add it for this ALT1. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:27, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
• ALT1: ... that in response to the blacklisting of Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency tumbler, users sent tainted Ethereum to celebrities and tech CEOs?

This paper on arxiv.org reviews ZK-Snarks protocols and applications, including Tornado Cash. Do you think it is a valid reference? --PabloCastellano (talk) 11:29, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

No. ArXiv is a preprint server that performs only loose checks for whether its papers are on-topic, not a full peer review. As such, publications that exist only on arXiv are not generally considered to be reliable sources for Wikipedia purposes. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:51, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

The link to the official whitepaper is not available anymore but I have added the version cached in archive.org now. --PabloCastellano (talk) 11:52, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

• @Thriley and PabloCastellano: Where are we on this? Is the arXiv preprint needed? I'd accept the whitepaper as an ABOUTSELF reference. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 06:35, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
  • I added a link to the official whitepaper and left the arXiv preprint so I think it is ready. --PabloCastellano (talk) 11:34, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
    • @PabloCastellano: arXiv is generally unreliable. That reference has to go before this goes to DYK. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:53, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

@Sammi Brie: I just removed that reference. Thriley (talk) 22:12, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

• I think this is...fine. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:00, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Much of the article has been removed, including the hook by David Gerard. Pinging Sammi Brie, Thriley, and PabloCastellano. SL93 (talk) 20:00, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

• • • I think the concern here is sourcing, unfortunately. I tried to bolster the weak spots with additional refs, but...there really isn't much more to say. Honestly, it might be time to mark this nomination for closure. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 23:24, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

I find it nonsense and I won't spend time arguing with Wikipedia librarians or other users (lesson already learnt). The dusting attack is real and can be documented by simply using any Ethereum block explorer or analytics platform as references. Are they welcome in Wikipedia? I guess no. I'm afraid we won't see this kind of news anytime soon in websites that are not specialized in cryptocurrency, and thus, they are invalid references for Wikipedia. I'm moving on. Thanks for your time and good will, Sammi. --PabloCastellano (talk) 09:51, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Is the issue that there are no reliable sources from before the August news? Currently the article is 2190 characters and reads ok. Thriley (talk) 14:06, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Thriley The hook isn't in the article. SL93 (talk) 14:19, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I see! Is there a way to resurrect the primary hook? Thriley (talk) 14:24, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Sammi Brie Theleekycauldron What about ALT0a ... that Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency tumbler, was blacklisted by the United States Department of the Treasury? It is true and removes the allegedly. SL93 (talk) 14:31, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

@SL93: They seem to have lost interest, so I'll take over. I added some reliable sources found through ProQuest to substantiate some of the information in the lead, and added two independent sources to the Functionality section. None of this has substantially transformed the prose of the article, I believe; the added sources to the Functionality section mostly paraphrase the whitepaper anyway, for example. Approve ALT0a as interesting and directly sourced. DigitalIceAge (talk) 19:47, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Updating the project link

Is it possible to update the project link if this link is referenced by Coinmarketcap? Vladlen Terezhe (talk) 04:03, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

No, Coinmarketcap is not a reliable source. MrOllie (talk) 19:32, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi. Can you give an example of a reputable website for cryptocurrency? Vladlen Terezhe (talk) 12:49, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

nytimes.com. See WP:RS for details. Also note that due to past disruption this topic area has special rules. Restrictions about the use of blogs and other crypto-focused sites are diligently enforced - you will find that crypto sites generally cannot be used as sources. MrOllie (talk) 12:54, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

New York Times is not really talk about cryptocurrency. And sincerely, the whole article is almost sourced from crypto news websites and should be deleted that way.

Also, what about WP:ABOUTSELF where of course it s about Tornado Cash accounts that were active before the sanctions? 82.66.26.199 (talk) 19:01, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

In fact the New York Times has already written about this project - it is cited in the article. After the shutdown of the official sites, we have no reliable sources verifying that 'Tornado Cash accounts' are actually representatives of this project. Instead we have reliable stories discussing hackers successfully compromising what's left of the project's voting structure. We're not going to be able to use anything self published at this point. MrOllie (talk) 19:10, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

The official on chain mirror wasn t shut down. Article is inconsistent. How something that supposed ceased to exist and was completely destroyed can still be destroyed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.66.26.199 (talk) 02:44, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Hack was later partly rolled back by the hacker.

https://www.proquest.com/docview/2816696326/862D4D39B08A4451PQ/5 https://www.bitdegree.org/crypto/news/unexpected-proposal-allows-tornado-cash-to-reclaim-governance-control

Though, as a disclaimer, I was involved in mitigating the hack at the time it happened and got some hacker s details from an exchange. 82.66.26.199 (talk) 12:00, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

These aren't reliable sources. - MrOllie (talk) 13:27, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

And what about Bloomberg that says that Tornado cash was used for it’s own theft and this is still working despite the sanctions ? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-29/hacker-who-robbed-crypto-laundering-service-tornado-cash-uses-it-to-mask-loot#xj4y7vzkg

Not to mention another Bloomberg article were Tornado cash was used for parts of Euler’s hack later this year https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-13/defi-s-euler-finance-hit-by-197-million-hack-experts-say2A01:E0A:401:A7C0:E027:7636:494C:A61 (talk) 23:15, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Good find, I added some information from that source to the article. MrOllie (talk) 03:16, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

What should be changed is the fact it wasn’t discountinued and still exists since it’s still being used . Using those 2 sources after the sanctions you should now recognize that it continues to work on it’s Ethereum based (instead of web based) mirror `tornadocash.eth` (registered on the blockchain before the sanction) which is listed as the official site by the first official twitter account.

Not to mention the first official blog https://tornado-cash.medium.com/tornado-cash-governance-proposal-a55c5c7d0703 that enacted an on chain censorship resistent system that continue to work (the list of votes on https://tornadocash.eth/governance goes back to 2020 without interruption and includes votes for replacing the paid original developpers)

I’m not asking to add such informations as is, but please edit the Infobox since the fact the service ceased to exists is proven wrong by credible tertiary sources. 2A01:E0A:401:A7C0:E027:7636:494C:A61 (talk) 21:14, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

The article states that development has been discontinued, and that is true so far as the sourcing we have is concerned. Lots of software continues to work after development is interrupted. We still cannot use twitter or blogs as sourcing. MrOllie (talk) 21:18, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Except the software is a specific web service. About deployed versions, you should recognize the current de-facto Policy on Wikipedia for sofware releted articles is to self source.

I fail to see why even MediaWiki is allowed to self‑source the version deployed on Wikipedia and Tornado Cash wouldn’t be allowed to self‑source it’s deployed frontend. Especially since like Tornado cash there aren’t tertiary sources for proving https://lists.wikimedia.org/ is an official website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a01:e0a:401:a7c0:e027:7636:494c:a61 (talk • contribs)

We obviously can't follow the 'de-facto' anything here, because software development is typically not interrupted by government blacklists and criminal cases. Instead we will rigorously follow content policies and use reliable sources, as required both by the situation and the special standards required by Wikipedia:General sanctions/Blockchain and cryptocurrencies. - MrOllie (talk) 21:36, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Yup. The 'de facto' policy on Wikipedia, as far as more or less anything cryptocurrency-related is concerned, is deep scepticism about the reliability of any sources that in any way promote the stuff. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:49, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

There’s a difference between being promotional and implying users should go to see competitors whether because the website got hacked or sized by the government using an unsourced claim that is wrong. The edit that changed the state of development was brought by 1 of the users who tried to advertise his fork. You reverted only its last edit.

I’m not asking for the version number to be updated at the end, but just to leave the development state unwritten since there’s no source about it in both cases (though a 2 years old version should give an idea to users).

Development was never halted as 1 of the original developers (not the founder) continued to work it before being fired. Though, most of the work now includes code for avoiding censorship so that if development had truly halted it would had been impossible to use it like Bloomberg articles stated (the last version on GitHub relied on a centralized data provider and does no longer works).

I managed to find an archived page from the first website that gives a link to an official mirror. Can that mirror be listed on the old tornado.cash website be at least added as an external link ? Whatever you do, I won’t write an additional reply here. 2A01:E0A:401:A7C0:E027:7636:494C:A61 (talk) 22:44, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 November 2024

Change:

"In August 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury blacklisted the service"

To

"In August 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury blacklisted the protocol"

Source justifying the change of characterization:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-privacy-protocol-tornado-cash-to-launch-on-l2-arbitrum PrivateProperty (talk) 16:56, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done — made the change, per multiple sources that indicate it was a protocol. I did not use the cointelegraph source provided, as using it would be questioned by various Wikipedia editors who have had a long-standing preference to avoid the use of any sources from the blockchain/digital asset industry. But in addition to being supported by existing sources, it is also clearly supported by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York article that I read earlier tonight, and is mentioned in the Talk page section after this one. Cheers. N2e (talk) 03:25, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Federal Reserve Bank of New York article

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York published an article in August 2024: Regulating Decentralized Systems: Evidence from Sanctions on Tornado Cash, by Anders Brownworth, Jon Durfee, Michael Junho Lee, and Antoine Martin, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Staff Reports, no. 1112, August 2024. link.

Interesting analysis on what the economists refer to as a natural experiment on the effectiveness of nation-state sanctions when "the _target of a sanction is a decentralized entity which produced a piece of software that is programmed and deployed on a platform designed to be censorship resistent and consequently the software is nearly impossible to remove."

"This scenario begs the question can regulators effectively restrict the behavior of agents who want to use a piece of software, if removing the software from the public is not possible?"

Good questions. And surely the wiki article would be improved if some parts of this paper were used to source material in the article encyclopedically addressing several topics, including effectiveness of the sanctions assuming they are legal and comport to the rule of law, as well as Constitutional and statutory legality (which the article is a bit lighter on). N2e (talk) 03:17, 19 November 2024 (UTC)