[HN Gopher] My ETH Wallet is wrongly sanctioned
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       My ETH Wallet is wrongly sanctioned
        
       Author : yunfangjuan
       Score  : 42 points
       Date   : 2022-08-17 20:39 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (depression2022.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (depression2022.substack.com)
        
       | Imnimo wrote:
       | > Interestingly, in the end I was able to withdraw all my funds
       | from AAVE through direct contract calls as illustrated above
       | 
       | Will this just result in the next wallet being tainted, and so
       | on? I guess maybe you can try to cash out the crypto before
       | whoever you're selling to catches on?
        
         | yunfangjuan wrote:
         | I did do a swap using 1inch afterwards and it works
         | OK.Ultimately I want to be removed from the sanction list
         | because I did nothing wrong.
        
           | verdverm wrote:
           | The legal question could be "did providing liquidity to the
           | service, by your participation, aid and abet sanctioned
           | entities?"
           | 
           | How do you know that you did not transact with a sanctioned
           | entity? (and by proxy did do something wrong)
        
       | hamiltonians wrote:
       | Part of the blame goes to etherscan for trying to be a
       | gatekeeper. In 2016 it used to just be a transaction explorer,
       | now it,s trying to determine what is legal or not.
        
       | 91edec wrote:
       | Monero
        
         | sneed-oil wrote:
         | Can be sanctioned just like Tornado Cash
        
       | smt88 wrote:
       | This is impossible. DeFi is secure, decentralized, and
       | uncensorable. You can't be sanctioned in DeFi!
       | 
       | /s obviously
        
         | sneed-oil wrote:
         | It looks like it is
         | 
         | > Interestingly, in the end I was able to withdraw all my funds
         | from AAVE through direct contract calls as illustrated above.
         | So basically the web UI is blocked but people can still use
         | AAVE by sending transactions to the blockchains directly.
        
           | hamiltonians wrote:
           | i think only usdt and usdc have the ability to freeze funds
        
       | LeoPanthera wrote:
       | Crypto people want to "be their own bank" without the
       | consequences of being their own bank.
        
         | sneed-oil wrote:
         | It looks like they can be
         | 
         | > Interestingly, in the end I was able to withdraw all my funds
         | from AAVE through direct contract calls as illustrated above.
         | So basically the web UI is blocked but people can still use
         | AAVE by sending transactions to the blockchains directly.
         | 
         | The only thing that was censoring his transactions was the
         | website, which is centralized by design.
        
           | hnthrow1010 wrote:
           | Basically, the "sanction preventions" Aave is instituting are
           | for show only, in hopes they fool the regulators. They'll
           | annoy and disturb the casual crypto trader but will do
           | nothing to stop the big criminals from money laundering. I
           | hope the developers of these defi lending protocols get hit
           | with the criminal charges next.
        
             | SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
             | > I hope the developers of these defi lending protocols get
             | hit with the criminal charges next.
             | 
             | It's pretty crazy how all the arguments for freedom of
             | speech (and software) go out the window for many people
             | whenever cryptocurrency comes up.
        
               | verdverm wrote:
               | It's pretty crazy how some people think all speech is
               | protected or that running software is somehow protected
               | by the same laws that protect speech.
        
             | sneed-oil wrote:
             | Do you also believe artists should be punished if their
             | works of art are used to launder money?
        
               | hnthrow1010 wrote:
               | When the "artists" have been openly and shamelessly
               | stating, since around 2009, that the entire purpose of
               | their "art" is to aid in laundering money and other
               | crimes? Yes, absolutely.
        
               | sneed-oil wrote:
               | Did the AAVE developers say that?
        
               | hnthrow1010 wrote:
               | If they're smart, they wouldn't admit to it publicly. But
               | do you not remember the early history of Bitcoin, and the
               | Silk Road? Nothing's changed since then, except some
               | people got arrested and some haven't yet.
        
               | sneed-oil wrote:
               | What's wrong with buying and selling drugs?
        
               | hnthrow1010 wrote:
               | I really don't think you want to continue the discussion
               | in the direction of "what's wrong crime A and crime B",
               | that'll get off the rails very quickly.
        
               | sneed-oil wrote:
               | Depending on the drug and the country it might not even
               | be a crime
        
               | robertlagrant wrote:
               | > openly and shamelessly stating, since around 2009, that
               | the entire purpose of their "art" is to aid in laundering
               | money and other crimes?
               | 
               | Becomes
               | 
               | > If they're smart, they wouldn't admit to it publicly.
               | 
               | Let me guess. Your favourite castle is motte and bailey?
        
               | hnthrow1010 wrote:
               | >Your favourite castle is motte and bailey?
               | 
               | Less of this, please. Obviously, not everyone into crypto
               | and defi says those exact words. But there are enough
               | saying that type of thing, where I think it's wrong of
               | anyone involved with this to feign ignorance. They know
               | what they're getting into.
        
               | IshKebab wrote:
               | Well yeah if the art is explicitly designed to make money
               | laundering easy, of course!
        
               | sneed-oil wrote:
               | Is AAVE explicitly designed to facilitate money
               | laundering?
        
               | hnthrow1010 wrote:
               | By association, yes. All cryptocurrency and "defi"
               | ostensibly has that goal. What is it exactly you think
               | they're trying to "decentralize"?
        
               | sneed-oil wrote:
               | Transactions and storage of money. You could also argue
               | that artists who sell their artworks for huge sums of
               | money are associating themselves to money laundering.
        
               | hnthrow1010 wrote:
               | Transactions and storage of money are already
               | decentralized, through the traditional finance system
               | that connects at least thousands of banks and payment
               | processors and other financial institutions. So it can't
               | be that.
               | 
               | >You could also argue that artists who sell their
               | artworks for huge sums of money are associating
               | themselves to money laundering.
               | 
               | Yes, that's why transactions for those huge sums are
               | subject to AML laws.
        
               | sneed-oil wrote:
               | > Transactions and storage of money are already
               | decentralized, through the traditional finance system
               | 
               | That's not the case for every country on the planet
               | 
               | > Yes, that's why transactions for those huge sums are
               | subject to AML laws.
               | 
               | And how do those prevent rich person A from paying rich
               | person B (by buying a painting owned by B for an inflated
               | price) for some illegal service?
        
               | hnthrow1010 wrote:
               | >That's not the case for every country on the planet
               | 
               | It's not helping there either. Countries where the
               | economy is strictly controlled by the government, like
               | North Korea, are mainly using crypto and defi to
               | centralize even more. Their government can use defi to
               | steal from other countries with impunity, evading
               | international laws while continuing to oppress their own
               | citizens and disallowing them from using the internet.
               | 
               | >And how do those prevent rich person A from paying rich
               | person B (by buying a painting owned by B for an inflated
               | price) for some illegal service?
               | 
               | If it were done through a bank (or a law-abiding crypto
               | exchange) they would be required to keep a log of the
               | transaction and the legal identities of the participants,
               | as well as a log of where the money came from and where
               | it's going. The idea is, if buying the painting is just
               | one of the steps to "clean" the money, they'll be able to
               | trace it back to when the money was dirty.
        
       | TylerE wrote:
       | "Code as law" isn't so great, is it?
        
         | cassonmars wrote:
         | Considering they could interact directly with the contract with
         | no problem, that aspect worked out great.
        
           | verdverm wrote:
           | The ramifications might not be so great, code is still not
           | law
        
       | deegles wrote:
       | The big question is whether validators who process sanctioned
       | contract transactions on chain are liable. I would say they are,
       | since in theory they can choose which transactions to include. If
       | I were a US based miner I'd be looking into it. (not that I agree
       | but it seems the trend is more enforcement, not less, over time)
        
       | adhesive_wombat wrote:
       | I thought the De in DeFi was to avoid the possibility of being
       | subject to an "authority". Hence the cute acronym.
        
         | sneed-oil wrote:
         | The author of the article did avoid being (sort of) subject to
         | government sanctions
        
           | verdverm wrote:
           | Being able to make a transaction does not mean you are not
           | subject to them, just that you found a workaround and
           | probably earned yourself a spot on a list. They can still
           | take your freedom
        
       | mmh0000 wrote:
       | I have nothing positive to say about this article.
       | 
       | I giggled a little at reading it... A dude with way more money
       | than brains is mad that "decenteralized finance" is
       | decenteralized and can do whatever they want?
       | 
       | The guy then admits to losing a quarter of a million; you'd think
       | that'd be enough of a penalty for him to realize that maybe he
       | should take his remaining money out, but nope.
       | 
       | Gee. Who could've imangined that there's logical reasons for most
       | financial regulations?
        
         | sneed-oil wrote:
         | Did you read the article? His transactions went through in the
         | end, just not through the website
        
           | WheatM wrote:
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | xtracto wrote:
         | This reads entitled and aggressive.
         | 
         | There are lots of people with a lot of money in the old banking
         | system who are not tech savvy. They are routinely defrauded and
         | affected by 3rd party fraud. Still, it doesn't warrant labeling
         | them as "having more money than brains".
         | 
         | In the case of the article, this is someone who had some money
         | in a centralized exchange (AAVE) which was hacked by a bad
         | actor, and then the breadcrumbs were traced to the sanctioned
         | TornadoCash accounts.
         | 
         | Victim shaming is wrong.
        
           | nradov wrote:
           | Anyone who put money into an obvious scam isn't a victim.
        
             | xtracto wrote:
             | My dad just sent the money form his account on his bank
             | after some scammer called him (saying that he was a bank
             | officer) and convinced him that his bank account was
             | hacked, and he needed to move his money to _another_
             | account in a _different_ bank. Needless to say, it was all
             | a scam.
             | 
             | Hearing and reading it looks pretty obvious... I do think
             | he is a victim.
        
         | hamiltonians wrote:
         | at the rate crypto is falling he will not have so much money
         | for long.
        
       | throwawa3495 wrote:
        
       | CobrastanJorji wrote:
       | Ignoring all the obvious jokes here about banking without
       | regulations and throwing good money after bad, I'm interested in
       | the technical aspect of such bans and had some trouble finding
       | resources. The author says "blocked by DeFi protocols such as
       | AAVE and Uniswap." What does this actually mean? I found
       | Uniswap's FAQ on this (
       | https://help.uniswap.org/en/articles/6149816-address-screeni...
       | ), but I'm not sure what it means to be a blocked address. Is it
       | just that certain companies won't execute transactions directly
       | with those addresses? Is the author somehow prevented from
       | trading their ETH?
        
         | yunfangjuan wrote:
         | It's the UI being blocked so far. My understanding is that they
         | use APIs from companies like https://www.trmlabs.com/ to decide
         | if a wallet is _dirty_ but the algorithm right now is deeply
         | flawed.
        
         | sneed-oil wrote:
         | The website blocked his transaction but he was still able to
         | make them go through by using direct calls
        
           | BitwiseFool wrote:
           | Hopefully some zealous prosecutor doesn't see his actions as
           | defying sanctions.
        
             | sneed-oil wrote:
             | He never said he was sanctioned
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | BitwiseFool wrote:
               | True, but I could envision a scenario in which someone
               | working for the government might interpret his actions as
               | bypassing measures put in place to enforce a sanction.
               | Regardless of how valid or invalid it was for his account
               | to be blocked in the first place.
        
           | verdverm wrote:
           | Just wait until staking is merged, 67% of the pools are run
           | by centralized companies wanting to do business in the US,
           | and they start filtering at the transaction level, including
           | or not in blocks based on these same dirty metrics.
           | 
           | Lots of people who became paper rich are going to go the
           | other direction just as fast.
        
             | immibis wrote:
             | If they filter transactions, ETH will become worthless,
             | causing the relevant stakers to lose all their money since
             | by definition they are the ones with the most money.
             | 
             | Seems like the system will punish censorship as designed.
        
               | verdverm wrote:
               | They will be the majority though, enough to choose the
               | history of the ledger, it's more that they won't allow
               | other validators to join the network, who could
               | invalidate their choices. Thus, the penalties will not be
               | applied.
        
       | stusmall wrote:
       | "This class of tools designed for resisting government control
       | doesn't work correctly after it has been sanctioned by a
       | government" lol
        
         | sneed-oil wrote:
         | It seems like they do though if you read the whole article
        
           | stusmall wrote:
           | My joke was more pointing at the defi tools built on top of
           | the blockchain rather than ethereum itself. Those broke.
        
           | verdverm wrote:
           | for now, the transaction filtering will work its way to the
           | lowest levels in time
        
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       (page generated 2022-08-17 23:02 UTC)