https://etherscan.io/address/0x6365abaad54863bfd11acb6c4b611...
Which in turn shows it came from Tornado Cash which was put on the OFAC blacklist in August. So redox will likely have a very hard time to get this converted.
See here for more https://www.coincenter.org/u-s-treasury-sanction-of-privacy-...
In a way, it seems almost like a feature that he can't just take out and convert the money :)
Why would he? People sell tornado cash tainted eth on big US exchanges every day. The sanctions don't forbid this.
If this was a donation specifically for a side project I've been working on because someone just loves the idea of it, I'd probably spend it on not working a day job so I can commit 8 hours a day to that specific side project so long as that money is available.
Because it's me and I can live under my own means while I hired developer needs to be paid a fair salary, and I have a very clear way to use the money, that would be the best path forward.
Absolutely this !
In this day and age, the last thing you want is a large chunk of money turning up on your doorstep whose origins you cannot account for.
Its bad enough when you can prove the origins and you have to provide all the audit trail documentation. Ask anyone in the financial sector who has had to deal with compliance questions landing in their Inbox about a client's source of wealth.
When you can't prove the origins, well, "not a good look" as the old saying goes.
Honestly, this seems quite a bit like someone is trying to donate dirty money after being unable to launder it for their own use.
That’s a big change for some teams possibly?
It’s worth absolutely nothing unless it can be converted into actual money, which is appears will be quite difficult to do.
Now you just have “I have a lot of worthless ether” bragging rights and pretty much nothing else you didn’t have before except maybe legal woes.
Sums up my feelings about crypto pretty much completely.
No it isn't. As someone else said upthread, you can pay people directly in ETH. The potential labor pool will be smaller than if you're paying USD, but it still exists.
Its very easy to at least exchange a few thousand dollars back and forth on Coinbase. I don't know if there's extra hurdles moving almost 400k.
But in some countries, this might not be so easy. If you reside in Russia, China, or Canada, you might have a hard time. It may also prove difficult actually using the money once it arrives in your bank. Traditional banks are hesitant with sudden windfalls, and you might have your account suddenly frozen for a month or two with no recourse.
There is also the option to just hold the ETH or a stablecoin token.
Interestingly, the opposite is true. The countries with the most restrictions (officially China, Russia, Argentina, Nigeria etc) have the most crypto activity, it’s just all “underground.“
The funds didn't come directly from Tornado, even if they passed through it in the past.
Who is paying the taxes on that? The person giving it probably didn't/hasn't paid the gift taxes. This sort of irregularity is going to get you audited or a closer look and that isn't going to be be fun. Where did that money come from? Oh, it came from Tornado... now you're going to get audited to make sure that this isn't you sending yourself money. That's really not going to be fun.
If you got money, its going to be taxed somehow. Trying to avoid paying taxes on that money is going to get you into more trouble. Any investigation on the history of that money is going to cause problems for the person.
Especially for non-for-profits I don't think this should be a problem, as they can merely just save the money.
On the contrary I see that quite some non-profits run on an endowment model, where these money would basically just grow the endowment.
I don't think it's a huge issue but it's something they'll have to think about
... and also possibly illegal to handle, if the recipient is in the US?
Any attempt by feds to steal this money or sanction Redox for using it should be considered a direct attack on the project for its own sake, meaning the feds feel that Redox is a threat and they want to shut it down. The origin of the money is not a valid concern.
The end result of the donation is probably going to involve some lawyers and boring meetings (potentially even directly with the Treasury department), not a pro-cryptocurrency revolution because the Federal government has its fangs out for a super niche Unix-like.
