Github accounts that contributed in the development of the banned mixer, Tornado Cash have been deleted. This was revealed in a Twitter post by @banteg, who describes himself as “the bunny talisman of yearn”, a defi protocol.
A Ban By Authorities
US authorities, on August 8, placed a ban on the use of the services of Tornado Cash. The US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the agency tasked with ensuring that sanctions on entities are not violated blacklisted the cryptocurrency mixing service, citing its use by North Korean hackers.
Github Inc, was founded in 2008 as a hosting service for software development. It is a repository where coders and software development professionals build and collaborate.
Call for A Decentralized Alternative
It is not yet clear if the US authorities are behind the deletion of the accounts of developers behind Tornado Cash. Responding to the action of Github, the California-based company, some in the crypto community said that this could be the time for a decentralized coding platform to replace Github.
Ross Middleton, the co-founder of Rhino Defi @rhinofi, said that this could be the right time for it.
@Peterflux of Flux Protocol said that it could be a matter of time before the validators at the Ethereum network censor the Tornado Cash platform.
“how long until ETH2.0 validators censor and hard fork the @TornadoCash contracts out? or are forked out at merge?”
Corporation Enforcing The Law
Another user, LLcryptoj, said that the fact that Microsoft is now the parent company of Github should have made adherents of decentralization to see an alternative to the platform.
Banteg said that some of the deleted accounts belonging to known contributors of Tornado Cash are github.com/poma, github.com/rstormsf and github.com/pertsev.
Tornado Cash is a crypto mixing service that user can use to obfuscate the source of their cryptocurrencies. Mixing or blending services also serves to protect the anonymity of the owner of the digital asset.
What GitHub’s ToS Says
Part of Github’s Terms of Service says:
“While using the service, you must follow the terms of this section, which include some restrictions on content you can post, conduct on the service, and other limitations. In short, be excellent to each other”
I just made the contribution #930 to @TornadoCash Trusted Setup Ceremony! 🚀 Let’s make it more secure and trustless #TornadoCashCeremony https://t.co/336hnG9o5h
— Gavin Andresen (@gavinandresen) May 8, 2020
On May 8, 2020, the Bitcoin lead developer, Gavin Andresen, said that he contributed to Tornado Cash code on the codeline, #930 in appreciation of its contribution to the trustless space. At the time of reporting the Tornado Cash website seems to have been pulled down,
