{"id":83612,"date":"2023-08-26T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-26T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=83612"},"modified":"2025-09-12T12:13:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T09:13:48","slug":"bring-back-tone-vays-tornado-cash-bitcoin-slump-and-the-digital-gulag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/bring-back-tone-vays-tornado-cash-bitcoin-slump-and-the-digital-gulag\/","title":{"rendered":"Bring Back Tone Vays: Tornado Cash, Bitcoin Slump and the Digital Gulag"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cBring Back Tone Vays\u201d \u2014 a ForkLog editors and friends\u2019 news podcast recapping the week\u2019s main industry events.<\/em><\/p>\n

Topics of the new episode: the arrest of Tornado Cash’s co-founders, a user data leak from Friend.Tech, a lawsuit from Pseudo-Satoshi, the NFT market, a Bitcoin price correction, and books about the digital industry.<\/em><\/p>\n

Participants: Alex K., Vasiliy Smirnov, Ed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Host: Aremefe<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Charges against the Tornado Cash co-founders<\/h2>\n

23 \u0430\u0432\u0433\u0443\u0441\u0442\u0430 \u041c\u0438\u043d\u0438\u0441\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0441\u0442\u0432\u043e \u044e\u0441\u0442\u0438\u0446\u0438\u0438 \u0421\u0428\u0410 charged<\/a> the co-founders of the crypto mixer Tornado Cash, Roman Shtorm and Roman Semenov, with money laundering. Shtorm was detained, but soon was released<\/a> on bail, and Semenov OFAC<\/span> was added to the sanctions list.<\/p>\n

Lawyers commenting on the situation noted<\/a> that, despite the money-laundering charges, there is no evidence of transactions by Semenov and Shtorm \u2014 there is only evidence that they were involved in developing the relevant software.<\/p>\n

Friend.Tech data leak<\/h2>\n

Data of 101 183 people registered on the Web3 social network Friend.Tech using X (formerly Twitter) accounts has been made publicly accessible<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Friend.Tech is a decentralized social app that allows trading of tokenized user shares, deployed on Coinbase’s Base L2 network.<\/p>\n

Before the incident, the platform was rapidly gaining popularity: on August 21, the daily transaction fees amounted to<\/a> $1.4 million \u2014 the third place after Ethereum and Lido.<\/p>\n

Pseudo-Satoshi Returns<\/h2>\n

Founded by Jack Dorsey<\/a> Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund filed a petition<\/a> with the High Court of the United Kingdom seeking to have Craig Wright’s suit against Bitcoin Core and his Tulip Trading company dismissed.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Wright, who claims to be the creator of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto, filed a suit<\/a> against Bitcoin Core, in which he sought to regain access to two wallets allegedly stolen by staff. The wallets hold a total of 111 000 BTC (~$2.89 bn).<\/p>\n

Bitcoin price correction<\/h2>\n

On the evening of 17 August, the price of the leading cryptocurrency fell sharply<\/a> from $28,000 to $25,000. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) on the Bitcoin chart dropped below 20 for the first time since March 2020. Many experts, including Micha\u00ebl van de Poppe, note<\/a> the similarities of the current cycle to previous ones: in his view, the correction will last 4\u20136 weeks, after which the asset\u2019s price could rise to $50,000.<\/p>\n

Books on the digital industry<\/h2>\n

Over the past month ForkLog published several book excerpts focusing on different aspects of pervasive digitalisation.<\/p>\n

Slovak hacker Juraj Bednar wrote the book Cryptocurrencies \u2014 Hack Your Way to the Better Life<\/em>, from which we translated and published a chapter<\/a>, in which the confrontation between lunarpunk and solarpunk \u2014 two main ideologies within the crypto community \u2014 is described. If solarpunk calls for building a utopian decentralized future, then lunarpunks are preparing tools to survive in an impending regulatory dystopia.<\/p>\n

Individuum published two books about technology\u2019s penetration into daily life. The first \u2014 Pixel. The History of a Point<\/em> by Pixar co-founder Alvy Ray Smith<\/em>, in which the author details the dramatic history of computer graphics: from the first scientific breakthroughs to the business giants\u2019 battles for industry supremacy. The second \u2014 The Strict Regime State. Inside China\u2019s Digital Dystopia<\/em> by journalist Geoffrey Cain, in which is presented<\/a> the path of the PRC to building the most sophisticated total-surveillance system to date.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to the podcast:<\/em><\/p>\n