A lot of people seem confused as to the consequences of the Samourai Wallet and Tornado Cash prosecutions, claiming that they deserved what was coming bc their software was used by criminals. Someone recently made the analogy to Toyota, which will hopefully help some of the critics understand what is going on here. 1. Toyota builds some of the most durable trucks on the planet 2. Toyota is the car brand of choice for ISIS bc of their durability 3. Toyota knows that ISIS uses its trucks 4. Toyota never sold trucks to ISIS By analogy, the US Government does not have to prove that Toyota ever *actually* engaged with criminals who bought their cars. To convict them, it is enough that: 1. they *knew* that criminals were using their cars (e.g. sending news articles about it around internally) 2. they *knew* that their cars would be attractive to terrorists bc of their durability 3. -> conspiracy The above points are the main arguments that have led to these convictions. The difference is that for trucks, it is easy for people to understand why others, besides terrorists, may have a use for durability. When it comes to privacy, and especially financial privacy, it is extremely hard for the average mind to comprehend why a normie would want to use these tools – despite less than 10% of volume having been found illicit in both cases. People should not be held accountable for what other people do with the tools they build. This is true for Toyota, it's true for firearms, and we should finally start to understand that this true for software as well. If we don't, no one is going to build anything anymore – and that's why these cases are so important.