This seems to be all about a technicality involving how these sanctions are applied. Sanctions are meant to be applied to people and the companies they run, and a US court ruled that these sanctions couldn’t be applied to a smart contract because it’s just a bunch of code, and not the property of a sanctioned individual. This ruling was made back in November, they are just getting around now to removing the sanctions. From what I can tell, the sanctions against the people involved in running the service are still in effect.
About damn time. This is a win for those of us who wish to use crypto as actual money and need privacy. Because not everybody should know the balance of your accounts. That’s just stupid. This is why the majority of my dealings with crypto are in Monero.
I’m really curious here: What are you buying and dealing with crypto? I am old and I remember the first discussions about Bitcoin and other cryptos and the privacy topic was discussed back then. People were skeptical of the technology, exactly because every transaction was public and people were even more skeptical after others started to use bitcoin to buy drugs with it online. So why are you using technology that is not really suited for privacy by design and expect privacy?
Monero does provide privacy because while it is a public blockchain, the sender is obscured, the receiver is obscured, and the amount is obscured. The IP address of the node is obscured.
To somebody not participating in the transaction, they basically see the equivalent of “? Sent ? Xmr to ?”
you did not ask me, but here is another perspective. I’m paying for online services. like twitch, with gift cards. not it doesn’t cost more. why don’t I pay with a bank account? because I don’t trust twitch and their payment provider with my data, like I refuse to add my phone number because that would make my account linkable with other things. I also don’t really trust my bank about what do I pay for, and it’s not like there are better banls out there.