It’s more like you gave away a DIY laundromat kit for free, which some people used to make laundromats, and other people used to launder money.
Example of a “legitimate” use case for tumbling: your employer pays you in Bitcoin and you don’t want them to know where you spend the money they give you.
A public ledger means anyone can read it, not just the government. And so anonymizing your transactions means hiding them from everyone, not just the government.
It’s fine if you believe the government and your bank should be able to read your transactions. But what about your crazy ex girlfriend or the guy you fired last week?
If you don't want your transactions to be public, don't use a public ledger. You don't get to launder your money because you chose to use a ridiculous tool that made your transactions public and readable by anybody who has ever transacted with you or who can convince someone who did to tell them who you are.
Tornado Cash wasn't free, there was a fee which as I understand it was sent back to various developers.
Money laundering doesn't get to be something else and totally fine just because it's covering for a weakness of cryptocurrencies.
> If you don't want your transactions to be public, don't use a public ledger.
That's exactly what people were attempting to do, with Tornado.
> You don't get to launder your money
There is no money laundering available with Tornado, it doesn't turn an illigitimate source of funds into a legitimate one. And it also has a compliance tool to allow proof of transfer between accounts.
> Tornado Cash wasn't free, there was a fee which as I understand it was sent back to various developers.
This wasn't sent to developers. It was a fee you would pay relayers to propagate transactions on the network and was optional. You could choose to fund withdrawals with a relayer or to use funds in your own wallet.
Example of a “legitimate” use case for tumbling: your employer pays you in Bitcoin and you don’t want them to know where you spend the money they give you.
A public ledger means anyone can read it, not just the government. And so anonymizing your transactions means hiding them from everyone, not just the government.
It’s fine if you believe the government and your bank should be able to read your transactions. But what about your crazy ex girlfriend or the guy you fired last week?