Bitcoin Forum

A mixer (or tumbler) blends various types of theoretically recognizable cryptocurrency. This increases transaction confidentiality, because it allows tracing bitcoin difficult. The owner of Bitcoin sends the money to the mixing machine, exchanging it with that of other users and sending the combined cash to the requested address, ensuring there is no relation between the initial transaction and this address. Settlement sums should be chosen arbitrarily and the settlement consists of several tiny partial payments distributed over a longer period of time.
Such services are widely used by scammers such that they do not get traced.
Do you think mixing services are harming the adoption of the technology ?

have you performed any research and came up with statistics that told you scammers are using these services or is it just your personal guess?

no, but i am more curious to know why you think they are doing "more harm than good" since you only explained how the mixing process works and forgot to come to a conclusion that you placed in your title.

It's not because a service gets used by scammers that it does more harm than good...

I use mixing services all the time to protect my family and myself against a $5 wrench attack...

Because only hackers and scammers need privacy, right? Because who doesn't want getting their funds to get tracked? /s

Technology in general will be used for both good and bad purposes. It's been the case throughout the history of existing technologies.

In short it's exactly the opposite to what OP says. Mixing services are for the sake of securing attacks from scammers and not the way around it.  :P

With few of the exceptional services , most of them could harm your fund though, by claiming their genuinely services and at the end engulfing your fund to their wallets. Now I would say that is the harm a bitcoin mixing service could do with the help of blockchain.

Also in the very beginning, the sole purpose of blockchain itself is integrity of transaction/data. If we add up more complex algo to do a transaction over it then it doesnt mean its harming the blockchain at the end.

Come to think about the fiats, is your fiats not be used for ML?, Why are those scammers printing fake currency notes to scam others?, C'm-on, you should understand that, no matter the technology scammers and hackers will always find their ways around for their personal gains(for their safety). No harm from mixer as I could see!....

It's no secret that mixing services are mostly used by scammers.What's weird about them,is that most mixing service websites state in their Terms of Service that using the mixing service for illegal purposes is not allowed,even though we all know for what purpose those services are being used.It's like giving a bottle of whiskey to an alcoholic and saying "Don't drink the whiskey!"   :(
BTC mixers are going harm to the BTC community in two ways:
1.By creating a bad image of Bitcoin as a scammer/criminal friendly cryptocurrency.
2.By scamming people and stealing their coins.

You cannot ban a legit service because criminals/scammers use them. This is censorship, this is how dictators think. Scammers will always use legit services.

Scammers/criminals should be hunted by the authorities without harming honest people.

Criminals use cars to run away from the police. Let's ban cars as well?

Cryptos in general are designed to help to create a decentralised currency such that they are inherently harder to trace and are better able to preserve the privacy of users. Mixers are just a way for users to better improve their privacy and that is totally reasonable.

It's foolish to assume that all of the users of mixers are engaging in illicit activities and it is also unreasonable to stop crypto mixers just because a portion of its users are doing something illegal. Fiat is also often used to commit crime and no one has the intention to dump fiat and adopt some other currency.

It is obvious you don't read  what I posted there. I'm not assuming that all users of mixers are scammers. If you see it in my post you can quote it. It is no more news that many blockchain projects are easily turning to scam and one of the way those scammers run totally with such funds is to use mixing services. Such case is what was posted here https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/plustoken-wallet-moves-13k-btc-to-mixer-another-sell-off-imminent/

Well, it's all pretty simple... Bitcoin is a system to transfer wealth. Just like cash or gold.

When i was young, you could buy all kind of illegal drugs at the gate of our school using fiat, mind you, this was many, many, many years before satoshi published anything even remotely related to bitcoin. Still, my mother forced me to go to school and she gave me pocket money every month (which I used to buy weed).

It was known that if you wanted to avoid taxes, your had to bring your "black market money" (money you made by doing jobs for which you didn't pay any taxes) to luxembourg. They accepted your cash without questions, gave you a high interest rate and they didn't communicate with other governements for tax fraud purposes. Still, most transfers were completely legal.

It was known that certain shops in certain city's took in stolen money and "black market money" and laundered it. Still, an average person like me could visit these shops and buy a newspaper (or whatever they sold)

There were jewelers that took in stolen gold, melted it down and poured it into legal-looking forms. Still, an average person like me could walk into these shops and buy a wedding ring for his wife.

That's just the way any system to transfer wealth works. It's mostly used for good, but it can also be used for bad. No need to ban all banks, all shops and all jewelers. No need to close the schools or burn all fiat money. Just find the drug dealers, money launders and other criminals and punish them accordingly.

Mixers serve a very good purpose... They protect not only my privacy, but also my family's well-being. I depend on services that take crypto currency that can be linked to me and in exchange give me a slightly smaller amount that cannot be traced back to me.
I know many, many other completely legit people that do not posses a single satoshi in their private wallets that hasn't been mixed or coinjoined.

I do agree that if you ever found a system to transfer wealth that could never be used for any illicit activity, it would have a better image than any "other" system to transfer wealth (like fiat, gold or bitcoin). But i don't see this happening anytime soon.

I actually did. Apologies if the way I phrased it sounded like I was implying that you're the one assuming that mixers are only used by scammers.

Point still stands. I don't believe 13k Bitcoins is a huge amount, relative to the amount of Bitcoin mixed regularly. Scams are bound to happen and mixers only helps to improve the privacy. If anything, this would just be a good indication that it is hard to trace Bitcoin and that privacy would be improved with the use of mixers. It could provide a justification for the government's resistance but it would be beneficial from a consumer stand point. Standard Chartered (and various other major banks) had a huge money laundering scandal and it doesn't seem to have affected the consumer market that much.

It is my personal opinion that mixing services do somewhat facilitate the cleaning of illegitimate funds, I don't think anybody would argue against this.

It may not be the absolute biggest use case for mixers, but I would guess that at least 20% of their activity comes from people trying to improve the fungibility of their assets because they're from dubious sources.

I'm not a fan of them in general either. I think there should be on-chain privacy features that don't require the use of a "trusted" third party like mixers. Understandably, most of these mixers have an anonymous team, but that also means they can run off with funds without a hitch if they chose to. This makes it very difficult to trust them.

I think we simply need some way of performing a trustless atomic swap between cryptocurrencies like BTC and XMR, then we can cut out these middlemen programs and avoid the risks that come with them.

Let me leave the quote here of one of the most successful tumbling services, even preceding Chipmixer.


I think we can surmise what can be the answer to the OP's question.

Bitcoin can be used for various things. Much like cash. Because bitcoin can be used for illicit activities, should we ban it?
Do you think that there aren't legitimate uses to mixers? Freedom of choice is an important aspect of money. You can't just ban certain uses of money and expect that to be followed.

What's good and bad can be determined with several thought processes. Not all are as objective.
But in terms of causing harm, I think mixers do little harm to other parties. They are not dangerous or violent towards others for example. They're just a tool to offer more frangibility to non-anonymous blockchains.
The harm isn't done by these services. Its maybe by some of their users. But that doesn't mean the services are at fault.

You forgot to research another story about it which Cryptocurrency mixing services will give more secure transactions for holders and will make their transaction untraceable because there are lots of people out there who had been a victim by those evil people who only exist to steal other peoples money. With the help of Cryptocurrency mixing services, they can prevent this kind of act. for your information, you can see some people who fell victim when evil people traced them. check this link: https://github.com/jlopp/physical-bitcoin-attacks/blob/master/README.md

Except those statements are categorically not true.

An analysis of mixers was performed by Chainalysis last year, who are probably the biggest blockchain analysis company in existence and are used by some of the biggest players in the space such as Binance and Bitstamp. Unfortunately, the webinar presentation of their findingss has since been taken down, but you can still see their findings reported in multiple news and blog sites such as here: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/chainalysis-most-mixed-bitcoin-not-used-for-illicit-purposes

They found that only 8% of coins being mixed were stolen or otherwise illegally obtained coins. By far the most common source of coins being mixed was directly from exchanges, meaning mixers are most widely being used by average bitcoin users trying to reclaim some of their privacy from the ever more invasive surveillance performed by centralized exchanges.

Hmm, I wonder how much you've studied mixers before saying that, also curios if this is not some translated text since I have no idea why you used the term cash..


Proof?
Using a mixer makes me a scammer?


Nope, it's like giving a bottle of whiskey and asking the guy not to drink and drive, not to hit somebody else with the bottle, not to pour the whiskey on somebody and light them on fire...


Hmm, so are you accusing a certain bitcoin mixing service of being a scam and stealing clients coins, or am I missing something?

I thought you'd actually provide some evidence that the technology is being harmed by regular use of mixers (although I didn't understand how it would be possible as mixing doesn't involve any intervention into Blockchain). Instead what you are saying is more about reputation than real harm and of bitcoin rather than Blockchain. I've never used bitcoin mixers, but I don't think it's fair to be prejudiced against mixer users. And the argument about scammers using it is weak because scammer also drink water and drive cars, so why don't we stop doing that as well?

Didnt see any harm cause by mixing services to blockchain technology but to only enhance the privacy and anonymity of crypto currency transactions.  What will say about privacy coins?
Understand that people used mixing service to secure themselves cause using a single wallet thrice is not a safe decision cause theres some online thefts which purpose was to target huge coins sent and with mixing service person dont need to be worry.



+1

First thing , these services are really important for the society , they allow some users the much needed privacy , not everyone is the same and therefore at one point of time one might now want his steps to be trackable.


These services are actually very good way to do that since normal Bitcoin transactions are transparent.

I do think you are forgetting the fact that Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies are not made for scammers, there are only 10% people using it for illegal purposes and at the same time it might be used but I do think this does not reflect on the services but at the scammers themselves.


This is no way is the fault of the mixing services . Therefore I do think your statement is very wrong .  I have even worked with some companies like blender.io and trust me they are not doing it to promote scams or illegal activities they are doing it to protect the privacy.

Everybody needs privacy.

Just like any other service, if your intention is evil then you're using it the wrong way. But if you're using it with the purpose of protection and to do no harm, you are using it correctly.

Absolutely. Unfortunately it's a very common argument that we see used not just against mixers, but against all sorts of privacy promoting services and software, including things like Tor and encrypted messaging services. Why should we allow these services to exist when scammers and criminals use them? "Why won't you think of the children!?" It is such a common argument that it reaches all levels of society, and even our elected politicians use such arguments to try to "ban encryption" or other such nonsense (forgetting of course for a moment that banning encryption would break the internet).

Criminals use mixers. Better ban them. Criminals also use cash for illegal activities. Let's ban cash. Criminals send out scam emails. Ban email. What about the internet? You can buy illegal weapons and drugs on the internet. Better ban the internet. Criminals use phones to talk to each other. Ban them. Probably best if we just ban all forms of communication.

If you are fine with any and every third party and government sticking their nose in to your life and tracking all your transactions, then so be it, but you have no authority to decry others for using privacy enhancing practices such as mixers, especially when you base your argument on made up fabrications such as the majority of mixing traffic being illegal.

This is the whole story about Bitmixer.io closure https://news.bitcoin.com/one-of-the-largest-bitcoin-mixing-services-closes-its-doors

What it gives them pressure and putting their ends because if the law enforcement hunting them down.
The sad story is that they are allowing scammer and some illegalities used the services that brought them into trouble. If they not allowing it the same thing that other mixers do, it surely they still exist at this time.

Mixing services keep an individual's privacy as to how it works but somehow gives the opportunity for the scammers to hidden. But that is not the case right now because mixing services don't allow that thing to succeed if they get noticed and having suspicious activity. They don't want to ruin their image and they also don't want to be in question by authorities which makes them still alive.

You are totally mistaking. So, mixing services are harming just because they help scammers and criminals, What about the privacy? One important goal of Bitcoin was always for some people who really care about their privacy. None will understand their total funds, including governments. Otherwise, Bitcoin would never be than much popular between people. Mixing services will help people to increase their privacy when they really care about it.

Kind of, if you can remembered the past issue about mixing services wherein authorities found out about the illegal transactions using this kind of services thus issued some banned to used it. That actually ruined somehow the reputation of btc's name.

It was calm now and regains good name back thus if this scammers continue to use mixers to mask their identity, the adoption we are aiming for will be hard to achieve.

As you can see from the replies above, it's not that simple. In the free world, the fact that something is used by scammers(or abusers) doesn't imply banning of the thing. (Well, I mean, ideally. Unfortunately, in real life we still keep suffering from some wrong decisions of our governments). If junkies are misusing cough syrup, it doesn't mean that little kids should suffer from unbearable cough, when the syrup is banned.

Correct, It's just we need to be careful for the things we are going to since at the first place we are the one who's handling our money and we are the one who's gonna decide if we will trust those junkies as you said or not, remember in this world no scammer if there's no willing victim. So its not really good to blame that in mixing service since for sure many use that for good reasons.

First, many people stated that Bitcoin is harmful because it is used by many terrorists and also used for money laundering. Then here, the mixer is also harmful because it is used by scammers to make their transaction privacy. Well, thinking about it, all things can be used for any kind of criminal. Let's see how fiat can also be used to do it. We can also think about other technologies that are also the media for criminals. But should we blame them to be harmful? I think that harmful or not depends on the users.

Maybe OP is claiming that, if there is no service exist the scammers may not be able to use them to increase their privacy.I guess this thought has been raised as a result of many mixers were closed in the recent months due to that they were used by some criminals.

We all thinks that privacy matters only for criminals but why we shouldn't keep our privacy so mixers are used for legit purposes more than criminals, because criminals knows better way to hide their identity for now. ;D

If everybody needs privacy then all human beings need it regardless of their trade.

As scammers they are spineless people but still people. We shouldn't throw away a useful device just because a scammer might want to use it.

It's not even a case of a gun that can be used to shoot a wild boar or a police officer but rather similar to a bank account. Should we not allow convicts to have bank accounts because they were once caught doing something illegal?

Scammers and thieves have the right to eat, sleep, voice their opinions, vote, and have some basic privacy.

You can't stop progress just because criminals might benefit from it, with that thinking we would still live in caves and use stone tools. Historically, crime levels are going down across the world, and the invention of crypto didn't make any global impact on it, so even if darknet markets exist and use Bitcoin, they aren't some huge social problem. There's a lot more things that need to be done in terms of crime fighting, before you can start looking at Bitcoin.

I have never actually used a coin mixer before but I've not heard much positivity when it's been brought up.  The same goes for coin-joins, I've not heard many positive things about those either.  The need for privacy is real and is important however.  I would prefer use an all privacy coin such as Monero then mess  with stuff.

Everyone needs privacy one way or the other Regardless of who is using a mixing service. Which is part of Bitcoin's purpose. There's no proof to back your claims.
Crimes happens all form before crypto came into existence. Fiat scam rate is higher than the one in crypto.
We want solution? Let's ban cash and crypto. Maybe that's going to work.

I'm sure the main purpose of mixing services is for good things, I've read lots of reviews about mixing services and most of them
feel helped because it can increase the privacy of Bitcoin transactions. In my opinion everything is good and bad, as well as mixing
services depends on the person who wearing it. And I'm sure the number of scammers who use mixing services is no more than 2%,
so the conclusion mixing services are very good for blockchain technology. Because everyone does need privacy.

Right everybody needs privacy in crypto, and I'm sure most of us here are trying to do that by using a mixing services to protect and hide our every transactions. So I don't think that mixing services are doing harm, they are design for that specific purpose. Criminals will always be criminals, they will find ways to circumvent the law and I don't think that most of them are using mixing services anyways, because it they are then it will be hard for authorities to track them.

As a criminal then you  would surely have that thing in mind on making yourself untraceable which means when it comes to any theft or fraud situation then this will automatically tie up with these mixers
that we've known since when they do already able to mixed up things then its impossible for them to be traced up. Anonymity do really have its pros and cons and it will

vary on the individual thats been using up on the service.This is why they are primarily target out by authorities.

Mixers are not 100% guaranteed that will hide your privacy after all its still a theoretical technology. It's not really proven to bring privacy to an transaction once if you use the service.
I still think that mixers in some scenario's are necessary to avoid tracking from third parties such as government trying to cease your Crypto assets. I guess this all depend on how you use the technology.

Thanks. A lot have been discussed about this subject and this has makes me realize no matter how good a technology is people will also look for the negative part of it and used it. Just as we can't separate people that use bitcoin for legitimate business from those that use it for evil so also it is applied to crypto mixing platform. However, we all want more adoption of crypto but this negative use cases remain the obstacle we should all fight off

Negative use cases are unavoidable in decentralized, open, permisionless, censorship resistant systems like bitcoin. That is not what we should fight against. To the contrary, that is what bitcoin is loved for. It gives your freedom to act however you want, however you used to. If you are a good guy, bitcoin gives you an ability to do good things without having to ask a permission from bad guys. If you are a bad guy, you continue to do bad things with any means you like, it doesn't matter if you use bitcoin, it won't change your character and your evil habits anyway. People should change themselves in order for them to use bitcoin for a greater good, bitcoin shouldn't be changed, it works perfectly.

There's no way that you can find a data regarding with that, coz everyone literally everyone can mix their bitcoins without registering. A common guess for mixing is that this kind of platform is the exit gate of the scammers to avoid being traced or tracked so obviously they are using these services. Without even thinking so much about it, there are and there will be scammers that will use mixers.

Yeah, I also wonder if he forgot to include what he really meant by his post, I didn't find that on read. But honestly having a disadvantage is not a hindrance in adoption, everything has its own disadvantage so it happens to be this one on the mixers. I don't find any harm to it than being used by scammers to wash the stolen funds, I mean they gotta do what they gotta do.

Really not the smartest thing to do.


The exit gate of scammers are never mixers, hey exit the market when cashing out into fiat, and this is where the so-called KYC and AML and all other bs could stop this, but instead they are used just to scam normal users of a few satoshis when they can't provide a thousand and one proofs.

Everyone tends to forget that in order for a scammer or a thief to use a mixer first he must commit a crime, a scam, a theft, people should be focusing on preventing those to happen in the first place rather than targeting things which the scammer might not even use in the first place.
Just as you don't ban cars to stop thief fleeing after a theft they should focus on what's more important.


Oh lord, seriously?

I don't think KYC could stop this, even if was being primarily focused on stopping this rather than exchanges just covering their own backs.

KYC makes it a little more inconvenient for scammers to cash out, sure, but if you are scamming several thousands dollars then you can definitely afford to buy some fake documents on the dark web for <$100. Hell, you don't even need to use the dark web, as you semi-regularly see people on this forum and other sites offering to sell their own documents, verify accounts, pose for selfies, whatever, for a small fee. Remember of course that scammers and money launderers have been cashing out fiat for decades without getting caught, and can use all the same tricks when cashing out bitcoin - money mules, gift cards, wire transfers, etc.

It could stop it if all the players would act as they should, but a lot cheat.
To cash out from an exchange you don't need just the selfie, you also need a bank account with that name, you need to get the money out of that bank account if al the banks would really employ KYC and AML policies this would become harder and harder and what's more important, far costlier for a thief to do so.

But yeah, when there are people acting knowingly as mules, selling the usage of their bank account knowingly for pennies, things get a bit messy.

Also, there are other ways of cashing out, not directly via a bank account.
You know that event from your own country, and I have a feeling the same is happening in mine with an ATM network, not giving names but since it's one of the few which posts online the sums available in their machines it's pretty easy to guess. I've seen some pretty weird numbers on their machines, sometimes there are days when they lose only 5-10k euros from their available balance and then in a matter of hours all the machines around a whole area of the country are down a few hundred thousand euros, and more, their balance goes down to 50-100 euros, so somebody that is almost counting to the last euro.

I just wanted to say that mixers just semi-anonymize the source of the funds, if people want to point them as the ones helping scammers cash out they are overlooking other and more important links in the chain