Bitcoin Forum

[the all caps is just to get attention, this is not a rant.]

In case you missed the news, Ocean Mining ran by Jack Dorsey, luke-jr, Giacommo Zummo and some other folks are refusing to mine Samourai whirlpool transactions. But this thread is not about that. This thread is about this tweet:

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/12/07/NOeC5.png

Why do people think that coordinators, mixers, coinjoin software, etc.  have something to hide?

Would you sow anyone your bank account transactions just because they want to see? Is it any of their business?

People are not taking their blockchain privacy seriously enough. It wasn't too long ago that FTX users' financials were exposed in a hack!

(And follow me on X/Twitter :P)

This is very interesting.alot of members come online and speak in support of privacy but only a few of them actually take it seriously.

Most persons don't take it seriously because of laziness

Some have the feeling no harm can come to my funds

Some feel they are too careful for their privacy to leak out

Some are reluctant to using privacy tools like Bitcoin and mixers because the government is against it.besides the average Joe always wants to please the government.

People think that they have something to hide because most likely there is. It's just a low percentage. You never know who uses crypto and why. You can't deny that some criminals are using crypto, the number is just hyperbolized by the government.

Samourai is a bitcoin wallet. You'd think that people who want to do illegal stuff would use mixers, not a bitcoin wallet with an obscure coordinator.

Privacy seems to be non achievable day by day due to a lot of factors but an average Joe who lives paycheck to paycheck doesn't take it seriously because even if someone finds their identity they have nothing to lose from there.

Also, Ignorance and Influence lead to a myth that if someone is trying to hide something means it's related to illicit/unlawful activities among the people.

financial privacy is serious, but most people dont understand it. they just want the easy life to do as they please and think its their right that privacy should be a default right where people dont need to do anything to achieve financial privacy

crypto has not been deemed private property for a decade now. we all suffer the consequences of crypto being classed as legal currency instead of private property, and the financial regulations that then apply due to it

privacy is achievable but requires people to do something about it.


NotATether... the only bad thing about your tweet is that you use an analogy of a bank statement.. everyone knows banks mess with peoples accounts and stop suspicious transactions and send data to government

Since I'm neutral on this issue, I can only express this: "Let them use it however they want." The fact that we see the right side of this issue always assumes that it has a lot to do with negativity, but it is not entirely true because it is clear that if the freedom to use any service tool is limited, it will lose the decentralization that is inherently a premise. So the key is balance here, I can agree to things that are limited but not forced because there will still be many cases of privacy that we want to exploit. And if this problem is always looked at from a negative perspective, then I think we should catch criminals first before preventing their actions from being committed later, like we are not capable of controlling someone, and we just want them to act in the way we think is right, but right/wrong is not a way to justify this issue, and actually I also think the core issue is morality in behavior use.

What do you say? As of today, only El Salvador and the Central African Republic have bitcoin as legal tender. In the rest of the countries it has been regulated as a financial asset.I don't see how you can conclude anything about privacy from that, which is false.

People don't care about privacy, as simple as ABC.
Today you'll see people who post on their facebook when they eat, where they eat, with whom their eat. They also post other their activities, what they watch, where they plan to go. You can see that millions of people post that on public. Then there we have Instagram where people post their almost nude photos, some of them even post their nude photos and upload their private intimate lives. So, tell me why do you expect from people to take care of their privacy when they use bitcoin for making transactions? Majority of bitcoin users don't even use it for the purpose of getting rid of 3rd parties and improving privacy, they use it because it's a good and cool way to earn money.

That is true and everyone does indeed know that.

But what if your neighbor asked to see your bank transaction history? Or some guy on the street? Or the bartender or waiter who is serving you? Or the taxi driver? Or anonymous people on social media?

Banks may have a business in inspecting your transaction history, because it is hosted on their infra, but random people don't have any business in looking at your financials.

Imagine people calling you a criminal for not keeping your money in the bank, instead you choose to keep it in Bitcoin, the next question they will throw at your face is what do you have to hide?

This is part of my own very story, it is easier for people to think that you have something you are hiding when you choose a different part, but I am very glad that Bitcoin transactions are very transparent. 

This is why I don't talk ill about those who use mixers, not all of them are criminals and they have their tangible reasons for choosing to hide their transactions, I choose to get away from my government, I don't want the bank to know my real worth, I don't want them to monitor my life and finance, this was why I choose Bitcoin, but in the eye of the government, why wouldn't they believe that I have something to hide?

legal tender and defined as currency mean two things.
you also cant use a small countries example to attempt to debunk the US/EU regulations

first of all legal tender means that the country allows people to purchase goods and services in shops and pay taxes and debts with governments

this is completely different to defining crypto as a currency instead of private property
for instance if it was private property. then buying crypto would be the same as buying pokemon cards. a merchant service
by being a currency a service selling crypto is a money service business

..
moving along from the US-EU defining bitcoin as currency a decade ago so that they can then regulate businesses using crypto.. more recently is the ping pong game of which regulator.. by sub defining cryptos as either an asset currency(SEC) or a commodity(CFTC)

you really need to learn these things to then learn which regulators are getting involved in which types of businesses/services to then learn what stipulations policies are set up to then learn how to counter such policies

emphasis again
legal tender is not the same situation as currency

EG

all fiats are currencies.. euro, dollar but..
in the US the dollar is legal tender but euro is not
in the EU the euro is legal tender but euro is not

EU recognise dollar as currency so EU currency laws apply to dollar. but EU legal tender laws do not apply to dollar
US recognise euro as currency so US currency laws apply to euro. but US legal tender laws do not apply to euro

private property is different then currency
currency is different than legal tender

get it yet

bitcoin by default is a open public ledger
...
a better analogy would be car number/licence plates
they are all in public, people can see cars driving around displaying a number plate.
you rent a new rental car each week..
the number plate does not reveal the drivers name. but if people are not careful other people can find ways to link a drivers name to a number plate via how they obtained the car

so when you drive down the road pretending you are completely anonymous because your are is not displaying your name on the cars bumper. you then become ignorant and lazy about the ability for someone to just wait for you to park your car and ask you questions, or find which service the car came from
people need to put effort into their privacy and not believe the whole anonymity by default pipe dream sold to them

yes bitcoin does not request your ID. but your information can be found via other means.

EG
did you know people trying to remain private in their car using blacked out windows are more likely to be stopped by the police and questioned as to why they have window tint..
sometimes trying to make yourself more private is what gets you noticed more

be smarter then that

your privacy is very important and some people mistake being conscious of ones privacy to being unnecessarily secretive. The same way you take care of the funds in your normal banks and will never even allow a third party access to it or even their tell them how much you have in your account, it's what's expected of you as regarding your privacy in the bitcoin space.

Their is a popular statement in my locality that you can't destroy what you don't have a knowledge about and this is very much applicable in this sense, you can't even think of hacking and sourcing after my private key if you don't even know that I'm a bitcoin holder, I becomes a serious carelessness on my part if I now allow you to know how much of bit on I am accumulating.

Take your privacy seriously, if anything goes wrong, the highest people will do is to tell you "sorry" and that doesn't undo what has already been done.

People have the freedom to share what they want, but they have to choose what they share just for their privacy and for their safety. The thing is if you really want to be safe, you would literally take steps and action to avoid this kind of incident for example from what you said, sharing their food, what they eat, and with whom, you can share it in the social media after days or a week to avoid people to follow you.

The thing is people nowadays can't live without validation from the public in social media since everything now runs on the internet so people love the attention they can get online even selling the private parts of their bodies. The thing is people now are used to sharing things online so even their Bitcoin transactions which they think are okay to share, of course not, that is one of the reasons why you can use Bitcoin anonymously to avoid being tracked. But from OP's post, it seems they are milking the issue if it's getting the target views or retweets.

Most of people are in middle zone.

If we use a scale from 0 to 100 in privacy level, they're in 40-60, it's not necessary they're in 0 where they will express everything they have to everyone else.

So if I ask them, do you have any investment? they will answer yes. But when I ask how much money you have invested? most of them will refuse to answer it.

The Average Joe only protect their identity against friend, acquaintance, and stranger. But they're being transparent when it comes to government, organization, company and family, that's why most people are hold their coins in centralized exchanges.

if you are driving alone but want to use a "car pool" lane. dont waste money on window tints because the vehicle checking cameras that count passengers in car pool lane will flag you. and send a message to transport police up the road to pull you over and ask you questions..

instead learn the rules of the road and stay in the appropriate lane to not highlight yourself. then you wont get pulled over

i laugh when i see reels and shorts of people driving with window tints and arguing about why they get pulled over so much.

learn what the investigators are on the look-out for and do the opposite to not get looked at

trying to think the solution is to get every car to black out their windows in the hope investigators give up, wont work. the best option is to just become unnoticeable by looking like everyone else in public. dont stand out by using sophisticated crap. because in most cases these sophisticated crap is just a money earner for those promoting the sophisticated crap advertised as privacy, but ends up getting you on a watch list

take the bip47
it pretends to be privacy. but ends up being watched and noticed more regularly than a standard legacy transaction
take mixers
it pretends to be privacy. but ends up being watched and noticed more regularly than a standard legacy transaction

If statement by Samourai Wallet is true, then it's irony knowing statement on their website.

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In addition, why having something to hide is perceived negatively?


I believe some people think they take privacy seriously. But IMO the real problem is they don't know privacy risks of using 3rd party or don't realize what information could be gained if someone were to collect all of information they made publicly.

People are naively enough to think they don't have anything to hide. Especially newbies who can easily be scammed or give up any personal information around the Internet. They don't know that if they post anything on Internet, it is there forever and if it is thing related to privacy, it means their privacy lost forever.

Many senior people even don't mind about privacy but whenever they realize awful mistakes they did in the past, it's too late to gain their privacy back. Because they can not simply summon all posts, documents back. They only can hope that nobody will dig into their past documents and try to make exploitation from what they found.

Certainly, I understand the importance of addressing privacy concerns in the crypto community. It's crucial for individuals to realize that financial privacy is a fundamental right. Just as you wouldn't share your bank account transactions indiscriminately, it's wise to prioritize the confidentiality of your blockchain activities. Recent incidents, like the FTX hack, highlight the need for heightened privacy measures. Stay informed, use reliable privacy tools, and make conscious choices to protect your financial data.

To think of it, no government actually wants complete anonymity for their citizens, mostly when it regards outside communication or business deals. No one wants a repeat of the 911 bombings that no one saw serious, until it was seriousness they had to be.
The terror scare is even why I feel governments try as much as possible to regulate the decentralized network and centralized network too. Besides money laundering claims too, I think that some people are too engrossed in a day to day job that involves physical cash, than even bother to secure  or upgrade the privacy of their Crypto investment.

With more persons showing interest on the subject after observing if the idea of cryptocurrencies would survive this long,  they only have to have had a personal experience that involved their wallets being hacked, being ripped off from P2p transactions, to clearly consider giving more attention to the privacy of all financial holdings, both on decentralized network, centralized network too.

Probably because they do, it's services literally designed to cover your trail and obscure data. " For privacy"
If these services where used for fiat it would probably get chalked up to money laundering or racketeering.
After the last few days I'm pretty sure mixers are mainly used for bitcointalk users to hide funds of their purchased alt accounts  signature campaign earnings before they hit main wallets.
This is probably the real reason for the ban of mixer stuff here. JK but it's a noteworthy explanation but the truth is calling for multi layer anonymity when layer 1 does the job is considered excessive and suspicious. It's the equivalent of melting down gold for resell in a stolen market. You can't shake the outside looking in on 1st thoughts. You got blood diamonds.You got blood Bitcoin too.

I don't know where you got this theory from, but this is not why Theymos is banning mixers on the forum, he is doing that to protect the forum from LE. The government is attacking BTC privacy solutions because they want to deanonymize most BTC users and attack BTC fungibility with bullshit about tainted and clean coins. Theymos does not want the forum to run into trouble with the authorities, that is the reason for the ban on mixers, and not what you are saying here.
The BTC blockchain is transparent because it is a public ledger, it does not give you anonymity, you use privacy solutions to achieve anonymity and better privacy.

Ugh ... "What do you have to hide"...someone needs to ask this guy, why do we all wear clothes! Is it because we have something to hide? No, it is our choice and right to keep our bodies private and to feel comfortable! Yes, some can argue that no clothes is the natural way but that's a minority opinion based on irrelevant beliefs in the modern age.

Investigating someone's receiving and spending is as bad as asking them to take their clothes of and check their genitals for cleanliness. It's disgusting, but both have the same thing in common - it's invasion of privacy.

This is going no where as they as miners have their choice. You cannot project them as culprits as they are the ones who are not mining Ordinals. If they are doing something that we don't agree doesn't mean that we should put a negative mouth with what they are trying to achieve.

After two mixers taken down it is clear that mixers are unable to filter out bad money when they are processing transactions. North Korea is not a country it is a land owned by a dictator which is slowly now facing issues with its population. To fund itself they are stealing money globally and using mixers to make it untraceable.

As per my understanding this is how you make use of privacy to the benefit of a dictator. It is an alarming issue and I don't think a topic should have been created to make privacy a top notch priority.

Having a censorship means it's no longer decentralized, if Bitcoin get censored due to their own rule, they're threat to Bitcoin's decentralization.

The funny thing is Jack and Luke Dash Jr who're known Bitcoin developers are censoring Bitcoin transactions, so it's a big problem.

Not a mixer, but one of known wallet that has a privacy tool was start to censor certain Coinjoin transaction (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/wasabi-wallet-explains-new-bitcoin-censorship), maybe you're looking for this one.

This is understandable, but it does not explain why some people go out of their way to advocate to people not to use any sort of privacy technology for your coins. You can even see this with ad-blockers, which is completely different from crypto: The FBI posted a recommendation for people to use one to avoid malware, then Youtube blocks you from watching videos until you turn it off.

Because they believed they are the only moet assured means whereby scammers uses them a s a rescue to their financial theft committed, just as thesame way the government are now fighting against these mixers because of same reasons


It's non of their business, just as I cant have access to anyone else financial income or account, they shouldn't have access to mine, this is all about trust, security and privacy which the government refuse to render on every one of use but we got to have them through digital decentralization in bitcoin network, only for the dake of little ones who don't know how they can have this same privacy with blockchain.


Maybe we could say here that experience is the perfect teacher, those that have once been a victim would always wanted to avoid centralized exchanges.

I wouldn't show by bank account history because it's linked directly to my name and I don't want people investigating where I shop, how much and when I spend, etc. But I'm okay with Bitcoin transactions being public because, while people can see the movement of funds, they don't know whose funds are moving and it would be quite hard to investigate every transaction to see where it went.
We live in a world of little privacy, considering how the big companies that own social media platforms operate, the abundance of cameras, as well as various surveillance scandals. It's not great, but it becomes normal and acceptable for most people, to a point where privacy isn't that important.

Because they want Bitcoin transactions to be public and that's the main reason they are going against the mixers and all those services which are present to add privacy element into the transactions. We all know that it's impossible for anyone to control Bitcoin as the network as grown to huge levels and if the privacy remains the way it is then there won't be any taxes on the investors who have a lot of Bitcoin holdings I guess. There are other reasons which I don't know but I think tax is one of the those reasons and because of that they don't want the users to use tools that would make it difficult for them to see what a user owns.

The YouTube is blocking users who are having ad-blockers because it wants to have as much revenue as possible from the advertisements and now they have started their subscription model and with that model they want users to pay them on monthly basis in order to have ad-free experience. It's all about money and same is the case with Twitter now X. I believe Elon Musk has shown them the way when he introduced fee of $1 on Twitter accounts.

People want transparency however, they completely forget that someone's Private Transactions that are related to Money shouldn't be public. Bitcoin works well in this case, you can have as many public addresses as you want to keep your Digital Identity private however if you look at other services like Ethereum name Service (ENS), people are buying domain names for their addresses which was meant to hide their original identity. Isn't that funny? Paying money to make their profiles public and easy to identify.

Actually only El Salvador has Bitcoin declared as legal tender, CAR supposedly had it for a while and then they gave up on it, because who the hell cares about BTC when 90% of people in that country don't have access to the internet.

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As for privacy when it comes to Bitcoin, I believe that most people are not even aware that there are services like mixer, and besides, I don't think most people really need it, because they invest in BTC exclusively for profit and have nothing to hide. Also, some still think that Bitcoin is actually a private online payment method and we can see that by the fact that many so-called hackers sooner or later end up behind bars.

Privacy is almost impossible to achieve these days anyway, especially in the online world - from the devices we use to the pages we visit and the software we use, everyone is spying on us in some way. Those with powerful surveillance tools can very likely find out anything they want about any individual anywhere in the world.

Notice what a typical post Bob has in the picture with the correspondence in the tweet.  According to him, everyone who hides or tries to hide their transactions are criminals and do it only for criminal purposes. It never occurs to him that some people value their privacy and confidentiality. Of course, there is nothing criminal or criminal in this (in a desire to maintain privacy), although all sorts of Bobs are trying to convince us of the opposite with their cheap rhetoric.

I like Ali’s answer in their conversation and I think that with his post he put an end to that discussion. Sorry, Bob, but shouldn't you go in that very famous direction with your phrase "What do you have to hide". The point is not that people have or need to hide something, but that everyone has the right to privacy by default. If Bob wants to publish information about his bank accounts and transactions, then let him do it, but there is no need to force it on everyone else, as if this is how it should be and this is normal.

i wouldnt say people are advocating for people to not use any sort of privacy tools... just the ones that can get users in more trouble for using stupid obvious ones

decades ago i knew satoshi dice was just a mixer for silkroad users. everyone knew it but no one talked about it in those words so publicly. no one had issues with the "mixing" but only the dust spam it generated

but now regulators are specifically targeting services termed "mixers" we have idiots promoting "mixers" and even have userguides into how the funds are split into known quantity amounts and how they function making it easy for any analyst to then make patter recognition tools to then tag mixer users.. thus playing into regulators eye-line

people need to get smarter

I just have to agree it’s quite worrying when people actual ask this questions of what someone has to hide. To me privacy is more of a security measure to protect one from potential attacks. look at bitcoin it’s transactions are public but yet the advice to use different addresses every-time for new transactions is always given, not because you’re are criminal but with proper anonymity hackers won’t trace you, kidnappers won’t come for you. We have read tweets of people getting kidnapped or either their family just because the flaunt there wealth on social media. An anonymous person doesn’t face this challenges and asking them not to take this measures his like asking them to expose themselves to this threats.

Your privacy is yours to keep. If you can't keep it safe, others will always take advantage of it. Once you are under the radar, it is hard to get out because the internet is a vast place. Every single step you take here will always get recorded in some place and if that is compromised, your privacy should be compromised too.

We just ignore the fact that privacy is something when we are browsing the internet. Yeah, most of the time you don't face the consequences instantly. But trust me, when the time comes it will haunt you for the rest of your life. If those platform has something to hide, maybe they have some reason behind it. Maybe it's for their own safety. If not, they won't hide it in the first place. When it to understand it from their point of view too.

This one is I think the most plausible reason, people who doesn't have anything to lose wouldn't even care if their identity or bank account were exposed, that's the least they need to worry. And I think we all can agree that most of the population is an average Joe who has more think to be worried about than just their privacy. I am telling the truth when I say that I know some people who even sell their ID to get our one week salary, and some people verifying exchange account with their ID to just get small bonus. What I meant to say is that They aren't taking their privacy seriously, because there are more serious problem than just their privacy

I think that you may be confusing privacy for anonymity. Bitcoin is as private as you want it to be. But Bitcoin is meant to be a public ledger. An anonymization service like a mixer never was meant to be part of Bitcoin, and Bitcoin transactions were never meant to be anonymous. So it makes absolutely no difference other than to those who enjoyed a Bitcoin-based service that is no longer possible.

Anyone who wants to keep their anonymity has many options to do so.... TOR, VPN, Monero...

Well, luke jr is already compromised, so there is that. He should not remain a part of development team, I said this before, we are seeing the signs of collapse. this is just a start though, we don't even know what happened with Luke, and the rest of them, well they I don't care much.

when re-branding eligius to ocean(mummolin). they filed with the SEC. and SEC regulations now apply to that service
https://disclosurequest.com/form/mummolin-inc./0002002263-23-000001

before this year
eligius was not registered with the SEC it was just a business name registered with just state business registry. where only state business policy applied

but now they are operating as a financial business(financial security(asset) offering/facilitator) so the rules they need to follow has changed

Well, I don't know the reason why they are not taking it seriously but here's my thought or you can say my guess or maybe others will call it opinion that they will take it seriously when something bad will happen. I have seen cases like that in real life when they are not taking something seriously after something bad had happened. It may be because of censorship that they want to know even though privacy means something and it also doesn't mean that they are hiding something but I guess some people do hide something that shouldn't be hidden.

with miners censoring transactions is like a centralized platform and they chose to do it because someone is using Coinjoin. seemingly this is where we are going already especially because mining companies are now owned by big institutions.

all because a user is using Coinjoin, they already concluded the transaction to be a crime. there have to be miners out there who can pick transactions from Coinjoin.

This is quite interesting but more and more we are actually losing our own privacy and anonymity that we always discussed just because of some factors such as wanting to be proof and prestige or maybe a trend to show that we are an investor or bitcoin holder.

I think there are some things that are bound to happen, especially when we play social media and want to boast about the achievements we want to do for self-satisfaction where it is not uncommon that we show off assets or maybe discussions related to our identity as one of the holders of bitcoin which makes the discussion about anonymity or privacy actually a nonsense because it is we ourselves who expose it clearly.

People have a platonic "love" with security and then they get confused in that idea with their privacy, they are very different concepts that the banks have been in charge of "mixing" (without commercial allusion), then after years of a wrong idea in When it comes to privacy, they tend to feel it is normal that banks maintain a link between their banking information and governments, sometimes not directly, but in some way indiscreet, since the privacy of your finances is lost in the process, when just  you open your bank account, but the bank sells you a feeling of security.

So, even though the crypto environment is "infected" by these old financial tools/troubles, there are options that users should know about, thoughts the gap continues to close..

if you do want to preserve your privacy, better not use these social media platforms or not share any of vital personal transactions. in most cases, it is the user himself subjecting himself to potential threats of scamming and the likes.
and they will only be cautious once they have been a victim of online fraud.

We can blame governments for this. They've spread false propaganda, making the public believe privacy is a very bad thing. When you hide your financial activity, it could bring suspicion. That's why most people don't care about privacy, often claiming they "have nothing to hide". A pity, because this will lead crypto towards more centralization in the long run.

Governments will not only be able to see your entire financial history, but also be able to determine which transactions go through and which get frozen due to suspicious acitvity (via centralized exchanges). If we had privacy, this would've been almost impossible to achieve. It seems to me that crypto/Blockchain tech is heading into a dark future. You can see what I mean with the recent crackdown of centralized mixers. Who knows if privacy ends up being abolished by mainstream governments in the long run? :(

The government has the authority to look into anyone's financial rights that doesn't mean we have to be completely open and let everyone know what we are doing that is the difference between privacy and anonymity. Due to the evolution of social media these people also become numb to spill out their sensitive information just to see everyone hust for the sake of publicity called likes.

I dont think so because IMO in the end it depends on our intentions and purpose of playing social media because not everyone who plays social media does not mean to show themselves and eliminate their anonymity that has been maintained before.
It's just that I still feel it's about how we behave because after all, things like this are the attitudes and traits we have. If in the end we like to make ourselves seem glamorous or show the assets we have even though they don't play social media, there must be another situation that makes them show off that they are part of a bitcoin investor with a large portfolio.
I have encountered quite a few people I know like this where they don't even hesitate to show themselves and the portfolios they have just to attract someone's interest to look at them.

Not long ago the concept of banking secrecy still existed, so if a government wanted to check your financial records at a bank they will need to have some sort of probable cause and a legal order for a bank to agree to this, and if not then they could reject the request, and I think most people would agree that such model was fine as it was a nice compromise between privacy and law enforcement, but it seems we are moving away from that model and governments want to ask whatever they want and banks have to agree with it, it is why this market is now being subjected to such attacks as governments these days seem to hate any level of privacy.

There are still many people who don't want to know the importance of maintaining privacy in everyday life. There are people who prefer to show off what they have, even by posting things that are not recommended to be posted on their social media, just because they feel proud of their assets or achievements. There are also people who are very curious about other people's privacy, who ask repeatedly and ask for explicit and clear evidence about something that should be kept secret. And in this case, whether these people understand what they are commenting on or not. It seems that this really does not comply with the principle of the importance of maintaining privacy. And that's what some parties really like regarding privacy, which really doesn't need to be shared.

Nowadays, protecting our privacy is becoming harder. Centralised organisations think those who want to protect privacy are involved in illegal business. It's regrettable that even centralised exchanges are not accepting funds from those who mixed their coins in various ways. Someone informed me a few days ago that Binance asked him to show them where the transaction came from. That fund actually came from a mixer, and Binance flagged it. I am just curious why centralised exchanges even need to bother with where funds came from if there are no hacking stories related to them. Cryptocurrency is becoming centralised day by day, making it hard to protect our privacy.

Some folks are so nonchalant about this. Somehow, because they feel they have nothing to hide then the whole world should know stuff about my private life.
The fact that you have nothing to hide doesn't mean people are not trying to cause you harm. Hackers are always on the lookout for the next victim and showing the whole world your transaction history just makes it easier for them to choose who to target.

The traditional system has sold the lie of "your funds are safe with us" so well to an extent that people don't even see the need for Bitcoin, its anonymity and privacy
Asking someone who doesn't want the whole world to see their transaction history "What do you have to hide" is such a funny thing.

It isn't a coincidence privacy in crypto's getting harder.

Why send mixed funds to Binance? Who reads signing up agreements after they've downloaded apps or installed software? If Binance asks customers where their funds came from they've got to be ready for it being flagged so it's better they use other exchanges.

Because people are fed with conspiracy and lies by the government?  Well, I am not saying that the government is fully wrong on this account, there are indeed transactions that go through mixers and other cryptocurrency processors that are used for bad things, but the government is too biased about this.  Like, it is ok if fiat is used for such kinds of activities but cryptocurrency should not.


I think it is not like that, we don't show our Bitcoin transactions when someone asks it even though we all know that the Bitcoin blockchain is transparent.


Have we not talked about privacy for many years now?  If we search the forum about such threads, we can find many...  But mixers and other trace-erasing applications are different things.  These services are okay for us, but in the eyes of the authorities who want to take control of everything, that is taboo.

in today’s age where everyone feels comfortable sharing everything on the internet, it’s no surprise that they would not find sharing their bank transactions online disturbing

people share their names, contact information and addresses everywhere the lack in value of privacy has been significant more than ever in the digital age

Because they allow people who have something to hide to use their services and also profit from them. At same time it's a category of service which benefit common individuals seeking for privacy, it also enables criminals to run their schemes.

Of course not, but we live in a centralized society where there are rules and regulations to be followed. And we don't have enough power to go against such determinations enforced by authorities. If they want to see our history of transactions, we have to show them or face the consequences for breaking the rules...

Total privacy is an illusion. We don't even know what technology governments currently have under their disposal to spy us. The best to do is to have nothing to hide, always! Then, there will be nothing to be used against you!

It's a fact of life. When ppl start using new tech or when they're becoming normalised they stop worrying about what's normal. If their privacy isn't a priority because other ppl start sharing every part of their life online they do what other ppl do. I don't agree with what they're doing it but it becomes normal.

That's even above normal, although it doesn't attach importance to privacy, at least there are some restrictions that shouldn't be violated.
When someone shares a bank transaction they make, telling them how much money they have in savings, it's an acute illness because it shows off what no one else really needs to know.

Me and the people around me like to share everything I do every day, but I keep the boundaries about privacy that I can't publish.
It is a boundary that will provide a sense of security from people who have evil intentions.

I feel like the biggest usage is for that reason, doesn't mean "all" does that, but it's usually that reason and that's the most important part. You may not use it that way, but 99% of the world uses it that way and that means we d olive in a world where privacy is not that much cared anymore. Like I always say, if your privacy doesn't worth anything to you, then others breaching it shouldn't be a problem for you.

Anyone who willingly puts a selfie or group photo at instagram, can't be bothered when they get a spam mail, one is much more privacy oriented then the other, your mail is nothing you are giving away your face for free. This doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want with it, it just means that we are talking about a situation that would be just willing by the people and that's much more important. I get that some people can't understand why others are so freely giving their privacy away, but you also have to see that as the world we live in.

I won't say it isn't crazy I'd say it's an acute illness when ppl go to tiktok or facebook talking about their savings or publishing their banking. It's a different situation if you're sharing info which isn't plainly private but it's true ppl should keep boundaries or else they'll open themselves to ppl with evil ideas.

In their pursuit of transparency, governments routinely violate privacy rights. They portray financial privacy as suspicious, implying that "nothing to hide" negates privacy. Crypto now faces centralization issues. Crackdown on centralized mixers? A red flag warns of a future without privacy.

Dont underestimate Bitcoin's resilience. It began with a desire for financial independence and freedom from monitoring. Yes, the trip is rocky, but Bitcoin is decentralized at its core. Cryptocommunity must promote this principle. The war for privacy is both internal and external, to educate and redefine the narrative. Privacy is the right to regulate what we reveal and to whom. This conflict isnt done; its changing.

I agree with you that the government routinely violates our privacy as do big companies like Google, Meta, and Bank. What I do not agree with you about is financial privacy as using it terrorists, rouge nations, and politicians are busy creating a world where the life of every human is at risk. The creator of Bitcoin allowed transaction transparency but the lust for fiat made us part of the KYC campaign of CEX.

Mixers are not that solution and they cannot be as the only option as per my understanding is to make Bitcoin a people's money. Only a few countries are available where vendors accept Bitcoin and only one country has now made Bitcoin a legal tender. Do you think a person living in El Salvador would need a mixer? Your suggestion does not make sense if you are a true believer in Bitcoin.

Mixers aren't a solution but privacy coins like XMR could be if they aren't removed from centralised exchanges. Where's El Salvador standing on mixers?

If ppl continue to use those companies they're allowing their info to be given. Are you going to propose solutions because we know we're facing a losing battle against big companies. It doesn't stop ppl from using them that's unacceptable but they do it. Where's their info being sent?

Nowadays some of us posted some of our private informations on social media as we all know that it's too risky when we are posting where we  usually hangout with our friends . Cause if scammers  know all our information and all the places where we usually find then there's a  big chance that scammer will copy some of or identity then scam many people using our profile and we will shock that why other people complain about indentity.

I heard that on a number of occasions. Show us your bank statement, inside of your house, browsing history, shopping history, hard drive content... That's unless you have something to hide. Only criminals have, so if you don't want to be called a criminal you better cooperate. Fuck that.

Why? They work pretty good, whichj is why they're being attacked.


That's right "if." If I had a doctorate, I would have been a doctor...

Such show-off illnesses are called narcissistic so they feel proud to tell what they have even if dealing with their privacy.
They want to always be praised for their accomplishments, so they tell them how much money they have and so on.

It is easier to get crucial information through social media, and this will threaten its users.
But they never realize, especially with many crypto assets will certainly always be targeted for spamming,
phishing and other methods so that they fall into the trap and lose the crypto assets.

The folks who are in this category are more of those who haven't had an experience with an attempted or an actual security breach on their wallets. Which is why when we tell them to avoid, address reuse, they ignore us. When we tell them to avoid centralized exchanges because of the KYC requirements and identity exposure risk, they ignore us. With regards to CoinJoin, although they provide a degree of privacy, it is not sufficient. There's a need for further advancements like zero-knowledge proofs and confidential transactions to encrypt payment amounts and enhance privacy.

I am having a hard time understanding this sentence, Monero is surely great for privacy, but anything you do in a centralized exchange is not private. Centralized exchanges are data farms, so they have your data and you have no privacy when you use them.
BTC is a legal tender in El Salvador, so they aren't going to have any problem with mixers, but it does not matter because that is not where the 'market' is for mixers. Mixers have a bigger market in the U.S. and the government is hostile to privacy solutions.

It's true there's many examples of rich ppl who haven't flaunted wealth in social media they don't have showing off illnesses but some ppl try to get fame when they don't have talent or money. I'd say if you'll put enough info in the open ppl with bad intentions are going to cause tough damage. If ppl keep private lives away from showing it online they'll have less chance of harm by baddies. If you're telling ppl about how much crypto you've got you're inviting scammers to get to you.

While I share your sentiments regarding this mixer issue, since I've been in the industry for years now and have been an enjoyer of such services in the past. I think the crackdown on mixers right now is a little on the extreme even if they were being used by hackers/scammers to clean their money and all that shit, since at the end of the day all that they really do is make sure that your money is untraceable, to keep those same nosy people from ever having a hold of your information.

The ban on mixers in this forum doesn't help either. I just wish something amicable is taken so mixers are still able to advertise themselves in this forum, especially long running ones who have proven time and time again that they are not on the side of those that break the law.

the forum has no choice in the matter

what you dont realise is this forum is a service in the US jurisdiction meaning US law
when there are regulations involved. these cannot be ignored. as it can involve court orders, and if ignored.. court dates, fines, prison for not complying

what i believe to have happened is the Mixer owners that purposefully and in full knowledge processed sanctioned/illicit funds for a fee and got caught and charged, triggered regulators to want to gather any and all evidence about that charged suspects activities, and with them having a account on this forum promoting mixers, the task force then requested any and all information on this forum about that account holders activity..
(well thats what logic and common sense would suggest as natural chain of events of a mixer operator being caught and charged for facilitating illegal funds)

secondary to this any private or public communications or commissioned promotions with other users would then trigger those other users details to need to be investigated and collected too.. and so on

so to avoid all these legal orders requesting data on users.. its simple and much better to not advertise things that have legal ramifications

As new crypto users come, it seems that people  doesn't care about one of the characteristic of cryptocurrency which is privacy. They only comes here to earn profits and not care about the privacy they should have by using crypto. It's alarming to see people who use crypto that normalize KYC procedures, as they think it is the way it should be, just like what banks do all over this years. I like privacy and I also like having the convinience along with it.

To be honest, I submitted KYC on some platforms that I used but it doesn't mean that I like it, if there's a chance of finding alternatives or not submitting entirely, I would definitely choose it.

I just don't like the idea of normalizing the KYC stuff, we don't submit KYC years back and today, the major platforms are now requiring KUC.

KYC for currency was normalised DECADES ago.
bitcoin 2009-2013 was not a currency it was deemed private property which made it feel different to fiat currencies.. however being declared a currency in 2013 meant the fiat rules are applied to crypto services.

just because the bitcoin network does not ask for ID it does not mean the businesses that operate in the US become immune to US law.
note the difference between the bitcoin network which laws cannot snap apart. vs businesses which law enforcement can snap handcuffs on business operators breaking the law.

business operators are not default immune from the law simply by using bitcoin. so they need to think smarter. learn the law then learn the loopholes to.. not evade(illegal) but legally avoid the law traps

bitcoin users are not by default anonymous/ghosts simply by holding bitcoin, their activities off the network can link them to certain things. people need to think smarter. learn the law then learn the loopholes to.. not evade(illegal) but legally avoid the law traps

Not showing their balance is actually entirely upto them as a people and might be their culture or their business idea or whatever that sounds sacred to them but again, the chain in which they exist doesn't entirely have that feature.

If they feel like they want to enjoy true privacy while still on a blockcain solution, they should consider using privacy blockchain as it solves a whole lot of problem.

To answer your rant/title, is probably because and I do believe so that privacy is such a tiring chore and that taking the serious measures and having a presence of mind when it comes to your security takes up a lot of time for so many people and we are living in a fast paced world that wants us to do more in a 24 hour timeframe so maintaining and keeping an eye on something that can just work without your supervision is a waste of time for some people. Or a lot of us have surrendered our right to privacy and our private lives that we don't care anymore, this is probably the easiest answer to that rant.

I feel like Ocean Mining has the right to choose who they are going to work with if they deem fit or something like that because if we are not free to do that then what is the point of having these freedom that we have, I just don't like the idea that some people are attacking them or something like that. And to answer the question about the bank transactions, I definitely would show it to them if they have the warrant to check it out.

This is definitely not about one person's privacy but the importance of many. If you think about it, many people get scammed and their money has been transferred to a wallet and will be mixed or any of that "shady" "hide" stuff that you are talking about. To prevent that and have a hope to return it, it should be transparent and can be seen on the blockchain, which is the "decentralized" part of cryptocurrency. It's not just about "not hiding" but to be transparent is to let others know that you have nothing to hide.

This is not for selfish reasons, but for the many, I think.

Of course it is a different thing to show your transactions in a "BANK" but don't you think that the essence of cryptocurrency is that it's decentralized? It's transparent. If you use it, it should be accepted that it will be transparent. Do you want to go back into the fiat system where banks are in charge and it's important that you are the client? I think you're missing the point of crypto being decentralized.

Totally, that's should be the point of all of this stuff, there's a reason why bitcoin's got a public ledger so why hide something when a lot of people can benefit from not hiding and as you've said already, scammers are taking advantage of these features that many crypto offers, there's not a lot of people that I know that are happy or hyped up about the privacy that crypto wallets or mixers offers and I do agree with that statement, if you have nothing to hide then why be scared? No one can tamper a transaction that's already been done already and I think that if mixers and wallets that hide transactions cooperate with stuff involving money laundering and criminal activities, they might be able to keep their businesses but at the core of it all, it breaks the principle of privacy so a lot of people are still divided about this to this day. Sometimes the good of the many is what matters and in the case of this one, the people that will benefit from transparency is larger than those that won't benefit.

Wether we accept if or not, it is a matter of time before privacy will be dead I regards to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. The recent developments have already shown that anything that has privacy attached to it will either be taken down tagged a bad name like "dark net". The authorities want to see everything and they will stop at nothing to achieve that, we don't have a choice other than to comply like we are already doing.

Maybe they have to find a new meaning of privacy,  like privacy provided by the authorities or controlled by them.

At the moment, we might still feel there can be privacy in the digital space but soon we will come to term with reality that nothing is and will be really private

That's the sad reality and people rarely bother about their privacy and end up regretting later. I don't understand why do we have to be transparent ? Crypto is not made for that and we need our own privacy but due to the recent crackdown on mixers people has started thinking that if they use mixers then they are committing a crime or getting into something illegal which isn't the reality. We have right to have privacy on every single thing let it be crypto or any other details just like our bank balance and account details or secret pins and password.

We need to understand one thing that unless we do something illegal or go against law we don't have to justify or feel pressure about as this is an psychological game played to make crypto a decentralized and open source stuff so that they can have more control over our finances.

That's sad because it gives governments more power/control over people's lives. With privacy/anonymity, it's hard (if not impossible) to get ahold of your entire life. Most people have nothing to hide, so they don't care about privacy at all. This will slowly but surely lead us into a future where privacy-preserving techniques will be banned by mainstream governments for good. Hiding your utmost sensitive information from the government, will raise nothing more than suspicion.

When you see governments attacking mixers and no-KYC exchanges, it means they hate privacy. Now there's a situation with a BTC mining pool censoring transactions linked to Samourai wallet's "Whirlpool" privacy-preserving technique. For the average Joe, this is nothing. But for hardcore crypto and privacy enthusiasts like me, this is alarming news. Hopefully, privacy will prevail on the long run. As long as there are people defending their right to privacy, nothing else matters. Just my thoughts ;D

Think about those everyday moments you post online, like what you eat or who you're with. While it might seem harmless, sharing that information in real-time can reveal clues about your routines and habits, making it easier for someone to track you or invade your privacy.

Even if you wait a few days before posting, remember that nothing online truly disappears. Those seemingly insignificant details can add up over time, painting a detailed picture of your life for anyone who knows where to look.

The desire for validation can be especially dangerous when it comes to sharing sensitive information. We see this with people who post about their finances, including their Bitcoin transactions. While Bitcoin is supposed to be anonymous, openly sharing those details exposes you to potential financial harm.

The internet is like a public square - anything you share there becomes part of the record, and it's virtually impossible to erase it completely. That's why it's so important to be cautious and think twice before you hit "post."

It's difficult to accept but what you're saying's possible. If it's going to happen ppl won't be able to stop it because govts want to control the movement of finance. Crypto exchanges are being targeted to make them comply with govt rules so they've got to be centralised with KYC. If they go after decentralised exchanges ppl won't be able to swap crypto without giving away info.

It could be what privacy's going to mean tomorrow.

people just need to get smarter and stop thinking privacy is default..
after all an empty house does not come with curtains or blinds. when you move in you need to get curtains and blinds to stop the neighbours peeking in your windows, yep privacy in your own home is not default when you move in

a few idea's for those talking about "privacy coins" and "anonymity enhanced subnetworks"

heres an idea for you
create a network in secret and write a white paper
dont mention privacy, dont mention cryptocurrency, dont mention virtual asset(VA)

instead describe it as a PPDA "private property digital asset" and file it with the patent office... and bam you have invented a new class of technology which can be defended in court if governments wanted to re classify as a currency, cryptocurrency or Virtual Asset
(NFT are treated differently than cryptocurrencies, so make a PPDA as different to CC as possible in its descriptions)

now part of the white paper would be to not call services that swap fiat for your PPDA as an exchange/Money Service. instead call them retailers that allow the buy.. and auctions that allow the sell of the PPDA

use terms that ensure your privacy coin is not a privacy coin even if it at code level provides that utility for people who use it

the government are themselves putting their 'CBDC distributed ledger' in a different category to 'VA blockchains' even though they are very similar in their technology

be smart. learn what regulators are categorising and think of something outside of that..

its why uber didnt use the name ubercab's  to avoid taxicab regulations

It is easy to say why hide a balance. But if you have 25 legit btc in your wallet worth about  1.1 million and you want to cash out a coin why must you reveal the other 24.

I am USA based I have been doing btc a long time.

If I mined a block in 2012 and I am sitting on the entire block of 50 coins cost basis of $500 USD. At ten a coin. Reported mining earnings of 500 in 2012. I am 100% legit tax compliant.

Now I pull a coin from the wallet send it to coinbase and let it sit.  I still owe no tax. but coinbase gets to see my other 49 coins.

Now a month later I cash the coin and get 45k I owe cap gains and pay it.

I did nothing wrong. But I have surrendered my legal privacy to 49 btc.

I should be able to not surrender privacy in this case.


reality is this very likely not the biggest reason to hide your balances. but it is fully legit in the usa.

In addition to being a privacy violation, the concept behind this has resulted in the shooting deaths of a few American rappers, as sharing their whereabouts and real-time activities makes them vulnerable to assailants who view their skill as a barrier to success.
Returning to cryptocurrency, this will leave investors and holders vulnerable to unscrupulous attacks.
Having said that, it is unfortunate that some people will continue to disregard their privacy unless they are taught a valuable lesson.

years ago i split my hoard up into different pots of funds for that exact reason
short term play/trade/exit money
mid term hoarding to play the occassional market price wave
long term just hoard

dont blame the CEX that you decided to keep all coin on one UTXO/address

That the world we're living in. If you're going to spend some of the bitcoin you're going to tell the exchange what other coins you've got on the same address.

They're going to bring in laws for regulated exchanges but American law won't be the same as New Zealand or Mongolia. It's going to be about the country you're living so laws are going to be different. In time trying to keep some crypto swaps private's going to get restricted so we're going to lose more privacy.

never said that I have a pile of coins worth millions.

But if you look at the first three or four million blocks many are not touched.

So quite a few may not be in the shape you are in.

The case for privacy for those early untouched blocks is real. But we all know they stay frozen.

Well, I have noticed that a lot of people just don't care about the privacy thing, as long as the Cryptocurrency or blockchain, or even whatever payment platform they are using is serving them as needed.

Another thing again I have noticed is that most people would complain about how they don't have hundred percent privacy with these companies, but at the end they still go back to these same companies. Maybe they would be all taken seriously, when they start to take themselves serious by staying away or boycotting platforms that tries to invade their privacy.

I understood better when you discussed it like that. I agree that it's all about the balance that you have and not just focusing on the transactions. I never thought of it that way. I do agree that it's already visible to who you are sending it to, seeing the balance. Aren't there workarounds with that already? Or just the mixing or joining thing is the solution?

Governments are increasing their surveillance efforts with the excuse of preventing (or minimizing) as much criminal activity (money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing) as possible. But we all know their real intentions. They will ultimately abolish privacy/anonymization techniques to prevent people from getting true financial freedom. Only government officials and bankers will be able to achieve privacy.

Even though governments won't be able to shut down decentralized mixers, most people won't dare to use something that's "banned" from mainstream use. Those who are caught mixing "behind the scenes", will either face fines or jail time. It's a dark future we're heading into. So prepare yourself for the worst. :(

Platforms like centralized exchanges and services that are data farms, most people don't care about privacy or censorship, they just want BTC to pump so that they can make money, so many people in the network do not care if the government gets some form of control over the network, especially through the miners, we can see that some miners are starting to embrace censorship and by doing so they are attacking BTC and its fungibility. Only few people in the network identify this as a problem, as long as it isn't their tx's that's being censored, then they are fine, all they are concerned about is the next pump in price.

There are a few reasons why people might not take their privacy seriously.
- Lack of awareness: Many people simply don't understand the importance of privacy, or don't know how to protect their personal information online.
- Convenience: People may be more likely to share their information if it makes their life easier or more convenient. For example, many people sign up for services that require them to share their personal information without fully understanding the implications.
- Misplaced trust: Some people may trust companies or organizations with their personal information without fully understanding the risks involved. This can be especially true for social media platforms, where people may

Choosing convenience over security and privacy is a quick way to lose your funds, but nevertheless so many people do it, and that's why many people lose their funds when an exchange bites the dust or is hacked, they also lose their funds when they expose their seed phrase or their device gets compromised, etc.

This is because too many people store their funds in exchanges because they think it is more convenient than self custody, people also back up their seed phrase in their email account or in their device's notepad, so it would be 'easier' for them to access it, etc. It isn't 'convenience' that matters, but security and privacy, and i wish more bitcoiners understood this.

How can anyone show people their bank account just because they want to see? Its stupid if anyone does this because you are bringing problems for yourself, even if they don't attack you to drain money from you, they can just decide to bounce on you spiritually to deal with you for showing off.

In my country I always have to pretend like I don't have anything, because this is the only way that some bad people can overlook you, thinking you are broke, you just have to pretend along and wear less casual dresses.

Like I told someone today, a rich man is not safe in the circles of many poor people, to really be safe you need to live among rich people like you, that's why in my country the rich people do have their own places that's well guided, like an estate for the rich, no one can go in there without many security men crawling up to your gut.

Bitcoin isn't that popular yet which is why many criminals are not using it in crime already but I doubt this won't be a problem in the future, so its better to keep it to yourself if you are into Bitcoin, pretend like you don't have none.

Not only bitcoiners but hopefully normal people who have digital banks and accounts as well.

I've worked in a service desk environment for quite some time, and I know that a lot of people, including high-ranking members of the organization I support, use passwords that are too common to be guessed immediately. Most even use their work emails to visit some suspicious websites and complain that they are receiving lots of spam emails offering them something. They don't understand that they are easily targetable by a lot of malicious entities out there. Heck, if these guys are careless in handling their work data, I believe they are this way with their personal accounts as well. No mixer, or any other service or software for that matter, can help these guys unless they are properly educated.

A lot of people still ignore privacy because they believe that they can always seek help from authorities in resolving their concerns. In bitcoin and crypto, you can't do that, and you only have yourself to make sure that your property is safe and secure. I understand that mixers offer an avenue to criminals to launder money, but fiat is also used to launder money in large scale way before crypto is invented, so the hate that people give to mixers is kind of biased when the same scenario can be done with fiat money, too.

This is will be a very difficult trend to overcome, over the last decades there has been a very strong push for more convenient services, and now you can acquire almost anything you can imagine by just using your smartphone, and in such environment it is not easy to convince people that they need to let go of some of that convenience so they can attain a higher level of security and privacy, especially when many people feel they do not really have anything to hide.

That's the problem. A lot of centralized services are dominating crypto and the Internet as we speak. Even when some of these services are KYC-free, they still collect your data by looking into your browsing habits (eg: Facebook). People won't care about privacy as long as they get convenience in return.

With governments hunting down anything that provides privacy/anonymity, the days of personal freedom are over. We'll be heading into a future where surveillance states will dominate the world. Everything you do will be known by the government. There won't be hope if we don't defend our right to privacy. Who knows what surprises we'll find in the long run?  :-\

I am not trying to convince anyone, but it is good for people who want to use BTC to understand that it is different from fiat and centralized banks, some people try to use BTC like they are using their fiat bank, they store funds in centralized exchanges, they allow centralized exchanges to control their keys and use their money for fractional reserve scam. I think for such people it may be better for them to go on using fiat 'conveniently', than using BTC in that way, because they would probably lose their funds along the line and blame the network.

That's dope, Your thoughts regarding privacy make some sense. That people take their funds and keep them in the exchange, and they say that we use the decentralized ecosystem, but according to you, they keep their assets like fiat currency and banking, which is a big stupidity that you are also BTC holders. And if he is also placed in the centralized exchange, then, in my opinion, there can be no more foolishness than this; his example is like making a cat a watchman for meat. Scammers can also steal your funds from exchanges. So it means to take care of yourself. If you have a lot of money, then keeping it in a safe place is called the right privilege.

It means protecting privacy and using hardware wallets instead of centralized exchanges. Exchanges should not be trusted; even if it's Binance, they can't protect your funds either from themselves or from hackers, because just by being online, you can lose your funds if your security arrangements are not strong.

i am guessing up until, with all the hacking and issues that CEXs encountered throughout the years, still there are so many people storing their funds to the exchange for various reasons. one for example that i've read here in the forum is because of the rising fees, they will give directly their exchange address to save fees in transferring their money. well, that's understandable. but one should frequently check his exchange account as some exchanges will change the address you have. so if you are too late to be notified, you don't know if you can still get the money supposedly going to your account. aside from that, once you received your funds, better convert to whatever coin you want to or fiat, and get out from the exchange. send it to your own wallet where you have total control.

sometimes you need to sacrifice your privacy in order to get your funds in fiat. unless, you can find a trustworthy p2p app without kyc to convert your crypto to your fiat. this is why most crypto users can't escape the privacy thing because if you start using a reputable p2p service, you really need to submit kyc for you to use their services. otherwise, you are subjecting to high risk of being scammed. your choice!

It won't be easy for govts to take over privacy laws. There's human right defender organisations which fight for privacy laws. As a final outcome you'd expect govts to win but it won't be easy. It's going to take years for govts to abolish each law that's supposed to protect our privacies.

I'm sure ppl won't use decentralised mixers if they're banned. Any ppl caught using illegal services will be fined or face jail because they'll be involving themselves with crime so decentralised exchanges could go out of business. That hasn't happened but the future's uncertain.

even human rights do not give the right to privacy where governments cannot audit people.. read it


people have the right to privacy against other people.. but not to the laws of government

and now you know why "anti money laundering and anti terrorism" clauses of keeping public order, welfare and morality allow governments to audit peoples finances

I believe there are criminals everywhere, not just in the crypto space. Even banks in  all their  assumed exposure are still been hacked and use funds Catered away  sometimes without trace for a long period of time.

These are just deliberate attacks on bitcoin because it promises freedom from government interference. I love living a private life and if using mixers and other services gives me that satisfaction, then why wouldn't I use it?.

Criminals are everywhere and I believe if any parastatal wants to track fraudulent activities, they can track it, even down to mixers as the case may be and not generalizing about the whole thing being fraud. Bitcoin  supports privacy and people should embrace it. That's freedom which the government doesn't want you to have and are afraid to let you have it.

privacy should be a top priority for everyone. it is a basic human right. privacy is security.

anyone who is attacking privacy is likely in the super rich club helping to push agenda 2030. that fact jack dorsey isn't mining whirlpool blocks tells me he's a paid actor, he's not in the interest of the people. sure he's a great advocate for bitcoin, the way elon is a great advocate for freedom. watch what they do, not what they say.

the reason most people say things like - "I have nothing to hide" "privacy is for criminals" is because there's been trillions of dollars spent to make you think that way. you've been programmed your whole life through your parents, school, TV, hollywood etc. your entire belief system has been installed into you (the matrix).

2023 is the year you think for yourself. you're been deceived beyond belief.

I made a thread here, lots of good replies:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5474892.0

Indeed, criminals lurk in every corner. Cyber heists, which target banks and show how common theft is, happen all the time. This is not only about Bitcoin; it's also about power in general. Governments are afraid of Bitcoin's promise of freedom, so they often portray it as a place where bad things happen. Why? Because it threatens their power.

Its your right to use mixers for privacy. It gives you power over your own data, which is something that the traditional financial system often takes away. Bitcoin is more than just money; its a sign of defiance against overreach. The government has good reason to be afraid of Bitcoin. It gives people power and freedom that worries old power structures.

We do need to remember, though, that great power comes great duty. Bitcoin isnt a way to hide illegal actions; its a way to free up your money. Some people who abuse it shouldnt take away from its promise.

Illegal acts exist outside of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just a peer-to-peer network that is decentralized. It's not Bitcion's fault that people are misusing it. The government is afraid that because of its decentralized nature, crime and illegal activities will increase, but this is not the case; illegal activities also happen outside of Bitcoin. The government's main objective is to defame Bitcoin and save its fiat currency; it just wants to defame Bitcoin by making false accusations so that Bitcoin becomes less popular among people and people consider it a useless eco system.
 
And as for Mixer, I think the foundation of Mixcer is based on Anynomus, and now it is said about Mixcer on BitcoinTalk that the US government wants to make KYC mandatory for Mixer, but this is wrong. This government is forcibly interfering in these matters because they don't want people to stop acting like this. It's meant that no one has to do anything without the eyes of their government, but this will not be possible. People know that Bitcoin is a better and more valuable thing.

Exactly. While most people will avoid decentralized mixers out of fear, that doesn't mean it's the end of the world. There will be a small few using and supporting these services secretly. All that matters is that people obtain financial privacy whenever governments approve it or not. Wasn't the whole point of Bitcoin about eliminating the middleman? Both banks and governments are the anti-thesis of crypto/Blockchain tech.

Most people don't understand this because they're only focused on filling their pockets with money. They let "Wall Street" dictate the rules of the game, instead of letting crypto (particularly Bitcoin) achieve its full potential. I guess greed goes above all else. Governments will continue to increase their surveillance efforts with the hopes of curtailing privacy in the long run. The question is: Will you allow the government to take away your privacy rights? ;D

That's what sig campaigns does because ppl are in sigs for money to fill their pockets. They don't keep checks on important things in crypto like helping bitcoin to be free from govt control. If ppl were speaking with one voice they'd advocate strong bitcoin adoption but ppl will stand aside while their privacy's taken away.

I think it's less about the fact that they don't care about their privacy, after all for a regular bloke who wouldn't go out of their own way to create numerous transactions in a day, the current system that the cryptocurrency world is built in is already safe and secure as it is. And as I said, it's less about the lack of care for safety and privacy, and more about the fact that these platforms you mentioned are not only being used for privacy, but to also wash dirty money and obscure hackers and scammers. At the end of the day to the government every sliver of risk is more than enough indication that something deserves to be investigated and if in any case found to be perpetrating such acts, be banned from being used.

It's just the way things go in the land of the free home of the whopper, and some other countries that affiliate themselves with Murica. We got no choice but to really deal with it at this point and in bitcointalk's case, relinquish any affiliation with such platforms to save this site from getting the brunt of the blow as well.

the issue with this topic is..
many people do care about their privacy and know how to remain private

however there are a small group of "mixer" affiliate/advertisers that think that mixers aid privacy

the reality is that its a known researchable FACT that using mixers invades people privacy because they are put into a watchlist.. thus doing the opposite of aiding privacy
tose who dont want to be watched/logged/investigated should not be using tools that will end up having their utxo's added to watchlists(common sense)

however this group of mixer affiliates do not care about users real privacy, they simply want to fool people into using mixers so that mixers get paid to then pay their advertisers.

..
there are many many ways to remain private without advertising yourself to be added to a hotlist of people to follow