Bitcoin Forum

https://njump.me/nevent1qqstf99gr6n408rdqqt4su3yw2agdw6ydjy69apae7pkpsgrpk7yevspzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejsz9mhwden5te0dehhxarj9enx6apwwa5h5tnzd9aqz9thwden5te0v4jx2m3wdehhxarj9ekxzmnyqy28wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hst0vkjz

Now, I have seen stupid bills proposed by this house before, but this is the absolute most ridiculous piece of legislation I have ever seen.

To say that not reusing an address is mixing? Man, what happens when someone only receives a payment one time and doesn't move the funds?

Also what is stopping people from creating a new transaction that sends the UTXO from the address back to itself in a new UTXO?

They don't even know anything about how crypto works and they are already greedy and trying to extract taxes from Americans and apparently non-Americans too since there is no way you can differentiate between them or force an open-source software to give you an ID.

Funny, at the same time hilarious. It's obvious that this proposed bill was clearly introduced by someone or group of people with a zero knowledge. So just by not reusing my wallet address makes it mixing  ???, Then I think they will have a hard time digging out so many  dormant wallets that has only made a single transaction.

This is clearly the problem here. Lacks of knowledge will make someone ignorant and tend to spit rubbish. Unfortunately, those without the knowledge happens to be the rulers.

I think the part  were "unhosted wallet providers" are forced to collect user ID for task would be a tough fight between the law and the providers. All wallet providers understand the importance of privacy, and how the Bitcoin community value it. Everyone seems to be in a tight angle, as certain decisions must be taken. Though, it's still a proposed bill, but it's very funny and hilarious as none crypto users are now dictating.

I came across details on single-use addresses : https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1795943072171172059?t=HmFA-lMjzMvIQHzl5huJLA&s=19

So they plan to target wallets that offer address reuse calling them mixers and forcing the to either disable the feature or close them down. But most reputable wallets are open source, so if this is their target it'll just push more users to use those.

In the end, I may be giving the law makers too much credit and they're just making up laws on the fly with zero knowledge of what they're doing.

They're basically preventing nothing because it seems that there's no clause in the legislation that says about creating another address, I guess when it's the geriatric and senile that's running your country, you're going to eventually see this kind of thing happen to your country. It also affects the fact that these old politicians doesn't really understand how technology works and even if you tell it to them, pretty sure that it will just go right over their heads, I mean look at what happened during that questioning that they did with Zuckerberg and the TikTok CEO, they can't get a straight answers because their questions were all stupid and doesn't really line up with logic.

The only thing that this legislation is going to do is to make it harder for US people to use crypto.

As if it wasn't hard enough already.

There's going to be two groups of crypto users in the world soon, the US users and the rest of the world. Because they want everybody there to use only large custodial services so that they can extract lots and lots of capital gains taxes. And the sad thing is, many of those people actually don't care about self-custody and just look at "number go up brrrr" until it's time to pay the tax collector.

Did they forget the step in which they make mixing illegal first?

What if my wallet automatically creates a new change address? What if my address is no longer secure, and I need a new one? What if quantum computing makes every used address insecure?

It sounds like politicians who have no idea what they're talking about. Unfortunately, that's valid for almost all subjects they get to decide on.

Maybe we can get a government approved wallet that provides each of us with a government approved address, let's call it a Social Security Address (SSA), that will be the only address you can use for the rest of your life? We can all feel much safer that way!

This just shows the situation of current politicians in position. It just means that american citizens need to elect better people who can study properly about different topics and implement laws that are appropriate for the matter at hand.

As long as the government has its misconceptions about crypto or bitcoin, they are never going to be in favor of it.

Now that you've mentioned something about this bullshit of a legislation, I suddenly remembered that I'm from a country that's pro-American so whatever legislation the US is doing there, it will definitely be a thing here to, one example is the banning of Binance by the US SEC, months later, the motherfuckers here in my country that's also called the SEC did the banning too. So it will eventually become, US and the Philippines and the rest of the world. Americans really need to start investing in their future by voting the least retarded politicians in power.

This legislation as it is written has obvious structural problems so it is most likely going to be killed before it ever sees the House floor, but that doesn't mean they won't try to revise it and make it more sinister.



Unfortunately that's not going to cut it because the candidates and even the primaries are full of politicians with a critical mass of retardation. Republicans being the worse of the two at the moment, but it's not like Democrats don't have their own problems.

It's strange how the system works. A person, who has no idea about Bitcoin and only has heard about it from a neighbour or a close friend, comes with an idea to make restrictions that he doesn't know. If you use a new address instead of an old one, you are mixing coins? That's insane. Sometimes when I try to pay utilities via local paybox, I have to change the note in the supermarket or with someone else because the paybox fails to scan the banknote. Am I mixing or laundering money in this case? It's insane.

Sometimes I sit and think, what if the privacy of Bitcoin was on Monero's level? What if Monero was the first cryptocurrency? What would they do against it?

The ridiculousness doesn't stop there though. There are also other worrying criteria of "CVC mixing", especially these points which are very common feature on many cryptocurrency wallet.

Yeah this is going to alienate even the big crypto exchanges like Coinbase, I wouldn't be surprised if they lobby for these kind of bills (there will probably be future bills like this in the near future as well) to be killed.

I mean, if their goal is to help damage the american economy, they are doing a pretty good job at that, because that is where this is heading too. Fast food becoming a luxury, streaming services becoming like cable TV, you get the idea.

My opinion: just a bunch of WILD conspiracy theories with nothing to back it up. Also asking for people to DONATE. That seems like the overall goal of the whole thing so pull out your bitcoin wallets folks. He wants you to make a donation to some outfit.  :o Maybe you guys didn't notice but he pushes that donation thing hard which is a complete turnoff...

You would strongly suggest people give them money? Thanks for letting me know! I am sending all my bitcoin right away  ;D

I agree, this is beyond insanity. It's like asking from a 9-year old to propose a piece of legislation that will prevent money laundering. It's clear that they're not trying to ban it anymore. They want to take advantage of it, by illegalizing any sort of privacy enhancement the user can get. It's like trying to turn Bitcoin into a CBDC.

Haven't they passed such law in the US already? I remember reading about "unhosted wallets" being considered illicit until proven otherwise.

Most politicians are actually ignorant of cryptocurrency, and most of them prioritize greediness over their persona as corrupt government officials. Such types of politicians are
embarrassing in real life.

The kind of government officials who always think of nothing else but themselves are shameful; they are too blind to the brighter side of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency;
they always think of their own welfare and not the welfare of the people under their jurisdiction.

It makes you think their purpose for running in the first place. They are all so greedy of power and wealth that they take up places in congress or in senate even if they know they would not be contributing anything to their country.

I wonder how they can be so clueless about this. They all have the means to learn about it but they believe too much about what only they know.

Yeha, I thought I would run into this here also..

So, how about everyone calm down?
Here is the full text not speculations:


In short, mixing is defined as doing  a, b ,c ,d e with the purpose of hiding the originating and final address.

They don't plan on banning or punishing any of those actions, the define mixing with intent as a a cumulation of those actions!

By this proposal mixing is defined as tuning single wallets to perform this action, IT DOESN'T define using single addresses as mixing!
You know the whole thing of a bear is a mammal but not every mammal is are bears?
Driving 90km/h in a city is a crime but driving 90km/h is not on its own alone!

This is why politicians desperately need to learn how Bitcoin/Crypto works. You can't write legislation that makes any sense when you don't have a clue how the thing in question works. These ideas are coming from not understanding that cryptocurrencies work completely differently from banks.

The industry needs legislation, but first Congress needs to a basic understanding of how this stuff works. They need like a two day bootcamp to get them up to speed on the basics, then they'd laugh at these stupid ideas.

to NotATether

please read the stuff you quote, and learn the reality of actual definitions, and not just the clickbait
heres a hint:

its not about classifying single use wallets/addresses as mixing

its about classifying mixing as mixing.. whereby mixers use single use addresses and send value through a series of transactions
(appearing as spam spending multiple times in a short period) to obfuscate whom is involved start middle or end

normal people dont spend value through a series of transactions which the coordinator has the keys for to obfuscate if the series is one coordinator or multiple participants in a chain of rapid hops
instead normal people just pay the destination in one transaction
mixing however DOES use the process of single use addresses and hops the payments through multiple transactions before getting to the intended recipient

but note. though this does not impact normal users paying normal destinations even in single use address.. it does impact spammers that spam value in every block multiple times in a short period,
 

In such an alternative/parallel universe (science says they exist btw) Bitcoin wouldn't gain any mainstream traction, no ETFs either.

It's very clear to me they envision to turn BTC into a pseudo-CBDC. And that's just the start, more is coming next from BlackRock...

In general, I share the concerns laid out in the OP.

There's still a difference between what is written in this FinCEN proposal, and "considering all re-using of addresses money laundering". Basically what they seem to want is for financial institutions to have to report customers engaging frequently in such actions and are already suspicious to do mixing in jurisdictions outside the US, what is already known in AML regulation as a "risk based approach".

There's also a part where they talk talk about possible legitimate mixing usage:

FinCEN proposal from October 2023 (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-10-23/pdf/2023-23449.pdf)

So at least they don't say that every mixing is illegal or suspicious (PMLC - "primary money laundering concern").

Anyway I'm not as optimistic as @stompix here. The broad wording could lead to a lot of false positives, and would also create a nightmare for Bitcoin's fungibility if this data is leaked and shared. I think if the Human Rights Foundation (that's the cited tweet coming from) is criticizing this, then it's serious.

JjBitcoin is important and have been in strict domination in these past years. Montero is also one of the promising projects but it doesn't mean we should overhyped them, rather focused more on the current projects that have set in fruitful evidence in placr. We can only make imaginations about things but they don't come to pass because there's always hits to accomplish in the system.

i dont understand why people want to use mixing services in the first place. but they probably shouldn't be doing it since it is shady. if you need privacy then use something meant for privacy like monero. and deal with the consequences. if there are any but don't turn bitcoin into something it's not and then make everyone have to pay...

i think that pdf document also discusses how doing things like atomic swaps is just another form of mixing. and i agree it's probably just as egregious as using mixing services because essentially that's what people probably use them for is to obfuscate the source of the funds...

I understand that.

But this draft conflates both of them together. It could be interpreted to mean any of these conditions being violated or multiple (or all of them).

That is why I don't think this bill is going to succeed.

Having said that, I am still strongly against this bill, and already knowing your position about mixers, this will be the only reply I'll be writing to you here about this subject.

As much as this is a really good opinion about US politics, you don't understand a lot about how greedy and vile these people are going to be when it comes to holding their power and position in the government, even if you want to believe that there's a fair election in the US, there's bound to be some form of manipulation so the people that doesn't deserve to be in power will be the ones that's going to get elected. There needs to be more than just banding together in the US other than choosing the right politicians to be on the position. Remember that this is also applicable to every country so make sure that you're doing it right. Regarding the stupidity of the US Congress, they're just going to make things more complicated for their people to get into cryptocurrency, I guess when you have old people that don't even know how to convert their PDFs to a Word document, you're bound to get this kind of legislation.

I'm glad that I'm not a US citizen and I don't live in the USA. The problem is that the USA is trying to act as an empire and impose it's legislation on other jurisdictions. If those jurisdictions don't voluntarily "bend a knee to the master" then they get punished with sanctions.
The only consequence of such legislation would be US Bitcoiners moving their BTC funds in centralized exchanges located outside the USA(I know that having a hardware wallet is better, but many people still use hot wallets). Maybe soon the hardware wallets like Ledger and Trezor will start complying with such stupid regulations and many BTC HODLers will have to move their BTC somewhere else. I hope that the Republicans will win the elections and stop this nonsense.

There can't be a false positive when this is a definition and the purpose of the law targets the one that is defined there.

Let's give you an example from EU directives, in my parents' line of work, agriculture, we have this:


Now, if we apply paranoia-level distrust, by the same standard it would mean that everyone who is engaged in some agricultural activity, meaning you picking your apples will be subject to this directive, right?  ;D ;D ;D And wait till you realize that by having a rabbit and since you're growing it's agricultural activity, so should I give you the list of food and banned drugs you're not allowed to treat/feed it? And since you are a farmer how you should lawfully dispose of it?

But no, let's go even further, in 2017 EU proposed a directive banning cage farming, it banned the raising of any animal in a cage unless certain dimensions would be considered, how many people landed in jail for having a parrot or a canary on their balcony?  ;D


No, it doesn't, it gives a definition for mixing that it is a conflation of multiple activities.
Nothing in this world would be possible if not using these things, a fraudulent financial transaction to be punishable it must be defined, so what makes it an unlawful banking transaction? First, you would need to define a banking transaction but obviously, not every financial transaction is illegal, not every time someone deceives someone there is a financial transaction, but you need a complete definition for that to cover every aspect.

They are surely stepping up with their crazy shit but I don't think this bill will be accepted any time soon.
I think they are creating stuff like this to shock people so that when they propose other restrictions they don't look so drastic, this is the strategy they use all the time with other law changes.

Should people also create new bank accounts every time they receive new fiat payment?  :P
I think people seriously need to think about making drastic changes with this rotten government model we live today, but I am sure Trump will ''fix'' this in next election circus show.

As far as I have understood the proposed regulation, that's what FinCen expects from covered financial institutions (such as banks or exchanges):

- regularly conduct blockchain analysis on the CVC (=cryptocurrency) funds they can connect to their customers (e.g. via deposits and withdraws)
- if they suspect that a customer is engaged in CVC mixing, then reporting the customer and the associated transactions.

The problem is just that the definition is not precise enough, and that blockchain analysis itself can fail or lead to false positives. Let's suppose we have a customer of an US exchange which has bought Bitcoins on a P2P exchange to an entity which later was linked to Iran or North Korea (due to blockchain analysis). The customer does use CoinJoins to protect his privacy. So we have here all ingredients present that the exchange must report the customer and his transactions - even if the customer didn't at all have any bad intention: he has interacted with a suspicious entity, and he has done CoinJoins which are a subclass of the transactions which the FinCEN deems as "CVC mixing".

Of course that doesn't mean that legal action will be taken against this person, but the fact that all his activity will have to be reported, means that a lot of people become "suspicious" basically only due to best practices like CoinJoining or using single-use addresses in combination with using P2P exchanges (where as a private person it's very difficult to know if you're interacting with a criminal, although of course there are some red flags, like a very cheap price).

In fact, they acknowledge the problem themselves in the section "(C) Clients of Primary Affected Parties", where their argument is that if a privacy-oriented person is reported, then nothing may happen and their data will be well protected  :D ::)

If you have another interpretation of the FinCEN proposal I'm eager to hear yours :) But please let's stay close to the text of the proposal.

There is also this opinion by the Samourai lawyers (https://blog.samourai.is/our-response-to-fincen-on-proposed-rules-for-bitcoin-mixing/), very technical but interesting for those wanting to see the details of the criticism.

Oh, it's pretty simple
Is someone trying to obfuscate the source and the destination of the funds? Then
A- is he using multiple one-use addresses to transfer those coins > he is mixing it
B- is he using only one address that he has used 1000 times before? he is not mixing his funds


Apart from the fact that I would not take advice from the lawyers of a guy who landed in jail based on their advice, even they say the same thing, it's a tentative definition encompassing activities. But, let's make it far easier, how would you define mixing transactions if it were up to you to write a law about it ? I'm pretty sure you're going to end with the same text!

As arrogant as they talk about how to control a decentralized sector, please don't introduce things that they just want to lock us up to manage. The meaninglessness of the imposition only increases contradictions and makes more people turn away and not trust what they do.

I think about things that in the future if they continue to express their attitude of wanting to control bitcoin (crypto), perhaps it will develop in a way that ignores their involvement, and needs to be the way they exist. It's just a formality that doesn't help create harmony in the crypto community.

Same thing has happened in India which once had highest number of traders and now Binance is banned along with all the other foreign exchanges to pressurise them to implement so called law of land to tax 30% on gains and 1% TDS on every transactions.

The problem is they don't have any idea about crypto or Bitcoin and jump to conclusions with their limited knowledge which is too dangerous and also they are so cruel that even if they understand still they will go against it since they don't have control over it.

And how exactly would you know that?

On the blockchain you can only see that this user only uses single-use addresses, not his "intent".
You can now pay a chain analysis firm to see if they can link them together. You can then suspect that if he made internal transfers (i.e. within his own addresses), then he's "trying to obfuscate source and destination". But that would mean that you cannot make even basic privacy improvements, not even UTXO consolidations, without being suspected as "obfuscating".

The problem is not so much the "mixing" definition. There should be an exact definition when these transactions become suspicious to be linked with criminal entities, and that's missing in the FinCEN proposal. If I overlooked it then please quote it :) Thus, the consequence will be that any "internal wallet transactions" of any customer, which are linked with coins that the chain analysis firms consider even slightly "tainted" will have to be reported by the businesses covered by this measure (banks, exchanges ...). I guess that's a lot of customers they'll have to report.

Especially that this is done automatically, often without the user even knowing that the unspent change is stored on another address within the same wallet.
AFAIK you cannot blame someone for this and treat him like a criminal if there was no intent to break the law, even if such law exists.
ALso, who's there to blame if it's the software that does it automatically for the user? Ban all bitcoin software when coinbase is using that software to store bitcoin for blackrock? :D

there is

mixing is not illegal in all cases/uses due to criminal use specifically.. because criminal use specific mixing is then called LAUNDERING
so theres your definition of criminal use of mixing... LAUNDERING


much like the use of funds sent through alot of hops of addresses(series of transaction) in quick succession is called TUMBLING
and when using single use addresses+tumbling is then defined as a class of mixing*
regulators for years have listed tumbling plus other features as suspicious red flags that raise the level of suspicion threshold to be worth of investigating as mixing

mixing is not default illegal due to launder as-is from the start. its just suspicion rated as linked to possible laundering.. it is however possibly illegal for other reasons which are other reasons of needing suspicious investigation
for instance IF the coordinator is accepting a direct fee for operating the service and processing payments on behalf of other users.. because they then become a money service business and when operating without a money service business licence and not complying with the regulations of MSB, thats when mixers get caught by authorities for reasons of operating as a unregistered MSB

there is many forms of regulatory guidance on these which regulated services follow and form their own operating procedures to comply. they even have designated compliance officers too.

...
personal thoughts the whole topics thing..
of the use of single use addresses AND transacting through a series of addresses should have remained in the definition of 'tumbling'..
but it seems government just want to attach it to the tagline of mixing..
which should only apply if multiple inputs from different utxo's are then tumbled together

EG
changing
Creating and using single-use wallets, addresses, or accounts, and sending CVC through such wallets,
addresses, or accounts through a series of independent transactions;
to
Creating and using multiple single-use wallets, addresses, or accounts, and sending CVC through such wallets,
addresses, or accounts through a series of independent transactions;

..
i think d5000's issue with "please spoonfeed me summarised list in my hand of the definitions' is more about how these clickbait tweets of emotional twitter users that have not done full research, get their own tweets misinterpreted and then comes the clumsy misrepresentations of lots of people then redefining things and forming their own opinions..

however if people done better research on the actual source data. they will see the topics first post vs the definition that even stompix was able to display are different and where in this topic stompix shows he done more research than NotATether

NotATether wanted to take a emotional random blogpost of some rando's opinion and try to clickbait it into presuming that just using single use addresses is mixing..

advice to NotATether, when reading posts, tweets, blogposts.. try to look for the source and learn whats misrepresented opinion or whats fact

i'm genuinely curious why mixing is such a big deal for honest people. why do they even need to use it? give me one good use case.

honest people don't need to "tumble" their bitcoin.

that blogpost was biased towards trying to get people to make a donation to coincenter.org so in my opinion the entire thing had ulterior motives...as i had previously mentioned.
 

1) You ask for donations for a project publishing a Bitcoin address somewhere (forum, blog etc.), for example for an open source software project, and then want to buy something with them. You don't want people to see to which merchant you bought (this can be sometimes done with chain analysis).

2) You live in a dictatorship and try to set up an opposition movement. There are people willing to donate to you. Both the donors and you as the movement leader will need a mixer or another privacy enhancing tech to stay undetected. More than 50% of the world population lives in countries where opposition activity can be dangerous, so this does not only apply to few people.

3) You are not living in a dictatorship, but are an activist for a group which does something which can be seen as controversial even if it's fully legal. For example, you could be part of a minority religious group, a LGBT activist group, a group fighting against excessive ecologism, a pro-israel or pro-palestine group, a Feminist or Masculist or Trans group, or even somebody fighting against some strange conspiracy etc. (you see I made an effort to not concentrate on a single "political current" here ;) ) It's none of the business of anybody to know the money flows of the persons in these groups as long as they don't do anything illegal, but they are often confronted with doxxing, threats and hatred, so they have more reasons to care about privacy as much as possible.

4) You're living in a democracy which suddenly, e.g. due to an election where a populist wins, your authorities become much less trustable. Happened in a lot of countries (Venezuela, Tunisia, Russia 20 years ago, maybe even India ...). So everything in use case 2 is also valid for you, even if you're only slightly sympathysing with opposition movements.

I'm sure that there are many, many more use cases.

For 1) you could in theory also use a centralized exchange, for 2) it's not an option at all because you can't trust your authorities, and for 3) it may be not a good idea either, depending on the subject and the country. But what if you simply don't want to deal with KYC? KYC can be considered dangerous (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221497.0) because it can enable criminals to steal your identity. Some, including me, are in some cases accepting that risk. But it's perfectly legitimate to outright reject it.

And don't forget that one of Bitcoin's USPs is censorship resistance. This is above all crucial for the use case 2, but for all other cases too. You can't have censorship resistance if Bitcoin becomes less fungible due to all the tainting.

Why do you need to close the door to the bathroom stalls when ever you go to a public toilet?  Is there any thing you are hiding or why are you so secretive?  It is not such a big deal for honest people, we all poop and we all have a butt too.  Why use the door?  Keep it open!

My answer to your silly question is very simple.  Privacy.  It is one very good cause.

however when using things that are regulated as mixing, they become instances of people intently trying to hide for many many reasons.. the funny part is when people appear elusive and try to hide, they actually get spotted and scrutinised more..

its like a bunch of people walking down mainstreet in public, people walk normally, pass-by and no one looks twice..
however the guy jutting around, dodging other people, hiding behind bushes, crawling behind parked cars, looks odd and people start to take notice.. this makes people then look more intently at the guy trying to hide.. thus defeating his own purpose

people can have many legal and lawful reasons to hide, some are just to avoid the wife finding out about the sex doll he bought with money he should have used to pay for her medical bill.. there are many innocent reasons people want to hide their funds from family or business partners that are not illegal but just embarrassing.. however if they want to do it right they need to learn how to do it properly to not cause more problems or get spotted more easily than just the normal way

i have never used a mixer or done tumbling for my main stash. yet no one can link my forum profile name to my stash even after many many years, i hide in plain sight by not doing the stupid things that get me noticed.

...

the whole scheme that CRIMINALS do to promote that normal people should mix too, is simple..
criminals want normal peoples clean coins.. and the only way to get clean coins is con/scam normal people into thinking the normal people should use mixers.. and pretend that its ok for normal people to receive dirty coins..
however the hypocrisy of this is.. if its ok and not going to cause issues for handling dirty coins.. then why would criminals be trying so hard to offload their dirty coins

...

as for the whole classifications of definitions.. this is where money services regulated and delegated to monitor their customers funds movements, the businesses dont just have a yes/no of "illegal" they have a score chart of suspicion.. where certain events, features and actions are rated as a level of suspicion  which triggers internal investigation by the money service, which then they would be eyes-on looking closer if it reaches a threshold. and if they then find more info that raises the level then it escalates
coins from a dark market has a high threshold
just mixing has a lower level
just tumbling has a lower level
just single use address, by itself has a lower level.

however the culmination of different features can add up.
but just single use+tumbling wont result in a court order to allow authorities to request all customer data of a money services customer
its a culmination of lots of data and rating that raises things to a suspicion rating of a crime they can link the customer too, to then trigger authorities to investigate and if they have enough to suspect a crime then they ask the courts for a data access request order to get all info about a money service customer or/and freeze that customers assets and access to the service

..

bitcoin is a public ledger.. there is no expectation of privacy in public
money(traditional) has never been expected to be private, nor property of the bearer. its always been scrutinised by taxmen for centuries and traditional money was patent and licenced by the kingdoms/governments of the time

bitcoin for a short period had a experience of not being defined as money/currency, and instead treated as private property(2009-2013)
however since 2014 bitcoin was treated as a currency and as such countries governmental and law authorities started gaining jurisdiction on the use of bitcoin, mainly at the gateways back to fiat, such as money service businesses

because it is an accepted societal norm and not only a norm but an expectation and if you don't do it you can get in to trouble. it is not an accepted or expected societal norm that i am to hide my bitcoin transactions.

that's not how modern day society works. there would be a stigma about someone that kept the door open. and other people would think there is something wrong with them.

privacy in pooping is not the same basic human right as privacy in spending money though. big difference. if you dont understand that then i don't know... :o maybe read franky's reply



thanks for some interesting use cases i can certainly understand each one and yet somehow i think the vast majority of people mixing their bitcoin has nothing to do with any of those. what it has to do with i have no idea other than money laundering type things. that's just my own opinion. people trying to avoid paying taxes and things like that.

it doesnt matter how you move crypto
as soon as you convert to fiat.. the tax man rubs his fingers together and salivates

funny part is getting lump sum with no trace, the tax man can treat that as 100% profit/gain and tax you fully.. you then have to find proof of getting crypto at certain rate, reason, time to offset some of the profit/gains to reduce, avoid tax

bitcoin miners?  :o i bet some of them make up that stuff. even though technically their cost basis is zero since they didn't pay for it.

but yeah i can confirm they do that. like if someone is trading stocks, they can mistakenly recklessly carelessly treat your cost basis as 0, why i'm not exactly sure but it happens. and pretend like you owe them an ungodly amount of money in capital gains taxes. and send you a demand letter to pay it. imagine if someone paid it. the IRS wouldn't say a thing they would just collect the money and move on...

They only tax you if you convert your crypto to fiat and you get profit with your sale, conversion. If you buy high, sell low, you will not be taxed because you get loss, not profit. No individual income from buy high, sell low and it is the same for all countries in tax.

If in any country, government tax their citizens who have loss with trading or investment, it's funny and they are too greed.

and thats the rub im talking about.. to declare a loss to legally avoid/lessen your tax exposure, you have to show the proof of the 'buy high' origins and the 'sell low' receipt to then declare that loss

if you cant declare the original "buy high" then you cant declare the sell as a loss

This is like saying honest people don't need privacy. But hey, if you think you're honest, and if you think this is a good idea, feel free to post all Bitcoin addresses you've ever used. And from now on use only 1 Bitcoin address.

Probably the most retarded bill against bitcoin, good luck monitoring all of the addresses here and there because there's bound to be millions of them and I don't think that they'll have the machine and the manpower to analyze all of this, they're basically creating some really weird legislation that doesn't really help anyone, it's probably going to make things much worse for everyone involved which are the US citizens that's also invested in bitcoin. I would love to know the reason behind the passing of this, I want to understand their thinking because right now, it's unhinged in my opinion, no drop of reason whatsoever.

It's not surprising that you find franky1's replies reasonable and correct.

So, you don't see any reason why an honest person would need privacy when spending bitcoin. That's not a new perspective, so don't feel unique. If you don't mind, could you share your full name and the latest banking transactions you've made over the last 12 months? It should be fairly easy. Just log in to your bank account, go to the transactions section, and you should see a "Transaction Report" that can be viewed as a PDF. Upload it on a temporary file service like this (https://ufile.io/), and share it with us in here.

Why is financial Privacy a non accepted social norm to you?  I heard of so many people around me holding their stash in Cash instead of Banks for Privacy reasons, does this sound like a thing only Criminals do?  Should they be suspected of crime for that?

You do you.  But stop enforcing your thoughts against our lives and choices simply because we want to have Privacy, it is very ridiculous and frustrating.  I never accused you of doing any shit with your Card money or unmixed Bitcoin, why do you portray all Privacy oriented Bitcoin users into the same category of Money Launderers or Criminals?

In a world where Cyber attacks are at the highest recorded level of occurrence AND interest for Criminals, not having Privacy may prove crucial to your own safety.  If you do not use Mixers or other Privacy enhancing tools and you own a decent stash of Bitcoin, it is enough to not pay the right attention ONCE and it could expose information you may not want to be exposed.

You want to support a local store that accepts Bitcoin by ordering from their website and paying in Bitcoin.  You pay there and years later you simply forget about the Change from that Transaction.  You use the Change along a chunk of your stash.  Before you know, the local store had been attacked and their data base stolen.  Some stranger now has the data base of the customers, their Addresses and what they purchased too.  It is a matter of time before they link the change of your Transaction to your stash of Bitcoin.  By the time you realize that, it may be too late.  Some body knows the person living there likely has a lot of Money.  You could be wrench attacked at any given time.  You could be tortured for your stash, like others have been in the past years.

Now imagine how likely it is for some body who OFTEN pays in Bitcoin at multiple stores or Service providers.

Hell.  Pretty much every body who has used Bitcoin in the past ten years has been Dust Attacked at least once.  It could lead to that exact scenario.  Or, remember the Ledger data base leak?  Or the time when random Ledger users got a suspicious 'free Ledger' in their post box?

If you want to be the fool who gets wrench attacked, go ahead.  I am not going to be the one who has to fear for their life out of a stupid mistake.

Did you ever use a Password on your phone screen so others can not mess around with it?  Do you have any phone conversation you would rather keep Private?  Do you close the curtains when you walk around naked or when you are having sex?  Do you ever use Cash just because?  Do you lock the bathroom stall door when pooping so others would not accidentally open it?  Do you ever abstain from talking about health problems regarding any part of your body because you want that to stay Private?  Have you ever closed curtains due to Privacy invasive neighbors?

If you answered Yes to any of the above, why?  Are you hiding something from the world?  Maybe you are a Terrorist in the making even!

well 1st the CPU/video card/fpga/asic cost time and money to design, build and power but disregarding that for now

approx cost basis in of mining one btc ~2011 was a couple dollars.

figure tax selling at $67000 USD with cost basis of $2

-then-

figure tax selling at $67000 USD with cost basis of zero

Let’s just tell them to fuck off by not using any of the centralized services that pay taxes to the government. It seems they’ll overregulate crypto to the point to make it unusable. At this point not complying is the only way to move forward.

Do only p2p sales with crypto like it is 2012. The gov doesn’t need to know. These retards will lose so much tax revenue because of this.

In small increments, they are building a world of fear.

Where you are not using Bitcoin or Cash out of induced fear of being flagged by the Authorities.  Where even if you DO end up using Bitcoin or Cash, you have so many restrictions it becomes virtually impossible to use them without messing up at LEAST once.  The alternative is handing out absolutely every single information about yourself and who your Addresses belonged to, what your Transactions have been used for et cetera.  Paper work over paper work just so you will give up the idea of using Bitcoin at all.  We are, I would say, about 30 to 40 percent there.

They do not care about the lost Tax Revenue.  They are onto pulling as many of us as possible out of Bitcoin.

Ridiculous.  Stupid.  But the people will take it and even start questioning why we are so repulsive to such news, as seen above.  The fact that my honesty is being questioned by default only because I want Privacy is outrageous.

you dont NEED privacy. you can WANT and CHOOSE privacy but a NEED is different

much like people dont NEED the opposite. people dont NEED to tell you their full name and latest banking transactions
its not "privacy" to not reveal full name and latest bank statement, its just doing my own thing unintruded

you cant say one thing needs reinforcing due to the opposite will occur otherwise
even without layers of privacy people dont then need to reveal their biography

you pretending without "privacy" peoples whole lives are available is untrue
people without structured privacy still have the choice and desire of what they reveal or not reveal

mixing is not a 100% guarantee of privacy neither, infact it makes you more noticeable to the entities you wish to hide from, yes it may take them more time and effort to undo your efforts of hiding, but mixing is not a 100% guaranteed evasion method

i personally dont use mixers yet no one knows my real birth certified name or where my main stash of coin is.
so pretending people NEED a mixer, is different from those who CHOOSE or WANT to use a mixer for their personal reasons

i dont need a mixer to prevent revelations of my personal life. i choose what information i reveal

Hopefully, someone understood that nonsense. Fortunately, the person you were replying to didn't even try.

go cry that your income from mixing has disapeared in 2024
all you are interested in is promoting mixing for income.. even if it causes negative issues for others
you dont care about peoples actual privacy
and you definitely dont care about the consequences of people using mixing

yep mixing does not 100% guarantee privacy. nor does it absolve mixer users and coordinators of consequence
but you dont care, you will remain ignorant as long as you can advertise a scheme that pays you. you wont care about consequences to users nor how you pretend to promote it (with lies)

..

any way
this topics OP did not research what is actually being wrote by congress.. instead its a link to some click bait misrepresentation to cause controversy about somethings thats not even accurate..

tumbling has already been a red flag in fincen's/fatf's eyes of suspicious activity linked to suspicion of mixing.. which is a trigger rated event to highlight the possibility of mixing which is then a trigger of rating threshold of possibility of laundering

by combining a couple trigger events of lower certain suspicious rated activity that lead the mid level suspicion of mixing.
(by defining 2 separate events as equal to being the same as mixing.. is just formalising things they already did)

..

if people really want to learn the traps monitoring services use, its probably best to learn their tricks from actual sources to know how they operate to then know how to work around/avoid them.. instead of just crying that some mis representing blog poster said something that got you emotional thats not even accurate to the "privacy traps"

The solution to only use P2P exchanges like @mindrust proposes is of course a valid strategy. However, I would warn about the mentality to simply think that "if I only use P2P, nothing will ever happen". P2P has its own challenges, for example dealing with exchange users selling "dirty" cryptocurrency, or "dirty" fiat. There are some strategies like trading only with old accounts with reputation (to prevent getting fiat coming from stolen bank accounts, for example), but liquidity on P2P can be quite low and thus the premium you pay for "good" coins or fiat can be quite high. And you have to educate yourself about the strategies. It simply isn't for everybody.

The big problem I see if such laws come through like the FinCEN proposal we discuss here is that Bitcoin becomes just less and less fungible, and this may also affect pure P2P users. If this becomes law in the US (there may be still hope it doesn't) then it is possible that it has consequences for Bitcoin user behaviour in general, even if only few people run really into legal trouble. For example, a lot of Americans will try to examine all their coins and try to exchange those which are even slightly tainted as fast as possible for "clean" coins, and even small American merchants will begin to use chain analysis to prevent to get tainted coins, or even may introduce KYC for their own safety (without being obliged to do so legally). The result could be that the premium you pay at P2P exchanges for "clean" coins from trustable users will become even higher. And other countries could follow the American example and push through similar laws.

So I think some political action isn't a bad idea, even if this involves only retweeting the HRF criticism, or pro-privacy content in general.

While there are relative few people affected directly by the use cases I listed (these are only examples), the current rise of authoritarism and populism means that a lot may be affected in the future. And thus I think it's a good idea to preventively not trust your authorities, at least not without some caution. I would thus recommend at least basic privacy strategies like using single-use-addresses for every transaction where this is possible. And of course there's also the danger of abuse by criminals if you talk or write too much about your crypto holdings and these are connected in some way to an address which was public, like @PrivacyG already wrote.

Can't help but notice it's usually the same predictable names attacking privacy.  The same ones who often seem to advocate restrictions on freedom in response to just about any subject.  Such people hate freedom and privacy in equal measure.  They feel compelled to attack what they cannot control.  They aren't like us.

Authoritarians will always lose here.  Pay them no mind.

that would be kind of an invasion of my privacy and i'm not sure it would benefit me in anyway.


no it's just things i would rather not be talking about that's all.

i don't know. maybe its an incorrect assumption. i don't have full statistics, you know...i just assumed it.

that would be really embarrassing. if i had to do that. i think if i did that, i would feel smaller than an ant and then disappear off the forum.  :o

As much as I don't like certain laws, I'm not comfortable with (the potential consequences of) breaking them.

If that involves a bank account, it raises even more questions than using a centralized exchange.

So you don't NEED a basic human right but you WANT it anyway? What's with the semantics?

So, assuming the insanity mentioned by OP is applied to your jurisdiction, would you be okay to tell your government all your Bitcoin addresses, and from now on only use one address registered in your name? Or would you choose to become an outlaw?

Exactly!

Fix your quote, you're not responding to my post.

"human rights" are LAWS made by other people..
i dont NEED other people to write laws to tell me i have the right to silence.. i can simple not speak
i dont NEED other people to write laws to tell me i have the right/freedom of movement.. i can simply move
i dont NEED other people to write laws to tell me i have the right/freedom speak.. i can simply speak

people WANT things to make their lives easier. but its not a need its a want

if you want to speak.. then just speak.. you dont need someone else to give you permission

..
oh one last thing
financial privacy has never been a human right,, centuries of evidence proves it

when bitcoin is a public ledger you should understand that its public and then personally do something yourself to protect yourself, such as YOU not revealing yourself.. yep YOU defending and protecting yourself and controlling your own actions and assets is the ultimate definition of self sovereignty.. if you need others to write laws to give you permission .. then you become controlled by that entity that wrote that
and you can only then use that permission AFTER THE FACT by fighting infringements in court after the fact

how about learn that instead of you needing some law maker to give you permission to privacy so you can then use that law in a court after an event.. to instead learn you are in control of your own actions and you can prevent issues.. rather than letting things happen and cry how you have been infringed after the fact 'coz a law is needed to defend me'

i personally dont need laws, rights or constitutions. as you know for many years i speak my mind and dont care who gets offended by the truth..
i dont cry that its my "right to speak".. i just speak my mind

Embarrassing would be the last adjective I'd use, but so be it, if you want. You want privacy, because it's none of our business what you're doing with your money. Same goes for "honest people" who mix their coins.

Or... You know, obfuscate your Bitcoin activity. That's "something to protect yourself".

Article 12 from Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

So, here's my truth: I don't need laws to protect my privacy. I can simply practice it myself.

you quote a article of international law that does not mention finances.....
and then you say you dont need laws, yet you just quoted a law

I don't need laws for the obvious in life, but there's a law about privacy, and you said there isn't.

Try doing that when your government is North Korea. That is what human rights are about. It's easy to say you don't need it, as long as you have it. Until it's gone, and it's too late to realize you no longer have that freedom.

Exactly what I was going to write after reading what Franky said.

Every body suspects us for wanting Privacy because every thing is seemingly so prosperous, good and well in their lives.  This is only until the worst comes and takes you entirely unprepared.  Bad regimes existed before, even in countries that were going great.  It just happens unfortunately, and you never know if your country is next.

I remember back when Taliban took control what happened and I would not want me, my family, you, Franky or ANY of us to be in that position.  The Taliban were reportedly on a man hunt and what they were using was the Facebook profiles of Afghan citizens.  You did not support Taliban?  Expect them at your door at any given time.  I did not stick to the story to know how that unfolded and hopefully those people are safe.  But how does that sound, Franky?

From a BBC article, this is what Facebook had to say,
Source https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58277175

Now tell me Franky.  Why would I do this to myself?  Why would I want to be in this position?  I rather have no Social Media and I rather have my Government not know how I am using my Bitcoin.  Our names could be on a target list of a bad regime in the making and I do not want to be found if they make it.  To Taliban the target was the opposing citizens.  For this one it could be particularly Bitcoin users like me.

And yet again, this is so ridiculous and weird.  I have to explain why I want no body to know what I am using my Bitcoin for.  What the hell is so suspicious about it?

I never wanted any body to know what I am using Fiat for, and I never touched a gram of illegal substances, I never took the life out of some body, I never became a Terrorist, I never Laundered Money!

---

I'm just kindly asking everyone in this thread to pause and realize that oppressive regimes have been the status quo for humanity since the beginning. From the Roman Empire and the Persians to the Qing Dynasty of China and the Russian tsars, hundreds of years before Jesus was born up until a century ago, a few totalitarian motherfuckers oppressed the populace and treated them as animals. And if that isn't shitty enough, it took the horrors of massive genocides resulting from the World Wars to start ... "laying the path" toward freedom.

It's only recently in humanity's calendar that ordinary people have begun to enjoy even a small measure of freedom. And now, there come these gimps who say people don't need privacy, the prerequisite for freedom. What a sham. Your descendants would feel sorry.

Freedom isn't free. It isn't a "natural default" like oxygen, and it certainly shouldn't be taken for granted.

To me it seems EUSSR is slowly turning into a totalitarian regime that wants to monitor everything (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Administrative_Co-operation_in_the_field_of_Taxation_(2011/16)) (check DAC7 and DAC8).

Marketplaces like LocalBitcoins/LocalMonero could be outlawed in this dystopian future. :o

It's very consistent with this agenda (https://medium.com/world-economic-forum/welcome-to-2030-i-own-nothing-have-no-privacy-and-life-has-never-been-better-ee2eed62f710).

Wanna know what's the difference compared to USSR/Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany? These regimes didn't have high-tech equipment to monitor everyone effortlessly. ;)

If only Stalin/Hitler had microchips and cheap fiber/wireless communication... and AI of course (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_China).

Bonus links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_ID_Act
https://x.com/RealPatrickWebb/status/1797404225703477542

north korea according to western social media? or personal experience?


funny part is you want to talk all about self sovereignty and anti-gov stuff but then you NEED government to write laws..

how about realise if you want self sovereignty. you should use your own brain.. rather than need someone else to defend you or coordinate processes for you
(hint we dont NEED core to govern us, although many have settled for letting core control bitcoin)

like i said in other posts i dont need mixers for me to remain "private" i know how bitcoin works and how to avoid tagging my data to bitcoin or vice versa

when people think they NEED others to do things to defend you or NEED governments to write "privacy for dummies" laws and have cops defend peoples "rights" its so that people then dont have to bother controlling themselves and instead the lazy people then reveal their info and the cry "nasty man used my data i need to cry and i need to call someone to defend me"

just simply defend yourself and do things for yourself like learn how the world works and know how to act and engage/disengage with the world around you for your own benefit

i personally do research on governments and bitcoin and many topics. not to side with any group or be pro government or pr tax.. its actually the opposite.. its to know governments wont disappear so instead of crying they exist, its better to just know how to operate in the real world to then know how to work around them for my benefit

as a side note
these days i see many people want core to govern bitcoin even when core do things that dont benefit bitcoiners.. and thats why its better to learn what these governors of different regimes are upto specifically(not the click bait misrepresentation) and learn how to counter them work around them or against them..
yes call them out on their bullshit and try to get them to change. but not rely on them as your parent/guardian
anyone sucking up and saying they need other peoples permission are missing the whole point

in short
you dont need a mixer or a tumbler.. and infact using a mixer or a tumbler is exactly what will get you noticed more when your intention is to hide
.. think about it

and yep those advocating to add a mixer and tumbler into cores software code is going to cause more problems for users and more jurisdictional invasion by government.. 

one way to mix your bitcoin is to send it somewhere like coinbase and then send it back to another address but you would probably have to change the amount maybe split it up into a few transactions maybe going to different addresses. people are not dumb. if you sent 0.245 btc to coinbase and then within an hour, the blockchain shows 0.244 btc going to some other address. even if the receiving and sending addresses are different, it doesn't take a genius to link those.

but that's mixing for dummies. or how to sell your bitcoin for dummies without anyone knowing who you are, as long as you trust coinbase not to publish your name to the blockchain next to your transactions.

mixing can come at a cost too. funny thing is, people using ethereum, they use the same address ("account") over and over and over. until the cows come home and yet somehow, privacy doesn't seem to be anything they worry about. i dont know why. maybe it's two different mindsets. :o

sending coin to a CEX and withdraw from their other hotwallet is a way to swap coin taint. but it comes with services then monitoring and knowing what came in and out

using a CEX as a mixer was only good years ago before regulations..

there are many other methods to do it to get clean fresh coin with no taint. work it out, learn how bitcoin works to learn the simple way. and do it. hint (coin as fee in deal with pool to get fresh minted coin(its what the meme bloat scammers do))

satoshi sent funds to hal, then reused the same address half a dozen times more.... 15 years later no body has found satoshi

what ever happened with atomic swaps with monero. you could swap into monero and then swap back into bitcoin maybe? the thing people don't realize about stuff like that is, the bitcoin you end up with might have an even worse history than the bitcoin you wanted to get rid of to protect your "privacy". what happens if you end up with some drug dealer's bitcoin and the government then suspects you are selling drugs and getting paid in BTC?  :o people don't think about that they just think how badly they need to get rid of their current bitcoin...and you have to think about it, some people want to mix their bitcoin because it really is dirty so i'd say there is a certain chance you could end up with theirs.

i still don't quite follow franky. is that what you're doing?  :o

i think this whole thread is a good example of how bitcoin is not fungible. not enough!

yep
most mixing is dirty coin mixed to other dirty coin.. this is why the scammers/fraudsters/hackers and just plain scum of the world keep trying desperately to try to get innocent people into thinking that innocent people need to use mixers too.. how else will the scum get clean coins if no clean coin users give away their clean coin...
the whole point of idiots scaring innocent people into thinking they NEED mixing too is to make innocent people give up their clean coin.
those intensely promoting mixing NEED dont care about the repercussions on the innocent people who give up clean coin for dirty coin. as long as the scum get the clean coin they dont care about the other person


fresh minted coins have no taint at all. think about it, work it out. find ways to sell/spend/'treat as fee' your tainted coins to get fresh coin.
and no i dont NEED to use that process, its just one of many i mention that have in recent years become publicly known thus no longer a secret way to do it even though it was a way to do things more when it was a secret previously
(in coming years it will be lesser used because governments are infringing on miners jurisdiction, trying to get miners to register their PoW power and rewards amount thus narrowing down the amounts that dont fit the model, to short list those doing the deals)


bitcoin never was fungible. thats the point. if it was fungible then the promoters of mixers would not be demanding swap services.. they know its not fungible in their heart even when they make posts saying bitcoin is fungible.. again if bitcoin was fungible they would not need to swap coins.. so by them demanding everyone should swap coin for mixing and such. they are admitting coins are not fungible

everyone knows satoshis stash if moved will cause market influence. everyone know that when you sell coin your reason for the sell has different tax implications.

when it comes to fungability though.. in any currency.. its not a yes/no thing its actually a scale.. and its these regulations and drafts of new defined uses of coins that show that different uses have different levels of fungability rating.

once you understand bitcoins are monitored on a SCALE of suspicion on a SCALE of fungible on a scale of x,w,z then you can start to learn how to get those numbers down to not reach a threshold to be highlighted intensively by monitoring services, and slip under the radar


and as this topic (once clarified the actual congress involvement)
using mixers has a high suspicion rating,
using tumbling alone has a lesser suspicion rating
using a single use address has a less rating

but using singe use addresses+tumbling has the same suspicion rating number as mixing, hense they want to define it as the same as mixing

First of all, a drug dealer who is using BTC is a stupid drug dealer.

Second, you actually don't have to worry about receiving tainted BTC if you use atomic swaps in conjunction with mixers (or even better, if the mixer did this itself). Chain analysis fizzles out after a certain depth in the transaction chain so the only tags you will have to deal with are the ones related to mixing.

I don't think they'll get Bitcoin from their "customers", but I can imagine they use their cash to buy Bitcon P2P. I have no idea how often it happens, but it's always on my mind when someone wants to spend a large amount of cash to buy Bitcoin. Or they could be scammers.

The thing you do not realize about this discussion is, we do not care at all about the concept of Taint and we are not using Atomic Swaps or other obfuscation methods to find a 'cleaner' Transaction history.  We want PRIVACY, not hiding from crime.  Do you still not understand this?

I do not Atomic Swap Bitcoin to Monero and back to take a crime off my name.  I do NOT care about the history my Coins have, unless they can be linked to my identity.  Concept of Taint does not exist in my eyes.  I have a long history of Bisq Transactions and I have not looked up even ONCE to see whose Bitcoin I received.  I have no idea whose Bitcoin I currently own and it would be stupid to look that up.  Being paranoid of the history of your Bitcoin possibly having a history of related to illegal activity is equal to being just as paranoid about receiving Cash bank notes from the Cash registry of a shop.  Who knows?  The notes you are receiving could be part of the payment for a hit.  Are you burning bank notes out of this fear?

I am choosing to not re use Addresses so fewer people can link the Bitcoin I have to my identity.  I am choosing to obfuscate my history so fewer people can link the Bitcoin I have to my identity.  I do not care about having a 'clean' history, but to make it much harder for any body to know which is my main stash of Bitcoin, what I am paying for on a daily basis, which Addresses belong to my person.

If you want to support the ridiculous concept of Taint and care so much about every single thing being under control then you are better off using Banks.  Or support Craig Wright who says the vision of Satoshi was to make Bitcoin a 'clean' Currency that morphs accordingly to the laws.  Bitcoin was not created for that, there are better alternatives if that is your ideal.

But you will likely only choose to ignore every thing I said anyway and you will continue thinking and saying we are using obfuscation methods to hide crime and to clean up our such dirty Transaction history.  So I have no idea why I am even bothering to answer any more really, it feels like I am talking to a wall.

Yep, pretty much. It's the sad reality.

Every privacy-oriented service is already in the striking zone. LocalBitcoins has started demanding KYC long time ago. LocalMonero has shut down, probably because it seemed too risky to continue operating after the recent events with attacks in privacy services.

---

It's absurd how frequently we introduce the concept of "taint" into discussions about privacy. Those who believe certain bitcoins are "tainted" have fallen victim to a narrative that only harms the space.

the thing you dont realise is.. bitcoin is a PUBLIC ledger, you have no right to privacy in PUBLIC
if you want privacy you have to create that privacy for yourself away from the PUBLIC
(this common sense notion applies to many things in the real world)

bitcoins whole security model is to be able to publicly audit every transactions provenance right the way back to its coin creation origins.. this provenance chain of custody of value that coins transfer to, from one address to the next is defined as having a taint of X based on certain things of its history
and a utxo's 'taint' is rated as a scale and can go from white(clean) gray(suspicious) dark(dirty)
taint is not a verbage to say its dirty by default.. as taint is not a yes/no thing.

the reason financial monitoring analyst services do actually analyse and tag utxos with a taint of x is because bitcoin became defined by law as currency around 2014-ish
which then caused financial jurisdictions of financial laws to then apply to bitcoin also
so the consequence of those lobbying for "mainstream recognition" ended up with the financial laws having jurisdiction

yes before 2014 bitcoin was defined as private property and there was not much financial analysts could legally do (could not demand services to disclose personal information on customers that used bitcoin)

but things have changed negatively in regards to how governments are involved in bitcoin and how they delegate money service businesses to monitor customers deposits and withdrawal history and share info between each other, by law.

if you dont want services monitoring your stash as much and you dont want them tagging your stash, you are probably better off avoiding using mixers that services get triggered by. and instead learn all the triggers(from source info or regulations, not bloggers emotional rants) and then avoid the triggers and then you can just hide in public amongst the masses of other transactions.. (vanish into the crowd)

in short. taint is a thing and its actually worth you knowing the triggers of what makes financial services tag certain utxo's with a taint rating, and how to lower your utxos rating to avoid services from noticing you and sharing information they have about you


its not just depth..
if you think it fizzles out after (random number) 10 child transaction depths, you also have to be aware that the depth only fizzles out if that depth is separated by X time

its the same as fiat. doing 1 payment of $9,900 a year doesnt trigger any reporting. so you can do it for 10 years(10 times) and it not be a big deal
however do it 10 times within x months.. and they will treat that 10 actions as one action of spending more then $10k over a period, and report it as such

so when hopping value over 100 addresses in a short period of time, even if its way more than 10 times within that short time. they treat it as one act of TUMBLING and tag the destination funds as same owner as the origin funds 100+ parent transactions ago

in short..
spamming the blockchain with address hopping. ends up being called tumbling which gets you highlighted as a red flag, and tagged as the funds 100+ tx ago being same owner as latest.. thus defeating the point of address hopping

First of all, thank you for mentioning the 'you have no right to Privacy' part.  It explains your mentality and why you are fighting so much against us.

Anyway.  The thing you do not realize is, you DO have a right to Privacy in public.

Or, do I have the right to watch you while you are doing what ever in a public toilet stall?  Do I have the right to sit 5 inches behind you at an ATM while you are withdrawing from it?  Do I have the right to snoop in on your conversations at the park?  As in, the right to sit 10 inches away from you and your friend and wherever you go I stay there too?  Do I have the right to snoop on your phone screen while you are sitting on a bench?

If I am a public personality and I want to not be recognized for Privacy reasons, does this mean I have no right to wear a cap and sunglasses?

And this is exactly where Mixers, Coin Joins, Atomic Swaps, Bisq et cetera come as the solution to your exact words!  I create that Privacy for myself.  I interact with Bisq users or Atomic Swap users who are just like me so I can have my Privacy and they can too.

Taint defined by who?  I have used most of the well known Wallets and NONE of them have EVER mentioned even a single time a thing about 'Taint'.  Mycelium, Electrum, Bitcoin Core, Unstoppable, Bread, Coinbase even back when I first started!  I visited so many Block Explorers and none of them have ever mentioned a single thing about 'Taint' either.  Blockchair, Blockchain, you name it.

Bitcoin has no TAINT concept.  This is an invented term by who?  Why would I care about this concept if it has nothing to do with Bitcoin itself?  On the same note is Know Your Customer, which is also an invention.  Do I need Know Your Customer to send you Bitcoin?  NO.  If I download Bitcoin and use it, is there any 'Taint' to worry about?  Or, is it present any where at all?  NO.

Then why the hell would I care about it again?

You are silly if you think that is the case.

Banks are moving TRILLIONS of Dollars related to Money Laundering and other illegal activity, pretty much all countries are corrupt, State Whistle blowers die in weird circumstances, Politicians make millions or even billions of Dollars in illegal Money.  But Bitcoin, which is barely even used at all as a Currency and the illicit segment of all Transactions probably amounts to less than 1 percent of the total illegal Money of only the examples I gave above, is getting restrictions over restrictions and absurd regulations.  Bitcoin is however the head of all Evil, the head of all danger and Money Laundering.

Now imagine how many out of the whole number of Bitcoin Transactions happen through Mixers.  The amounts are so low they are a drop in the ocean compared to what I just mentioned above.  Yet, Bitcoin is still the one they want more control over.  Only because it became defined by law as a Currency in 2014?

Sure.

OR, I can live head ache free and avoid Services that apply the nonsense concept of Taint or Know Your Customer, use Mixers or other obfuscating methods and just not care because there is nothing to trigger in a Peer to Peer Transaction anyway.  Bitcoin was supposed to be used Peer to Peer.  I am using it that way and I have not had a SINGLE problem in the past many years although I exchanged Bitcoin for other Cryptocurrencies, I traded Peer to Peer et cetera.

When Trump wins, I just hope that he'll find a way to overturn this or create a legislation that would cancel this one out, it's just an adversary for the bitcoin community in the USA, I mean it's definitely an insanity and more than that, it's a shitshow because who the hell would be enforcing this one strictly, it's not like it's difficult to bypass this, it's just a total inconvenience to the community.

Don't count on it. He'll be prioritising round 2 of Trump NFTs.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pro or anti anyone in with a chance. I just think no candidate (no, not even dear old McAfee) really understands Bitcoin enough nor cares about Bitcoin enough to want to do something. One would hope they only treat it the way they would treat free speech, but there are too many powerful skins in the game to allow even executive orders that would protect Bitcoin.

P.S. Was about to comment on no right to privacy in public but I recall already struggling to counter that straight-line-on-a-curvature logic before.

again you idiot. you dont have a right to privacy in public. because ITS PUBLIC
secondly you dont NEED a right to privacy because rights are laws created to give you permission of something

you can HAVE privacy by creating YOUR OWN privacy by YOU deciding what information to divulge and where..
your obsession about talking about "rights" is YOU needing other people to create laws of permission
do you get that??

 but if you want to rely on the LAW right of privacy you can only rely on it as a court argument after the fact of an infringement and not something that auto deletes your life history every time you speak, move, spend, cough or fart

you have no clue about the difference between actions vs rights
learn to not rely on rights and instead rely on your own actions.. take responsibility for your own actions

secondly the word "taint" has existed in the bitcoin community for many years
just use this forum search it will surprise you who made the word become a buzzword.. hint: it was not government

the only reason you want to pretend taint does not exist is so you can con innocent people into thinking there is no repercussions of them taking your coin... and the point of my argument against that is .. if there truly was no repercussions of people obtaining your coin(in your fantasy world pretending taint is not a thing). then why are you so adamant that you NEED to give away your own coin and get someone elses coin
and you want other people to join you in your schemes you promote

if you truly down deep in your heart believed there was no consequence.. you would not be crying about it and instead just keep your coins

factually down deep you know there is repercussions which is why you want other peoples coins. you just dont want to tell them of the consequences of them taking your coin because then they wont want your coin and they would stay away from your schemes

there are no kyc exchanges you can use them and hide coins.

you can mine to nicehash using a virgin address. No one knows who owns the address.

https://www.nicehash.com/my/miner/@@@@@@@@kslfsn5s@@@@@@zcsw32t9j@@@@@@@@@@@

point a ton of gear and that address will get a weekly deposit no one knows the owner of it. All they know is the amount of coins in it.

Since it gets weekly deposits of lets say 0.010 btc at years end it has 0.52 btc

If you have a bigger mine you can do it with 5 addresses and each will have 0.52 btc at years end. plus they are not breaking the rules as written since they are used 52 times a year.

at the end of the year. you can merge them into anyone of the five addresses you used repetitively  and you have 2.60 btc clean as by these rules. No one knows whom or is it who you are.

i'm not sure how much privacy bisq really gives someone. not when most of the payment methods it supports like zelle, bank wire, ach, moneygram, western union. those things can be investigated and looked into and such. no matter if you're the one sending or receiving, there's still going to be records. what do you think about that, PrivacyG?

https://bisq.wiki/Payment_methods

oh wow it looks like you have gotten sophistocated though. Atomic swaps? i'm amazed someone actually does those rather than just pontificating about them from a theoretical standpoint. you should open a thread about that topic and how you do them.  :o


then that means you wouldn't need to declare any of that to the IRS since no one knows who you are. not until you actually spend them. or do something with them that allows you to be tracked. if they are just sitting there, you haven't really even taken possession of them and i would think that would hold up in court. but don't merge them. because once you merged them you have taken posession of them.

I like it :) It'll be a cold day in hell before Bitcoin Core tells you your money is tainted.

I'll make it easy (if you catch my drift): here's a list of all tainted Bitcoin addresses (http://alladdresses.loyce.club/all_Bitcoin_addresses_ever_used_in_order_of_first_appearance.txt.gz) :P

The fact that governments try so very hard to stop Bitcoin, makes me believe I made the right choice in getting some ;)

When I'm outside, you're allowed to take a picture of me, but you're not allowed to publish it. Of course there's privacy.

Since we're on the topic of privacy: you know that removing part of the address still makes it very easy to find the full address once it's used, right?

well most people in this forum are american so ill talk about them(and because this topic is about US congress thus people in US affected by it)
you are allowed to publish it.. and to quote many peoples favourite "american rights", the first amendment: freedom of speech and press, so anyone can publish anything thats in public
you dont even need permission from those you capture on camera.
theres a new trend happening of the 'freedom fighters' that do these things called first amendment audits where they go into outdoor public and also government(public) buildings and record inside there to test if the public employees know the first amendment and if they respond positively or negatively to being filmed

but as said before.. even if filmed in a non-public setting. and it appears on youtube. the only way you can use your right to privacy in private is to fight it after the invasion of privacy or take it to court and fight it after the fact.

anyways
i personally preferred bitcoin pre 2014 before governments over reached their jurisdiction by using the 'officially a currency' recognition as their first step into putting barriers in.. and also before core devs became governing "gods" of bitcoin by being sponsored to be politicians and economists instead of just being voluntary devs

bitcoin has changed both internally and externally politically.. and its worth knowing and acknowledging the changes to then know how to try to fight it, work around it

---

you might want to check on that
blockchain.info used the term "taint analysis" even mtgox did and this was back in the days of 2010-2012

like i said use the forums search function for the word "taint" and do it between dates of like 4500 to 9999 days (pre 2012)
and you will surprise yourself at how the bitcoin community was talking about taint far before governments even started regulating money services/exchanges

i can confirm franky is right about this. if loyce is talking about the USA then he is wrong. as long as someone is in public they can film anything they can see. and they don't need anyone's permission or anything. and they can publish the video to anywhere they want to. so if you don't want someone taking video of you sunbathing then keep the curtains drawn  :o

you are not correct. If I go to a public beach and film I can not show the video
without permission if the people filmed are underage.

and what law is that exactly? enlighten us. i doubt loyce is underage though.  ;D

Well, I think these dudes are hell bent on centralizing crypto that they are blinded to the huge repercussions to their selfishness. Do they want to open a bigger door to crypto attacks? or are they not aware multiple address is also a security feature. They also want to put an end to the core feature of bitcoin by all means. How would we feel when the Elecrum wallet which we pride so much starts asking for KYC? Its crazy and would mean an end to decentralization and a new era of centralization of bitcoin which we hope would never happen.

Then you have to send in an application to the government to obtain a new wallet address which might even be compromised at the point of creation. Such irrationality in their thoughts to not know they are trying to make bitcoin less secure with this approach.

Electrum is not even a company it's just a piece of software. Software does not have the ability to KYC people. Only companies do.

It's interesting, but from how many btc (68,000)? Is this a suspicious wallet?

1.The creators of electrum came to negotiate.
2. Many users would abandon BTC (because of the news)

that not a law. its not criminal to record a beach scene/public area that just happen to have kids in view

heck i just went to youtube and typed in "beach"
heck i just went to youtube and typed in "water park"
heck i just went to youtube and typed in "skate park"
heck i just went to youtube and typed in "public park"
heck i just went to youtube and typed in "recreational park"

and found LOADS of videos of amateur footage of people randomly recording their vacations and leisure time at the beach, parks and public areas that dont have kids blurred out and its obvious due to the nature of the videos that the person filming it is not some movie director who sends out a guy with a consent form.. and youtube hasnt/wont remove it

yes youtube might have policies to respect its users and so side with parent WISHES to not have their kids featured in a video on youtube. but its not a law. its a platforms own business decision. not a law/right

its not illegal to record kids while just filming in public..
yes its emotionally disrespectful/weird/pervy/creepy if you are obviously deliberately trying to film kids or nudists or topless females and yes thats 'icky' and again disrespectful and everyone has the ability to ask that you dont do it(out of resect) and people can call the cops if it appears someone is obviously recording in a way thats creepy. and cops can request(not order) it to be stopped to keep the peace. and do a investigation and if the cops find the guy recording is actually a creep then things can escalate to a crime

but the simple act of recording on a beach or water park randomly and it just happens that kids are in view does not require their parents consent

Citation needed ;)

It looks like your Congress has bigger things to worry about than Bitcoin, like privacy!
Here, you can film but you can't publish. Of course, if you publish it anyway, chances are the person in the video will never find out, and if they do, they'll need to sue you for breaking privacy laws. So it's not as if the law prevents violations, and almost anyone breaks it by posting anything they see on social media. But at least on paper we have privacy ;)

Does this mean the restrictions have to do with sex-laws instead of privacy-laws?

Camera phones destroyed a short time of topless women on the beach. When people finally become less prudish, it didn't take long for the internet to make them cover themselves again.

yep not to do with privacy, but to do with sex laws..
again if someone is being obviously and intently pervy/creepy then if the outraged parent calls the cops and the cops determine its a act suspected to be related to sex crime then it can be investigated.

most people just respectfully avoid recording certain situations just to avoid accusations and disagreement, even if its not against the law to do something innocent/non-intently/non creepily

Each state has their own laws about this, as this is not something the federal government talks about in too much detail.

But state legislators seem to be having lots of fun arguing about the merits of this or that. Well in this case, recording people. Also they have a lot more interest arguing about sex laws than anything related to privacy. That is how most of the restrictions you just mentioned probably came about to being law.

yes can confirm. i checked my coins for "taint" back in 2011-2012ish somewhere. they were straight from a mining pool so they were deemed "clean"

forum consensus was it (taint) was a non issue back then iirc

We're clearly reaching the point where the arguments being made are no longer relevant to the topic at hand. You can buy into franky1's absolutist, black-and-white view of the world, where he pretends that he and he alone can determine the outcome of all things.  Or, you can come back to reality where nuance is a real thing that people comprehend.  I personally find his wild delusions have precisely zero influence on what really happens in this world (outside of his magical world of make-believe).  When it comes down to it, a court will decide an outcome to whatever hypothetical scenario it is you're making.  Until such an incident goes to trial, it's generally considered a fool's errand to assume the outcome until the specifics are heard and deliberated upon.

Because Chain Analysis is trying to destroy what was once known as Fungibility and ways of obfuscation such as Mixers, Atomic Swaps, Coin Joins et cetera are bringing it right back.  Not by 'removing Taint', because ultimately ALL ADDRESSES ARE AND WILL BE 'TAINTED' AT SOME POINT, but by breaking links Chain Analysis are using to destroy the Fungibility Bitcoin once had.

It is utterly stupid to believe in Taint because you most likely own UTXOs coming from previous Hacks, Crime, Money Laundering et cetera.  Why are you not collaborating with Chain Analysis companies to let you know which of your Coins are Tainted so you can throw them at a known 'Burn Address' of Bitcoin just so you know you got rid of Tainted Bitcoin?

There are no repercussions of them taking my Bitcoin.  I am not responsible for later actions of people such as using stupid Services that are able to freeze Accounts out of mere suspicions according to a subjective analysis, or even randomly.  There is a history of people depositing even Binance or Coinbase withdrawals on other platforms and getting their Accounts frozen up out of no where.  Is that my fault?  You can transfer Peer to Peer with no 'repercussions'.  You can use any non Know Your Customer Exchange.  How am I using any of these with no repercussions?

-----

And in other countries such as Austria, it is not legal to drive around with a Dashboard Camera on your car.  A few years ago at least, it was ruled in Court that it is breaking the Privacy of people.

Franky can not think outside the box and see the real problem here.  If the United States promote little to no rights to Privacy, it means the roots of the problem are much deeper.  And even if we speak from outside the United States, it is impossible NOT to have an input considering the United States are influencing the entire world.  So Franky, ask yourself, are we the problem for asking for Privacy or is it a problem that you have no right to it?

funnily enough i was the one telling the other readers that laws are not preventative as an absolute guarantee and instead are dealt with after the fact in court
as for black and white.. im the one telling readers that things like suspicion, taint, mixing, tumbling are handled by monitoring/analysis algo on a scale.. not black and white

so again its doomad that cant read or understand the conversations happening in a topic

maybe bitcoin should have been designed with mixing built into the mining protocol somehow so that all the transactions in a block got mixed together somehow. that would probably keep the regulator scratching their heads. but i guess we never got that far. I bet PrivacyG would support something like that though.  :o

if mining pools became coordinators of mixing. then mining pools would have to register as money service businesses as they are directly facilitating the payment transfer on behalf of others for a fee. which then means mining pools then need to also do things like KYC and monitor and report..

thus again goes against the whole entire point of why people use mixing.. if you are wanting to use mixers or things that combine to amount to the feature of mixing.. you end up becoming listed with a rating which could lead directly to investigators actual eyes monitoring you and deciding if they should report you, which then defeats the whole purpose of why you wanted to use mixing in the first place

its better to just do things normally and just "hide in the crowd" "hide in plain sight" by not doing things that highlight you as trying to be evasive

and? aren't they already doing that? just because you throw in mixing into it doesn't change anything.

nonsense. the government can't change a single line of code in the bitcoin protocol.


that works until oneday you realize all your freedoms are gone and now they're knocking on your door because one of your bitcoins has a history of being used by someone you don't even know in the past...people should be able to use bitcoin without the government being able to trace anything. that's my opinion.

no(not yet).. mining pools are not classed as payment facilitators,
however mixing is defined as a money service business, so adding mixing into mining pool operations would change the classification of mining pools instantly.. same goes if mixing was added as a direct feature of core would change things.
which is why core should just concentrate on the main audit, verification and archiving of blockchain

but it would be possible for congress to next try to classify mining pools as MSB's or other regulated activities.. much like the questionnaire they sent out to miners/pools already to start a consultation of treatment of pools/miners

its got nothing to do with bitcoin code. its more about demanding BUSINESSES(human managers) to follow new laws..
bitcoin itself has no eyes or ears to follow human laws. but the humans that run code or write code is a different story
many PEOPLE think they are immune to laws because they use bitcoin. but they dont realise they as people are still humans
this is why people need to learn whats ACTUALLY happening in congress so that people can use their own brains to learn the loopholes  and learn how bitcoin works to then find some work arounds or other ways to deal with things


well if you stop relying on laws to support you*. and instead take a stance to protect yourself by not revealing your life history then there would be less information revealed about you for them to even be able to find your door

*many people want to reveal things on the internet and then cry how a law is suppose to protect that revealed data.. and cry more to a judge after the fact that the info they revealed is used against them... simple solution, dont reveal info in first place, take control of yourself for yourself

its like the people that openly talk on forums saying exactly what mixers they use and show screenshots of them using it on particular days, ends up putting them on a short list of mixer used utxo's of that day(blackhatcoiner done demonstrations, thus probably on one of those lists and his coins linked to his name.. angelo).. thus linking them.. thus defeating point of using a mixer

Something very similar exists, it's called Monero :) In the Monero model, afaik miners are not "coordinating" mixing, nodes are doing that themselves with their peers. So miners would not be MSBs.

By the way: if mining pools were considered MSBs in the US, then pools would simply leave the US. The US are only 4% of the world population, even if they think they are the center of the world. :P Are there any pools residing officially in the US by the way? And in the unlikely case all countries followed with exactly the same criteria, then miners would either go solo again or return to decentralized pooling methods like P2Pool.

i dont really care who does the mixing but it just seemed to me like the miners should be doing it as part of the protocol in bitcoin. bitcoin could still be auditable too unlike what i've heard about monero. because you can't see the transaction amounts publicly.

i kind of disagree. the more things that are in bitcoin core the less the government tends to think it can do anything about them. as a compromise though, there could be 2 kinds of miners. one type mines transactions without the mix flag and the other miner mines transactions with the "mix" flag. they could co-exist. and the government can't do anything about it. what are they going to do tell people "Please don't use the "mix" flag when submitting bitcoin transactions" ? but then  you have to ask "who wouldn't want their transactions mixed?" it just enhances their privacy...

i completely disagree with your disagreement.
when software changes from just being software to then become a service. it then allows governments to encroach and invade and create jurisdiction to then set laws on those services and service operators thus then getting to control the service(software) via setting terms of use for the users of the service(software)

its especially stupid to add a mixer to core directly, because its obvious by now that mixing is a known regulated thing.

for instance
a few years ago regulators started to make laws about people who create ICO (initial coin offerings) and if core was to directly do this within core instead of the ordinals/lightning software alternatives.. this would cause more issues for bitcoin via core becoming invaded by regulatory policy

and yes this would mean regulators doing things to the core devs with force-merge code privilege.. much like mixer devs got hit because their mixers were not just code/software but a service

get it yet

bitcoin is already a service. miners perform a service called mining. nodes relay other peoples' transactions. already a service. everyone that runs a full node is performing a service if they allow people to download anything from them.

what if sending money becomes regulated? should they take away that feature of bitcoin core too?  :o

it doesn't really make sense to try and categorize bitcoin into little containers saying "if it does this then it's a service but if it does only this then it's not." mining peoples' transactions is as much a service as mixing them maybe even moreso because bitcoin couldn't exist without mining but it could exist without mixing...

firstly(miners)
miners are just asics, that just hash.. you might have made sense if you mentioned mining POOLS which are closer to being a service, which is currently being discussed in other regulator and law makers committee meetings about possibilities of regulating mining pools

secondly(nodes)
there is a big difference between a bitcoin node relaying a transaction.. as no part of that transaction designates funds specifically to an specific entity as a processor of payment. there is no facilitator who receives the funds in full and the sends funds out to designated recipient
vs
LN routers which each router specifically gets involved with taking the value in full and sends out value they have minus a fee

..
like mixers whom receive funds in full and use other value they own/control to hand out to destination

I do understand the distinction you're trying to make franky. But I want it all in bitcoin core. The government can then try and regulate AMERICANS if it wishes. But there is a world outside of the USA and it shouldn't be held hostage by one country. We need to get things into the protocol itself so they can't really do anything about it except try and regulate Americans which doesn't mean the same thing as regulating bitcoin...

If they want to make their little bitcoin addresses blacklists and file lawsuits against individuals then that's fine but I don't want them trying to force bitcoin to behave a certain way.  :o Bitcoin is supposed to be independent of any particular government and its wishes. you know that. or at least you should.

even the europeans and asians are trying to regulate parts of bitcoin usage thats defined as service providers
so trying to change bitcoin core from a software to a service will have negative effects around the world.. especially when core is the defacto sole progenitor of rule decisions and governs the protocol
it would be less of a risk if there were many different brands of "reference clients" that allow protocol and feature upgrades. but with core being the central point of bitcoin code/rule... changing it to a service then affects alot of things.

yet you are the one trying to suggest adding something that would then allow governments to invade and intervene in the operation of bitcoin via the feature you wish for reclassifying bitcoin core as a service which then allows government involvement in core, where core is currently the defact sole reference client of the rules

get it yet?

a benefit of decentralisation is not to have a sole central point that everyone has to rely on as that can then be abused and intruded on by government.. so again no benefit to include mixing as a feature of core

I support Monero.  And it does keep the regulators scratching their heads.  Any thing wrong with that, or am I a statiscially qualified Criminal for using Monero too?

I would support introducing Privacy by default for Bitcoin if it kept the Bitcoin Fungibility going with out lowering its Security and if did not cause more oppression from Authorities.  But we all know this is impossible, so I rather leave Bitcoin as is and use other ways to Privacy instead.

There will be a day where the common man will have to struggle a lot just to be able to buy bitcoin in the first place.

They will create hoops and hoops to jump through, and it'll feel like going to the damn DMV just to buy bitcoin, use bitcoin, whatever.

I'm telling people to buy BTC now while they still can, and they look at me like I'm crazy because the "price" is so "high".  ::)

It depends on who you ask ;)

But if you have a few banknotes in your wallet, nobody is going to call you a criminal for the fact that they contain traces of cocaine, even though that's illegal and proves the banknotes have been used by criminals.

just using mixers/AEC(anonymity enhanced currency) is not criminal in of itself. its just you are tagged as suspicious to a threshold that its a red flag where it can trigger an investigation done by the service*
thus defeating the point of using mixers/AEC
(if by hiding you then appear suspicious where people start looking at you more closely.. did hiding really help, now that people are looking at you MORE intensely)

*(and analysis services that share data with services) that could lead to being reported to authorities for further investigation.. (with can lead to court orders and other information gathering.. and can then lead to further actions if the use of mixers/AEC become found to be linked to an actual crime)


the IF is where you need to look into details and do research more.. again if bitcoin core added mixing into the software to turn it into a service and became under the jurisdiction of regulators policies.. where users of such service then get their coin flagged and their involvement pushed to follow regulations. those coins on the scale will not be treated as fungible, thus defeating the point. whilst also affecting what users can and cant do by causing further oppression by authorities
so lets not promote allowing authorities to further invade and set jurisdictional control further into bitcoin things


this is why bitcoin core should try to be more decentralised in its processes, by not only asking people to use the software in different countries, but also have different brands of protocol proposal reference clients on the network so core is not the solo central point. and also where core is not the defacto software of all services that can change the jurisdiction limits of government regulatory control

its much better to have features that are regulated be done as separate processes/procedures/software

bitcoin core is software. people that use it can perform services to the bitcoin community franky. it's that simple. miners use bitcoin core to perform a service called mining which they get paid for. people running nodes also can perform an unpaid service of receiving and forwarding other people's transactions. those things seem like things ripe for regulating already. it's not going to matter if you throw in mixing too. services are already being performed.

apparently you think that this mixing service that miners would perform would mean that people would need to send their bitcoin to the miners bitcoin addresses and trust them to resend it on their behalf. if that's what they were doing then maybe you would have a point but that's not what i had in mind. the miners would just alter the transactions themselves so that the inputs and outputs got all mixed around but the correct amounts ended up in the correct places. no one would be sending bitcoin directly to miner controlled addresses though!  :o

larry you are going into weird stuff now.. try researching before posturing your thoughts, it will save you soo much time

your now playing the windfury game.. playing dumb, saying silly things to provoke people to correct you repeatedly as a way for you to get spoonfed answers without trying to learn/research

i now think its time you do some research for yourself before you make yourself look like an idiot and start to become described as one, even if acting like one is your intention

and you keep on trying to take away capabilities from bitcoin and wanting to segregate them to outside services. pretty soon, there wont be anything left except people running nodes but no miners.

You are so fucking naive. Terrorism is world wide.

Russia had a children's school blown up by terrorists
France has had attacks
25 countries have had them at a minimum.

So all countries that were attacked will likely do the same as the USA.

The 911 event showed all of us what 19 people with just razor blades and some money can do.

Like it or not it is what it is.  so lock downs of btc will happen in far more countries than the USA

dude, we're not talking about terrorism.


and so? that means bitcoin should censor itself and not include certain features in bitcoin core so that the governments can all be happy? you and franky would get along good together since he has been advocating that it's enough to just try and blend in with the crowd. "blending in with the crowd" so that you don't get punished. what a philosophy. no one has a backbone anymore.

no wonder bitcoin is being trampled all over and threads like this exist. people have become weak.

Bitcoin’s main purpose was not to hide our transactions but for us to conduct a transaction even without an intermediary. We are anonymous but we are not totally invisible.

If there was an built in mixer in bitcoin, most likely it will decrease the security of the blockchain. If one aspect of bitcoin rises, the others goes down. Bitcoin has a very complex protocol as it is already.

adding features that cause governments to invade and control bitcoin is a negative for bitcoin
YOU want to do things that would cause more issues

YOU need to learn how the real world works and then learn about ways and means for bitcoiners to do things without government intrusion.. not the other way round

again.. because i feel you just dont understand reality:
mixing WAS PROMOTED as a method to avoid monitoring... yet REALITY IS that mixing actually causes those users of mixer to be highlighted more and monitored more closely, with investigations which can lead to reports going to authorities if suspect behaviour reaches a certain level...

so mixing is not doing the job it was promoted to do..
this is where people should be smart and think up a new feature that doesnt use the buzzwords that regulators define as red flags. and do it in ways that are not going to trigger investigations/monitoring/reporting.. and then if it satisfies the tasks it promotes to offer in a way that not going to cause government intrusion.. then that feature could be used

however now you know "mixing"(specific word) "tumbing"(specific word) are actually defined by regulators as activities that allow government intrusion and also allows them to delegate services to do things.. its not a good idea to then ask for "mixing" and "tumbling" to be included in software which would then change the software into becoming a service which governments then have jurisdiction over

so here is an idea for you
wipe the words "mixing", "tumbling" from your mind.. and form idea's around a totally different feature that uses bitcoin features in a new unique way to allow people to swap units of currency in a way thats not regulated.. and then use that

heres an idea
do you know that going to a retailer and handing them $10 bank note and asking for $10 in nickels and dimes is not mixing, is not exchanging. because its not trying to promote itself as mixing or exchanging(regulated)

so learn the loopholes. learn the work arounds. learn how to do things that do not fit the laws and regulations
even Uber did this when they started, they promoted their brand as something thats not a taxi service to avoid the laws and regulations about taxicab licencing..

get it yet
uber did not cry about taxicab licencing rules. instead they learned what the rules were and found a work around/loophole
get it yet

..
anyway.. about the topic
due to the OP starting the topic by misunderstanding what congress is writing, the OP is fighting a dead fight
EG
by him initially presuming its just about single use addresses. if he ever formed a petition to tell congress not to write that single use addresses are mixing. they would laugh and respond that they are not even doing that so just go away

however if he learned(i hope) that its more about tumbling using single use addresses, then he would have more of a legit cause to petition his government on whats actually involved.

so its always best to try to research and learn whats actually happening to then be able to actually fight it or work out a way to work around it  or find a loop hole if it became law
(and there already are work arounds and loopholes to do ownership transfers in a way that then dont become defined as tumbling/mixing)

here's a definition of "service" for you:

a service is anything that exists outside of the bitcoin core protocol such as "ordinals". i know that's not your definition but that's my definition.


apparently you have found some loopholes and things. good for you. i guess you buy a pack of gum every now and then.

In most nations, public places are free to not only record but share as well, you can totally publish it, in USA that's like that too, and it's like that in other parts. You can only not publish it if it's private property, and even in that case they are finding legality is quite grey, why? Because you do not share it on some news company, but just open a secret twitter account that's based in some small island nation that has basically no law or something, and share it on that twitter instead, so you can't be sued.

However, back to the real point, using more than one account should not be issue, more than one address neither, you just want to use the most out of crypto and that means having multiple accounts without worrying about it.

maybe i want to do things that press the issues. it's not like bitcoin is ever going to be a friend to the usa government so we should just get that out of our heads. they are at odds with bitcoin and everything it stands for and that is never going to change. what you're suggesting is "don't ruffle the feathers, maybe they'll leave us alone" when did that philosophy ever work out when it came to the usa government.

well, to me, companies like chainalysis they are invading peoples' privacy. certainly satoshi probably never thought some company like that would ever exist. i'm not sure satoshi thought much about how bitcoin lacks fungibility though. to be really useful something needs to be 100% fungible. fiat cash is close but since it has serial numbers, it can be traced so i wouldn't say it's 100%. but it's probably the gold standard.


repeat after me, franky. "the government is the enemy." trying to get along with an enemy isn't necessarily the path to freedom but enjoy your ride. :o

satoshi invented a blockchain thats a PUBLIC ledger thats fully auditable by anyone with a full node, thus privacy is not a thing.. anonymity(more precisely pseudonymous) is different to privacy, because the blockchain does not ask for peoples birth certified details
he was also aware of issues if grey area services started using it. such as wikileaks and silkroad. he did not want those services involved because he knew authorities and monitoring services would get involved

fiat currency has never been close to fungible..
just look at your own fiat income
if you get a salary but before receiving it to your bank you had an agreement with employer that a certain amount goes to pension.. then you receive your salary.. those two payments are treated differently for tax purposes.
if you pay for a product in a retailer and then pay your neighbour as thanks for some help. those two payments are treated differently for tax purposes
if you then received fund from investments, vs funds from a relative on your birthday. those two payments are treated differently for tax purposes
money is and always has been treated differently depending on the activity it related to

but if you dont know your enemy you wont win a fight against them
bitcoin does not absolve you of crimes. it does not immunise you of criminality.

a real test for you is this.. if you fear the government, open the front door of your home and look around your street. is there a swat team aiming guns at your house right now.. no? well then lower your fear, stop reading media crap trying to scare you and instead learn what your government is actually doing so you know what real fights you need to be wary of

much like this topics misunderstanding.
single use addresses are not the fight.. tumbling whilst using single use addresses is. and when you learn the real threat then you can learn defensive strategies

There are still teams behind decentralized wallets such as electrum. It’s not that they don’t have the ability but rather they just choose not to. They choose to build a wallet that is open to the community and to the general public to be accessed and used by everyone.

Even developers can earn from decentralized wallets just like with centralized wallets. It’s really up to the group of people what kind of wallet they want to create.

that explains WHAT he did but not why he did it that way.

then satoshi didn't design bitcoin properly since it is permissionless. anyone can use bitcoin, even a convicted felon. bitcoin itself has no system in place to stop anyone from using it, no matter what their purposes and goals are.

listen closely franky so you can understand this important point: the fact that bitcoin ended up being a "PUBLIC ledger thats fully auditable" is mainly because that is the easiest/simplest kind of blockchain to design.

All they are is software developers. Nothing more than that. I'm not handing over an ID to someone like that. Nor should I be required to.

bitcoin is not permissionless.. it seems you have picked up a buzzword from a idiot group that sound like a cult tht just echo chamber stupid thoughts thinking they are right because they repeat it to each other to cause confirmation bias, without them actually doing any research to learn anything

bitcoin code has some rules(less then it used to) which required transactions for conform to a certain format to be acceptable into being in a block. such as you cant just broadcast a XMR coin tx into the bitcoin network relay between node peers. as it will get rejected instantly and not be passed around
also you just broadcasting a tx is no guarantee it will end up in a block. many transactions are dropped and not accepted (insufficient fee as one reason)
also your coins on the address you control needs your permission via your signature to spend those coins..
and also bitcoin used to have a stronger consensus(consent of the masses) where new features would only activate when the network reached a threshold of node readiness signalling they want a feature to activate.
so there are many things in bitcoin that do need "permissions" and yes thats a good thing.
we dont want situations where random junk can be added that can mess with bitcoins purpose.(rules have been softened in last <7 years)
we dont want some random user to be able to just take other peoples funds and spend them as they please without keyholder permission

imagine how useless bitcoin would become if someone could just take your coins anytime they please without permission


but YOU want to change bitcoin core from just being devs offering software, to devs offering a service which would then require the devs to become regulated and require them to then add more code after the service feature you want added which would then require things like KYC.

do you now understand and agree why asking for a feature that changes software to become a service which then requires things like KYC to then be added due to it..  as being a stupid suggestion that goes against your actual desires
..

lets just take the example of mixers as a sole stand alone service.
when regulators defined mixers as a MSB developers were not arrested simply for writing code.. they were arrested for offering a money service and being directly financially involved with facilitating payment transfers for others and profiting from direct involvement, without being licenced and without following regulations which required them to KYC their customers

so when mixing became a service. a mixer could have registered as a MSB, added code to KYC users and then followed guidelines to monitor suspect behaviour of users and report it, and legitimately been able to continue operating...

so do you really want to have bitcoin core change to being a service just so you can save your hand doing 2 clicks to open a secondary app?
is the 2 clicks(using a separate app) really such a ordeal for you that you want to cause core to become a service and then be subjected to regulations just to save you a couple clicks*

have you got the hint yet at what would occur if your desire for mixing integration into core would cause

*personally as a decentralised safety aspect there should be more then one "reference client" that offers protocol proposals so that if core did get in trouble people would have other choices that can run on the network and apply proposals without ending up in some regulated system(which currently core are centralised and at risk of)

i just thought the miners were already performing a service by mining peoples' transactions and putting them in blocks AND getting paid. people pay these miners directly by including a transaction fee. people are paying miners to process their transactions for sending electronic cash to other people. i think uncle sam could make a case that bitcoin miners needed to register as MSBs.

well i wouldn't want bitcoin to require me to KYC just to use it so if that's what the outcome of adding mixing into the protocol then i guess we can't do that.


what is the secondary app? can you just tell me?  ???

now i do so if that's what would happen then we obviously can't have that. i don't agree with mixing as being regulated but apparently that's how it is. i just didn't think they would care if it was integrated into bitcoin core. maybe i was wrong.

firstly.. miners are not a service because miners dont do what you think they do..
miners are just ASIC devices that hash.. end off (learn the mining pool <-> miner process of bitcoin)
miners do not get paid directly by transactors
mining pools do not receive value and then reprocess the value to a destination on behalf of a transactor.. the value in a transaction doesnt define/use/designate a mining pool as a facility to process the value. a mining pool just collates the receipts(data proof) and publishes publicly. thus not a money service
again the difference is notable if you were to compare it to LN which a person gives funds in full to a LN channel partner and that channel partner then uses its own value in another lump to pay to the next person in a route.. thus LN is a system which is highly involved with routers being MSB, which becomes where LN is a failure of its model
again the difference is notable if you were to compare it to mixers where to spend the value to a mixer and a mixer uses funds from another lump to pay the intended recipient

finally now your seeing the big picture

mixing as its own thing. using things like DEX/Dapps or whatever separate thing of code that operates separate to bitcoin core.. if you want to become a mixing coordinator im pretty sure you can find via google a lot of different codebases that can set you up as a mixer using software separate to core

Congress is likely involved in passing or debating controversial or complex legislation, causing public concern or disagreement. If you provide more specifics, I can give a detailed explanation.

You might truly find this hilarious, but to me it looks very grim.  Americans are already taxed to death (which is why very few people can attain wealth and preserve it), and they're going after wallet providers with this idiotic piece of legislation with ignorance combined with great power, and that's a disastrous combination.

Hopefully this shit never comes to fruition, but with the government's microscope so focused on crypto as of late, one never knows what's going to happen.

they are not going after wallet providers. they are going after service providers that utilise tumbling via single use addresses to be classed as the same suspicion rating as mixing.

americans are not taxed to death*. however many americans are not taught tax law to know all the exemptions, loopholes and methods to legally avoid tax. yes the tax law is designed to be complicated so that if you want to attain the most benefit of tax exemptions and loopholes you have to either research it yourself and understand their terms or employ an accountant/tax adviser. which is the real game. laws are made to be complicated to create new industries of professional advisers, meaning only the rich and wealthy that can employ these advisers get to benefit from the exemptions/loopholes(unless you put in the time/effort to research it yourself).

*most americans that cant afford tax advice are normally on lower income thus low tax brackets.. however the wealthy which usually have higher tax brackets then have advisers to find the exemptions and loopholes to legally avoid paying that higher tax rate

..
anyway point of what i have been saying all along in relation to the topic
if you learn what governments are actually doing and reading the real wording of their stuff, you can learn whats actually happening and then learn/find/use the loopholes and exemptions and methods to get around what they have done.
you also then would know enough factual details of whats actually happening to then campaign/petition against whats actually happening to hopefully effect change. however just taking nonsense versions of whats not happening will just result in all campaign/petition efforts falling on death ears.
EG shouting "there going after wallets" is not a good argument and congress will just respond "no we are not" and they instead continue pushing the path of tumbling with single use addresses being classified similarly to mixing. . so its best to know what they are actually pushing so you can effectively object and petition against what they are actually pushing

but to just use a blogpost that doesnt understand whats happened and then just cry that its happening is not helpful to you or others. so this is where research is actually helpful for many reasons

miners are people. that's what i think they are.

maybe you are confusing the verb "mining" with the noun "miner"? a machine just doesn't assemble itself and plug itself in for its own benefit. there is a person the manages it and they are the miner.

isn't that kind of splitting hairs though? people are forced pretty much to include an output for the transaction fee which goes directly to the miner who mines their transaction into a block. no, the transaction doesn't identify the bitcoin address of the miner but the way bitcoin is setup, it still goes directly to their wallet anyway. that's pretty much a direct payment in my opinion. it's like writing a blank check and someone picks it up and writes their name as the payee. so you paid them directly even though you didn't know who they were when you wrote the check. it came from you and went to them.


apparently you have to register as a MSB in every single state of the USA that you will be handling peoples' money from. but how many bitcoin LN nodes even know where their "customers" are located? how many of them do KYC? probably none! no one is going to follow rules that are pretty much DOA. register in every single state? how much is that going to cost? how much time is that going to take? too much probably! but apparently people are just ignoring that issue and running nodes anyway. :o

nope a miner in bitcoin is not a person. mining does not require human labour(sweat and muscle). its done by digital devices
the humans are asic owners or pool managers. but the mining and miners are the actual digital devices working by doing hashing.


nope they are not forced to include a output for the fee. infact i can many a tx with one output to the destination recipient of the funds without having to designate another output specifically for the mining pool. i dont need to designate which mining pool will get it either. i am not contracting my transaction to be handled by a particular service.
this is where you need to do a little more learning of how bitcoin works. its a system of having less value of the output than then input so that the mining pool that does include the transaction can take value from the difference. some people make mistakes and have a big difference between the input and output meaning a mining pool can end up with alot more than rational people would decide to lose on the transaction


yep, and thats the trap.. if you cant learn who your channel partner is or the non router service customer is at the start of the payment.. when deciding you want to be a router.. you then end up getting caught if a(for example) new york authority wanted to test your service by doing a route through you and if you dont have a licence and they know who you are but you dont know them, but they know you dont have a new york MSB licence. they can sting you.. its called a honeypot trap
this is where services that want to continue operating end up having to go further down the obscurity rabbit hole to not get caught. or go legit and start KYCing their channel partners
this is one of those scenarios where legit businesses that already set themselves up as MSB end up doing the routing(controlling the markets/payments), and then small operators who cant afford or dont want the hassle. end up getting pushed out.. thus the barrier of entry becomes part of the minimum competition for joining and how payment systems become dominated by the institutions and then its the little guys that get punished by trying to compete

also its kinda weird these days to just randomly connect and join a channel of a stranger you know nothing about. so joining a channel usually is where you found and located a channel by them advertising it and offering it publicly by promoting themselves and who they are. again this creates a network effect that institutional MSB win and individuals lose

..
some of these regulations are not about making bitcoin itself be treated as a "criminal tool" but instead creating barriers of entry to promote bitcoin as being serviced by institutional level services setting a barrier of entry of needing institutional level services to access features and gateways in and out of the currency

fine. but when the government passes laws related to bitcoin mining those laws apply to people. the asic owners or pool managers, if you will.


would you consider bitcoin "broken" if the government decided to reclassify people who own bitcoin miners and pool managers as MSBs? apparently you consider LN to be a failure possibly due to this fact. because that's the danger we face if we allow the government to come up with the definitions and then decide what activities fit those definitions. but it seems like you are willing to let them do all of that.


well there are 50 states in the usa. all it would take is one of them to decide to reclassify people who own bitcoin miners or pool managers as MSBs and everyone would be screwed. because we have to follow the law right? there is not a single person that owns bitcoin miners or any pool manager who would go to the trouble of getting licensed in even a single state, thus requiring them to do KYC on ALL THEIR "CUSTOMERS" to make sure that they don't live in that particular state. yeah that's right bitcoin would no longer be semi-anonymous!