Bitcoin Forum

Anything to worry about if you use mixers and not doing anything illegal?
Will any one come knocking on your door if you use mixers and not doing anything illegal?
Will posts like this be banned too after Jan?
Will using mixers be an expensive?

To avoid centralized exchanges. Because they may seize your coins and tell you to verify your account. Also on those KYC exchanges, they may seize your coins at anytime and ask you to provide how you get the coins.

Yes. Not Coinjoin like those on Sparrow and Samourai. Coinjoin are not banned on this forum.

I don't think so. General discussion about Bitcoin mixers will still be allowed if I'm not mistaken.
However, we are not allowed to promote them or shill any particular service.

Wrong:


If you're not doing anything illegal, then nobody is going to show up at your door and harass you. The worst thing you have to deal with is just exchanges requesting enhanced verification from you and most likely a source of funds document if you send mixed bitcoins there.

Mixers are still not classified by governments as illegal.

Luckily we can use Robosats, BISQ and many other options that are P2P exchanges and will not censor transactions. Btw, if anyone has more options in this regard, feel free to share them.

There is also this website here: https://kycnot.me/ which has a lot of good value tools

Mixer is a tool to make you stay anonymous, so assuming you did right and know what you're doing, how can someone able to know your location and knocking your door? you must be leave your identity somewhere and it's already kill the purpose of mixer.

Using mixer will be expensive because the current regulations is full of KYC, so it's not gonna be easy to stay anonymous.

It is super easy to mess it up, by mixing outputs of separate transactions together. For example, I have a UTXO that is freshly mixed. Then I pay something online and I receive the change. If I then mix the change with other UTXOs that haven't been processed by mixers or coinjoins etc, you can definetely make a mistake. So I underline a sentence in your response, because it is important that we do things properly. No tool is safe against human error ;)

well if you weren’t doing anything illegal while you were using mixers then you shouldn’t feel worried because mixers weren’t yet illegal by the time you were using them but if you use it knowing that it is now illegal or banned then you should be worried then

but no i don’t think police will come knocking at your door if you talk or discuss about mixers here maybe if you try to post an alternative or promote it, your post might be deleted or something of the likes

Centralized exchanges are far more likely to question you about your funds if your coins are mixed. So if you already mixed your coins, probably do a couple of hops from multiple wallet addresses to hopefully bypass their automated flagging software if it doesn't dig deep enough.

In Bitcointalk forum all about mixer will not longer be allowed after January 1 next year but the mixer project is still allowed if you want to be anonymous with your bitcoin fund. Not must to be worry when using Mixer not for illegal transaction because you want to keep with all your assets how to be private without allowed tracking by the other.

Actually is not has police will knock your door when talking about mixer but is not allowed in this forum based on admin rule, all promotion or discussing about mixer for first January will not be allowed any more and get warning with your bitcointalk account if still discussing or promoting with mixer project.

Using mixers isn't illegal in most countries, so long as you are not participating in any illicit activities. Unless, of course your mixer is listed as being compliant with money laundering, that is a whole other story.

Unfortunately, not all government works the same. There are certain cases where government can seize your funds if you were to use a mixer and/or the origins of your coins are tainted already. Familiarize your local laws and your rights, do your own research when it comes to legal advice.

If mixers are not illegal in your countries, then you can feel free to use them. But, keep in mind that since the purpose of using a bitcoin mixer is to protect your privacy, you have to use decentralized exchanges like BISQ instead of centralized ones. If you use centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, they'll ask you for KYC documents and source of funds, that means, your privacy won't be protected and they'll have an eye on you (let's assume this one).

We can't predict whether mixers will charge more or not, i.e. whether they'll be expensive or not but it will be very hard to find a good, trustworthy mixer.

Bitcoin mixers or mixers in general are not illegal but they are fluctuating between legal and illegal. It is only matter of time when some criminals like Lazardus group to mix coins on a mixer and bring problems to that platform. The US. government, DOJ. will seize, sanction it and it will become illegal.

It is allowed if a discussion post has no url link to a mixer website.

Follow it in Mixers to be banned (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5476162.0).
Follow theymos' post history (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=35;sa=showPosts) to see his updates about the ban and what he adjust, finalize for January 1 ban against mixers.

Depends on each mixer. I can not generalize service fee for all mixers.

You can't deposit your coin on most centralized exchange and custodial wallet since it's either against their ToS or they deemed your deposit suspicious. On some case, they'd ask tons of personal information to prove you're innocent.


I don't know, but i don't recall it ever happens.  CMIIW.


No.


It depends on which mixers service you use. Although i expect few mixers would try to be competitive by applying low fees.

There is a draft law being prepared for it to be passed and become a law. Even in the United States, the use of a mixer is considered legal, and all the problem that occurred because of Sinbad’s signature was because the address of the signature campaign for that mixer was included in the OFAC list, but you can still spend your coins to any party that does not support  OFAC lists, especially since most mining pools do not adhere to it.

unless there is a legal ban on these mixers in your country, and you are not using the mixer to hide illegal gains, then mixing your currencies is considered a legal act.

It depends on what you are using mixers for in the first place, many people will say they are using mixers for their own private reasons but those who are using it for illegal activities won't come here and say they are into illegal activities, so when people say they are not bad people I don't take they seriously, no one comes out and say they are bad people, until they are caught in the act.

Mixers are now illegal even if you use them for right purposes it can easily promote illegal funding as well, do you really have anything to hide? Because Bitcoin decentralization gives power to the people already, you don't have to use mixer, I don't see reason to use mixer because Bitcoin did enough for me in that part.

The choice is yours, but don't bring any mixers related discussion on here after December 31st, I still don't know if mixers related discussions will be allowed or not, until then.

Bitcoin mixers are not illegal for the moment. If you use them for illegal purpose then there would issues. You can discuss about mixers, you cannot promote or shill them in the forum. Currently the transaction fees are more expensive than the fees that mixer are charging. I don't think that using mixer would be expensive for anyone who is looking for privacy of their Bitcoin transaction.

If you're not engaging in any illegal activities, you should generally have nothing to worry about. Using mixers is not illegal; many use them to enhance privacy or security. It's just that it can be associated with illegal activities like money laundering or other financial crimes. No one should knock on your door simply for using mixers within legal boundaries. However, I thought that posts with the word "mixer" would be filtered starting in January. I need to visit the discussion about this to stay updated.

I don't think it should be a problem to use a mixer while you are doing nothing bad, but the best practice is to do your own research about the mixer you are going to use. Because, sometimes the mixer you might be using is involving in some kind of illegal case or some words is out from the officials on news or media, Once you read such types of news then the best practice is to avoid using those mixers.
Yeh, it is possible.
For this you should read the full post mentioned above in the news section and remains there for long enough, the short story is, old posts will do no harm and the posts made after 1 January may harm your account. And you can talk about Mixers but can not ask people to go look for this mixer or search for this mixer etc.
Yes, they have different rates and different features you can find many on this forum easily.

Thanks for this tip but wouldn't they still see where it came from and how long it got there towards another address? The scary thing about mixers is that your clean coins will inevitably be tainted by the bad ones which makes it difficult for you to hide that it's gone through that right?

I don't think it's a problem to use a mixer if you're not doing anything illegal though and I want that we have that right to use that services, the only problem with that is you're going to need some explaining to do with why you're using that service and it's a hassle in my opinion.

i doubt you will be penalized if you make any post regarding mixers as long as you're not promoting it or wearing a signature depicting that you are promoting it.

I be on a safer side, if it's not very necessary to bring up a mixer discussion in he forum, you can just avoid it for now and wait as things unfold with time since January first has been given as the deadline regarding any dealing wih mixers in the forum.

Just play safe and don't be the victim.

There is nothing to worry about if we do not commit illegal acts such as money laundering. Then why should we be afraid?, if we are doing the right thing and not breaking the law.
And regarding mixer posts after January 1, maybe the words in the posts should just be censored.

You need KYC to use mixer?

Innocent people get arrested for crimes all the time.

You mean there is a right and wrong way to use a mixer?

Multiple hops from your own desktop wallet like Electrum?

I doubt very much your average lawyer will even know what a mixer is.

I don't think so. The purpose of a mixer is to protect your privacy and identity or to make anonymous transaction. Now, if mixers required KYC on their customers then it's useless. If so, it is better to use directly on Centralized Exchanges than to waste your time and effort on mixers. Technically speaking, mixers wouldn't do that if they want to take care of their customers.

If ever all the mixers required KYC in the future then decentralized exchanges would be a good alternative.

Your biggest concern on mixer that has a transaction to money launderer is you receiving Bitcoins from them especially when the mixer that use was seize by the government because your Bitcoin address will be on the watch list which you will have a problem if you send your coins on CEX.

But if you are from a country like 3rd world country that doesn’t give much attention to crypto then you are just fine since your government is the only one who can knock on your down and not US government that typically aggressive on this matter.

Everyone who uses bitcoin mixers and who runs these sites remains anonymous. Because here everything is done in decentralized way.  And not only the identity of a customer but even the Bitcoin wallet is kept hidden here. And for this reason, illegal activities like money laundering are constantly happening here, which work against the laws of the government of every country, due to which various actions are being taken against these mixers. However, those who do not do any illegal work here have no chance to have any problem, but those who manage these sites may have a problem. Legal action will be taken against them

If we don't do anything illegal, I think we have to remain confident that nothing bad will happen to us in the future. unless perhaps the mixer is ultimately proven to have a problem in an investigation. and there is a possibility that the address we use can also be traced. but if it has nothing to do with anything illegal, why should we be afraid?

I don't think mixer-related discussions will be archived and locked. The most important thing is not to focus on placing URLs or deliberately placing links from mixers.
mixer is very synonymous with Bitcoin. and in forums that discuss anything related to Bitcoin ultimately it is not allowed to promote mixing platforms. but we can still use it.

I personally am not a mixer user, I have only used one or two mixers on the forum, and that's because I just wanted to try and gain experience from using the mixer platform.

As was pointed out, generic discussions of mixers would still be allowed, as long as nobody is mentioning specific websites or suggestions to find specific websites. I've never used Bitcoin mixers, and I'm not planning to use them in the future. As for what's illegal, it always depends on a country. You should check the legislation of the country where you live, as well as see if there were any notable cases of people getting in trouble just for using mixers (and not people getting in trouble because of using mixers to launder money, for example).

Hmm, getting involved in a service or using a service working for evil means, such as money laundering, etc can get the service users into trouble because the organizations will consider them as well the part of the crime. If you actively use the service banned by the official means you can never justify your actions.

Any post promoting the mixers after the JAN and somehow involving a direct reference to the mixer will be banned on the forum according to the statement made by the theymos.

Using mixers is not too expensive because the service fees range from 0.5% to 5% depending on the tier of service you are using basically they offer 3 tiers. That's it bro.

If the mixer, you used caught doing malicious activity and your address is linked somehow then you will have a problem but its highly unlikely to happen and if you have a proper source of income then you don't need to worry about facing legal actions.

But exchanges and casinos may flag your account as suspicious and will carry our further investigation if your funds deposited into their are from a flagged mixer.

The only problem that I am aware of by using Mixers is that you shouldn't use CEX for some time as they don't like the source of a new wallet with coins.
Also, it solely depends on the amount of Bitcoin that we are talking about. If it's not a surprising amount, then you don't have to worry about anything at all.

There is a good thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5117328.0) about how it is not that difficult to break mixers in the sense that whoever has the knowledge, resources and time can connect the dots and come to the conclusion where something came from and where it went. Those who analyze blockchain today are already so successful in this that even mixers do not pose too much of a challenge. Anonymity online is something that is talked about a lot, but being completely anonymous online is a big illusion.


I don't think that using a mixer will be any more expensive than it is today, because they will continue to try to be competitive and attract as many clients as possible. The fact that they will no longer be present on this forum does not change too much their way of doing business.

I agree that this kind of thinking can be understood given the existing problems and it all comes back to the user. If it is used for bad purposes then it will be a crime, but if it is used for good purposes then as long as it is still positive it is legal, because you just want to avoid doing it. KYC I know that every exchange definitely requires a KYC process to make money transfers, the existence of Mixer is actually a little helpful for people who don't have identity or have lost their residence card and that is identical to the KYC process, so the existence of Mixer aims to help people who lost their identity, actually it was only individuals who did this and in the end a lot of speculation emerged..

This is just speculation, my thoughts are true or not, I don't know even if I use the ad..

You have to worry about using Mixer when you are using centralised platforms like exchange and wallet services. Binance is already spotting transactions related to mixers and asking to provide a source of funds. You may definitely face this kind of issue when using the mixing service. The forum didn't prevent you from discussing related mixers, but don't advise with mixer links or don't hint to use mixers. I think you have to find alternatives when you want to protect your privacy and hide your funds. We have to use swaps or decentralised exchanges to protect privacy. I feel it is better to avoid mixers since they are facing a lot of legal issues lately. Law enforcement agencies consider money laundering whoever uses mixers. So you would be one of them if law enforcement could detect you.

Yes, it is a custodial service, you lose custody of your coins during the mixing process, that is something to be worried about when sending your coins to a mixer. Use CoinJoin implementations if you want a privacy solution that is self custodial.
I don't think there's any reason why they should become more expensive, they would charge the same service fee as they are doing now.

Using mixers aren't illegal.

But you know that these secret agents/FBI themselves are closely eyeing into these services because of the money that's being mixed there from scams and hacks. Yes, if you do nothing illegal, there's nothing to worry about. Advertising it on starting January 1, 2024 are no longer allowed by the forum so it's just here.

If you want to use it for increased privacy, you're free to do so.

Yes, as there is currently a hunt ongoing for mixers, and for users of mixers. It depends more and less so based on if the mixer has been seized or proven to have illegitimate involvement, but nonetheless, I would be taking precautions, especially if you are using centralized services.


Probably not if you've done nothing illegitimate. Though the thing to be worried about is being asked for KYC on virtually any centralized service. As users said, that's fine, just use decentralized and p2p services instead.


No, as others said - no promotion, no link sharing = OK.


Maybe it will create temporary competition, maybe costs will go up, maybe they'll stay the same. Technically, less spent on marketing means savings for the company, so I don't see why costs would go up.

If you know that you are not doing anything illegal and just using mixers for your privacy then why you have to worry though? Nah, I don't think that someone men in black will come knocking at your door just because you used mixers. They are still legal to use per se.

For the post about banning mixers here, you can read: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5476162.0

Well if the fees are going to be expensive, then maybe mixers will be expensive too. Some of them though are advertised as free.

A member of the forum got a message from one of these centralised exchanges for him to clarify how he got funds from the wallet of Sinbad campaign. However, there have been no reports of anyone being questioned when the fund is transferred to a decentralized exchange. Mixers are legal in many countries but the government is scared that they could be misused. You don't have to worry if you are using mixers to mix legally acquired coins but it is better to avoid centralised platforms.


If the bill is passed into law exchanges and other crypto service providers will be mandated to record and report information about transactions that they suspect involve crypto mixers. The law will formally designate mixers as an area of “primary money laundering concern in the US.

To my greatest knowledge apart from this forum you are free to make use of mixers to whatever you feels just that from the announcement, any post relating to mixers won't be allowed or sharing links and directing someone over here to start making use of. You can discuss about mixer outside the forum you have no law but do not relate it to this site again. Any mixer you are planning to used be sure the authority aren't planning to ceased it otherwise whatever trace can be subjected to you as well, so using it is at your own risk.

I don't think you should concern yourself if you're working with reputable mixers anyway. The ones that get flagged and banned by Central Exchanges are those found to be working or used to facilitate illegal operations. Sinbad was one of them and if I'm not mistaken prior to them being banned by the US government they also received some flags from certain exchanges as well. Using mixers wouldn't really subject you to any criminal liability unless you're found to be one of those that used it to steal money from users to which you'll of course be receiving some lawsuits and a possible arrest, but if you're just an average joe concerned about the safety of your funds so you used a mixer to protect your identity against these hackers then you shouldn't worry about it. Just as I said earlier, make sure you work with a reputable and trusted mixer, and you're good to go. The ban on mixers in this forum if it concerns you is just to avoid further issues with these guys. The thing has spiraled out of control after chipmixer and sinbad got seized that the forum couldn't afford to just sit back and wait until they get the blame.

You are using a mixer for privacy reasons, so I guess, the platform itself is somehow protected if authorities won't dig deeper.
If you think you have nothing to hide, then, no need to be scared of using mixers or better yet, why are you using a mixer in the first place?
Right now, authorities are after for the mixer business because they are suspecting that this platform is being used for laundering money.
So if you believe, there's no need to use a mixer with your transactions, then better use other means. After all, most trading platforms are already requiring KYC.

It's usually very small amounts for paying online bill under $100.

This is what I was concerned about but since it's only a small amount no more than $100 then nothing to worry about?

That's the only reason I want to use mixer.

Does anyone else agree that mixers can be tracked?


Even web wallet's?

My goal is anonyomilty, I am unfamilar with swaps and decentralized but will look into that, are there any other alternative ways to be anonymous with transactions?

That's why I am looking into mixers, privacy is my motivation not because I am doing anything illegal.

reputable mixers would be who?

But still people are still hiding from kyc especially those centralized exchange asking for their personal document, so people who are using mixers do not go through kyc but exchange does and for someone to successfully withdraw huge amount of funds he would be asked to go through kyc verification process making him or to review his identities making him traceable if there are any suspicion of money laundering within the exchange.

That's fine.

But the concern of many here is about the forum that on exact January 1, 2024. There will be no more mentioning of these mixer brands but we're all free to discuss about mixers in general.

So, you're all free to use them any time you want even pass that deadline.

I'd argue the opposite is true.  Well-known reputable bitcoin mixers tend to be more popular, right? And the popular ones likely end up on some agency's naughty list before lesser-used newer ones.  But hey, don't take that as advice to use disreputable services with shady reputations or anything. 

Im just sayin' there's a bit of a trade-off there

You have to be careful who you quote, because I didn't write it. As I already said, neither Bitcoin is anonymous, nor can you be sure that any mixer can provide absolute anonymity, given that the blockchain is public and anyone can analyze it - and for years there have been specialized companies that do this professionally.


Did you read anything on the link I put in my previous post? Well, mixers are not some kind of magic, but rather a simple input of funds and output of funds, where an attempt is made to break the connection between the coins that someone sends and the funds that the same person then receives at his address. If you're doing something really bad and "they" want to find you, be sure that you won't be able to hide by using a mixer.

I think this depends on the nature of transactions and on the laws of the country that you are staying.

Generally, if your country has a specific prohibition against the use of mixers, then it is best for you to avoid using such even if you are not doing anything that is shady. If you violate this law, then you will have to suffer the punishment imposed on your country.

I do not think that posts related to mixers will be banned as there can be a comprehensive discussion about it with objective elements coming from all people.

The use of mixers is both a luxury and a necessity- some may want to use such service to avoid KYC and other related data; while others use it mainly for shady/dark deals. Though that may be the case, I do think that mixers will still remain expensive despite its ban on this forum.

That is left for you to do your research, there are a lot of mixers you can choose from, and you can check their websites to know how they work before using them. But as i said in my previous post, you are going to lose custody of your coins when you use mixers, and if you want a self custodial privacy solution, use CoinJoin implementations. Recommending a particular mixer to people would be difficult right now, and that is because we do not know which mixer would fail or be seized next, and you don't want people to lose their money because you linked them to a particular mixer.

You can use mixers legally. Remember, perception matters. You're just a person looking for privacy, right? Privacy matters, especially in the digital era. Nobody wants their finances public. How about those knock-knock fears? The likelihood of law authorities visiting your home is low if you're not doing anything unlawful. You shouldn't ignore caution, though. Authorities are always looking for suspicious activity, and excessive mixer use may fall under their radar. Mixer talks aren't banned under forum rules. Don't expect commercials or promotions for them. Clean forums - no ads or endorsements. You can ask questions or share mixing experiences, but don't anticipate mixer billboards. Maintaining a healthy, educational environment without sales pitch is key. Knowledge is powerful, but application is everything  :P :P

As far as I know, mixers aren't illegal. No government has declared it yet, but you can raise suspicion if you use a mixer to hide the origin of your funds. While there are legitimate uses for mixers, that doesn't mean a criminal won't use it to break the law. The main reason why governments are targeting mixers is because of privacy concerns. After all, they want to have a full scope of your entire financial life.

I'd try to avoid using a mixer regularly just in case. With many centralized mixers being shut down by the government, we should expect the worse in the long run. Only non-custodial mixers will survive due to the way they're designed. Who knows what the future holds for privacy on Bitcoin? :(

Yes, thanks.

From your link the quotes below grabbed my attention:

monero and zcash are private crypto's because they were built with that purpose in mind. Bitcoin was not.



Decentralized mixers won't steal your money?

In the statement released by the FBI or whoever it was when the most recent mixer was shut down they said something like "Mixers are not illegal". This means using mixers is not illegal. If you're carrying out any illicit activities with mixers, that's what is illegal.

It's the same thing with using the Internet.
You're boldly using the Internet and nobody has come knocking at your door simply because you use the internet, but if you use the internet for illegal activities, somebody might come knocking.

If you think your lawyer doesn't have any idea of the FinTech laws, then you should probably change your lawyer. If you can't even afford a proper lawyer right now, then you have nothing to worry about.

If you aren't doing anything illegal and you are not mixing a significant amount of money, no one would bother you. The man-hours it takes to compile the evidence to prosecute a person is not worth the time, don't worry about it. That is unless you are doing something illegal and you definitely have things to worry about then.

No. No need to worry.

If someone comes knocking on my door because I use a mixer service but it doesn't lead to anything illegal, I will greet them in a friendly manner.
I think there is no need to be afraid of not committing illegal actions.

quote from theymos on December 1, 2023, mixer discussions are not prohibited. This means we can still have discussions about mixers.

Never mind mixer, the average IT lawyer doesn't know about crypto and how it affects legal responsibilities/risk. I say this with all due respect, and from the admittance of an IT lawyer I engage for work over the past couple of years. They're pretty great at tech, fintech, but decentralised tech (I know only Bitcoin really qualifies) is something they're only just coming to grips with.

MiCA provides much-needed clarity but it's national law (even in the EU) that's a challenge for them.

I always say, don't let your understanding be motivated by the fear of getting caught for doing something wrong. Be motivated that your personal freedoms and fundamental rights -- including money-related -- will always be under attack.

You're going in the right direction, because the so-called "privacy coins" are definitely different from Bitcoin, although I can't tell you how private their transactions actually are, because I honestly haven't studied how hard or easy it is to track those transactions. However, given that the authorities are quite hostile towards such cryptocurrencies and that most centralized crypto exchanges have removed them, it is quite clear that they want to discourage people from using them.

Really? I've got a few lawyer friends working for DeFi firms (specifically with regards to IP), NDA so I can't discuss too much about them. Seems like they were quite well-versed with the Crypto scene and had quite a good understanding of how the scenarios that we've mentioned would pan out. Granted that it is quite niche, but a good lawyer with some degree of knowledge in FinTech would have a very good knowledge about your rights in this issue. Again, don't think it would be wise to engage a lawyer who doesn't have any experience with whatever you're doing with.

Interestingly, from what I understand, cases involving Bitcoin are often heavily overlapped with the traditional money laundering cases and that historically prosecutor has had a harder time to build a solid case to prove malicious intent when using mixers. Regardless, if you're not doing anything illegal, then there is no case to build for anyways.

You can use mixers if it is necessary for you, especially if you have not done anything illegal. It seems to me that the more important question may be whether you can use your bitcoins after you have used the mixer, could there be a situation where certain services will not accept such coins because they came from the mixer?

It seems to me that as long as mixers are not prohibited by law, we should not worry that using them is something bad, if the user is worried about his anonymity, then there is nothing wrong with it.

it's like you entered a place of prostitution, just to buy food there and don't do anything negative, but people's perception will think that you are doing illegal things there. that's what it's like when you use a mixer, even if you don't use their services for anything negative, just to increase your privacy, but the government will still think that you are doing something illegal there because many criminals have used mixer services to increase their privacy.

if you haven't done anything illegal, you can carry out transactions as usual, since you haven't done anything criminal, why should you use mixer services?

Yes, really. I have also come into contact with crypto-niche lawyers even before "defi" but we're really not talking about the average legal career guy here. Even then, these niche lawyers deal with issues very specific to the company hiring them, and have the experience related.

I'm no expert, but it seems to me the starting point is legal clarity on crypto itself. How a jurisdiction views it then determines which activities trigger specific aspects of the law and there is where national law (or lack of) comes into play. It's usually precedent that helps. One firm does it well and legally in one jurisdiction, others follow in their footsteps. So what you get are lawyers who're experts with one template of business entity, one jurisdiction, one way of conducting taxes, etc.

Precedent is important. Expertise follows quite easily, so the average on precedent is low at the moment.

Establishing intent doesn't always play a role, either. If mixers are determined to be illegal, as I suspect one day they will, in the usual-suspect jurisdictions, then intent no longer comes into play (let's say, for example, when US Treasury sanctioned mixers like Blender, making it automatically illegal for US citizens). The next step then, would be to qualify what makes a mixer or what qualifies as mixing.

There is nothing illegal about having to use the services of mixers. It’s just as legal as any service out there in cryptospace and our world. It only portrays you to be one who is privacy concerned and sees the need to not have your transactions followed in any particular way.
The stand on the forum with mixers shouldn’t deter you from having any form of patronage to the service, the forum only takes this position to save itself some trouble as, some users have used the leverage mixers provide to hide traces of illegal transactions. These are the persons that should be worried as, their transactions are one of high interest to authorities.
If your clean, your cool.

That's certainly true, mate. But be aware that governments can make mixers "illegal" anytime if they want to. Especially if they see crypto becoming extremely-popular in the long run. They will come up with the excuse that mixers are used mainly for money laundering and tax evasion. People that are caught using a mixer could either face jail time or may be required to pay a fine.

In extreme situations, governments can prosecute developers of non-custodial mixers for launching an unregistered money service business (MSB). With US Senator Elizabeth Warren introducing the "Digital Currency Anti-Money Laundering Act", we should expect the worse. At least, within the US. Other countries might do the same if they see people "ditching" Fiat in favor of crypto. It's all part of the agenda to undermine personal freedom and privacy. Even this forum will ban anyone promoting mixers. It'll be a dark future for the whole crypto/Blockchain industry :(

I managed to find a link for that:
https://news.bitcoin.com/report-claims-fbi-bitcoin-mixers-btc-forfeiture-processing/
It appears the FBI said they would prefer to have mixers illegal.
How common is it to see FBI/DOJ complain?

Good comparison

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What is the primary reason for banning mixers on here?

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If they reject the payment, how would you get it refunded if its gone thru the mixer? How does the person rejecting the payment because it came from mixer, send the money back to you?

You'll have a hard time using CEX if they detect that you're in possession of cryptocurrency that's been tainted by other dirty cryptocurrency because you used a mixer but besides that I don't think you're going to have any problem using mixers, it's just that it's a taboo to speak about it here in the forum starting from January 1, 2024. No one said anything about the police knocking on your door when you use one so no worries about that.

It wouldn't make sense for someone with malicious intentions to use mixers when they could go the privacy coin route? I guess they have a hard time accessing privacy coins since the bans so their business goes to the mixers? Agencies got one hole got plugged now perhaps they will try to plug the other (mixers)?

Actually, we are not really prohibited from using a mixer. There is nothing inherently wrong with mixer services. However, this becomes a problem when these services are used to launder money and fund criminal organizations around the world. It is true that we as users do not carry out illegal activities, but mixer services themselves are often confiscated because they have been proven several times to help carry out illegal activities. In this forum mixer services will be banned but if you talk about mixers without accompanying links/shortlinks then it's not a problem IMO

I believe, as long as you are discreet with your activities using the mixer services, you won't need to worry about someone knocking on your door.
But come this new year, I don't know how things go here when we talk about their services and other discussions that come with it.
In my opinion, if there's no strong reason to use their service, why not just go to the usual route of using the regular trading platforms?

Would that usual route align with my privacy leanings?

It actually makes sense because if you mix BTC, you do it with the assumption that you will get coins that are not related to you, that is, you want to break the link between your main address and the address from which you will make transactions. Maybe people would use privacy coins more if they could get to them more easily, but also if those same coins would be accepted by merchants in the same way as is the case with Bitcoin.

In other words, private coins are something that makes sense in transactions between private individuals, but with them you cannot pay for a hotel, buy a plane ticket, or many other things that you can pay with Bitcoin today.

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@bitcoin talk, posting multiple posts in a row is against the rules of the forum, and you can reply to multiple users in one post by adding multiple post quotes, just scroll down and select the "Insert Quote" option.

all mixers are used for money laundering

Every currency in the world is involved in money laundering, heck even banks (HSBC, Morgan Stanley) are complicit with money laundering. A slap on their wrist and life goes as per normal.

The trend here appears to be that mixers aren't illegal, until they are found to be involved in any money laundering scheme. A wrong choice of word in my original post, should be "complicit".

Recently local exchanges easily banned those accounts that are traced to have affiliated with gambling from their transactions and there was nothing to worry about because all they got was banned from the local exchanges but with the mixers are also in danger of being banned in the future because of how they are using it for illegal activities, there is a tendency that they will gonna put some serious consequences for whoever caught using it depends on what countries they are residing because countries have different laws concerning mixers and it would be safe for us to just avoid using it until you find some good alternatives on hiding your transactions to the public.

1. Nothing to worry about but if you're going to send those coins to a CEX then you're going to have a problem there because they might see that you've used a mixer for those coins. You might not be doing anything illegal but once you're caught using one, you have some explaining to do about why you're using mixers.
2. Unless you're a domestic terrorist or a member of a terrorist cell, I don't think you're going to find anyone knocking your door anytime soon.
3. You can still talk about mixers but it's generalized and no names of mixing services are going to be mentioned.
4. I don't think so, they don't ask for much for their services, that's why criminals use them to launder their money.

I think using mixers for legal and legitimate purposes does not inherently raise any concerns. It's used to enhance privacy and fungibility in cryptocurrency transactions, and many individuals use them to protect their financial privacy right so if you are not engaging in any illegal activities and are using mixers for privacy reasons, there shouldn't be any legal issues. But it's still essential to be aware of any updates