Bitcoin Forum

Now, that the mixers are banned from this forum, I wonder, why do we even need BTC mixers.
A non-KYC exchange solves the mixer problem where Bitcoin and Monero are available too.

1. If you have bitcoin which is connected to you and you want an untraceable one, you should:
i) Go to an (even KYC) exchange, where you change your BTC to XMR.
ii) Send the XMR to 'monero_address_1'.
iii) Send the XMR from 'monero_address_1' to 'monero_address_2' outside of the exchange.
iiii) Send XMR from 'monero_address_2' to a non/KYC exchange and change your XMR to BTC.

2. If you have 'dirty' bitcoin and you want a clear one, you should:
i) Go to a non-KYC exchange, where you change your BTC to XMR.
ii) Send the XMR to 'monero_address_1'.
iii) Send the XMR from 'monero_address_1' to 'monero_address_2' outside of the exchange.
iiii) Send XMR from 'monero_address_2'q to an (even KYC) exchange and change it to BTC.

As I see it, there are non-KYC services where you can change BTC to XMR or XMR to BTC.
According to my research, e.g. changenow.io seems a KYC exchange, but they don't ask your documents, only in case of suspicious transactions. Or do you know surely non-KYC echanges with BTC <-> XMR change possibility?
What do i miss?

by using a btc-btc mixer, your inflow and outflow gets tagged as suspicious and gets on a watchlist.. defeating the purpose of using a mixer
by doing btc xmr btc is still a thing where the btc inflow and btc outflow gets tagged and gets on a watchlist.. defeating the purpose of using a AEC
(purpose being avoid being watched/tagged as needing to be watched)

you are more likely to have coins followed by an investigator by simply using a mixer/AEC compared to just spending coins

the only people that benefit is the criminals that have direct access to criminally known dirty coins that want to offload them to some idiot victim being told their clean coins are not good enough and need to mix them, but end up with the criminals dirty coins so that the criminal can walk away with cleaner coins with just a taint of suspicion of just mixing.. rather than a taint of criminality lowering the criminals suspicion threshold but raising the innocent persons suspicion threshold
..
the funniest part is
when mixer promoters try to tell victims btc is fungible "1btc is equal to 1btc". if the promoter truly believed that then they would not be trying to get people to use mixers nor need to use mixers themselves

however they only say the fungability script, to dupe idiots into thinking its ok to receive criminal coins and victim hands over clean coins

..
so here is the thing.
there are not enough investigators in the world to be watching everyone all the time.
each transaction may go through an algo that tags a suspicion percentage to a coin whereby if it reaches a threshold then an investigator looks at it. if the threshold is raised higher then its reported to authorities, if its higher the authorities get court orders to seek more information of service users deposited coins. then if the threshold is raised further then accounts are frozen

you dont get watched or have coins on accounts frozen just for using bitcoin. however using a mixer gets you watched.. and if you received dirty coins in that process you then get into issues of having to explain things.

so cut out the middle men dont be duped into thinking you should use a mixer and its fine to receive dirty coins because you were told by mixer promoters no harm comes to you.. because the opposite is try, chances of harm raise by using mixers/ AEC
if no harm can come from being handed criminal linked coins.. the the criminals wouldnt be so determined to promote ways for them to get rid of their coins via innocent clean coin victims being told to use mixers

mixers do not "wash" all coins to make all coins clean again.. they instead give criminals a method to offload dirty coins for innocent people to pick up

in short it only benefits the criminals

---

analogies
many people walk down a side walk doing their own thing.
if you are being told not to just walk the sidewalk like others but instead weave and dodge and hide behind bushes, even if you are not a criminal or done anything wrong. people will start looking at you more then you intended .. defeating the point of not wanting to be looked at
if a criminal says there is nothing wrong with what clothing someone wheres and all clothing is the same. so suggest you swap clothing with a criminal.. they get to walk off with your clothes and look innocent and you are suddenly now appearing as the criminals description

I see your point of view and you are right, I totally agree. But your answer has nothing to do with the original question.
I asked that why do we need bitcoin mixers, if there is Monero. We can change BTC to XMR and vica versa on no-KYC exchanges, and make an XMR to XMR transaction between the changes. This is a theoretical question.

if just using 1 exchange there is no point using xmr at all, just use the exchanges own algo internally to ensure deposits are different to withdrawals (aka unadvertised mixing, by branding themselves as an exchange instead)

yes XMR can be used as the middle path to make sure deposited btc in exchange1 is not the same as withdrawn btc in exchange2 due to different btc reserves..
but that would require you using 2 exchanges to guarantee different reserves of btc for it to need XMR to traverse the 2 exchanges


XMR is by regulation standard a AEC (anonymity enhanced currency) which also flags up as suspicious if found users are converting btc to xmr.
so investigators do try to watch XMR too

so finding a service that does it without KYC becomes difficult because most advertised exchanges have to register as money service businesses and then comply to regulations..
any MSB not complying to regulations by not registering usually gets caught

In the process, there are points you disclosed your identity with KYC. There is too much dependence on Monero blockchain for fund transfer and mix through Monero blockchain.

Governments try to break down the Monero blockchain and they even announce big prize for anyone, any company can break down Monero privacy.

[Guide] Decent mixing methods (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5146241.0)

If you want privacy, at the start, you must avoid KYC first even with BTC transaction and trade, do it with non KYC exchanges.

Good thread supporterofpeace

Simple answer: No we don't need mixers. - And what's the problem? people can still use them, but they cant earn money from them on a signature campaign, many users focus on totally wrong thing.

No we don't need bitcoin mixers, actually it's very few things we need in life, but we get addicted of stuff because we are humans and that's in our nature and we got that stuck in our brain.
So change the question to "Is mixers a good service?" "Should mixers not have been banned from the forum?" This is a hard question since many users is sad/angry because they lost an income because of the banning, so they will reply with emotions and feelings and that's only make everything wrong but I understand them. But it's better things to earn money from in life then posting posts on a forum but also they can still use mixers if they really need it. So I don't see the problem? And this nonsense that this forum is a decentralized place and everything should be illegal is just stupid, this forum is not a decentralized place since we got moderators that are in charge.

A lot of things is about money and greed and every human stand themself closest that's the hard reality and it's nothing wrong with that I just pointing it out, we are humans and our subconscious control what we do to 90%-95% so we need to train to put good things in our subconscious and remove the negativity, and yes I know what I am speaking about and this is hard and take years of practice but it's possible trust me.

And if you ask me I hope mixers get banned and shut down from the internet totally because they cause much more bad then good, how many actually using mixers here and for what reason, come on.. you know I know.  ;D
I have no proof or statistic so I only man guessing, but try to see it this way how many using mixers for illegal purposes way and in how many in a legal way? Since all this "Expert hackers" using them when they empty innocent's people wallet for millions of millions even billions total worth of dollars using them we at least got some proof that a very high traffic is for illegal activities. So that's why I hope they get shut down completely, it will only make it harder for the scammers to get away with their shit, and yes probably they would find some other way yes, but we should always do what we can do to stop scamming and scammers instead of argue about things we cant affect at all we should focus on things we can affect and build up the crypto community even higher and increase the crypto reputation so more and more want to join it! If more people get into crypto then we all will be winners.
And we all here may not like each other or share opinions but we share one thing the love of crypto and decentralized places.. Focus on that instead and make that better instead of focus on things we can affect.
But in my opinion mixers don't serve a good purpose. And of course honest and good people using mixers to and I feel sorry for them yes, but sometime you need to give up something for a bigger purpose
And we humans are smart and always come up with new things and ideas. This will be good at the end! Trust me.  :) So for now, let the negativity out and let's get together as a group and let's start build up the crypto community.

Now the reply got quite long, sorry for that. Anyway have a great week everyone! New week and New possibilities.

Best regards.
/ BabyB.

Yes and No, depends on you and others with different needs and different technical ability to use bitcoin in private manner.

If I am a non tech person, want to achieve privacy, but feel headache with Coin join transaction, I will have need to use mix services. It will cost me more but if I can afford to pay the service fee, I will use it.

If I am a person who does not care about privacy, mixing services are not in my thinking. KYC is not a big problem for me.

I get your point, but do we NEED them? or does them make things easier? And it's a very solid point. But I think we need to think bigger. For example: if 95% of the people using mixers doing it because illegal stuff and 5% doing it for legal stuff mixers should get banned from existing. As many other mention here it's many ways around it and if mixers shutdown I assure you it will be hell harder for the scammers to steal millions/billions from innocent people.
But as I said I get your point and I agree, but sometimes we need to give up om something good for a bigger purpose, and don't forget humans is smart and creative I am positive something new can come up that can offer some kind of same service but be able to cut off the fucking scammers that stealing huge amounts from innocent people.*
But also, people can still use mixers, but they cant earn money from them on this forum so I don't see the problem and this "decentralized blabla stuff" is just nonsense IMO. Because this place is not decentralized. We got a moderator that are in charge, tho this is a close as decentralized you can get I think. But people should stop focus on that mixers got banned and focus on find a job or something.  :P


Here I am exactly the same.  :D

And what is exactly is the problem here? Mixers is still up and active on the internet and everyone can use them!? The difference is that users her on bitcointalk cant make money out of them from a sign campaign. So all this does not make sense at all. Money is something you should earn from work and not from posting on a forum.
I think we should pause this discussion for 1-2 months and come back when everyone have lay their feelings behind them.  :D

Best regards.
/ BabyB

There are alternatives for people who prefer to keep their privacy intact. The use of Bitcoin mixers is not the only way for a user to stay private. Having said this I think we really don't need Bitcoin mixers. We need ways to provide us privacy but Bitcoin mixers don't have the monopoly of this kind of service. The example given in the OP also provides privacy. CoinJoin also provides privacy in a manner that is legally acceptable. During these times when mixers are perceived negatively, there remains other ways to achieve what one can achieve with mixers.

Mixing sites have been promoted on this forum for a long time but I have never used them. I know how they work but I haven't needed to use them. And now mixing platforms have been banned by Theymos due to many illegal activities being done in them. So I'm not encouraged to use the mixer platform. these platforms are useful for those who want to make large transactions secretly but not important for users like me.

No, you do not need Bitcoin Mixers, and you don't need Monero either.  You can hold your own keys while turning your Bitcoins anonymous using coinjoin transactions.  Here's a massive coinjoin transaction for over 600 BTC that confirmed earlier this week:

I know that there is need to mix btc by some people who consider theirs' dirty or not wanting to be traced or tracked.

Some bridge I know can actually solve the problem of mixers even without coming out plainly to call themselves mixers.
Allbridge.io can actually help you mix without the need for kyc and without being traced but I guess nobody has seen them as that yet.

If you have forgotten, more KYC exchanges have started to delist privacy coins^{[1] [2]}, and I believe that by the end of next year there will be no KYC exchanges that accept these privacy coins, and the government will try to track down the DEXs and may be able to force them not to list any privacy coins.
The only service available is P2P DEXs. Here, the government may create hundreds of honeypot accounts, and then, once you deposit, your coins will be blocked.

Therefore, we need a decentralized Bitcoin mixer, to which users contribute and whose goal is to enhance customer privacy.

Proposed solutions:

 - Enhancing privacy through side networks.
 - Confidential transactions (CT)^[3]
 - Find a decentralized way to mix the private key, something like a chipmixer but decentralized.

[1] https://www.okx.com/help/okx-to-delist-several-spot-trading-pairs-12-29
[2] Binance to Delist Monero, Zcash, and Other Privacy Coins As Regulatory Pressure Intensifies in Eu (https://www.binance.com/en/feed/post/585415#:~:text=The%20leading%20digital%20asset%20exchange,)%20and%20Dash%20(DASH))
[3] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Confidential_transactions

Some of these non kyc exchanges might ask you out of the blue verifications especially when you're exchanging quite high amounts. They're still followers of their laws and regulations and that's why if you are to use them, don't do such with high amounts.

Tainted or not, it depends where you're going to send them or someone might just be paranoid because he/she is thinking that the tainted Bitcoins he's got needed to get cleaned.

Because services or likely another exchange where you will send them might have a reference to these 'dirty' Bitcoins. Otherwise, just IMO, it's not a matter of big concern.

Mixers are quite different from exchanges, a mixer cannot perform the role and function of an exchange, even though we can use an exchange to serve as mixers but the intention for using a mixer would not be achieved by using a centralized exchanges, while a decentralized exchanges also can partly serve the role, but we have to make use of decentralized exchanges that are of high reputation because you later have to find out some may require you undergoing partly KYC while they have changes on their policies, I will recommend the use of these decentralized exchanges for that purpose.

Bisq
Hodl Hodl


You talking about this is  when you're not privacy minded, the first reason for using a mixer is to avoid KYC which is the first step to guarantee your security, after that, before even talking about using XMR for your transactions, first consider the rate or amount you're trying to send first, could that also not be subjective to using KYC even for your account to be verified or to send a huge amounts of money.


Are you actually giving this to help those involved in shady acts, things like this are what makes the use of mixers become difficult for others to enjoy since they are tagged to be for illegal activities instead of serving for privacy.

It's not like Bitcoin Mixers are too necessary for privacy. We can increase privacy following the methods you have shared. But, that's too much task to do. While Mixers take a few clicks only. When you could do it with a few clicks, why do you have to do that many transactions as an alternative? Mixers are banned in this forum, but they are still online. They are banned here does not mean we cannot use them.

Whoever used the mixers before and loved the idea will keep using them. Most of the forum users do not have dirty money to clean. I don't think forum users use Bitcoin mixers too much. The mixers do not expect huge traffic from the forum. They were here to build a reputation, so they could get trust from their users.

I suppose this is the way to put it most simply, though it's not good practice to:
- Trust custodial services (let alone trust the coins within them) by default just because of laziness to learn basic technical features, like coinjoin.
- Using KYC services even if privacy is not a focus (privacy aside, this opens the door to identity compromise down the line).

I like the number one plan, it is a good approach for those who want their Bitcoin private for security and personal reasons with no strings attached. But what you are missing according to your question is encouraging "dirty Bitcoin." Should I say I detest this? Your insensitivity is what is missing and you should have just limited it to the first suggestion.

Bitcoin is a very good project, a near-perfect one for that matter if bad users could be kicked out. And no wonder Monero is a subject of controversy now and some exchanges are beginning to flag it for further studies before they act upon it.

I personally do not feel the need for mixers or any method of transactions that keeps privacy as I have no particular use for them at least as of now

But if i were to guess, i would say that converting bitcoin to other cryptocurrencies is much tasking than just using a mixer not to mention the price volatility that could affect the amount of bitcoin you are sending or receiving

Many people have no need to use mixers and consider them unnecessary because they don't have too many bitcoins. But I believe if you or anyone owns a lot of bitcoins or huge amount of assets, you will definitely need mixing tools or any tools to enhance your privacy.

The majority of investors in the market only focus on making profits rather than focusing on protecting their privacy. So it's not too surprising that mixer services are still not widely used or used much.

since the first time i found out about these mixers i kept wondering why this service appeared and even more so since one of the most popular mixers went down. but after seeing how many people were discussing these mixers, i finally understood that mixers were needed by people to be able to mix their transactions so it was very difficult to track. it seems that this service is needed by people who want ease in washing their transactions, because users only need to send their bitcoins to the designated wallet and put their destination wallet and then the mixer will work to mix the transactions.

but the question is, if the transaction is from a clean thing, why is there any need to be afraid? unless the transaction is so dirty that it needs to be covered. so my conclusion is that we don't really need these mixers services, only those who want privacy to cover their transactions need this.

This is the only alternative I can see for now, but nowadays, it's rare to find a non-KYC exchange. The fully decentralized ones are becoming scarce. DEX tends to be complex and not very user-friendly, which is why some still prefer CEX. I heard that Binance is planning to stop supporting Monero. As for ChangeNow, it appears to operate under a KYC-lite model, requesting documents only in cases of suspicious transactions. What about Kraken, CoinEx, and Changelly?

The amount of ignorance in this thread is despicable. Did you think only signature campaign users use mixers?

If you want an accurate description of why you (the community) would need a mixer, you should read https://bitmixlist.org. And before you hit the Report button, yes I am allowed to post my resource on Bitcointalk.

The relevant section:


The TL;DR of this TL;DR is that mixers help keep the privacy solutions available decentralized. Would you like for all mixers to close, so that the feds can start criminalizing CoinJoin wallets and Monero instead?

From my experience, when using a mixer, just as with coinjoining, you want from the observers to know you're mixing. Swapping BTC for XMR and XMR for BTC obviously provides better levels of privacy if used properly, but the outputs do not look as if they're private (from a blockchain perspective).

The next level of a fungible currency is for the coins to look the same, not only from the users to treat it likewise. For example, in whirlpool you cannot distinguish which coins comes from which user. Or, you can simply swap BTC for XMR and just stay there, which is completely fungible for obvious reasons.

Decentralized exchange: Bisq
Instant swap: exch.cx

You need to read the terms of service too, some exchange even though not asking KYC but they're combating against illegal funds, but if it just for protecting privacy, it's fine.

I know decentralization is now like a buzzword and there are many exchanges that portray themselves as being decentralized, but they actually are not, but then you still have enough options if you are looking for p2p exchanges, you can find them here:
https://kycnot.me/?type=exchange
People need privacy for many reasons, it is ridiculous to question why people want privacy. Dirty or clean coins is nothing but an attack on the fungibility of BTC, and that is why the government and centralized services label BTC in that way, all BTC's are the same. Needless to say that mixers and privacy tools are very important in the BTC network, and you must not have something to hide before you use them.

It is funny how times change. At one point, mixers were celebrated as the harbingers of liberty and privacy on the forum. Yet, the way that they started to be used  to obfuscate the origin of a Bitcoin has led that to change completely. The origins need to be obfuscated so if ill-gotten/ hacked BTC is to be cashed out, you eventually need to go for a CEX which will probably need KYC.

With the ban, i suppose there is little to support that cause anymore.

Mixers would have been a good idea in a world where you only used it to hide your tracks for the sake of privacy. Yet, i think few people do it to keep it that way. On top of that, if one really wants to maintain anonymity, it can still be done if you do P2P transactions/ trading only.

As far as the question that whether we need bitcoin mixers, i think those who use them will continue to use them. Its just sensible for the forum to stop association with them because of the nuisance the criminals create with them.

At that point, we didn't have tested, decentralized privacy tools in our disposal. Using a mixer was the easiest and sort of most reputable manner to receive fungible coins. It no longer is. Decentralized tools like Bisq, Monero, or self-custodial coinjoin software like whirlpool, are developed and used every day.

If you really need to go through a CEX, you can still retain your privacy without buying taint. Just convert them to XMR (via Bisq) and sell the XMR.

so you dont trust the person who gave you coins
so you want to avoid taint

so you then decide you will use a mixer to get coins from someone you dont know nor trust when using a mixer
so you then decide you will use a mixer to get yourself tagged as a higher threshold worth monitoring further, thus they get more involved in looking at the taint(history) of the inflows and the spending path of the outflows

maybe you need another year to work out that mixers do the opposite of your intentions

Well as for me I don't think I would be using a mixer for now, or maybe I have not just gotten the need to use a mixer and this doesn't criminalize those who makes use of mixer.
The main aim of using a Crypto-currency mixer is to achieve anonymity in your Bitcoin transaction yes the level of anonymity is high but it's to high for me and it's unnecessary, I already have the level of anonymity I need on Bitcoin and for now I see no reason using a mixer just yet, maybe cause I am still broke. Lol

I don't think that need is the right word though, to me it feels like mixers are something that should exist not out of necessity but because it can exist, that's how I see them. Mixers are so privacy oriented that it's being abused by criminals to launder their money or to evade their taxes which is the reason why authorities are on the hunt for these services that caters to these criminals, it just so happens that this forum doesn't want to be complicit in the promotion of this service so they chose the hard way which is to ban the advertisement of this altogether even the recommendation of one is not tolerated. I'm weirded from what I'm reading right now, I don't exactly know who's who but there's some names in the thread that's promoting mixers before and at the same time have talked about the use of it in a positive and has gone now at criticizing the use of it like their trying to wash their hands of the dirt that mixers have left behind.

You already get yourself tagged as a higher threshold when you use any kind of on-chain obfuscation or swapping with XMR.

You might as well require everyone submit their ID papers before they can create a bitcoin address.

The ones who use the mixers already know that they can do what OP shared with us in this thread but still they prefer to use mixers. The mixers have some extra perks and they can reduce someone's precious time and the reliable ones never run with your money.

The exchanges especially decentralized exchanges can't be trusted because they can be rug-pull schemes. I have seen many decentralized exchanges that scammed their users and took a rug-pull type of exit. That's another reason to not trust the decentralized exchanges.

The game is totally different with centralized exchanges as they are already connected with the governmental organizations and as soon as they receive a suspicious transaction, they will freeze the accounts that receive such transactions.

If your coins are clean then you may not need to fear anyways but if you bought coins from someone whom you don't know then you can still face some problems if those coins come from a suspected address. The mixers solve issues for such innocent people who buy coins from unknown people and may otherwise get strong actions against them just for the purchase.

I believe that's another reason which is stopping people to invest in Bitcoin because the big investors might fear that if the coins that they have bought somehow come from a tagged address then they might face legal issues in future. That's why they prefer to use mixers to be safe from such legal issues.

Then they weren't truly decentralized. If you're referring to the well-known DeFi, 99.9% of it is not decentralized; it is not even exchange. It is just a manner to use blockchain, so you can call your activity "decentralized", where it's just you who makes up the rules.

If you want to make use of a truly decentralized exchange, check out Bisq. It runs for years and is as decentralized as it gets with the operation of a DAO: https://bisq.wiki/Main_Page.

All mixers start off as being 'reliable', mixers are good but you must understand that you lose custody of your coins when you use them, so if a mixer suddenly stops being 'reliable' as we've seen it happen often, there is a chance you may lose your coins. This is why people prefer self custodial privacy solutions like CoinJoin implementations.
Can you name a few? True p2p exchanges do not hold the funds of their customers', so there is no way for them to rug-pull them. Take note that you don't 'trust' true decentralized exchanges, it is trustless, just like BTC. Because all they do is connect you to your trading peer, you don't have to 'trust' them with your data or your funds.

It could be that users of Bitcoin mixers wanted a much more convenient way of changing the image of their Bitcoin holdings instead of using the tricky BTC-XMR-BTC way or they are just making sure things will work accurate or else their funds will be compromised most specially if it was from a "dirty money".

If you need mixer, you need mixer. The fact that forum banned it doesn't decide whether you need to use it or not.

Bitcoin is getting very decentralized. There you have blockchain analysis firms that can't even detect accurately whether your coins are clean or dirty, so, they can claim your coins dirty any time and you'll be forced to submit KYC documents, then they'll apologize by saying that it was a false positive. To be honest, I believe that over time blockchain analysis companies will improve their capabilities and accuracy. If you want to leave no traces, use just Monero, nothing else.

i been here 12 years, never used a mixer. ive moved coins alot. even in exchanges, i have a healthy stash of coins (not my vanity address) .. dare you to find my stash

Without any doubt Bisq is the only decentralized exchange that we can call truly decentralized. I would consider it as a P2P decentralized exchange rather than a decentralized exchange simply. The Bisq is surely a safe and trusted option that works like a charm for everyone. I would never say anyone to avoid a decentralized exchange Bisq but other decentralized exchanges aren't that safe as we consider them.


I think one of those rug-pull decentralized exchanges is Swaprum’s that did a rug-pull exist and stole funds of the users. They did that by adding a backdoor function which allowed them to steal the funds from the LP of the users.

You may read this article (https://www.cryptotimes.io/swaprums-alleged-exit-scam-shakes-crypto-world/) to know further about their rug-pull exit scam.

Another rug-pull scam from a decentralized exchange was done by Merlin Dex, they also stole the funds of the users.

If mixers is been ban in the forum that doesn't necessarily mean that you can not make use of mixers if you wishes to make use mixers, the reason while all the mixers in bitcointalk are there before theymos ban them is to create awareness of their platforms and we have a different mixers that is in existence and I believe if you want make use of mixers you can visit their site and make your exchange that is untraceable with them.

Op you method or process of sending Bitcoin is too cumbersome they are all in altcoinstalks and if anyone wants to use them, they person should visit there and do the tumbling that is very easy instead of sending to XMR and from there to Monero address 1 and from address 1 to address 2. Hey!! I am might make a mistake in that process and the coins might lost. So if I want to do it I would just go the altcoinstalks forum and use any of them there to tumble my coins. Because using tumbler is the most easiest way to sent Bitcoin to any address and not that your method. The transaction fee will even be more than using only one time transfer.

Neither of them are decentralized exchanges, many projects trick many people by using DE CEFI terms.

Instant swap platform also not decentralized or can be trusted, look at this accusation $6,000 Stuck on Bitsar.com Exchange. Offering 30% reward for recovery (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5470766.msg63013712#msg63013712)

If you think sending a coin from one to other is hard or risky since you might lost your coins, there's no difference with sending to mixer. :P

The only two quotes worth anything in this topic, from my perspective.

The truth is, we do not need Bitcoin mixers. As you guys have correctly stated, there is a better way of anonymously buying and selling as well as swapping Bitcoin and XMR. There is no point in banning mixers other than to make it harder for people to anonymize their coins. That is it, really.

I myself have never used mixers because I see no reason to. Bitcoin was never meant to be anonymous. Private, yes. But there is a world of difference between being anonymous and being private.

Can we talk about atomic swaps between XMR and BTC? Combined with BisQ, thats really all it takes. Or am I wrong?

Privacy coins are mostly well built out of the box for those who want to make transactions anonymously, something that's not available in Bitcoin mech, but I understand why people wished that Bitcoin was made this way, more people will always prefer Bitcoin over XMR, but the truth is XMR is perfect for anonymous way of moving funds around.

I am glad that Satoshi doesn't build Bitcoin as a privacy coin because the hate will be much more than what we are seeing today, the government will even have more reason to want to kill Bitcoin, it will be called the criminal's digital money and it will fits just well.

Mixers are not really necessary, I haven't use it once because I don't see why I should, and if I have to do any private transaction I will go for Monero (XMR).

Been quite long time here as well, at first I'm curious how those platform works but fortunately I was able to use once, and basically it is just for privacy purposes, nothing's fancy if you are not a fan of publicity and you don't want your transaction to be tracked. Might as well this is the reason why government are giving some slap on it tagging as fraud. For normal people, who doesn't care about privacy it'll look like an unnecessary process to do, for some people it means security for them. Although let us not set aside the fact that money launderers use such platforms for illegal activities.

That was a DeFi exchange, not a decentralized. No truly decentralized exchange offers farming rewards, staking pools, referral programs and a shit-token called SARP. And as already said, if an exchange is decentralized, it does not take custody.

Similar thoughts as well. Anonymity, or even just privacy, being optional is good, depending on how you look at it. Sure, I'd rather have protocol privacy by default, but if to accomplish that I'd have to turn Bitcoin in an "underground" currency, then we better split into separate networks (Bitcoin, Monero) and freely choose what fits us best afterwards.

I think that's what one should look for when he/she is aiming to search for a decentralized exchange. But, can you please tell me that is there any truly decentralized exchange including Bisq that doesn't rely on system's own centralization?

Although, Bisq is truly decentralized but still the trading disputes are often solved by the arbitrators or mediators and that's somehow a centralization thing not at government level but at exchange level. So if we keep that in mind then Bisq also has its own centralization system that's free from government interference but isn't free from the interference of the system's own centralization.

I won't question Bisq's decentralization in other sense because its doing best for the traders and crypto community and is preserving the privacy of the users but still I won't say that any decentralized exchange is decentralized in true sense.

The ones that I shared who did rug-pull to investors also promoted themselves as decentralized exchanges but they turned into scams. I would highly prefer Bisq over other decentralized exchanges, and also over those centralized exchanges that doesn't require any KYC.

The exchanges that doesn't require KYC often work as honeypots and the users who trade on those exchanges are always at risk of loosing their Bitcoin. But, I would still not support other decentralized exchanges and the users should use them on their own risk.

Even a greater method would be just not using a mixer or not hiding your coins. I mean most people are trying to hide their coins and unless you got them illegally they what's the point of trying to hide your money? I get that "personal preference" could be some peoples answer but then you are taking a huge risk of getting tagged just because you are doing something that doesn't really end up being all that easy to handle, you should try to avoid that as much as you possibly could.

I think that is the trouble, you are not going to end up with anything that would be all that confusing, and you should be considering that as the most important part of your deal, it would not be all that great if you are not careful about it.

No, we don't need.
People who trust mixers, how do you know there is no logging your ip and input/output addresses on backend?
You trust message "Anonymous/Privacy" on their website?
If even "the most private and anonymous" Proton mail working with police...

LOL. I'm sorry I didn't laugh at you, but I did laugh at myself. I remember very well when I was a lower rank member of this forum and never understood anything about privacy. I would say I don't have need for a mixer;
I don't also have need for a privacy coin;
I do not fear KYC;
probably because I thought I'm safe because I'm not a criminal. Little did I know that securing your personal data should be the obligation of everyone whether a criminal or a saint. Just believe that you will one day not recieve a troubled bitcoin under government's scrutiny.

To be honest, I don't see reasons for me to mix my Bitcoin. That doesn't mean I don't care about my privacy. Of course, I am concerned about my privacy, but how will others know about my holdings? Let's say I withdraw from Binance to my BTC address. So they know who owns this bitcoin. What makes that risky for me? Will Binance attack me? If I can't trust them, then I haven't verified my KYC with them. If I don't have dirty funds or gambling funds, then I shouldn't have a problem with them. However, we can still exchange our bitcoin with someone else by p2p. We can sell Bitcoin and buyback again. We may lose some fees, of course, and the system may lose. But for me, I am fine when I am holding my bitcoin in a non-custodial wallet. 

I've never used a mixer, but... the fact that we may not need it doesn't change that we should be able to use it. Let's say you find something unimportant and don't use it. Many people feel safe, don't own guns and feel like it's a good idea to restrict others from owning guns. Do you support this? I sure don't.

Living in a society demands us to set up a list of rules and things that are limited or forbidden, but this should be limited to things that are dangerous. For instance, we don't want people to have radioactive materials at home because that could make us, neighbors, sick. Why should I care if someone uses a mixer? It's his free choice if he wants to.

just a few examples
Your government can ask for insight in order to collect taxes.
Some insiders can sell your information to bad people from your environment, so if you have a significant amount, it can create a lot of inconvenience in life. If you were to sell the house and get cash, you certainly wouldn't feel safe if everyone around you knew you had xx amount in your hands.

100% true. People should have learned their lesson about "mixing sites" a long time ago. Coinjoins keep your funds and data safe, so there's absolutely no excuse for anyone to use/promote/operate a "mixing site".

DeFi exchanges, as you call them, don’t take custody of user’s funds but you do have to trust that there isn’t any backdoors or undiscovered bugs in their smart contracts. They might have ponzi-like aspects to them but they are still decentralized.

---

There was this story from last week where a user claims to have lost 15 BTC on Unijoin. He was given a letter of guarantee with a fake signature, that he didn’t bother to verify like most users of mixers, which makes it nearly impossible to prove he was even scammed.
https://www.altcoinstalks.com/index.php?topic=317783.0

All the people with mixer advertisements in their signatures are making excuses and trying to gaslight the user by saying they weren’t actually scammed. Even if the user is lying for whatever reason, this is still an inherent vulnerability present in any custodial mixing service. No amount of signature payments is enough to make this danger go away.

What do you mean we are using bitcoin to avoid taxes? I think we need to have privacy even from the government because maybe one day the government will confiscate our property without any reason . But I don't think using bitcoin is to avoid taxes and it's not a good move. If everyone uses bitcoin to avoid taxes , what would the country be like without taxes?

In addition, if owning a large amount of assets is very dangerous for us . So, people with assets up to tens of millions of dollars, billions of dollars still trade on those centralized exchanges. Are they in danger and are they unaware of those dangers? I mean it could still happen but it wouldn't be as severe as you describe.

If you pay more attention, you will see that I gave an example of why someone would use a mixer.
I apologize for not stating that it is not financial advice.


Whoever keeps millions on a centralized exchange is an idiot, period.

I would go a really simple way for exchanging not huge amounts or even huge amounts that have no urgency and can be taken out little by little.This can be done easily by sending money to a casino wallet,play there for fun some money and then withdraw to a new wallet,this way it is almost impossible to trace your Bitcoins or any other currency supported by the casino platform.Of course I am talking here about people with an emphasize on privacy and no criminals which they want all money as soon as they can,for them without mixers it is quite difficult.

Mixers are getting outlawed, and it's not surprising because what they do is basically money laundering (in a sense that the procedure is literally built to hide the origins of money, both legit and not legit money). If someone is that much into privacy that doesn't care for Bitcoin's pseudonymity, then like others said, there are private coins for that. To me, transparency is a value, and while I believe in the value of privacy, it's not extremely important to me, so I've never felt like I needed to use mixers for anything.

Can you prove it? From my experience with DeFi, the software is closed-source. You can export private keys and the like, but you can't know with certainty if another entity holds your keys as well. And in my opinion, if another entity holds my keys, it isn't self-custodial, regardless of what I do.

Right, as if you don't mix your coins with other people's coins in private coins, or as if private coins aren't "literally built" to hide the origins of money (both "legit" and "not legit")!  :D

Uniswap which is the biggest DEX, and the one which most other DEXs base their code on has been open source from the beginning. Starting from V3, their code was released under a business source license which meant it can be reviewed but not copied for commercial use until after 2 years when it becomes open source.

Nobody holds the keys to your wallet but you do have to give permission for smart contracts to pull a specified amount of funds from your wallet. By default the limit is usually set to allow an infinite amount of funds that can be used by a specific contract. If the contract is immutable and developers renounced ownership, which can be done by setting the owner to a burn address, then there is very minimal risk of getting rugpulled.

I think we need to have as much tools as possible to achieve better privacy with bitcoin transactions.
Using something decentralized would be ideal, but most centralized exchanges already acted similar like mixers for years.
People who use centralized exchanges, don't use mixers, say they dont have anything to hide, and say they care about privacy are nothing more than hypocrites.  :P

All big traders are holding coins on centralized exchanges, and if you didn't notice Coinbase exchange is custodian for most Bitcoin ETF's so far  :P
https://blockworks.co/bitcoin-etf

Completely agreed.


 :D :D
Coinbase is probably acting already like a bank. And businesses keep billions at banks. I hope that Coinbase are not idiots and have those coins in cold storage and also insured.

Of course, examplens is also 99% correct. Most exchanges cannot be trusted (I would not trust Coinbase either, but that's me). For us, here on Bitcointalk, self custody is the best option. For the big companies there's no difference they keep their wealth in a bank or at Coinbase.

For some people, they do need bitcoin mixers to have a privacy when transferring funds but as you can see that many bitcoin mixers are taken down by the FBI because using bitcoin mixers is already an act of money laundering if you talk about the law even though your aim of using it is to have a privacy in the first place. Anyway, about the situation where you exchange your btc to xmr and then xmr to btc is not applicable in my opinion for small amount of funds since you have to pay a fee everytime you exchange a crypto in an exchange. I have tried it myself and the value I got at the end is not the same value as I have it before and there's also the spread of buy and sell price.


I second the motion.

It has been proven time and again that keeping significant amounts of money on centralized exchanges is not safe, no matter how reputable that exchange is. Trading has always been the most speculative topic in this regards cause decentralized platforms don't offer the liquidity required and traders wisely cannot keep withdrawing and then depositing back when they want to trade.

So, I can understand why one would want to keep funds there, but would still advice against it.

I can understand, but let's be honest. Do we have the best place to trade crypto without providing your identification documents? There are a few decentralised exchanges, but they are not very popular. So most people have been using centralised exchanges, and funds have been traced. We can simply cut the transaction by doing a P2P trade. It's not necessary to depend on mixers alone. Exchange can trace only where you withdraw, but they don't know actually who owned the address. Just use multiple addresses and cut the transaction history. 

Between mixers and airgapping a perfectly usable device to act as you wallet, mixing your cryptocurrencies is definitely going to be the more appealing option.

You have to consider the fact that the reason why mixing is so prevalent even after getting some leering eyes from the international global scene, is because it's the most convenient way out there to secure your cryptocurrencies, and to protect your identity. Sure, converting your bitcoins/crypto to monero's an equally appealing ordeal but the concept is not explored to its fullest capacity just yet, forcing people into instead following what the norm is, which is mixing. Airgapping and other forms of cryptocurrency anonymity tactics are cumbersome as well in the face of completely obscuring your footsteps with the single press of a button. Which is why at the end of the day, mixing will remain existent even though we don't technically need them anymore.

I'm not talking about whether they store their bitcoins on centralized exchanges or not . What I just want to say is that there are many sharks with millions of dollars still using centralized exchanges as a place for trading and liquidity because we all know that only centralized exchanges provide such massive liquidity to the market. And when we use centralized exchanges, it doesn't always put us in danger just because some people know we own bitcoin . I understand that we will definitely lose privacy when using centralized exchanges but there will be no danger like you are mentioning .

Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating or encouraging people to use centralized exchanges because it is everyone's choice but there is not too much danger when using them properly.

The idea that you gave looks really interesting and easy, but we are forgetting about the conversion fees and the transaction fees. If someone wants his Bitcoins instantly, then definitely he will have to go through a long process, and has to speed up the transaction in order to get his coins. Moreover it’s also very difficult to find a trustworthy non-KYC exchange. As all the reputable exchanges ask for KYC now, hence we have to do again a lot of hardwork. We need to find other good alternatives according to me.

Right now difficult to trade cryptocurrency without providing identification documents except with dapp exchange market such as Uniswap, Pancakeswap and many kinds of dapp exchange. However when using dapp exchange always needed CEX exchange for withdrawing cryptocurrency fund to fiat or cash money trough the bank, use third party but difficult to get which one trusted seller want to buy or cryptocurrency assets and has lower fees transaction such as selling trough P2P on CEX exchange market.

For market exchange easily to trace which one our assets come from, have regulation for all top exchange required identification documents and difficult to get trusted CEX exchange with much volume transaction without required KYC, just small exchange have loer volume transaction and limited amount for withdrawing in daily day.

It would be a free country.


How is mixing a more appealing option than coinjoining?  Mixing sites take custody of your Bitcoins and are trusted with your transaction history, but coinjoins are completely non custodial and do not leak data to any trusted third parties.