Bitcoin Forum

Months ago someone had posted here with some evidence that the mixing of the a mixing service was inadequate to mask transactions but nobody seemed to take it seriously.

It's weird how many users on this forum were ready to overlook on-chain evidence while the platform in question was pumping thousands of USD every week in advertising directly towards forum users at the time. Now that there's some credible accusations of fraud (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5477452.msg63892572#msg63892572) it's hard to ignore these older accusations.

Admittedly I've never made any transactions that I would feel need mixing... But not to tout any supposed ethics from my side, it's very likely that if I knew of a mixer's mixing being bad while I was getting paid a substantial salary by them to make some forum posts, I'd likely also avoid contributing to their downfall. But maybe also if we apply hanlon's razor here (Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity), since most people probably don't care or don't need to use mixing, they probably wouldn't bother to check either.

But this begs the question, if such basic blockchain forensics had exposed this mixer months ago, how did they stay operational till now?
Are the majority of people who transact with bitcoin, even users of this forum, completely unable to do even the most basic blockchain forensic research? Because according to the post I linked, it was really obvious to pick up the trail of the lackluster mixing going on.

The real cost of mixin'

One has to also consider, at what cost are mixing services operating? Many of them end up having their Admins arrested with unknown fates in international trials and jails. Others end up exit scamming. And would they do so if they were making profits in the first place? Thinking about it, is there ANY fee that would make it worth it to give out bitcoins in exchange for potentially tainted coins that are possibly connected to crime and fraud? Especially given how easy BTC transactions are to track? Based on the above knowledge, many suspicions can be raised. What motivation would someone have to provide a mixing service if he was to risk life in jail or even running it at a loss?

Credible suspicion against mixers

Could mixers be honeypots? It's not an unlikely possibility that mixers are created and operated by state agencies as a way to catch high-profile criminals that are under the impression of "masking" their transactions. But in fact these services could be used as evidence later.

Another really suspicious event that happened only around a month prior to the aforementioned mixer's demise is the revelation that the infamous Lazarus hacker group appears to have been using the mixer's coins for their own benefit (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/north-korean-hackers-now-launder-stolen-crypto-via-yomix-tumbler/). This revelation gives some credence to theories that mixer services might not just be government honeypots, but rather hacker honeypots. Where hackers gather a bunch of coins that definitely must be cleaner than their ill-gotten fraudulent coins, attracting users under the illusion of "mixing" only to hand out their very tainted coins to regular users in exchange for coins they can easily deposit into exchanges without issues. And after they're done exchanging everything, they can just start using the service for exit scamming to gain even more money.

Not gonna lie, Mixer is very helpful to me ever since I join the casino signature campaign and earn some Bitcoin because the local exchange the I use frequently to received this funds is very suspicious and doesn’t allowed deposits from casino or from any wallet that has a connection to a crypto casino transaction.

I encounter an issue in the past about this that makes me more cautious and embrace the use of mixer to hide the trace of gambling activity to my Bitcoin. I stop using mixer after the multiple seize on popular mixer and decided to use P2P exchange instead.

Who guarantees the Bitcoin you are receiving from Stake are not also 'tainted'?  Maybe they have been 'tainted' years ago.  Maybe they came directly from a criminal source.  Who knows!

Why fear this stupid invention named 'taint'.  It is worthless and pointless to think about it.  All the bank notes you own have likely been in some sort of illegal activity at some point in the past.  Time to burn it all, what if I taint my pockets with illegality!

Can you prove that all of the Coins you own have a 100 percent legitimate source?  You can not.  Why spread this stupid fear then.

Yes.  You can track your Bitcoin easily most likely.  But most of us here who have used Bitcoin Mixers in the past are just normal people who do not like others to track our Coins down.  We are not serial killers, nor are we drug dealers or traffickers.  I just want my Privacy to exist.

Because the world is full of double standards, if people not want to follow the regulations, they're criminal. But if the government take the money from criminals, it's allowed and they're not criminals. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5491657.0)

The key to know if the coins are no longer considered as tainted is how far they trace the coins, unfortunately no government or blockchain analysis would want to reveal the criteria since they know people will take advantage if they declare to public.

Absolutely right. We are also deeply convinced that the use of mixers is primarily associated with basic household caution.

The mixer admins you're discussing don't get arrested solely for handling "tainted" bitcoins.  We all get those sometimes without facing legal consequences.  Consider this: What if a criminal deposited money into Stake, and then you got them for your weekly payment?  Highly plausible.

Mixers get shut down and their admins arrested because they frequently operate unlawfully.  Yes, authorities aim to shut them down for assisting criminals in mixing their coins, but they typically target them for failing to comply with regulations as money transmission services.


Perhaps.  However, let me pose a question to you.  Considering recent events, do you believe criminals will continue to trust mixers?  ChipMixer, SinBad, YoMix, and numerous others have been effectively targeted by authorities.  If you were a criminal, would you risk trusting a potential trap instead of simply sending everything through the most secure and decentralized mixer available, Monero?

As someone working for the NSA and proposing to establish a honeypot, how would you address this question?

This being said... well, sorry to say, but "you know nothing, Jon Snow".
Imho mixers have their use for people more privacy conscious than you.

Of course, my initial part was a bit harsh, some points you posted are real and known. You don't (ever!) know for what is behind a centralized service, including mixers and imho CoinJoin coordinator too. Heck, even Electrun servers are spying on us nowadays.

But for some, taking a risk is necessary. I still remember a post from somebody who was struggling to hide his coins from somebody hollowing every move in his wallet and threatening him. Would you still consider a mixer bad in such a case?

Yes, there's always a risk that some idiots may consider those coins of you "tainted", a risk some are willing to take and some not. But the fact they may be govt honeypots?! Well, if the govt is after you... you better start using proper privacy coins instead of mixers... (and not because mixers would be honeypots!!)

For some time now (some) exchangers have been reacting negatively to transactions received from mixers (blocking crypto assets) and openly declaring (warning) about it. It seems that the trend of “persecution” mixers will continue and this type of service will cease to exist (or transform) or go underground. Although mixers can't necessarily be used for criminal purposes, but, for example, to anonymize transactions from addresses that are in the public domain. For example, for participation in signature campaigns.

I would like to believe that at least P2P exchange will continue to exist as in the good old days. But even here, not everything is developing positively, because popular services like localbitcoins have ceased to function. On the other hand, a holy place is never empty and alternatives appear, like Bisq.

Curious, do decentralized mixers exist or it even feasible?

Yeah, this is main reason why I stop using mixer for my campaign earning and choose to embrace the CEX P2P. I read the issue about exchanger freezing an account from a forum member here that use mixer funds since that specific mixer seized.

This incident can become very serious especially if the exchange does a background on your previous transaction that involves mixer. So I stop immediately after that.


I really like decentralized mixers if possible. I’m not knowledgeable on how Bitcoin technicalities work but there’s something like a smart contract which we can stake our Bitcoin as liquidity pool for mixer then this might be possible just like how DEX work with their liquidity. No one controls the wallet holding the balance since it’s run by smart contracts.

Ah, yes. And yet he felt prompted to share his wisdom about something he doesn't know much about or understand people's need for such services.  :)


And these same idiots don't think twice about whether the banknotes they receive every day from strangers are tainted or not. Just because Bitcoin transactions are easily traceable on the blockchain, someone in the government thought it would be a good idea to limit its usability. The whole concept of "tainted" coins is a scam in itself, organized by governments.

Lucky you never having received a payment from tainted coins. People who used mixers in this forum either indirectly by being paid through signature campaigns or as a paying customer have in the past faced issues.
Tainted coins aren't just an issue when having to deal with state authorities, civil society often enforces filters voluntarily also. And if banknotes could be traced back so efficiently as bitcoin I'm sure many institutions would refuse transactions with them too.

There's no denying that traceability is a feature of bitcoin. That can be good or bad at times. But not that great for criminals who seem to meet their fate one one way or another with mixers. So no, the concept of "tainted coins" isn't a scam. It's a real thing. Ethics is also a thing and money doesn't always trump it either. I remember in this forum people used to get tagged as scamers if they accepted payment to promote ponzi schemes for instance. And well, by the notion that ponzi schemes are unethical, one might as well say the same for coins taken away from someone else via means of hacking etc. So when the traceability of BTC is used to catch criminals and seize their ill-gotten gains, we should consider it a great feature imo.

It is both scam and unreal, because chain analysis is a scam itself.  As soon as a transaction is made, you can't tell if the coins have changed hands.  Moreover, if a criminal mixes their coins with innocent people, you have to either treat them all as "clean" or all as "tainted", given they are part of an unbreakable coinjoin.  Deeming everyone involved as criminals is an irrational logic.


Giving up your privacy to "protect the children" is not a notion I'd expect from a 11 year old Bitcoin user.  What's next?  That we don't need privacy, because we have nothing to hide?   ::)

So by me saying that bitcoin is traceable you deduct that I'm an NSA supporter? 8)
aight  :D
On a more serious note though, have you considered that passing your coins through a centralized "mixer" service isn't a real privacy enhancement?

I take it that it's pretty unlikely for a known service address such as from a mixer or from an exchange to be of the same ownership as a third party sending coins to it. So chain analysis is pretty real and has been quite handy for many uses, one of which has been catching criminals.

So is the whole concept of "lost coins." They decide on the time that has to pass which is arbitrary and if the criteria is met the address is considered lost. It can be 2 years or 5 years, or whatever. I have addresses with coins that haven't moved for over 5 years and wallets also had no inflows. That money is lost according to blockchain analytics ;)
Coins will always get mixed because there won't be a time where every single exchange and centralized business checks deposits for taint. It will never work with or without mixers. The difference is that without them analysts will have to allocate less resources to track the same transaction, but why should we make it easy for these companies and governments. I feel like the harder for the government is to assault my privacy, the better.

It was proven that mixers are useless for large amounts.  They're basically used for people here to launder their signature funds so they feel safe evading taxes or for small time scammers to deposit money with 3rd parties without worrying about having their accounts traced back to the scam.  

The amount of gaslighting from paid signature campaign members was crazy though.  Still is.  I even told them right before ChipMixer shut down that it was going to be shut down and instead of praise I received attacks for the warning even after I was proven right.  That's when I realized these people are insane and willing to do or support anything for a paycheck.  The fact the forum had to ban these programs to get users to stop promoting money laundering is crazy in itself.  Unfortunately, Default Trust was owned by ChipMixer basically, so they were able to get away with anything here.  It will take a long time and a lot of new members before the Mixer crowd gets diluted enough in DT for anything to change.  A lot of people here will do or say anything for money.  Don't forget that.  They'll even try to convince you they didn't sell out to support a money laundering organization and will try to tell you it's a privacy thing, which after the first sentence I quoted above should be nonsense to anyone paying attention.

You're the one who's making the claim that privacy erosion is sometimes beneficial. 


I know.  I'm a proponent of decentralized mixing, like Monero.  I didn't argue about that.


Chain analysis is based on false positives.  Just because it might work sometimes, it doesn't mean it isn't dangerous to implement on a whole.  Just read this topic:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5464886.0.  Even the directors of chain analysis acknowledge this viewpoint:


There is no evidence that it works.  It is not about catching criminals.  It is about controlling the Bitcoin users and discouraging them from respecting their privacy. 

This was the reason why my account in a local exchange got banned: the funds came from a gambling platform, and it is a substantial amount back then. I asked for the reason why they banned my account knowing that these coins I received may very well come from different origins, but they never answered. I never used a mixer to 'obfuscate' my traces, but I did use Binance to trade my bitcoins to XMR or any other accepted coins of another local exchange and I never encountered such a problem again.

I see why people would want to use mixers, though the risk of getting your coins washed with some other tainted coins is very high, which may implicate you to some crime you did not commit. This is why I avoided using mixers even though the idea fascinated me before, and boy was I right after seeing news reports of people being questioned on where their coins came from after using a mixing service and getting tainted coins on their end.

Liquidity of Mixers is limited and they are not really effective with large amounts of BTC required in a short time, I think this is one of the limitations of Mixers, usually they only allow up to 50 BTC per mix.

I am not clear about the purpose behind the people who use Mixers: maybe they want to maintain anonymity, or maybe they want to hide the origin of BTC. But when Mixers exist, it means that there are many people who really need them, willing to pay 5% fee to get "cleaner and safer" BTC. I do not support money laundering but I cannot do anything to stop them, after all the market is free and people can do what they can. Bitcoin blockchain can be used by all of us!

Well I'm sorry it took so long but that's the main point I'm trying to get across here.
Mixers are risky, trust based and to a large extent negate the whole point of bitcoin's existence.

It's part of bitcoin's functionality however that transactions are public. We knew this since day 1.

Source: Satoshi's bitcoin.pdf (https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf)

Passing bitcoins through a so called mixing service introduces risks and likely doesn't even solve the issue of traceability that well. Because the reasons someone might want to use a mixer is disassociation coins from certain activities. Even through many false positives though, coins through mixers might even be easier to detect as "suspicious" to those looking. And the only reason I'm examining from this approach is because when talking about the disadvantages of using mixers, I believe that one has to also address the thought process of a likely user of such services.

Bitcoin Q&A: Blacklists, Taint, and Wallet Fingerprinting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BILcJ3WtdLQ)

Andreas M. Antonopoulos talked about basic steps from centralized platforms to detect tainted coins and understand about it can help you to avoid problems with exchanges and casinos from your deposits. You can do it by yourself and don't have to use mixers for it.

I understand your concern because casinos with licenses have obey to regulations and one of them is AML. Exchanges can have problems from DOJI like Binance, Kucoin with accusations and charges from DOJI recent months.

There maybe several reasons for the existence of Bitcoins. But mainly the traders use to mix the coins. The advantage of mixing is that, the coins won’t be able to trace from the source and you will remain anonymous on the blockchain and internet. Many bad people use this advantage and use the mixers for money laundering and bad deeds. Hence many don’t support the mixers now a days also.

I've never heard this before, why will any crypto exchange not allow deposits from casinos? I am a gambler too but not so serious about gambling, I have never come across such claims before.

If this is true then it's a valid point to use a mixer, I have always gone against the use of mixers because I don't see any legal reason to use mixers, to me mixers are very fit for criminals but this is your point thus make some sense.

So back to your point, do you have any reasons why the exchange platform doesn't want to get involved with any casino deposits? There must be a very good reason for this, because it looks like they see casinos as money launderers that can get their business into problems someday or they already learned a lesson, can you say more about this? I will wait for a reply.

Everything has two sides, a good side and a bad side. Just like bitcoin, some people use it to enhance their privacy, they just want to keep some secrets that they think are good for them. But there are also some people who use bitcoin for illegal activities such as money laundering, tax evasion... and we cannot blame bitcoin because all of these actions are human behavior. The same goes for the mixer, it will also have good and bad sides, it will all depend on each person's usage and should not be blamed entirely on it.

We both agree on that part, but I don't think that's the big problem.  Rather, the big problem comes from the notion that some coins are "tainted", which I observe that you're buying.


It frustrates me when people who misunderstand satoshi, cite him to support their argument.  "Publicly announced" doesn't imply that all transactions are public, and no privacy is allowed.  It simply means that transactions must be broadcasted on a network of computers, and then each one can try to add it to the ledger by doing the Proof-of-Work.  Read again what you've quoted, and particularly the text before the bolded part. 


Sorry Andreas, but that's just untrue nonsense.  If you want to solve the problem, stop exchanging with people who view you as a criminal.  The suggestion of repeatedly transferring coins to yourself is one of the most misguided ideas I've come across.

Let us talk about the very nature of money. Whether fiat or cryptocurrencies, it both goes around. One is passed on to another and to another and to another. It is possibly endless.

The only difference with crypto and fiat is with fiat, it is usually not written down or documented. No one can possibly know if the money that you just got as a change came from illegal activity.

I do understand the concern of having a suspicious transaction link back to you so I also have not personally used mixers.

I give you one example.

I have a computer laying around unused since probably 2005 or older.  It has hardware decent enough to run a simplistic Free Linux distro.  It runs only over Ethernet and I will never use that port.  I install the Linux Operating System offline and a verified version of Electrum.  I create a Wallet over there.

You send me 0.005 Bitcoin to my offline Wallet.  I mix 0.001 and send it to another Bitcoin Talk user, let us call him Joe, also from my offline computer by broadcasting it through an amnesic session of Tails on a secure computer.

Tell me how you are going to trace and link the 0.001 I sent Joe to the 0.005 you sent me.

Chain Analysis is real as in the idea of it is real.  But the accuracy of the analysis shows how B S it truly is.

Why do many users mistakenly get flagged for sending 'Tainted Bitcoin' when they claim they never even used Mixers or Privacy Enhancing stuff.  Or, why is there always an argument for why Mixers need to be removed but Authorities never show real numbers and proof of how many of the Mixer Transactions involve illegal activity.

The Blockchain is fully Transparent.  But this also means the history of the Bitcoin you receive is, while fully Transparent, also very misleading in a Blockchain Analysis.  My Bitcoin has probably seen THOUSANDS of Addresses before it arrived into mine.  I have a habit of jumping my Coins from Address to Address at different times and random interval of days.  How do you differentiate my last 5 jumps to the last 5 historical moves of a random UTXO?

How in the World did you think of this.  While Bitcoin is here to be Trustless, it still involves Trust to a particular extent.

For example.  When I sell something for Bitcoin on the Forum, the first party will still rely on the Trust that the other party will send what was negotiated.  You can arrange a Middleman.  But you will have to trust that they will do the job correctly and accordingly.  When you buy something from a Shop, you will still have to trust that the Shop will not scam you.  Both cases are still risky and there have been enough negative events such as Scams before, even if the victim used only Bitcoin and no Mixer.

You can simply not move in this world if you trust NOBODY.  There is still a need for Trust to some extent.

Even the very loyal and careless customer of a Centralized Exchange will have to Trust the Exchange for not scamming them out.  Say you deposit a thousand Dollars to Binance and you do have a Know Your Customer enabled account with all forms and every single Privacy invasive form filled and sent.  Who guarantees Binance will not seize your Coins?  For all you know, your Coins may have been part of the largest drug deal in the world in the very recent history before your ownership.

Thinking it may not happen?  FreeWallet guarantees every thing will work AMAZINGLY if you have a 'Wallet' on their App.  And if there is any suspicion about your Coins, all you have is send them proof of Ownership and they will solve the problem for you.  Great!

Spoiler.  They will NEVER return the Coins back to you because no matter how much information you send, they will continue to ask for more.  What can you do about it?

Of course.  Mixers are not perfect.  But it is a big headache to me to think that people run away so fast from a Mixer while happily sending Mug Shot style pictures to Centralized Exchanges to verify their Accounts and give them all their personally identifiable information AND pictures of personal documents.  Yet many of these Exchanges do not even have a public physical address and are often not even secure at all.

Hell.  We should start calling them Mixers 'Exchanges' too.  Maybe there would be less people running away from them.

I wonder if you would have the same opinion if you would be the victim of a false positive.

Also.  I am using Cash only.  Should I be thoroughly checked for 'certain activities' by the Authorities?  Because the reasons someone might want to use Cash is disassociating from certain activities!

It's completely traceable, the mixer is 100% aware of the link between the 0.005 you deposited with them and the 0.001 you withdrew from them.

If you want to become anonymous trustlessly, you have to use a coinjoin transaction:

With what happened and what got revealed these past few months regarding mixers, I don't feel as confident about them anymore.

Sure, in the past there might've been some real use for these folks, they could've really masked someone's identity and stuff which would've saved people who are trying to keep their identities a little more secured within the industry, but as of now only scammers and hackers are really into them. The regular joe wouldn't find any use for it cause we use cryptocurrencies like we use money nowadays. We don't care if it's dumped in a hunk of shit and washed away with soap and water, if it still says $100 bucks on it we'll be happy to keep it in our pockets and use it for purchases.

Bitcoins and crypto are pretty much the same thing nowadays, we don't care where it came from, long as it's the right amount we're good with it. Some exchanges aren't even that much investigative of where the crypto came from anymore, long as it's crypto and you deposited it, meaning it didn't come from any suspicious or third-party accounts, you're okay in their book.

So while I'm sad that bitcointalk's slowly turning into a casino advertisement center, I can't change the fact that mixers getting banned in here is just that important.

Thank you for the unasked for opinion and for continuing to recycle the same 5 year old comment he made, but I rather stay away from some body who is actively working with Blockchain Analysis.

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What happened and got revealed regarding Mixers?

Prove I am a scammer or a hacker.

So you are not confident about Mixers because according to you they are used only by scammers and hackers now, but you do not care about Money Laundering?  What in the world are you saying?

Are you drunk?  You are advertising a Casino in your own Signature.

I remember there were friends whose local exchange accounts were also blocked because of funds deposited from gambling platforms. If I'm not mistaken, there were already a number of discussions about this as well involving big names like Coinbase. Gambling is oftentimes associated with shady money. This is probably the reason why some exchanges don't want to accept gambling money.

However, to address this by using a mixer is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. If gambling money is treated with suspicion or perhaps even labeled as tainted by certain exchanges, how much more those funds coming from mixers? Gambling is probably more acceptable than mixing. After all, gambling sites are licensed and regulated, compliant with KYC and AML policies, and so on. Mixers aren't.

True and signature campaigns are also no longer allowed in addition to many who tie it to unethical practices such as fraudulent use of money so that it is considered that it does not support the integrity of financial markets as expected standards.

and I agree because I think it's better, normal and follow the rules that have been set reasonably and legally than later we deal with the law and damage the reputation of the person or entity involved.

good post

So we are just going to stop recommending mixers and other privacy-enhancing services because some bad apples are abusing them and various entities are banning mixers and mixed funds?

Yes there is always coinjoin, but there are different ways to perform it. And even that is being targeted for a ban by exchanges.

I think coinjoin is preferable to old-school "mixers" (is anyone still using those??), but I wonder to what extent anonymity can be compromised due to use of centralized servers for coordinating coinjoin mixes. Can these servers connect original coinjoin inputs to the mixed coins you get back? Or is there something in the code that makes that impossible? Whirlpool and WabiSabi protocols are both centralized, but JoinMarket is P2P with no central server. The thing about JoinMarket is it's relatively difficult to use and as a result it has very low liquidity.

Because you SURELY would not apply for a revival of the most well paid Signature Campaign of the Forum which at one point used to pay thousands of Dollars a month.

You are embracing what?  CEX P2P?  Tell me how a Peer to Peer Centralized Exchange works?

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Of course.  Go with the flow as they say, and it gets even better if you pretend you ALWAYS thought Mixers were weird but obviously finally decided just on the 1st of January 2024 that they are in fact bad!  It just happens to fall exactly around the same time Theymos banned Mixers, it is in fact just pure coincidence, what did you think.

Blind signatures enable the ability to coinjoin without the coordinator learning the links between inputs and outputs, which is why mixers have no reason to exist in the Bitcoin ecosystem:


I opened a discussion thread about tactics for breaking coinjoin privacy: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5482818.0