I was really wondering If exchanges could be considered as a free alternative for Mixers like Bitmixer ? Mixers make transactions confusing to whoever is trying to track you , and I guess It's the same thing for exchanges as you don't own your address but there are transactions coming to and going from your address.
I was looking to my address at CoinsBank (AKA bit-x) and I couldn't find much about the addresses I was withdrawing to and there is also transactions that I didn't make in the first place . So yeah , could exchanges be an alternative ? (at least a cheaper/free one)?
in a way, yes it's mixing for a small fee for withdrawing however, there are few issues with that:
- most exchanges (I know bitstamp and btc-e) do not welcome you doing that at all, no rigid rules but a possibility to be asked for ID, address particularly for large amount, altcoin exchanges don't mostly though.
- There are records of everything, the main thing about mixers is not keeping any records for the exchange, but here there are records for the incoming and the outgoing tx's accessible for the website, as well as even potential identity information, Therefore people doing mixing for large orders would mostly prefer using mixers and paying rather than exchanging websites.