Can we see coin mixing services as money laundering services ?

[tee-rex]

If I give you a $100 and you go to a vendor and ask for change, and he gives you 1 x $50 / 2 x $20 / 1 x $10 notes, are you then busy with money laundering? The same apply to Mixer services. They take the Bitcoin you received, mix it up a bit and give you smaller change. < They take some, as a fee for this service > Why do you need to do this? If all transactions can be followed and tracked, you would not have any financial privacy

Do you need to change your bitcoins for smaller denominations? If not, then your analogy is far from perfect.

On the other hand, changing your paper money can be used for money laundering of sorts. For example, if you wanted to get rid of counterfeit dollars that you have just printed, going to a mall and buying some knick-knacks might be a good idea. Just asking for change would obviously raise suspicion, and malls usually refuse to change money. I witnessed that myself a few times (cashiers refusing to change money).

The analogy is quite perfect, you usually receive several transactions of smaller value.

Basically you give a bitcoin and receive some other bitcon back in several transactions, just like the analogy.

Well, you seem to be basically proving what I'm trying to convey. I don't know if bitcoin mixers allow sending coins to different outputs from one input, though this should be expected. Why would you then want to do that if not to hide the origin of the money and to whom it belongs? If this analogy were correct, it would mean that asking a cashier to change your notes should also pass as money laundering. But this is the opposite of what the poster which I replied to is claiming.

You are evidently looking at the superficial similarity of these two cases. But I'm claiming that this analogy is not correct in essence. Unless you are trying to get rid of fake bills, of course. Strictly speaking, the latter is not money laundering because the money is counterfeited.

[pedrog]

Well, you seem to be basically proving what I'm trying to convey. I don't know if bitcoin mixers allow sending coins to different outputs from one input, though this should be expected. Why would you then want to do that if not to hide the origin of the money and to whom it belongs? If this analogy were correct, it would mean that asking a cashier to change your notes should also pass as money laundering. But this is the opposite of what the poster which I replied to is claiming.

You are evidently looking at the superficial similarity of these two cases. But I'm claiming that this analogy is not correct in essence. Unless you are trying to get rid of fake bills, of course. Strictly speaking, the latter is not money laundering because the money is counterfeited.

I never claimed bitcoin mixing to be money laundering, my opinion is actually that it is not.

You should mix a coin to understand how it works.

On the subject:

$100 bill -> $50 bill + 5x 10$ bill

1 BTC -> 0.5 BTC input + 5x 0.1 BTC inputs

With bitcoins you receive inputs that are not related with your original bitcoin, with dollar bills that's not even an issue.

[tee-rex]

Well, you seem to be basically proving what I'm trying to convey. I don't know if bitcoin mixers allow sending coins to different outputs from one input, though this should be expected. Why would you then want to do that if not to hide the origin of the money and to whom it belongs? If this analogy were correct, it would mean that asking a cashier to change your notes should also pass as money laundering. But this is the opposite of what the poster which I replied to is claiming.

You are evidently looking at the superficial similarity of these two cases. But I'm claiming that this analogy is not correct in essence. Unless you are trying to get rid of fake bills, of course. Strictly speaking, the latter is not money laundering because the money is counterfeited.

[...]

With bitcoins you receive inputs that are not related with your original bitcoin, with dollar bills that's not even an issue.

That's what I'm saying myself. With bitcoins, no one can claim with surety that these bitcoins are yours after you mix them. It looks as if you spent them by transferring to an address which doesn't belong to you even if money laundering was not your intention. On the contrary, when you change money at the shopping mall, you still own the same amount of money, even if this money is not made up of the same notes. In the first case the link between you and your coins is lost, while in the second it is obviously not so. Your money would still be considered as "dirty" in that case, you didn't launder it even if you went just for that.

[0day]

Crypto mean hidden, so in crypto currency allow for to hide our money, financial matters from the world and for making the anonymity more stronger we are allowed to use mixer for our bitcoins.

[U2]

Yes it's a mixer so of course you can launder money with it. That's exactly what laundering money is. Now of course it's nice to have some extra security but either way it's trying to hide a paper trail for on reason or another.

[Oralmat]

The description of what is and isn't a "sin" purchase only shows where this is going.  Eventually the government will be telling you how much you can drink, smoke and visit the strippers, lol.  Gasoline sales can be curbed during shortages, some sales prohibited all together and no matter whether controls are placed or not, each sale you make sends a clear message about what you are buying and what you are not to the system.  Will a diabetic be able to buy candy for their kids?  Things can get crazy and while this may be able to keep guns out of criminals hands 10% of the time, it is the common consumer, stranded at the counter on labor and unable to buy beer for the party without three people emailing affidavits to the bank stating it is to be shared by them. 

[OROBTC]

The description of what is and isn't a "sin" purchase only shows where this is going.  Eventually the government will be telling you how much you can drink, smoke and visit the strippers, lol.  Gasoline sales can be curbed during shortages, some sales prohibited all together and no matter whether controls are placed or not, each sale you make sends a clear message about what you are buying and what you are not to the system.  Will a diabetic be able to buy candy for their kids?  Things can get crazy and while this may be able to keep guns out of criminals hands 10% of the time, it is the common consumer, stranded at the counter on labor and unable to buy beer for the party without three people emailing affidavits to the bank stating it is to be shared by them.  

^^^  Yes.  That's exactly who those of us concerned about privacy are willing to pony-up a little bit (typically under 1%) to hide our tracks some with a mixer.  It's nobody's business where my BTC are.  I paid for them, they're "mine".  And hidden is better.

+ 100 re .gov wanting to eventually control payments to anyone they do not like or FROM anyone they wish to punish.*

Those of you who do not understand this aspect of BTC mixing should think long & hard about this, unless you're comfortable with government monitoring (and later control) over all you buy & sell...  And I have not even mentioned hackers...

* Note that .gov likely has some great tools that would uncover even extremely clever mixing and/or other ways of obscuring BTC transactions.

[MFahad]

The description of what is and isn't a "sin" purchase only shows where this is going.  Eventually the government will be telling you how much you can drink, smoke and visit the strippers, lol.  Gasoline sales can be curbed during shortages, some sales prohibited all together and no matter whether controls are placed or not, each sale you make sends a clear message about what you are buying and what you are not to the system.  Will a diabetic be able to buy candy for their kids?  Things can get crazy and while this may be able to keep guns out of criminals hands 10% of the time, it is the common consumer, stranded at the counter on labor and unable to buy beer for the party without three people emailing affidavits to the bank stating it is to be shared by them.  

^^^  Yes.  That's exactly who those of us concerned about privacy are willing to pony-up a little bit (typically under 1%) to hide our tracks some with a mixer.  It's nobody's business where my BTC are.  I paid for them, they're "mine".  And hidden is better.

+ 100 re .gov wanting to eventually control payments to anyone they do not like or FROM anyone they wish to punish.*

Those of you who do not understand this aspect of BTC mixing should think long & hard about this, unless you're comfortable with government monitoring (and later control) over all you buy & sell...  And I have not even mentioned hackers...

* Note that .gov likely has some great tools that would uncover even extremely clever mixing and/or other ways of obscuring BTC transactions.

Same thing if you frequent sites that are into things other than gambling.  Use the same computer for both wallets and the same thing is true.  Even if you never did a thing other than hold some BTC, they tracked you.  I believe that coin mixing can bring the anonymity back to the coins.

[MFahad]

it is the way you use a service that defines it. you can use it for money laundering or you can use it to improve your privacy and make yourself safer.

many people see bitcoin as a criminal coin and a type of money that is being used for illegal activities but we all know that is not true.

so the same way is about mixing, many are using mixing to hide their identity to stay anonymous and try to avoid getting targeted by hackers, government, ...

If it is very important for you to hide your spending, use more than mixing, use other computers, other methods and research what you are doing.  You can get caught and will if you count on nothing more than a simple mixing service.

[Caladonian]

it is the way you use a service that defines it. you can use it for money laundering or you can use it to improve your privacy and make yourself safer.

many people see bitcoin as a criminal coin and a type of money that is being used for illegal activities but we all know that is not true.

so the same way is about mixing, many are using mixing to hide their identity to stay anonymous and try to avoid getting targeted by hackers, government, ...

If it is very important for you to hide your spending, use more than mixing, use other computers, other methods and research what you are doing.  You can get caught and will if you count on nothing more than a simple mixing service.

which is correct but mixing itself can added security to your identity just like the previous replied said its use for adding additional precaution to avoid  hackers to track you up, having this service can help us but can also harm if used incorrectly like money laundering or any illegal activities.

[ranochigo]

Bitcoin mixing service can help with the increase of privacy since all the coins get mixed up together and it is harder to track the coins. Even though some of the users may use mixers for mixing coins, many would really want to ensure that they get the maximum privacy possible. Money laundering helps to supplement Bitcoin's pseudonymous nature.