Can we see coin mixing services as money laundering services ?

[tee-rex]

the actual truth is that any one that has a real need to launder funds and knows what they are doing will be doing it themselves and not using services like these.  you are traced and tracked in more ways than just the address and these services likely get more people caught than they protect.  the big case of laundering that got the silk road interrupted was cloaked by some mixing and tumbling, but it was not enough.  the most common secondary tracking method is endpoint amount tracing.  if the FBI knows that i received $10,000 for an illegal activity and that i was likely paid within this calendar week, then they can find the start point, you can even do that.  simply search for TX's of that amount in the date range.  the list will be pretty small and you can narrow it down with a little research

I have always claimed something to that tune myself, that using mixers can be counterproductive and actually decrease your anonymity level. In your post you mention that people who are in need of laundering funds should be doing it themselves. Could you expand in greater detail and depth on the tips and tricks of doing just that? I think many people would be interested in learning about making their coins more anonymous the right way, metaphorically speaking.

[MFahad]

I dunno what to thinks about this services.. do they make money laundering easier

Honestly, it is probably used for that purpose most of the time.  But, I see the purpose of coin mixing as a way to take Crypto back to its original way of business.  One of the very points of Crypto is to be anonymous. 

[morantis]

the actual truth is that any one that has a real need to launder funds and knows what they are doing will be doing it themselves and not using services like these.  you are traced and tracked in more ways than just the address and these services likely get more people caught than they protect.  the big case of laundering that got the silk road interrupted was cloaked by some mixing and tumbling, but it was not enough.  the most common secondary tracking method is endpoint amount tracing.  if the FBI knows that i received $10,000 for an illegal activity and that i was likely paid within this calendar week, then they can find the start point, you can even do that.  simply search for TX's of that amount in the date range.  the list will be pretty small and you can narrow it down with a little research

I have always claimed something to that tune myself, that using mixers can be counterproductive and actually decrease your anonymity level. In your post you mention that people who are in need of laundering funds should be doing it themselves. Could you expand in greater detail and depth on the tips and tricks of doing just that? I think many people would be interested in learning about making their coins more anonymous the right way, metaphorically speaking.

well, first things first.  i would prefer to start on a machine that i have never accessed any account on...not my email, not facebook, not even netflix....

the problem with mixing is that a finite amount goes in and comes out.  if you are going to hide $50 through a mixer, i would expect to find a $49 TX somewhere down the line and that should be your other end of mixing. 

one thing that keeps them guessing is rented mining to a paper wallet of a new coin.  provided the new coin is not going to die immediately, you can go to an anonymous PC, maybe the library and create a paper wallet for say Doge.  then go home and go to miningrigrentals and use your dirty BTC to rent mining power to a doge pool and payout to that address, but keep the paper wallet untouched, don't even log in to check the balance.  you will lose value doing this, that is why people rent out their rig instead of mining for themselves, but you should get around $45 out of the $50

Now, back to a new anonymous computer(best buy?) and shapeshift the doge into NXT, more lost funds, but not too bad....

create a private asset with your NXT and then send the asset to a new NXT address, from there to software wallet at home and then back to BTC....not clean, not perfect, but $40 out of $50 of pretty clean Crypto.

You can also rent a VPS anonymously and run a tumbling script for yourself.   
or..........get an account on the onion, set up a quick website and service for $50 using a new coinbase or other third party BTC payment processor and buy from yourself then transfer to software wallet

there are countless ways, hell, just sending the $50 through as five tumbled amounts instead of one helps.  making your tumbled transactions common amounts, like 50, 100, 10...
you can automate some of these things, smart contract others......you can even prep a smart contract to fire 1000BTC to fifty addresses once the address balance hits 1000

if you have a specific need, PM me, otherwise, play around and have some fun with it, options galore

[Rockie1234]

It is true that mixers make laundering easier, but this is not a fair argument. Normal Bitcoin users deserve the right to be avoiding traced by the government.
I would go as far to say that most mixer users are probably not involved in illegal activities.
Bitcoin mixers fill the gap between Bitcoin and anonymous currencies which do all that for you.

[darklus123]

Well that is hard to say maybe you can ask yourself first the question is Bitcoin actually money. Also not only coin mixing services but also exchanges could be used. But atleast you can say that a lot of people who use a mixer have to hide something.

It was also the things that come up to my mind because during my observation on some of the coin mixer running right now in the market is that most of its users asking of what kind of coin are much likely anonymous.

[TraderETH]

I think aim of bitcoin mixing services are for stay anonymous and it is good aim in my opinion, but it is can be used for money laundering too the reasons is still anonymous and i think depend on people who use bitcoin mixing services.

[posternat]

I think aim of bitcoin mixing services are for stay anonymous and it is good aim in my opinion, but it is can be used for money laundering too the reasons is still anonymous and i think depend on people who use bitcoin mixing services.

One of the points is that Bank of America tried something about six months back and quickly dropped it.  It was over a very limited customer base, but no one was even asked ahead of time.  Their purchases were tracked from the beginning of the day to the end.  Where and when a purchase was made was tracked and if your account was found to be making too many "sin" purchases, the next "sin" purchase was put on hold. 

[densuj]

I think yes, but doesn't mean we can blaming the bitcoin mixing services because the intention of bitcoin mixing services are for keep your privacy and there is another reasons why we must mix our coins, can be checked on here https://[banned mixer]/why.html

[JeffBrad12]

I think aim of bitcoin mixing services are for stay anonymous and it is good aim in my opinion, but it is can be used for money laundering too the reasons is still anonymous and i think depend on people who use bitcoin mixing services.

That's right and especially the people is already changing their fiat money into bitcoin is already get an enough of anonymous and by using the mixers is can eliminating the trace and i think the possibilities for using it about the money laundering is so high.

[smho_16]

They can be used by both good and evil persons. People who deal a lot in the dark net I think they need to use this service of coin mixing for their privacy and security.

This can be also used by criminals to erase their activity logs. This cannot be stopped but mixing services are not responsible for that although they may indirectly help facilitate such thing.

[Amitabh S]

I would say that in mixing service, the coins are mixed but still some trace remains between the input and output. So they are not 100% clean.
 
In a coin laundry, there would be no link between the dirty and cleaned coins. Possibly the clean coins come from freshly generated coins, without any history.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

I dunno what to thinks about this services.. do they make money laundering easier

Why do you ask, are you a Fed looking to bust people? People mix coins for a number of reasons, it doesn't take a genius to think of reasons why people do it.

[Daffadile]

Well that is hard to say maybe you can ask yourself first the question is Bitcoin actually money. Also not only coin mixing services but also exchanges could be used. But atleast you can say that a lot of people who use a mixer have to hide something.

Is bitcoin money ?

word 'money' is a 'unit of perpetual value' therefore anything of value is considered money. Bitcoin is worth something because people say it is. Gold and silver is worth something because people say it is. it has value because it is rare. Before this we traded in salt the word salary means salt because salt use to be very rare so they traded in it becuse they needed it.

Today we have peices of paper which origonally was tradable for gold but these days there is not enough gold to back up the paper money. But you do not need the gold because people will accept the paper money for goods and services just like they did salt back in the day. Bitcoin is merely a digital version.

Also think about banking and credit cards. Your money in your bank account are just digital numbers that is all they are. Just like bitcoin.
You can withdraw bitcoin to paper money if you like because bitcoin has a value bitcoin is rare because it is mined.

If someone ever tells you that bitcoin has no value then simply tell them that a lump of metal (gold silver) has none either since it's just a chunk of metal.

[chousbwxx]

sure, it can and is used for laundering, but that is not the only purpose.  also, the more people that join into bitcoin, the more that use these services for more ethical reasons. 

the actual truth is that any one that has a real need to launder funds and knows what they are doing will be doing it themselves and not using services like these.  you are traced and tracked in more ways than just the address and these services likely get more people caught than they protect.  the big case of laundering that got the silk road interrupted was cloaked by some mixing and tumbling, but it was not enough.  the most common secondary tracking method is endpoint amount tracing.  if the FBI knows that i received $10,000 for an illegal activity and that i was likely paid within this calendar week, then they can find the start point, you can even do that.  simply search for TX's of that amount in the date range.  the list will be pretty small and you can narrow it down with a little research

so, they see the original TX and then i throw it into tumbling and mixing.  the FBI software takes 16.38 BTC and prints a pyramid shaped cone, the overall fee for a TX at level 1 for 16.38 is 0.01638.  TX fees are percentage based, so even if that is split between 10 TX's the amount is the same.  the software iterated outward for ten or so TX's, printing the results at each level and you have a simple chart that tells you how much is left from the base number after 1, 2, 3.....numbers of TX's. 

so, you want your funds back in one or two accounts after laundering.  let's say you used a tumbling service, it took in 16.38, went through several accounts and spit out 16 to your other "clean" account.  the fbi software will show that after say "5" TX's the original 16.38 is now 16.2, the software reads like this.

Level 5 TX's      16.2 left after TX fees, 16 after TX fees+common tumbling fee

and there you are,  one of maybe 50 addresses that received 16 BTC one week after the alleged paid crime.  They are watching for that amount and ten other amounts based on the software, plus amounts that are one half and one third those amounts.  it is all on one piece of paper, i have seen it.  you end up as one of maybe 1000 TX's meeting those criteria, but then other software purges a bunch based on other factors, common addresses and such.  that is how Interpol closed that money laundering case and put the silk road in the lime light. 

it is like triangulating position, the first laundered TX and you might be part of ten suspects, once you do it a second time, it is all over.  there are much better ways to attain absolute anonymity and tumbling helps, but it is just one tool in a larger system

Learnt much knowledge from your post, it seems like mixing service is not very safe, how about monero or dash for them? More anonymous than mixer?

[maydna]

I dunno what to thinks about this services.. do they make money laundering easier

maybe they can do this, because no one really know what exactly they do and they will not give the right answers. but people which invole with illegal money, then i think that people can use this to money laundry their money so it will not detected by anyone. but be careful before you do this, any risk that will happen is for yourself.

[JeffBrad12]

I dunno what to thinks about this services.. do they make money laundering easier

maybe they can do this, because no one really know what exactly they do and they will not give the right answers. but people which invole with illegal money, then i think that people can use this to money laundry their money so it will not detected by anyone. but be careful before you do this, any risk that will happen is for yourself.

For eliminating your track is will become more easily for using mixing service and I can't think if that is be fallen into the officials and what happened for next time?be a soft field for them.

[zenitzz]

They have explained at the beginning will hide the transaction txid so they will not publish it to public. You can make money laundering itself without using mixing site.

[Barbut]

Nobody knows nothing about coin mixer sites, looks like they are enigma for almost everyone. Its logical to think how this service is for money laundering. People who are using it are trying to hide where coins come from.
I'm reading that exchange sites also can be used for same things, buy fee can be higher there.
Is there any way or possibility to follow coins after someone used coin mixer? Or there is no way to follow it after that?

[philiveyjr]

I personally feel thats what they have been for all this time. No one really uses them for the anonymitiy factor unless he has been doing something illegal.

[StarofBTC]

Why just mixing services, any business could be misused for money laundering. I do not understand what is point on targeting a mixing services for money laundry as mixing services is almost equivalent to any other bitcoin related services like gambling / exchange /online wallet /lending.

A wrong person may misuse any bitcoin business for his illegal activities, particularly bitcoin mixing service has nothing to do for money laundering.