Can we see coin mixing services as money laundering services ?

[BitHodler]

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.

You're spot on here. People however have a small field of sight where they either don't realize, or don't know that there are more ways to mix "dirty" coins than just using a dedicated Bitcoin mixer.

But maybe the point of OP was that dedicated Bitcoin mixers don't require any verification in order to use them, and also don't save any logs about the mixed transaction.

[bhadz]

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.

If coin mixing services are money laundering services for sure the FBI are going to ask the coin mixing companies to close immediately. How about the banks? They are being used for money laundering too but no proper actions. It is really going to depend on how we are going to coin mixing services legally and not going to get attached with illegal ones.

[virasog]

The point is......whether it is the government, your bank or whomever, you are being tracked, you are being profiled and that may be fine, but if it is not fine to you, then there is Crypto. 

[iv4n]

People are right, everything can be used as money laundering service. It`s not even a bad thing, it`s making dirty money legal. It`s not just services, every shop or store can be used for laundering money. It`s not hard, you just need to have good accountant and he will tell you exactly what to do.
I never used some coin mixing service, and I don`t know anyone who used it. I don`t know what can we do with them and what is the reason of their existence.

"They will hide the transaction txid so they will not publish it to public." Why would I hide my txid transaction?

[ultrloa]

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.

If coin mixing services are money laundering services for sure the FBI are going to ask the coin mixing companies to close immediately. How about the banks? They are being used for money laundering too but no proper actions. It is really going to depend on how we are going to coin mixing services legally and not going to get attached with illegal ones.

Banks? I think they are not oblig to tell who's fraud and who is not it is the part of their costumer protection but if some certain law will gonna sue i think they can easily open the bank  accounts of the fraud but they cannot seize the full operation of the bank since they are not affiliates, but in coin mixing service well it has a high chance for that but it is really very hard since i think mixing site owners i think do some counter measure for that so they can sustain their business to still run, and it has nothing to do with those fraud since they cannot stop them to use their service.

[tee-rex]

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.

Could you name a single reason why you would use a mixing service unless you were going to hide something? You might be looking for privacy, this is understandable, but doesn't Bitcoin provide enough privacy by itself? In my opinion, mixing services have everything to do with hiding the origins of your money (money laundering included).

[Oralmat]

The normal Bitcoin transaction is easily traced, if you care a little bit.  For you and me it can be hard to get to the final person who spent the coin, but the government can easily do this.  If your exchange address where you receive payments from a gambling site ever sent coins to a software wallet and that software wallet at another point funded an exchange where you used an email that is linked to you, then within seconds software can associate your name, your Facebook profile and everything else with that gambling site. 

[pedrog]

Usually we call money laundering to the act of turning illegal gains into legal gains, by simply mixing your coins you don't do that, you still have some coins you cannot show its origin.

[Fredomago]

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.

Could you name a single reason why you would use a mixing service unless you were going to hide something? You might be looking for privacy, this is understandable, but doesn't Bitcoin provide enough privacy by itself? In my opinion, mixing services have everything to do with hiding the origins of your money (money laundering included).

yes mate thats right because if you are not hiding anything the service of bitcoin system already hide you so it is anonymously done so if you are just using it in a normal ways theres no need to use mixing services and for me thats the reason why most of those suspicious transaction has been done using mixing services including money laundering for sure.

[tee-rex]

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.

If coin mixing services are money laundering services for sure the FBI are going to ask the coin mixing companies to close immediately. How about the banks? They are being used for money laundering too but no proper actions. It is really going to depend on how we are going to coin mixing services legally and not going to get attached with illegal ones.

That wouldn't be a very wise decision overall. Closing some mixing services that they have managed to successfully trace down would only make the remaining ones which they failed to close even more vicious and dangerous as well as suspicious and paranoid. It would work like a natural selection of sorts where only the most secure and elusive mixers survive. The rational strategy would then obviously dictate not closing down but rather taking mixers under the control of intelligence and security services such as FBI, or even setting up a few supervised mixers themselves.

[OROBTC]

Usually we call money laundering to the act of turning illegal gains into legal gains, by simply mixing your coins you don't do that, you still have some coins you cannot show its origin.

Yes, the usual definition of money laundering is the act of turning "dirty money" (from illegal operations) into clean money.

However, as a user of mixing services, I now note that the term "money laundering" is being changed by our government from the above to:

""Money Laundering" is having money the government does not know about."

A big ugly difference.  Privacy <> Illegality

[Naficopa]

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

Mixing coins is It is something completely different than money laundering.. But i was always wonderend if for any "secret agencies" it is not a perfect idea to open mixing service just to know who is trying to hide transactions or some large amounts of Bitcoin..

[philiveyjr]

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

Mixing coins is It is something completely different than money laundering.. But i was always wonderend if for any "secret agencies" it is not a perfect idea to open mixing service just to know who is trying to hide transactions or some large amounts of Bitcoin..

They are the same if thats your intent. Money laundering involves transferring money through foreign banks in order to hide the source or origins. If you mix the coins, then you are essentially doing the same thing. However it is even harder for the banks to figure out you had the bitcoins in the first place.

[Naficopa]

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

Mixing coins is It is something completely different than money laundering.. But i was always wonderend if for any "secret agencies" it is not a perfect idea to open mixing service just to know who is trying to hide transactions or some large amounts of Bitcoin..

They are the same if thats your intent. Money laundering involves transferring money through foreign banks in order to hide the source or origins. If you mix the coins, then you are essentially doing the same thing. However it is even harder for the banks to figure out you had the bitcoins in the first place.

But sending money from one bank account to another need data, and usually it is about using mules to hide real origin of money. If someone steal Bitcoins don't actually need to do that, can simply use TOR to hide transaction with market or use LocalBitcoins..

[Herbert2020]

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, ...

[tee-rex]

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

Mixing coins is It is something completely different than money laundering.. But i was always wonderend if for any "secret agencies" it is not a perfect idea to open mixing service just to know who is trying to hide transactions or some large amounts of Bitcoin..

They are the same if thats your intent. Money laundering involves transferring money through foreign banks in order to hide the source or origins. If you mix the coins, then you are essentially doing the same thing. However it is even harder for the banks to figure out you had the bitcoins in the first place.

There is still a slight difference between the money laundering and coin mixing. Money laundering is not so much about hiding money as making it appear legal. You hide the origin of the money to use it publicly as a law-abiding citizen. When you mix your coins, you typically don't want to hide their origin because in most cases it is already well hidden by the Bitcoin network itself. You just want to break the link between the money and yourself (your wallet), so that these coins are no longer recognized as yours unlike money laundering. That seems to be the main difference.

[Kakmakr]

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.

You just make it more difficult for whomever is looking <hackers & thieves> to follow your money. The banks are doing this for you, with their old outdated private ledgers. ^smile^

[pcoin]

Money laundry and cryptocoin mixing services are  similar and different in some areas.
Money laundry is dubious and illegal but coin mixing is legal but can be use to change the block of the coin mined.
Also both can still be use for illegal and dubious activities.

[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).

[pedrog]

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.