[ANN] ChipMixer.com - Bitcoin mixer / Bitcoin tumbler - mixing reinvented

[examplens]

Best search engines for Chipmixer seems to be Qwant, Bing, Yandex and DuckDuckGo.
Most problematic results for me are coming from youtube (google) with many misleading video tutorials.
Note that I excluded results coming from g-search.

I would add yahoo.com unjustly neglected here, also the first result is a legit .com site. The next two are chipmixér.com and domain with .co extension. Both of them had a legit onion address at the bottom of the page, so it is difficult to determine whether these domains are really owned by the original Chipmixer.

[1714309662]

1714309662

[1714309662]

1714309662

[o_e_l_e_o]

Note that Startpage simply returns Google results but without all the trackers and privacy invasion, so if Google's results are filled with scams, then so will Startpage's.
SearX similarly pulls results from other search engines and strips all the tracking data. You can see which engines it uses by going to Preferences -> Engines. It defaults to Google, so the same will apply unless you manually choose different search engines to use.

[dkbit98]

I would add yahoo.com unjustly neglected here, also the first result is a legit .com site. The next two are chipmixér.com and domain with .co extension. Both of them had a legit onion address at the bottom of the page, so it is difficult to determine whether these domains are really owned by the original Chipmixer.

Previous post is edited with this information, thank you for reminding me.
I totally forgot about yahoo search dinosaur, maybe because I never use it, and you can't even search anything without agreeing to accept some of their tracking cookies.

Note that Startpage simply returns Google results but without all the trackers and privacy invasion, so if Google's results are filled with scams, then so will Startpage's.
SearX similarly pulls results from other search engines and strips all the tracking data. You can see which engines it uses by going to Preferences -> Engines. It defaults to Google, so the same will apply unless you manually choose different search engines to use.

Yeah, I know.
For all search providers I used default options, that is something majority of people would do.
There are few other search engines based on meta data that was not included, and one called Presearch that is showing xyz website in first place and real Chipmixer in third place.

[LoyceV]

it is difficult to determine whether these domains are really owned by the original Chipmixer.

Actually, it's easy: ChipMixer only owns these sites:

Tor v3 link: http://chipmixorflykuxu56uxy7gf5o6ggig7xru7dnihc4fm4cxqsc63e6id.onion (chip mix or fly, new Segwit)
Tor v2 link: http://chipmixerwzxtzbw.onion/ (obsolete, non Segwit)
Clearnet link: https://chipmixer.com/

(only one clearnet domain)

The fake site showing the real .onion is only meant to trick people into believing it's the real site (and judging by your post: it works!). They know that clearnet-users won't switch to .onion if they don't have to.

[LeGaulois]

Just a small correction.
ChipMixer doesn't use the V2 link anymore.

By the way:
Scammers also display @ChipMixer's email on their website. Guess how many messages he received from people ripped off...

I was there 1-2 days ago. Probably a maintenance going on.

[Heno]

It seems the onion site is down, I'm using this for a long time and have never seen this happen, is there any way to know their news or updates like on twitter or something?

[BlackHatCoiner]

I confirm that the onion site is down.

[dkbit98]

It seems the onion site is down, I'm using this for a long time and have never seen this happen, is there any way to know their news or updates like on twitter or something?

It's down for me as well, but I think they are updating something, if you didn't know it looked like Tor has been under heavy attacks in last few days, so I think this might be the reason for Chipmixer downtime.
Anything related with Tor was loading slow for me in this time, and this was probably a Tor security issue bug that was fixed in latest version 0.4.7.8:
https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor.git/plain/ChangeLog

However, I would like to hear official Chipmixer statement about this.

[Heno]

Dang, I made a deposit like 2 minutes before it went down, gotta wait now...

[Pmalek]

Dang, I made a deposit like 2 minutes before it went down, gotta wait now...

Don't worry about your deposit. Before you started the mixing process, ChipMixer gave you a session token. You can restore your session with this token. I hope you saved it. But the thing is, those session tokens are only valid for 7 days, and after that they expire. They can be extended, but you need access to the site to do that. Since these are extraordinary circumstances (the site being down), I am sure the support can help you here.

@ChipMixer
What happens with a user's deposit if the site doesn't come back online 7 days after the session expires, but he couldn't use the service or extend the session due to the downtime?   

[Heno]

Dang, I made a deposit like 2 minutes before it went down, gotta wait now...

Don't worry about your deposit. Before you started the mixing process, ChipMixer gave you a session token. You can restore your session with this token. I hope you saved it. But the thing is, those session tokens are only valid for 7 days, and after that they expire. They can be extended, but you need access to the site to do that. Since these are extraordinary circumstances (the site being down), I am sure the support can help you here.

@ChipMixer
What happens with a user's deposit if the site doesn't come back online 7 days after the session expires, but he couldn't use the service or extend the session due to the downtime?   

Yeah, that's my biggest concern, I sent them an email yesterday and no answer yet. I saved the session token, of course.

[jackg]

@ChipMixer
What happens with a user's deposit if the site doesn't come back online 7 days after the session expires, but he couldn't use the service or extend the session due to the downtime?   

Yeah, that's my biggest concern, I sent them an email yesterday and no answer yet. I saved the session token, of course.

I'm assuming it'll come back within the 7 days or the server might know it's offline.

Realistically, since transactions were done over the blockchain the deposit address used should be enough to link the funds back to you and I seem to remember it being used in the past if people have lost their session tokens.

[BitcoinAccepted]

This site has a good reputation and would never just confiscate money from a deposit without a refund. Even if it would take 7 days for the site to be online, you certainly don't have to worry about this amount. What I do wonder is how it is that they can only be found on the Dark Web, and that the site is offline there so quickly, which does not promise much good. I think there is a professional team behind it, so I think it will be solved in a few days. The dark web is also more complicated than the normal internet of course.

[Heno]

They're back and everything is working fine again

[ChipMixer]

Problem is now resolved. If anyone have problem with session please contact us by email.

What happens with a user's deposit if the site doesn't come back online 7 days after the session expires, but he couldn't use the service or extend the session due to the downtime?   

We make refund if user couldn't use the service due to the downtime. In cases of longer DDoS attacks we extended sessions time.

[n0nce]

What I do wonder is how it is that they can only be found on the Dark Web, and that the site is offline there so quickly, which does not promise much good.

A few weeks ago, there were DNS issues that led to a temporary compromise of the clearnet site, if I recall correctly. In any case, using a mixer through a clearnet connection is a bad idea anyway; since you're trying to gain privacy, but access the service through your (traceable) local IP.

The dark web is also more complicated than the normal internet of course.

It's not really more complicated; if anything, lots of things are simpler and just more secure overall.

[NeuroticFish]

The dark web is also more complicated than the normal internet of course.

I am not a big user of dark web sites. But at least using ChipMixer is as simple as using a clearnet web page.
Start Tor browser (just a different looking Firefox), click to connect to Tor. Then you have the correct link from this announcement (I find it the safest option), you paste it into the Tor browser and that's all. The rest is normal browsing. So let's not really call it complicated 

[OgNasty]

Problem is now resolved. If anyone have problem with session please contact us by email.

Any chance you want to share what the problem was that has now been resolved?  Was it the result of an outside attacker, an in-house mistake, or the result of regulatory action?  I think given the nature of the business and the crackdowns in the crypto industry, it could be helpful to share details with your users and for others in the field to be aware of to help them avoid similar circumstances in the future for their own services.

[n0nce]

Problem is now resolved. If anyone have problem with session please contact us by email.

Any chance you want to share what the problem was that has now been resolved?  Was it the result of an outside attacker, an in-house mistake, or the result of regulatory action?  I think given the nature of the business and the crackdowns in the crypto industry, it could be helpful to share details with your users and for others in the field to be aware of to help them avoid similar circumstances in the future for their own services.

My guess is that it's got something to do with the recent DDoS attacks on Tor itself.

Everyone needs to update to version 0.4.7.8:

Today, we release 0.4.7.8 fixing several issues including a High severity security issue only affecting the 0.4.7.x series. You can track this issue with TROVE-2022-001 52 and CVE-2021-38385 50.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I think the Lightning Network is one of the best mixers I know about.

ChipThunder - A Lightning micro-mixing service proposal

ChipMixer is an easy mixer to use, which gives the users a privilege; time traveling. It hands them over the Unspent Transaction Outputs' private keys, which were funded prior their deposit and can be, therefore, withdrawn whenever they want, in the future. A smart privacy technique is to not withdraw at the same time they deposit, because it makes their tracking easier to be achieved.

For example,

• Bob sends 1 mBTC to ChipMixer in 2021-09-11 07:14 (block 700,000).
• Bob waits for 1 confirmation.
• Transaction is confirmed in 2021-09-11 07:15 (block 700,001).
• Bob receives a 1 mBTC worth of chip that was funded a month ago, in 2021-08-09 22:13 (block 695,000).
• Bob withdraws his 1 mBTC to his wallet, and the transaction gets confirmed, right after, in block 700,002.

Bob's past-money have no connection with ChipMixer's 1 mBTC chip, but he's made it a lot easier to become traced. Someone who's analyzing the chain can see that at around the same time our friend Bob sent 1 mBTC to an unknown address, one of the ChipMixer's outputs of the same value, which were funded long before Bob deposited, was spent. So, it's rational to assume that Bob is likely to own this new output. And that's before ChipMixer uses Bob's past-money to create new chips and make it even more obvious.

A solution to the above problem is to just not spend at the same time you deposit. For instance, if Bob spent the chip about 2 weeks later, he'd have enhanced his privacy by a lot. However, this solution is pruned to losing self-custody. Bob is, essentially, forfeiting his ownership for 2 weeks, something that might discourage him do so.

ChipMixer has gained everyone's trust, and I've left money there for weeks to accomplish privacy strength, but trust is just contradictory with the protocol. The more time you leave money to a third-party, the greater are the risks. Therefore, we have a problem in the way we will gain the benefits of time traveling without the risks. Here it comes, ChipThunder.


How does it work

If Bob has a properly running Lightning node, with > 1 mBTC receiving capacity, he can choose to receive the money via Lightning, making his 1 mBTC record obscured. What's, contemporaneously, positive is that ChipMixer has a lot of chips leftover for future mixing, that can be used, until then, as sending capacity of their private Lightning node. If Bob prefers having BTC instead of LN-BTC, he can send it back once he feels ready for on-chain chip withdrawal.

Mixing example #1

• Bob deposits 1 mBTC on-chain.
• Once the transaction is confirmed, Bob chooses to withdraw the chip via Lightning.
• Bob receives 1 LN-mBTC instantly.
• Bob can now spend the bitcoin freely, knowing he's respected both the principles of self-custody and privacy.

Mixing example #2

• Bob deposits 1 mBTC on-chain.
• Once the transaction is confirmed, Bob chooses to withdraw the chip via Lightning.
• Bob receives 1 LN-mBTC instantly.
• Bob prefers to have the bitcoin on-chain, so he sends it back to ChipMixer after a few days.
• Bob can now spend his 1 mBTC chip freely, again, knowing he's enhanced his privacy without infringing self-custody.

What do you think?