The lagest Bitcoin mixer is about to stop working

[botany]

In an optimal world, you'd pass along the project code to someone else and let it live. If there are people who are willing to run it, or use it, then we should make that happen (one of the ideas of Bitcoin are openness and accessibility).

The code can be replicated, the trust cannot be. One of the reasons that Bitmixer was so successful was that people were ready to trust it with large amounts of Bitcoin. I doubt if they will do it if new users took over.

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[salsa321]

my friend almost using service bitmixer almost 1 year,if my friend heard about this info,maybe he will sad.but i hope after bitmixer closed,owner will have good idea for bitcoin soon

[MunzeDealer]

seriously what is going on here??

are we who used it safe, are logs deleted???

admin answer!!!

[pooya87]

Hi all!
Despite the huge profit we earn, we are closing our activity. Let me explain why.

Be honest:

What logs have you kept, for how long and with what countries law enforcement do you cooperate?

the first rule of privacy is to assume everyone is keeping logs on you. this goes for all these privacy-related services for example VPNs (do a quick search on it and you'll see). and also it depends on your usage of this service, were you mixing your coins to reach privacy or were you a drug smuggler hiding from the law enforcement!

[Quickseller]

I suspect that this has to do with the AlphaBay seizure from earlier this month.

Per the complaint against the admin of AlphaBay (paragraph 5):

5. For transactions leaving the site, AlphaBay provided "tumbling" and "mixing" services [...] [and] also advertised other external mixing and tumbling services to its users."

I don't think I have ever visited AlphaBay, however I would suspect they advertised bitmixer.

The forfiture complaint claims that Law Enforcement found the admin of AlphaBay because he posted his email address when he first created the site, and also because he reused an alias he used as an admin of AlphaBay on other forums that can be traced back to his email address. However it appears that Law Enforcement was able to locate the AlphaBay servers, and took them down at a specific time so that they could catch the admin of AlphaBay logged into the backend of AlphaBay, see below:

33. On July 5, 2017, [...] Police [...] arrest[ed] [...] Alexandre CAZES [...] [a]t the time of his arrest, law enforcement discovered CAZES' laptop [...] and logged into the server that hosted the AlphaBay website--CAZES was logged in [...] and had accessed the data center hostin the AlphaBay site in order to execute a reboot command after AlphaBay went offline as a result of a law enforcement-created service outage[...]

I suspect that bitmixer is afraid that law enforcement is going to be able to find their servers, seize them and arrest whoever is behind the website. Based on what has been revealed publicly, this is a risk as long as the site remains online, and shortly thereafter. If bitmixer can cease operations without its servers being located, then its operator's risk of arrest, and the risk of it's servers being seized goes to near zero. The ability for bitmixer's owners to cash out their bitcoin holdings becomes much easier with the activation of SegWit, which is all but guaranteed as of not long ago.

I have a couple of suspects as to who might be ultimately behind bitmixer, some who I think have a higher probability than others of being the operator. I am not going to disclose this list, and hopefully my suspicions will never be tested. I applaud you for closing your service instead of pulling an exit scam (as many businesses have in the past). Good luck!

[carlfebz2]

~snip~

If they did recommend or somehow advertise bitmixer then probably this would be the cause of such immediate closure of this mixing service. I was little bit shocked that this site decided to close its doors to early saying that its just their own personal reasons but well we dont know whats actually the truth thing behind this but after reading this i can say that theres a possibility or links regarding on this situation. Better to stop early before government will caught you.

[Adlai]

As the old saying goes:

"It's never to late to learn to play the pianooperate JoinMarket"

https://github.com/joinmarket-org/joinmarket/wiki

tl;dr: Bitmixer might have been the largest centralized mixer, but JM is the largest decentralized mixer, and all you hot wallet operators should have been investing your spare coin in it, yesterday.

[Quickseller]

~snip~

If they did recommend or somehow advertise bitmixer then probably this would be the cause of such immediate closure of this mixing service. I was little bit shocked that this site decided to close its doors to early saying that its just their own personal reasons but well we dont know whats actually the truth thing behind this but after reading this i can say that theres a possibility or links regarding on this situation. Better to stop early before government will caught you.

Even if AlphaBay did not explicitly advertise bitmixer, the US government is getting more aggressive in prosecuting operators of DNMs as AlphaBay's admin was neither a citizen, a resident, nor had any ties to the US, but was charged in the US anyway (because AlphaBay sold illegal products to people in the US).

Wikileaks recently disclosed a large number of zero-day exploits that had been hoarded by the CIA (despite their pledge to do disclose such exploits), that apparently have since been stolen (as per news reports). At the time of disclosure, the zero-day exploits had the potential to do a lot of damage, and could be executed under circumstances that many people believed would be safe/secure.

There are also rumors that the US was able to use malware to botch the launch of a North Korean missile test earlier this year. The fact that the North Korean misses are (almost certainly) 'air gapped' computers, that NK has no (meaningful) internet access, and that it would be nearly impossible for the US to have physical access to any component of a NK missile many months (or even years) ahead of time, means that, if true, the US government's ability to insert malware into computers is very strong.  

Based on both of the above, bitmixer's operator(s) likely does not have confidence in their ability to keep their servers secret and protected from the US government.

[Timelord2067]

(bellyaching tin foil hat *blah* removed)

Or, *they* were leaned on...

In any event, places like shapeshift.io and the other mixers will be the next ones to roll...

[Lauda]

Its unfortunate to see bitmixer cease operations but I am sure there will be plenty of other services to fill the gap.

If by plenty of other services you mean scams, then yes.

I know Stratis is working on trustless bitcoin mixing through their masternodes.

Tumblebit is inherently different and will take a bit longer to be released/safe enough for large volume.

seriously what is going on here??

are we who used it safe, are logs deleted???

admin answer!!!

Logs were never kept to begin with, at least as far as Bitmixer.io has claimed. AFAIK they were deleting anything older than 24 hours.

[iram3130]

I can't believe this is happening and I deny that there is no outside pressure as the admin said. He may not agree to it but many government's will be against these kind of services. Bitmixer's service was one of the best in the market right now and it is sad to see them go.

[shaggy404]

Interesting.

While I assume there must be something that forced you to close the business, I certainly don't buy the argument that it was a "change of heart" thing

[clickerz]

It is a sad news, especially to those who frequently used your services.Why a sudden Announcement, what really happens? You've existed for a long time already and earned so much as what you've said. Pressured?

[BITMIXER.IO]

Don't worry, we didn't keep logs, we deleted all used wallets, our servers never been seized, we had very strong mixing algorithm. We never collaborated with feds. All our clients are protected. We did our work honesty as described.

About "I'm not a criminal. Why should I mix my coins?". I really believed in this years ago. But look, in 2016 we mixed about 1M bitcoins. What do you think what part of this sum was non criminal? I don't know, we provided just a tool and didn't ask from what source coins coming. But I guess not all of them was clean. I really don't want to earn helping criminals. It is not only personal. Bitcoin couldn't be accepted by general public and governments if it is a crime tool. No, no, no. Fortunately last years appeared special anonymous cryptocurrencies for this purpose. But Bitcoin has another big aims. It is a finance revolution, but not a crime finance revolution.

[izanagi narukami]

That's unexpected news !

It's really wise to see that you're really care about bitcoin revolution and future
But in other side, people who use it often , it will broke their business or even lossing their job

[LoyceV]

Let me explain why.

Is this the real reason, or is there some pressure from government(s) to close the service, or even keep records of transactions?
I didn't expect this, especially since I've seen Bitmixer's sig campaign up to the last second.

From your own site:

“I believe that any violation of privacy is nothing good.” - Lech Walesa

Are you guys now targeted by the law enforcement authorities or is it just your opinion?

My thoughs exactly!

I am almost certain that this is government pressure, but you obviously can't admit to that for the same reason.

All the more reason for new mixers to remain anonymous. That makes it harder to trust a site, but if the mixer is completely anonymous, they can't be targeted.

It is important that you understand my position. I really revised my view about Bitcoin as a transparent system. Bitcoin has no future with drug/weapon traffic or any other illegal activity. This is my point.

So you're saying you care so much for Bitcoin, you're willing to close your business? That's cute
Everything on earth is used for illegal purposes, whether it's Bitcoin or dollars, guns or cars. Closing your mixer is not going to change that.

Hi all!
Despite the huge profit we earn, we are closing our activity. Let me explain why.

Be honest:

What logs have you kept, for how long and with what countries law enforcement do you cooperate?

If that would be the reason, they wouldn't close their business.

Note: I've never used BitMixer so I won't miss it's services. One of the reasons for not using it is that the coins I get back are most likely from someone who's trying to hide worse things than me

[snakey]

Really sad to hear this Now Hansa is also down, What will happen now, should we switch to Zerocoin?

[adam1230]

I am really sad cause we lose the biggest mixer in market.
But there is more rooms for new players. Lets see how this mixer business will go.
I believe it will grow more and more. Its good there bitmixer closed by the fair way.
Didnt steal any coins and just fairly closes.
Lets look forward and use chipmixer : )

[digaran]

Why do you think Bitmixer is closing? obvious, they're forking/messing with Bitcoin, Bitmixer no longer believes in Bitcoin. it's not like only Bitmixer could mix coins, there are other mixers and they will keep mixing. they succeeded in destroying Bitcoin.

[jacee]

Wow. This is totally unexpected. As a person who uses mixing services like this one, I don't think that the main reason why people use it is mainly because of buying illegal stuffs online. I mix my coins to clean it because my wallet or exchange wallet will ban my account if a coin is from a gambljng or related to it. Also it helps to avoid people from tracking my transaction which adds to the security of using bitcoin. It's sad that the biggest and one of the most trusted mixer has to shitdown because of this.