Authorities Shut Down First Bitcoin Transaction Mixer

[Nalbo]

Apparently this is the first time law enforcement has taken an action against crypto mixers.
It's funny because I am familiar with Bestmixer was just looking at it last week actually lol

https://www.coindesk.com/eu-authorities-crack-down-on-bitcoin-transaction-mixer

Mixers were always the grey area in the crypto discussion. Their prime intention being hiding where the money came from.
There would be no other use of hiding your source if it's not black money. Mixers are used as a tool for money laundering and are a headache for law enforcement agencies. We would be seeing more crackdowns in the future.

[1715605973]

1715605973

[squatter]

Apparently this is the first time ...

what about BitMixer?
it wasn't exactly a authorities kicking down their doors but the circumstances were suspicious in my opinion, they suddenly grew a conscious after years of giving service and mixing coins and shut down their operation and went away. there was a lot of talk about how they were under pressure from law enforcement.

It was suspicious, but Bitmixer voluntarily shut down. This is definitely the first time that we've seen authorities seizing the domains and servers of a mixing service, and putting out press releases about it.

Apparently Bestmixer is based in a country which also has a strict anti-money laundering laws and when authorities saw that the platform had been used in that way then investigated further and then the rest is history.

They were based in Europe, which seems like an odd choice for a Bitcoin mixer. I sure hope other mixers are housing servers in countries that are less friendly to European and American authorities. Belize, BVI, Bahamas, Seychelles, the Cook Islands -- so many better options out there.

What were these guys doing operating out of Luxembourg? They may as well ring Europol while they're at it.

[gentlemand]

Mixers were always the grey area in the crypto discussion. Their prime intention being hiding where the money came from.
There would be no other use of hiding your source if it's not black money. Mixers are used as a tool for money laundering and are a headache for law enforcement agencies. We would be seeing more crackdowns in the future.

Balls.

Many people just want to break the link between known addresses and the next one they use in a comprehensive manner. If you have a publicly posted address on places like here anyone reading could trace your every subsequent transaction for the rest of your life without much effort. Why should anyone have to put up with that?

Would you tolerate that in your conventional financial life? Every time you bought a can of coke with your debit card the guy behind the counter would know your bank balance and where you'd spent it. There's a tricky balance to be found somewhere, but opening your legs and peeling back your flaps for everyone to have a look isn't going to cut it long term.

[jdarren]

Apparently this is the first time law enforcement has taken an action against crypto mixers.
It's funny because I am familiar with Bestmixer was just looking at it last week actually lol

https://www.coindesk.com/eu-authorities-crack-down-on-bitcoin-transaction-mixer

Mixers were always the grey area in the crypto discussion. Their prime intention being hiding where the money came from.
There would be no other use of hiding your source if it's not black money. Mixers are used as a tool for money laundering and are a headache for law enforcement agencies. We would be seeing more crackdowns in the future.

I agree. The reason for mixers is to hide illegal movements of money. The government sees that and AML compliance firms like ciphertrace are on the lookout for the sources.

[wattcrypto]

I don't think mixer companies realize that there are crypto forensic companies like ciphertrace that can still trace the mixed pathways.

[Kemarit]

I don't think mixer companies realize that there are crypto forensic companies like ciphertrace that can still trace the mixed pathways.

LOL, they always knew that someone is watching over their shoulders every time they mixed some coins. You don't need companies like Ciphertrace to trace the footprints, you can read everything here, Breaking Mixing Services.

I still can't understand why they really operated servers under the jurisdiction of EU,  . Are the people behind that mixing services really think that they are not within the reach or Europol? As far as McAfee's snitching, here is the official tweet from Europol,

https://twitter.com/Europol/status/1131217847789740033

The multi-million euro cryptocurrency laundering service http://Bestmixer.io , considered one of the three largest in the world, taken down by @FIOD with the support of @McAfee and in close cooperation @PoliceLux and #Europol

[Kakmakr]

This might sound controversial, but I would like it if the authorities could search through all those data and find massive criminal operations and/or people who were responsible for major hacks on exchanges and if they could be brought to justice now.

It is unfortunate for the people who simply used the service to protect their financial privacy, but lessons needs to be learned and sometimes innocent people gets burnt in the process. 

They opened a whole Pandora's box with this seizure. 

[mindrust]

If you want to stay anonymous just don't use bitcoin. Even theymos says monero is superior to bitcoin when it comes to staying anonymous.

Mixers look fine on paper but there is no way you could know if the mixer was being owned by the government already by the time you decided to use them.

That's exactly what happened to bestmixer. The government owned the service for more than 10 months before they finally decided to seize the domain.

It could happen to any mixing service you are using. It is pointless and dangerous af.

[stompix]

That's exactly what happened to bestmixer. The government owned the service for more than 10 months before they finally decided to seize the domain.

Is there any confirmation about this?
I find it weird for them to wait that long and at the same time it means they would have infiltrated it just two months after the launch. Not that it is impossible but I find it a bit hard to believe.

Many people just want to break the link between known addresses and the next one they use in a comprehensive manner. If you have a publicly posted address on places like here anyone reading could trace your every subsequent transaction for the rest of your life without much effort. Why should anyone have to put up with that?

Would you tolerate that in your conventional financial life? Every time you bought a can of coke with your debit card the guy behind the counter would know your bank balance and where you'd spent it. There's a tricky balance to be found somewhere, but opening your legs and peeling back your flaps for everyone to have a look isn't going to cut it long term.

Exactly this.
I don't care about small sums or when I send some coins to wirex or local bitcoins from my second wallet cause nobody will be able to tell what I've done with that money, but I like to keep my main stash as hidden as possible, it's nobody business how much and when I spend and what I have left.

[mindrust]

That's exactly what happened to bestmixer. The government owned the service for more than 10 months before they finally decided to seize the domain.

Is there any confirmation about this?
I find it weird for them to wait that long and at the same time it means they would have infiltrated it just two months after the launch. Not that it is impossible but I find it a bit hard to believe.

They started the investigation in June 2018, and have been collecting evidences since then. That's what I wanted to mean.

I know it is not the same thing as owning the company literally. (maybe they did, who knows) But the outcome is more or less the same.

What if they are already on chipmixer or any other decent mixer out there? Who can give us a guarantee that it is not already happening?

tldr; just stick to monero if you have something to hide.

[LeGaulois]

If you want to stay anonymous just don't use bitcoin. Even theymos says monero is superior to bitcoin when it comes to staying anonymous.

Mixers look fine on paper but there is no way you could know if the mixer was being owned by the government already by the time you decided to use them.

That's exactly what happened to bestmixer. The government owned the service for more than 10 months before they finally decided to seize the domain.

It could happen to any mixing service you are using. It is pointless and dangerous af.

ah yes, Theymos say something and everyone repeat, sometimes without understanding. Since Theymos posted something yesterday you're the 6 or 7th user repeating, quoting, licking, whatever. Now I'm saying there are better coins than monero.
Always the same argument with mixers, the famous honeypots

Is there any confirmation about this?

Not really, the fact is they were "monitoring" bestmixer for months.

[Wind_FURY]

That's exactly what happened to bestmixer. The government owned the service for more than 10 months before they finally decided to seize the domain.

Is there any confirmation about this?
I find it weird for them to wait that long and at the same time it means they would have infiltrated it just two months after the launch. Not that it is impossible but I find it a bit hard to believe.

They started the investigation in June 2018, and have been collecting evidences since then. That's what I wanted to mean.

I know it is not the same thing as owning the company literally. (maybe they did, who knows) But the outcome is more or less the same.

What if they are already on chipmixer or any other decent mixer out there? Who can give us a guarantee that it is not already happening?

tldr; just stick to monero if you have something to hide.

Or use TOR + Wasabi wallet,

https://www.wasabiwallet.io/
https://www.torproject.org/

It would be much less risky because you don't surrender the custody of your Bitcoins. Plus centralized services keep logs in their servers, that could be used to analyze, and trace them back to you.

[leea-1334]

I guess the good thing about this is now people like me even will one day be forced to learn how to use wallets like Wasabi. It took me almost a year just to get used to a proper Bitcoin client, and now to read something like this,,, makes me relieved I never used a mixer yet even though I considered a few times just for privacy.

How soon before they go after wallets that help privacy?

[leonair]

Closure of mixers is only a small part of actions taken by authorities against bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a phenomenon. I don't think they care about fraud or even money laundering too much, but rather they are trying to push people out of crypto to buy more themselves - it's likely to be the true reason of such closures.

Authorities only showed their power to a single entity and may follow more movement but they don't have a suspect in custody after this Bitcoin Mixer shut down so I think they've still failed and just simply seized a website which is so easy to create an another one and heighten its defense against them.

They do care about money laundering and cryptocurrency is best suited with it.

[deadsilent]

There's no way authorities legalize mixing transactions since it can be used for crimes especially for money laundering transactions. Good thing they'd warned their clients to get their funds out of their mixing service before they're seized by the government. The war just started. So if you're using mixing service, be aware that authorities can shut it down anytime. As everybody was saying. Use more secure and safer cryptocurrencies. Bad news for mixing services out there. It is inevitable

[stompix]

Good thing they'd warned their clients to get their funds out of their mixing service before they're seized by the government.

What? Who warned of anything?  
I'm starting to believe you have no clue what a mixer is.

~
What if they are already on chipmixer or any other decent mixer out there? Who can give us a guarantee that it is not already happening?

tldr; just stick to monero if you have something to hide.

Then I'm entitled to two years of extra funds for my pension and some tax returns.
As for hiding, there are two types of hiding.

Putting some curtains in the windows because I don't want the neighbor to see how I make sex with my wife, and putting curtains because I don't want my neighbor to see I have a meth lab in my bedroom.

I have nothing to hide from the authorities, I even paid taxes on bitcoin earnings for the last year a few weeks ago, but I don't want that anyone can track my coins and see that I gamble or I buy video chat tokens or I've tipped a stripper.
Disclaimer: Never actually done any of those!

[walterhartman]

Are mixers even necessary when you can transfer bitcoin to monero and then back to some other crypto?

[gentlemand]

Are mixers even necessary when you can transfer bitcoin to monero and then back to some other crypto?

How are you going to do that without an exchange? Maybe some day it'll be possible on chain or in wallet. It isn't at present.

If you try it P2P no monero owner is going to want your dirty coins.

[zgrdyg]

It is odd they waited so much.

By the way, i can't be sure, if transaction mixers are good or bad for the crypto ecosystem.

[figmentofmyass]

Are mixers even necessary when you can transfer bitcoin to monero and then back to some other crypto?

How are you going to do that without an exchange? Maybe some day it'll be possible on chain or in wallet. It isn't at present.

If you try it P2P no monero owner is going to want your dirty coins.

right now, the best way is to use an exchanger like flyp.me, which doesn't require account registration or KYC. you can access through TOR/VPN, swap for XMR, tumble the XMR in multiple tx, then convert back to BTC.

it's hard to avoid centralized services at this point.