Which Mixer is getting axed next?

[milewilda]

The fact that one mixer closed is not something to be surprised (they are forced to that), but why BitBlender is make such move? Maybe they're just in fear of the same thing happening to them, or BestMixer and BitBlender have the same owner?

I dont think that they do have the same owner but well we dont actually know on whats behind.If you are a mixing service owner you would probably be alarmed if your competitors
is gradually being shut down due to legal reasons thats why its an inevitable thing for you not to think that you would be the next target.Therefore, you would act on advance rather than waiting
yourself to be included into the line.

I have read up some members posted about Bitmixer service on previous years and telling this line;

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

I'm bitcoin enthusiast since 2011. When we started this service I was convinced that any Bitcoin user has a natural right to privacy. I was totally wrong. Now I grasped that Bitcoin is transparent non-anonymous system by design. Blockchain is a great open book. I believe that Bitcoin will have a great future without dark market transactions. You may use Dash or Zerocoin if you want to buy some weed. Not Bitcoin.

I hope our decision will help to make Bitcoin ecosystem more clean and transparent. I hope our competitors will hear our message and will close their services too. Very soon this kind of activity will be considered as illegal in most of countries.

Cheers,
Bitmixer.IO

With this alone they do already have the experience so it isnt really bad to see this as a reference when building up a mixing site.
Next to be axed? Lets see on what site and i dont know why some people here are too salty with Chipmixer. lol

[figmentofmyass]

The fact that one mixer closed is not something to be surprised (they are forced to that), but why BitBlender is make such move? Maybe they're just in fear of the same thing happening to them, or BestMixer and BitBlender have the same owner?

i hope it doesn't suggest that bitblender was operating from europe. anyone operating a mixer or any non-AML compliant service should avoid running servers from the USA or europe. as we've seen with bestmixer, that's a sure way to get shut down and get your customer de-anonymized.

there's no telling how long the police were sniffing/mirroring bestmixer's servers before seizing everything, so even if they didn't keep logs, operating from these jurisdictions is quite dangerous for a mixer's customers.

If you are a mixing service owner you would probably be alarmed if your competitors
is gradually being shut down due to legal reasons thats why its an inevitable thing for you not to think that you would be the next target.Therefore, you would act on advance rather than waiting
yourself to be included into the line.

others will get the opposite idea: with competitors shutting down, there's lots and lots of profit left on the table for the taking, if only one could set up and operate a mixer correctly.....

[LeGaulois]

"

EU has very harsh laws when it comes to terrorism and money laundering"

Yeah like many countries btw, but they have no problem to host banks, the most used platforms when it comes to money laundering, whatever illegal activity.
I don't get why someone would run 2 mixers under 2 alias. Unless 1 would be used for an exit scam or something...
BitBlender.io is hosted in Malaysia

[Lucius]

LeGaulois, I did not know that BitBlender servers are located in Malaysia, and also I do not know how things work there when it comes to cryptocurrency. But that one mixer is closing down just after other is shut down by authorities in EU, can mean a few things.

- Owner of BitBlender did it in panic and fear, for no real reason.
- BestMixer&BitBlender are somehow connected.
- They get tip that they are next, so they decided to shut down all.

[Questat]

I hope no mixer will be shut down next, they are a big loss of the crypto space already, there are only few reputable mixers now and those 2 who are good mixers were shut down and have shut down respectively.

If we cannot prevent this from happening, I hope Chipmixer will stay alive, because it's one of the best mixers in the space.

Also, I'm hoping more mixers will be created so they will fill the loss of the mixers recently not operating anymore.

[AdolfinWolf]

Also, I'm hoping more mixers will be created so they will fill the loss of the mixers recently not operating anymore.

You can bet that that will happen.

Look at the darknet markets, even if there's a high risk involved in operating it, there are still people willing to take that risk. I don't think it's any different with bitcoin mixers..

But you have to ask yourself how trustworthy these new mixers really are when they're going to start popping up soon. (They aren't...)

And even if they put some BTC in escrow, and start a signature campaign, no one will know how trustworthy their no-logging policies really are until they're shutdown/seized. (Although that also goes for Chipmixer.)

[LeGaulois]

LeGaulois, I did not know that BitBlender servers are located in Malaysia, and also I do not know how things work there when it comes to cryptocurrency. But that one mixer is closing down just after other is shut down by authorities in EU, can mean a few things.

- Owner of BitBlender did it in panic and fear, for no real reason.
- BestMixer&BitBlender are somehow connected.
- They get tip that they are next, so they decided to shut down all.

Possible, BitBlender stopped his service for the reason you say. I'm pretty sure the reasons are also the same regarding BitMixer.io years back.
I believe he got something showing he's the next target, not really afraid of the Bestmixer case.

As for the hosting, any country can shut down a website if it's hosted in the said country but when a country wants to shut down a site hosted in another one, it's not that easy, since the country can just tell you to go out. You can imagine the answer if The US request to China to shut down a site...

[figmentofmyass]

And even if they put some BTC in escrow, and start a signature campaign, no one will know how trustworthy their no-logging policies really are until they're shutdown/seized. (Although that also goes for Chipmixer.)

i saw theymos mention something about "blinded bearer certificates", saying that if chipmixer used them, they'd be a superior mixing method vs monero and wasabi wallet's coinjoin. any idea what that would entail or if it's possible?

P.S.
If services like ChipMixer operated based on blinded bearer certificates, then they'd be in many ways superior to both of the above mixing methods. Someone should work on this.

[AdolfinWolf]

And even if they put some BTC in escrow, and start a signature campaign, no one will know how trustworthy their no-logging policies really are until they're shutdown/seized. (Although that also goes for Chipmixer.)

i saw theymos mention something about "blinded bearer certificates", saying that if chipmixer used them, they'd be a superior mixing method vs monero and wasabi wallet's coinjoin. any idea what that would entail or if it's possible?

P.S.
If services like ChipMixer operated based on blinded bearer certificates, then they'd be in many ways superior to both of the above mixing methods. Someone should work on this.

Yeah. i've looked into that and still am. It looks very promising, but i don't really understand it up to a level where i'd be able to confidently explain it in a fashionable way yet.

in short though, (as far as i understand it): It greatly removes the current trust factor you need to have in mixers regarding them not keeping logs, and replaces it with mathematical proof. You still need to entrust the service with your funds though. (but this risk can also be greatly reduced if the service used multisig with a number of trusted members. (say all/a select group of DT1 for example.)

There's some more discussion here; https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5ksu3o/blinded_bearer_certificates/


I'm not sure if this is something chipmixer would be interested in implementing though, as once such a platform is developed, anyone and their mother could probably fork it & run their own version, which will probably result in a race to the bottom regarding fees for mixing & decentralization. (X trustworthy members will run their own bank with Y fees, lower than that of Chipmixer's (although chipmixer already has 0 fees, but you get the idea.), resulting in chipmixers "bank" getting less traction..)

And you probably need to pay the multisig signers a part of the mixing fee, which will just result in less fees for chipmixer themselves.

[theymos]

Yeah. i've looked into that and still am. It looks very promising, but i don't really understand it up to a level where i'd be able to confidently explain it in a fashionable way yet.

Blinded bearer certificates (bb-certs) are a very old and fairly simple technology, though for some reason it's never seen widespread use. It basically allows a "bank" to issue tokens which can be transferred 100% anonymously. These tokens could be something like "IOU 1 BTC", or they could indicate other things like "whoever holds this token is entitled to a bitcointalk.org copper membership". Unlike Monero or Wasabi, bb-cert transactions aren't merely mixing coins around to make the transaction graph (hopefully-)prohibitively difficult to follow: transaction histories simply can't exist at all. A bb-cert system would also be very scalable -- easily scaling to Visa-level volumes --, and with instant confirmation of transactions. The main downside is that it's fundamentally centralized, since each cert has to be issued by some entity (though this entity could be a multisig arrangement).

I wrote a little article here with several example use-cases. Note that since I wrote that:
 - I learned that Cloudflare implemented an anti-captcha bb-cert thing in the form of Privacy Pass, which is really cool, though it doesn't work perfectly yet and it seems that there isn't that much attention on this.
 - Someone started working on hookedin, which is a project for a complete bb-cert-based BTC payments system, though it's in the very early stages of development and isn't really usable yet.

I suggested bb-certs to ChipMixer in 2017, but they weren't at that time interested. (Not too surprising, since I wasn't offering to create it for them, an easy-to-deploy solution doesn't exist yet, and ideas are a dime a dozen.)

[CryptoBry]

First, it was Bestmixer services that got truncated and the signature advertorials ended abruptly in the 8th Week https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5125389.340, then a few days later

Bitblender opted out of running their signature campaigns https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5100568.msg51243240#msg51243240 in a dramatic manner yesterday.

Which Mixer is next? Is this going to be the end of the Mixers? What really is going on here? I know the cyber security dudes are keeping a close watch on the Bitcoin mixing sites. But what really is going on?

Yes, this is going to be the end of the bitcoin mixing service business as there are now many governmental regulatory bodies that are considering this type of business to be the tool for laundering money from illegal sources. Sad to say, against those in authorities, there is less we can do but to comply not unless we can go underground (where life can be so difficult, I guess). The one and only remaining standing in this industry is Chipmixer...let's see how things will turn out for this last guy on the ground.

[Lucius]

Yes, this is going to be the end of the bitcoin mixing service business as there are now many governmental regulatory bodies that are considering this type of business to be the tool for laundering money from illegal sources.

So you think there were only three mixers, and now only ChipMixer is remained? This is only true if you think of those mixers who had the signature campaign here on forum, but that you by any chance read few posts at the beginning of this thread you would know that there is more mixers who operate today.

I would not bet that mixers will end, it is almost in same category as all the claims that bitcoin is dead or will soon be. Mixers will only need to adapt, and by that I think they will need to move from places as Europe or USA and also by using things which theymos explained.

Here is list of all available mixers : 2019 List Bitcoin Mixers Bitcoin Tumblers Websites

[AdolfinWolf]

Yes, this is going to be the end of the bitcoin mixing service business as there are now many governmental regulatory bodies that are considering this type of business to be the tool for laundering money from illegal sources.

So you think there were only three mixers, and now only ChipMixer is remained? This is only true if you think of those mixers who had the signature campaign here on forum, but that you by any chance read few posts at the beginning of this thread you would know that there is more mixers who operate today.

I would not bet that mixers will end, it is almost in same category as all the claims that bitcoin is dead or will soon be. Mixers will only need to adapt, and by that I think they will need to move from places as Europe or USA and also by using things which theymos explained.

Here is list of all available mixers : 2019 List Bitcoin Mixers Bitcoin Tumblers Websites

Sure there are dozens more, but do you really trust those mixers with substantial amounts of funds? I know i would think twice before using them.

[LeGaulois]

...

People mixing a large number of bitcoins don't mix all in 1 transaction (even if they used the service several times before). They usually do it through multiple TXs. Once to test and then split the mix.
No matter the amount, if they don't know the site people should always do a 1st Tx before, at least to see if the site isn't a scam.

[Lucius]

Sure there are dozens more, but do you really trust those mixers with substantial amounts of funds? I know i would think twice before using them.

I have just referred to the statement of one member that what happened with two mixers recently, does not mean their complete disappearance of them. Of course, the number of mixers and their reliability are two completely different things, so I would even say that it would be good to think more then twice before using any of less known crypto mixers.

[LeGaulois]

Privacy is still a right or am I wrong?

Unfortunately, people don't understand the value of their own privacy. They think it's just a matter to getting their name/last name, DOB, address, credit card numbers, and things like that, private/hidden. But in reality, it goes deeper than that. If they don't fight/act, it's the whole life that is tracked, data mined, analyzed, etc. They will know everything (even supermarkets can currently know when your wife get her menstruations).

[stadus]

Privacy is still a right or am I wrong?

Unfortunately, people don't understand the value of their own privacy. They think it's just a matter to getting their name/last name, DOB, address, credit card numbers, and things like that, private/hidden. But in reality, it goes deeper than that. If they don't fight/act, it's the whole life that is tracked, data mined, analyzed, etc. They will know everything (even supermarkets can currently know when your wife get her menstruations).

MarkBTC11 seems a little bit confused, we are talking of privacy here, privacy is not a crime, therefore it's right.
If we can call mixer being part of the mixing industry, we have to understand that there are also illegal mixers and that's those who violated the law, legal mixers serves with the right purpose which is to give us the privacy we want.

[TryNinja]

MarkBTC11 seems a little bit confused, we are talking of privacy here, privacy is not a crime, therefore it's right.
If we can call mixer being part of the mixing industry, we have to understand that there are also illegal mixers and that's those who violated the law, legal mixers serves with the right purpose which is to give us the privacy we want.

What exactly makes a mixer "ilegal"? Which laws can they possibly break?

How can we separate a "legal" mixer from an "ilegal" one without tracking the users? Are you saying that people can only mix when they're not buying/selling drugs or doing other shady stuff?

[LeGaulois]

@TryNinja is right. I don't even know what is an illegal or legal mixer. And the funny thing is: which laws do they break? Money laundering? But the government don't want to consider Bitcoin as a legal currency!

Are there any illegal banks? Because I know for fact they participate in money laundering massively, it's well documented and can't be denied (some even accepted publicly) but what happened to them? A small fine at best and they're still here.

[AdolfinWolf]

@TryNinja is right. I don't even know what is an illegal or legal mixer. And the funny thing is: which laws do they break? Money laundering? But the government don't want to consider Bitcoin as a legal currency!

Are there any illegal banks? Because I know for fact they participate in money laundering massively, it's well documented and can't be denied (some even accepted publicly) but what happened to them? A small fine at best and they're still here.

Honestly, the only thing which you can call "laundering" about a mixer is that it layers the bitcoin, but as it isn't even recognized as a currency, i'd say this does not even come close to calling it "Money Laundering".

And; is layering money as a single procedure even illegal? I'm not so sure.