Binance Hackers Bombard Chipmixer to Launder at Least 4,836 BTC

[erikalui]

^Your reasoning failed the moment I saw your signature and this comment.

In the end, it will make ChipMixer's reputation stronger and attract more people who are used to use BTC tumblers.

Glad you admitted that being involved in such shady businesses helps promote their reputation.

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[audaciousbeing]

I see that a lot of people are pointing accusing fingers against ChipMixer which to me is misconception and a campaign of calumny against the services ChipMixer is offering and moreso is diverting of attention from the real culprit here which is Binance that fails to put necessary security measures in place to protect other people's asset. Its just like blaming the church for receiving tithe from people who came to worship there. Another point to note is that, if the hackers didn't use ChipMixer they would surely use another service...

[serjent05]

Maybe because there are people around who care about their privacy ?

I mean.. sure.. there a lot of people like you who give their whole privacy away just for a few bucks (e.g. KYC for shitty tokens worth nothing).
Or by browsing with tracking cookies, or by installing the amazon browser plugin basically giving away your privacy for 10$.

Not everyone is like that.

So for few bucks you earn from your signature campaign, you are ready to personally attack members to defend your campaign so would you ready to even take the blame if they turn out to be criminals?

Your website (as you now talk like you own it) is involved in a criminal activity so don't defend it blindly. What I do is none of your concern as I don't support criminals nor will go to the extent you went. You want to launder money, you do it but when you get caught, you can't blame the Government because you want to PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY.

I thought you were a decent member to talk to but sorry to say you can't even talk properly.

Honestly I do not think Chipmixer has something to do with this money laundering nor they are with the hackers. As we all know Chipmixer is a service that any of us can access.  It is probably automated, that disable it to stop any transaction made in it so I guess it is biased to accused them that they condone criminal actions.  I think it is best to see the next move of Chipmixer if they will cooperate with the investigation or not before saying anything against them.

[erikalui]

Honestly I do not think Chipmixer has something to do with this money laundering nor they are with the hackers. As we all know Chipmixer is a service that any of us can access.  It is probably automated, that disable it to stop any transaction made in it so I guess it is biased to accused them that they condone criminal actions.  I think it is best to see the next move of Chipmixer if they will cooperate with the investigation or not before saying anything against them.

I also want to see what Chipmixer does now and see them helping in the investigation. Since there is an allegation of such a huge amount involved, they should be cooperating while the members here are deviating the topic and personally attacking members to defend Chipmixer. Hope that Chipmixer replies soon.

[jerrison]

At least 4,836 Bitcoin (BTC) of stolen from Binance exchange in May 2019 was laundered through crypto mixing service Chipmixer.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-hackers-bombard-chipmixer-to-launder-at-least-4-836-btc

i do not see Chipmixer as an accomplise and therefore should not be shutdown or even dragged into the Binance Hack as they render services to the general public. Mixed multitude subscribe to their services and it is not possible to say who does an illegal transaction within their framework except if they are being alerted to awaken their consciousness and halt such transactions when and while they still can. it may not be a good story to tell about the company but then let us be realistic

[Slow death]

I also want to see what Chipmixer does now and see them helping in the investigation. Since there is an allegation of such a huge amount involved, they should be cooperating while the members here are deviating the topic and personally attacking members to defend Chipmixer. Hope that Chipmixer replies soon.

Following a major Binance’s security breach that resulted in a loss of 7,000 BTC (more than $80 million at press time), hackers started to launder the stolen funds on June 12, 2019, according to research published by Luxembourg-based crypto capital flow firm Clain.

Source: https://messari.io/organization/clain

It is a private company that has nothing to do with governments, you are looking at everything very wrong.

There is no obligation for a mixer to investigate where the funds come from and it is not the fault of a mixer if someone misuses the mixer

[Kakmakr]

This is a very stupid move and it might lead to the hacker being caught a lot quicker. A mixer service takes your coins and mix them with other people's coins, but the larger the amount of coins being mixed, the higher the chances that those coins might be mixed by the coins being send. It is rumoured that mixing services are less anonymous with larger amount of coins being mixed. 

Indeed, for sure Chipmixer will cooperate to the authority to trace the hacker.  I believe Chipmixer will protect their name and will have a wise decision regarding this incident.  Mixing service have records of their transaction though they keep it private.

So let's hope this backfires on them and that they dug their own grave by doing this.    The companies tracking these coins, might just have received a jackpot from these hackers bombarding a single mixer service with a lot of coins. 

It will definitely backfire to the hackers.

They will never cooperate with the authorities, because no logs are kept, so even if they subpoena them for the information... then they still cannot give any information to them, that they do not have.  

As one of the previous posters also said, the main reason why people still use mixer services, is the fact that they are not sharing information with the authorities. If they do that only once, people would stop using it and there are no way to hide that, because that would be used as evidence in a court.  

[erikalui]

^^I find Clain's allegations pretty valid and even though it's not proved, this would be investigated. A mixer was most probably the best option for the hacker and if by any chance Chipmixer was infact involved, I don't see how can they not be blamed when the same happened with Bitmixer.

Bestmixer launched in May 2018. Only a month later, police began investigating the mixing service and found that over the course of one year, the "world's leading cryptocurrency mixing service" had managed to launder at least $200 million in cryptocurrency on behalf of customers.

The cryptocurrency processed through Bestmixer was considered potentially "tainted" -- in other words, connected to illegal activities and theft.

"Mixing Bitcoins that are obtained legally is not a crime but, other than the mathematical exercise, there no real benefit to it," Fokker said. "The legality changes when a mixing service advertises itself as a success[ful] method to avoid various anti-money laundering policies via anonymity. This is actively offering a money laundering service."

https://www.zdnet.com/article/bestmixer-seized-by-eu-police-over-laundering-of-200-million-in-cryptocurrency/

[bitbunnny]

Those who are overly cautious need to have the crypto they spend for goods and services in a coin like monero then and just keep their investments in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not a privacy based coin and trying to force it relies upon a lot of trust which goes against the system.

Not necessarily. There are proposals to increase the anonymity of bitcoin.

While coinjoin is fine, there are better solutions available, such as payjoin.

And how could anonimity of Bitcoin really be increased? At the begininig we had bigger anonimity and that didn't last. With high pressure for regulation I don't think that turning back at the starting point is actually possible. And wouldn't be very good for reputation of Bitcoin either.

If you follow where the outputs are being spent, and if the hackers aren't smart enough about how they sell or spend the bitcoins, or if too many of Chipmixers' users spend the mixed coins through services with KYC (or by buying physical products or services in their name), then eventually it might be possible to state with increasing likelihood which outputs are clean and which have a higher probability of being dirty.

Not really.

By combining 2 'dirty' and 'clean' outputs, creating 4 new outputs, it is not possible to call any one of them 'clean' or 'dirty' anymore.
The whole concept of 'dirty' coins simply does not work. Coins do not exist. Only UTXO do. And UTXOs are being 'destroyed' in each transaction.

[bitbunnny]

Earlier it was said here that there are some efforts to increase the anonimity of Bitcoin. But I'm not sure it's possible.
At the begininig we had bigger anonimity and that didn't last. With high pressure for regulation I don't think that turning back at the starting point is actually possible. And wouldn't be very good for reputation of Bitcoin either.

[Nolimitz84]

I wonder why Chipmixer did not suspend those transactions.., Did they failed to track that those BTC were hacked?

Apparently yes. Well, and in general, why should the service do this?After all, they do not need to worry about stolen bitcoins.It's not their concern is to find out the origin of bitcoins that were transferred to the mixer.

[dimastegar]

Of course that's bad news for chipmixers. The best crypto mixing platform in my opinion. Whose name is tarnished because of a greedy hacker. They wash Bitcoin for their stomachs. But unfortunately anonymity limits the authorities to find out who exactly the hacker is.

[1Referee]

What will happen is mixers will be considered tainted coins by many different governments.

So it would be very wise to not send a coin into their accounts.

I do wonder though, how can you be sure as government that coins are related to a mixer?

But even if governments at one point in the future can 'taintmark' your mixed coins, what if mixers will end up offering a service where you deposit Bitcoin on-chain, but are paid out in Bitcoin on the Lightning Network? How will they taint the satoshis moving off-chain? It's practically impossible. Governments won't be able to figure out what Lightning node related to the mixer paid you out with a widely enough deployed network.

You only get to figure out coin movements when people cash out to the main chain, which there is little incentive for with more and more places to spend your coins at. It takes less than a minute to install a third party Lightning wallet and to accept payments. Perfect to conduct a transaction and then be done with it.

[bryant.coleman]

I don't think that they have any real choice here. If the feds are involved, then they need to cooperate with them. Else, they will just get destroyed, like BTC-e and numerous other cryptocurrency ventures.

If Chipmixer is set up properly, the most the US government can do is seize their clearnet domain. Even if they can get their hands on servers, proper encryption should leave all funds intact. The service could be restarted within a few days in that case.

When fiat money isn't involved, the US government isn't that great of a threat.

I hope that is the case with Chipmixer and the feds may not have enough power to close them down. But one thing is sure. The FBI is going to demand user logs from the Chipmixer team. I don't know how the owners will respond to that. If the incoming/outgoing BTC addresses are given to the FBI, then it makes much easier for the feds to trace anyone who had used Chipmixer services earlier (Since the "clean" coins in most cases would be going to KYC enabled exchanges where it is traded for fiat).

I agree that fiat currency is not involved and therefore the threat level is low. But in case of BTC-e, almost 45% of their crypto funds were also seized by the feds. They have the capability to seize wallets and steal the coins within them. My guess is that if the authorities can prove that Chipmixer is regularly used by criminals to launder their money, then they will be able to create issues for the team, even if they may not be able to close down it completely.

[jseverson]

^^I find Clain's allegations pretty valid and even though it's not proved, this would be investigated. A mixer was most probably the best option for the hacker and if by any chance Chipmixer was infact involved, I don't see how can they not be blamed when the same happened with Bitmixer.

Bestmixer launched in May 2018. Only a month later, police began investigating the mixing service and found that over the course of one year, the "world's leading cryptocurrency mixing service" had managed to launder at least $200 million in cryptocurrency on behalf of customers.

The cryptocurrency processed through Bestmixer was considered potentially "tainted" -- in other words, connected to illegal activities and theft.

"Mixing Bitcoins that are obtained legally is not a crime but, other than the mathematical exercise, there no real benefit to it," Fokker said. "The legality changes when a mixing service advertises itself as a success[ful] method to avoid various anti-money laundering policies via anonymity. This is actively offering a money laundering service."

https://www.zdnet.com/article/bestmixer-seized-by-eu-police-over-laundering-of-200-million-in-cryptocurrency/

Bolded the part that highlights the difference between Bestmixer and Chipmixer. I'm very interested as to what will come out of this, but if past precedent were to be followed, authorities won't have grounds to shut down Chipmixer regardless of their capability to do so.

I hope that is the case with Chipmixer and the feds may not have enough power to close them down. But one thing is sure. The FBI is going to demand user logs from the Chipmixer team. I don't know how the owners will respond to that.

If everything is as it should be, they would respond by saying they don't have the logs. When a mixing session ends, all data associated with it is deleted.

[Artemis3]

This is bad for Chipmixer.  If the authority decided to investigate on this and targeted Chipmixer to shutdown regardless of the investigation, they can easily do it since they have a proof in their hand that a mixing service had been used to launder a hacked BTC.  I wonder why Chipmixer did not suspend those transactions.., Did they failed to track that those BTC were hacked?

Chipmixer should have been told in advance by Binance which addresses to flag. But there is no system in place to do that... If they knew they could simply have kept the coins hostage. And after verification return them to the right owner minus a fee for having helped.

No authorities, that will never be universally accepted. Only a community based opt in solution will.

[meanwords]

Indeed, for sure Chipmixer will cooperate to the authority to trace the hacker.  I believe Chipmixer will protect their name and will have a wise decision regarding this incident.  Mixing service have records of their transaction though they keep it private.

Chipmixer is in a bad spot right now, if they give the data to authorities, they will lose some customers, both criminals and just people who don't trust governments. If they don't cooperate, they will risk getting closed, and they will have reputation of a service that launders dirty money, and some users might be scared that the coins that they get will be tainted.

I don't think it will happen. They really need to cooperate with the authority this time or they're fucked. This case involves hacking of a large exchange with a large amount of money, this is not a joke. It's more riskier to get shutdown than to cooperate with the authority. At least this way, they are doing the right thing. I think they will do this in a private matter.

[pooya87]

This is bad for Chipmixer.  If the authority decided to investigate on this and targeted Chipmixer to shutdown regardless of the investigation, they can easily do it since they have a proof in their hand that a mixing service had been used to launder a hacked BTC.  I wonder why Chipmixer did not suspend those transactions.., Did they failed to track that those BTC were hacked?

Chipmixer should have been told in advance by Binance which addresses to flag. But there is no system in place to do that... If they knew they could simply have kept the coins hostage. And after verification return them to the right owner minus a fee for having helped.

No authorities, that will never be universally accepted. Only a community based opt in solution will.

the day mixing services start taking coins (sent to their service for mixing) hostage is the day their business dies. it should not matter where the coins come from, even if it seems against morality. because there would be no stop to that, anyone else could then report any bitcoin they sent to others as being "stolen" and demand they be frozen (assuming the other party is going to use a mixer, like in a case of a face to face purchase where the buyer runs them through a mixer to increase his anonymity).

[btc_angela]

This is bad for Chipmixer.  If the authority decided to investigate on this and targeted Chipmixer to shutdown regardless of the investigation, they can easily do it since they have a proof in their hand that a mixing service had been used to launder a hacked BTC.  I wonder why Chipmixer did not suspend those transactions.., Did they failed to track that those BTC were hacked?

Chipmixer should have been told in advance by Binance which addresses to flag. But there is no system in place to do that... If they knew they could simply have kept the coins hostage. And after verification return them to the right owner minus a fee for having helped.

No authorities, that will never be universally accepted. Only a community based opt in solution will.

So the burden is not on Chipmixer, they are services and will accept everything that comes to their tumbler. It's more complicated than taking the coins hostage and sending it back to the right owner. I think Chipmixer will be cooperating, however, what can they give to authorities if there are no historical data on their back-end?

[TryNinja]

What the heck are these posts? ChipMixer is obviously NOT going to cooperate and it's not like the government can "wake up" next day and say "yo, let's shutdown this mixer" that easily. Bestmixer was clearly acting over-confident with all their "best mixing algo" bullshit and "exchange/mining only funds" (and charging a lot of money in fees for that). They were a lot of marketed words and no real security/privacy. Their case has nothing to do with ChipMixer.

If anything, this just shows how ChipMixer is legit. If they got almost 5k BTC in deposits and didn't run away with the money, then we can easily say they have good intentions.