Are mixers illegal?

[ccryptopark]

I would love to have a general conversation around mixers and if they are legal. I've heard both sides. Would be great to have someone involved in the legal side of things like Ciphertrace or a regulator to shed light on this topic

[AverageGlabella]

In most countries there is no law prohibiting the usage of a Bitcoin mixer however you would have to check this with your country specific laws. There are several risks with using Bitcoin mixers though and its worth noting that the coins that you are mixing with might not come from legal sources and could cause the law enforcement to investigate you if they ever got hold of the logs that the Bitcoin mixers keep. This is why its generally recommended to use a Bitcoin mixer with no logs but there has been mixers which have claimed to not keep logs and have been found that they have been.

You would have to check your country specific laws on their view point of using Bitcoin mixers.

[Bountyhonter]

There is no law that explicitly prohibits Mixers which means that they are probably not illegal it depends on if the funds you are mixing is illegal or not.

[AverageGlabella]

There is no law that explicitly prohibits Mixers which means that they are probably not illegal it depends on if the funds you are mixing is illegal or not.

Which by the way OP you would probably be done for money laundering if the law enforcement really want to mess with you and because of the hostile attitude Bitcoin has with government run entities its much more likely that you would be taken to court. The thing with using a Bitcoin mixing service you are accepting that you might encounter coins which have come from an illegal source and could be aiding money laundering by allowing transactions to be mixed with your coins that you have put into the pool. If Bitcoin mixing is not illegal in your country and you are going to use a Bitcoin mixing service its best to consult a legal advisor just in case the worst case scenario does happen.

[darkangel11]

They are legal and they should remain legal. Bitcoin was made to be traceable but to an address of origin, not to a user's identity. Since governments are forcing KYC on exchanges it's getting much more difficult to hide how much coins you have and where they're coming from. Mixers are the people putting up a fight against government intervention.

you might encounter coins which have come from an illegal source and could be aiding money laundering by allowing transactions to be mixed with your coins

Be careful people because what if you find some cash on the pavement? It could come from an illegal source and this means you shouldn't pick it up. What if it fell out of a drug dealer's pocket? How terrible would that be?

[gentlemand]

Nope. It's possible they may be flouting regulations but even then that hasn't been explicitly stated yet in most places.

Legality is less important than what the third parties you use make of mixed coins. Something doesn't have to be illegal for them to not want to deal with them. In a couple of years it might look rather different to now.

[samcrypto]

I would love to have a general conversation around mixers and if they are legal. I've heard both sides. Would be great to have someone involved in the legal side of things like Ciphertrace or a regulator to shed light on this topic

There’s still a good mixer site where you can do mix your coins and trasfer it into other coins legally but you have to know if you are allowed to use the platform since some countries are prohibited to do so. Well, mixer can be use for illegal things and maybe this is why some mixers failed on their business.

[nydiacaskey01]

I would love to have a general conversation around mixers and if they are legal. I've heard both sides. Would be great to have someone involved in the legal side of things like Ciphertrace or a regulator to shed light on this topic

We may question the motives why Bitcoin needs to be mixed when in fact Your transactions in Bitcoin remains anonymous unless you already posted somewhere your address where your coins are stored. Is it legal? Yes it is legal to countries that doesn’t have any law passed to make it illegal. Is there a country that already made mixing Bitcoin illegal?

[squatter]

I would love to have a general conversation around mixers and if they are legal. I've heard both sides. Would be great to have someone involved in the legal side of things like Ciphertrace or a regulator to shed light on this topic

Mixing services aren't illegal, but regulators are beginning to argue that they fall under money transmission laws. FinCEN published guidance in May that deems centralized mixers as money transmitters:

An anonymizing services provider is a money transmitter under FinCEN regulations.  The added feature of concealing the source of the transaction does not change that person’s status under the BSA.

To comply with the BSA, a mixer would need to register as an MSB with FinCEN and regularly file currency transaction and suspicious activity reports. That would require AML/KYC procedures.

To date, I believe no mixer has complied with the guidance so under US regulations, they are technically acting illegally.

[pinkliar]

I would love to have a general conversation around mixers and if they are legal. I've heard both sides. Would be great to have someone involved in the legal side of things like Ciphertrace or a regulator to shed light on this topic

mixer arent but the users, meaning there are many people using mixer to clean all bitcoin that they get from illegal activity such as hacking or selling drugs online ETC.

[udidrone]

I would love to have a general conversation around mixers and if they are legal. I've heard both sides. Would be great to have someone involved in the legal side of things like Ciphertrace or a regulator to shed light on this topic

mixer arent but the users, meaning there are many people using mixer to clean all bitcoin that they get from illegal activity such as hacking or selling drugs online ETC.

I think everyone have purpose when they want to use mixer service. Maybe not all is use it because they want to clean their money that they get from illegal activity. But not resist that is why people see that mixer is something illegal. But who think about that, need to be educated so they know main purpose of each people is different.

[Coin-1]

I would love to have a general conversation around mixers and if they are legal. I've heard both sides. Would be great to have someone involved in the legal side of things like Ciphertrace or a regulator to shed light on this topic

In general, Bitcoin mixers are not illegal, but agencies in different countries always track Bitcoin transactions and investigate such services to prevent money laundering and other types of criminal business. For example, on May 22, 2019, Dutch police has seized the "BestMixer.io" tumbler which may have provided a high level security for every Bitcoin transaction. As far as I remember, the authorities claimed that Europol has analyzed the databases from 6 confiscated servers and collected information regarding transactions between customers of this service. Therefore, every user who wants to mix bitcoins should choose a reliable Bitcoin mixer.

I guess that Bitcoin transaction fees increased sharply in May 2019 because "BestMixer.io" has been shut down. Perhaps people massively sent their BTC coins to another Bitcoin mixers in order to keep their privacy.

[Freddy11]

I think it’s impossible to say because each country has different laws, so it has to be judged accordingly. While with Crypto Mixers, the major concern for most probably is it has to be safe and secure. So I don’t think too many people think much about whether it’s legal or not but I think it’s probably not in A-Tier countries while not so much of an issue for the developing world but of course, it’s hard to be specific.

[Little Mouse]

Mixers are not illegal, and even some wallets (Wasabi and Samourai) that have integrated mixer are not illegal,
but you better watch out when using any of the web bitcoin mixers, as there are many scam and fake mixers online.

Sometimes, it is. Recently, a lot of known mixing service has stopped operating their service, one or two might have been seized as well. We can say it regulation as well. You are true as well, there's a lot of fake mixing sites out there.

[MetalGear]

I would love to have a general conversation around mixers and if they are legal. I've heard both sides. Would be great to have someone involved in the legal side of things like Ciphertrace or a regulator to shed light on this topic

Mixers' are the one who breaks the link of your old address and new address, your old address are associated the address where you first bought your bitcoin. The main essence of  mixer it for your address not to be traceable. And yes, bitcoin mixer is legal, it's legality will be questioned according to how the user will use it cause there are instances where mixer is being used for doing illegal transactions so that the doer won't be traced.

[jmigdlc99]

I would love to have a general conversation around mixers and if they are legal. I've heard both sides. Would be great to have someone involved in the legal side of things like Ciphertrace or a regulator to shed light on this topic

Aren't mixers in general designed to be untraceable? If you need to use it, you just go and do so.

My opinion that using mixers is more of an ETHICAL conversation instead of a legal one, because legally nobody will really be able to trace your coins or prove you used a mixer (if you use a real non-shitty/scammy one that is).

[ene1980]

I would love to have a general conversation around mixers and if they are legal. I've heard both sides. Would be great to have someone involved in the legal side of things like Ciphertrace or a regulator to shed light on this topic

No government in the world will approve something that will give their citizens privacy and hence do not expect the authorities to approve mixers when they come up with regulations, if you think that you do not need privacy and all your transactions must be transparent then there is no point in mixing your coins but the majority of the world needs some form of privacy when it comes to your financial asset and hence i will be using it irrespective of what the government say about it and hopefully we will have some trusted mixers in the long term too, like ChipMixer.

[NathanJB]

I would love to have a general conversation around mixers and if they are legal. I've heard both sides. Would be great to have someone involved in the legal side of things like Ciphertrace or a regulator to shed light on this topic

It is hard to say yes to all mixers out there as there might be some of them that did not pass through all the necessary legal steps. But what I know is that the famous mixers such as chipmixer is legally registered. I supposed that means the government bodies such as the anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism agencies and others have given their green light to their operations. But this also means they are directly under the monitoring and surveillance of the government. The government can legally demand from them to undergo audit or to submit private company documents as deemed legally necessary.

[Republikcoin.com]

from the beginning until now, I have never heard of the problem of bitcoin mixers in my place. besides, so far the problem is only about the development of bitcoin and altcoin.

mixer can be use to eliminate traces of the transactions we do, it's just that I think that those no one who want their transaction activities are noticed. so, i think to use a mixer can be solved the problem for some people to do have a transaction. even though I haven't used it, I think the mixer is still permitted. if not, I think there have been many challenges about this.

[Thanasis]

I would love to have a general conversation around mixers and if they are legal. I've heard both sides. Would be great to have someone involved in the legal side of things like Ciphertrace or a regulator to shed light on this topic

Its completely legal until they are doing any money laundering or something which violates the law of their jurisdiction,some miexers were closed after they found involved in something against the laws but still mixer like chipmixer working fine.