Why not use Exchange instead of Mixer?

[erikalui]

Mixers charge less fee when compared to depositing and withdrawing bitcoins from anonymous exchanges (binance has KYC) and you end up paying sending and receiving fee and plus there are some exchanges that use one wallet whose address can be easily tracked while mixers don't have any address that can link them to the address. When I receive ETH from exchanges, I can see the wallet having the name of the exchange and in BTC transactions, I can see most exchanges sending from the same wallet address to multiple people. Mixers also break down the transactions (sending it to more than one output) while I can't imaging sending such small amounts from an exchange paying enormous amounts as fee. I don't like mixers as for me it makes no sense in paying fee for anonymity but for others it does.

[1715562555]

1715562555

[akar87]

You can use other option coin for take less fee when you make withdrawal your bitcoin assets, I think using bitcoin payment for withdrawal have higher for paying fees and you can use other option like using doge coin and using litcoin, I use litecoin for withdraw to my local exchange account because just to paid 0.002 LTC for every transaction.

[Astvile]

There's a reason why mixer sites are built, it is for shadowing all your information which you can't get from exchanges cause some of them required some ID's/verification before you can cash out. Mixers are made to shuffle transactions to the point that it isn't trackable anymore, you can't do that using only an exchange wallet because most exchanges use 1 specific address for cashout only which can easily be tracked.

[beliomir]

Exchanges are not anonymous, when authorizing on the exchange, you can calculate the IP address, and the exchange can also track from which address it came and to which address it went

[EdenHazard]

Most exchanges ask for email addresses or worst, KYC.

some exchanges dont require manual sign up and dont require a kyc at all . kyc are only for bigger amounts of transactions . also ,  if an exchanger ask for kyc , you can use temporary email to hide your real identity.

decentralized exchange can be a choice too if that is what you are saying. I don't know much about the transaction process of decentralized exchange but they don't ask for KYC or email address. Just don't forget to use TOR or VPN.

dex or decentralized exchange were already anonymous , so why need for tor or vpn ? though you can still use those tools if you are really conscious about your privacy or if the site is blocked on your country

Then you can't use exchange to mix your coins in case you are looking to do it in large scale .. unless of course if you only want to mix coins worth less than $1,000 or so which mixer services is still the best choice.

I do often mixing coins through an exchange... it's not as instant as what the mixer services provided and the fee itself on the mixer service for me is worth it , so it's a wong statement if you think it's better to use an exchange platform instead the mixer platform.

I have done this a lot of times and probably other people around here in this forum too , we know what's best for us.

[LeGaulois]

@aysg76

As far as I remember, BestMixer provided most of the mixing data to Dutch Authorities once they were confiscated by Dutch law.
We cannot rely on mixers too. They are not as anonymous as we think. If big mixers like BestMixer can fall in the hands of authorities then just imagine how anonymous small mixers are.
So it can be easily assumed when interfered by authorities, both exchanges and mixers can't be trusted.

Just a correction about that

Bestmixer did not provide anything at all to the authorities, it was the authorities that hacked the servers for months while they collected as much information as possible. The site was infested in the first months of its launch.

Right, Bestmixer is a good example, there are other cases I could give too. What lesson to get? It shows us we have to trust the mixer for its method to mix. (That's also why some rely on 2 mixers or use coinjoin method). I know Bestmixer was considered 'popular' but for me, it wasn't a mixer I trusted with its method. (see, as you know they seized the servers, etc). There will always be a place for mixers, and mixers and mixing methods will always improve. Believe me dude.

...

We all know that!

[naska21]

So, Mixers provide service of shuffling bitcoins or provide addresses loaded with bitcoins along with private keys. In short, they provide service so to create anonymity between sender's and receiver's address so that no one can trace the transaction.
My question is why not use Exchanges? When we deposit funds on exchange, bitcoins get deposited on exchange's cold wallet. But when we withdraw funds, withdraw gets processed from exchange's hot wallet. So in short, it is very easy to do anonymous transfer by depositing funds on exchange and withdrawing to other addresses. Why to pay 1-3% fees on Mixers when it could be done for much less on Exchanges. Exchanges like Binance charge just 0.0005 BTC to process withdrawals.

Once I have wondered  why not to send (anonymously)   bitcoins through the chain of a few  exchanges  to  achieve effect of their  shuffling and the answer I have been contented  with was the following:

…...
these exchanges can and will still keep track of the coins, …...

….. apart from it costing a lot of $$$, and exchanges who probably won't be too happy about it.

Obviously, trading on every of those exchanges would refine  the mixing  but the matter of the cost of such solution remains.

[Lmaooo]

Bitcoin mixing services are more private and secure than the cryptocurrency exchanges. if crypto exchanges can solve the anonymity problem then no one would create a bitcoin mixing service. Mixers are excellent tools for anonymizing bitcoin transactions while the crypto exchanges are not. though you can try crypto exchanges if you can afford the mixers.

[MathGame]

cryptocurrency exchanges are not good for anonymity. though they are combining users' transactions similar to mixing services but they are not doing that for the purpose of anonymity while bitcoin mixers are specifically designed for that, to anonymize user transactions for more privacy and security. 

[1Referee]

though you can try crypto exchanges if you can afford the mixers.

Can't afford you meant?

Discarding all privacy issues of using an exchange as mixer, they in most cases charge a pretty steep withdrawal fee. ChipMixer doesn't charge any fees by default at all (donation based business model), so it's pretty much a free way to obtain an extra layer of privacy, so not being able to afford the fees of a mixer (which generally are low already) is not an issue here.

The only fee that occurs is the on-chain transaction fee forth and back, which you would pay when you would use an exchange too.

[Kyraishi]

Bitcoin mixing services are more private and secure than the cryptocurrency exchanges. if crypto exchanges can solve the anonymity problem then no one would create a bitcoin mixing service. Mixers are excellent tools for anonymizing bitcoin transactions while the crypto exchanges are not. though you can try crypto exchanges if you can afford the mixers.

There are almost 0 fees when you compare a mixer to an exchange and almost 0 downsides as well.

Exchanges will sometimes charge a deposit fee, definetly a fee if you want to exchange your crypto-currencies, and another withdrawal fee which may vary. Mixers will be able to set their fees from 0 to 10 percent with some mixers (Chipmixer being a good example) making their fees completely optional.

This simply comes down to mixers are anonymous, exchanges are just not.

[rodel caling]

simple: mixers are created to provide you anonimity, exchanges are not...

Exchanges usually require KYC info, they keep logs of all addresses, ip's, timestamps,... Mixers promise to do none of these things. If a hacker hacks an exchange (this is pretty common, happens all the time), he'll be able to link all of your wallets together (sending, exchange wallet and receiving wallet) AND he'll be able to link this info to your KYC documents, ip's, browser signature, timestamps. Same goes for 3 letter agencies requesting all the exchange's data. Thus, by using an exchange as a mixer, you can actually end up DECREASING your privacy instead of increasing it.

Ofcourse, a mixer can actually be a honeypot setup by a 3 letter agency, but if you trust the mixer, it's much more anonymous than an exchange.

Perfect explanation mate, that is reality in addition for this if I am not wrong exchange are not allowing or accepting coins came from the gambling. So gambler need to use mixer before to transfer their winning fund unto the exchange, but I do not know why exchange not accepting coins derictly from the gambling.

[Xxmodded]

Exchange market have different fees for every transaction depend on which one altcoin we make withdrawal, you can use altcoin for get lower fee transaction like litcoin, ripple and doge, many trader use doge when make withdrawal their coin from one exchange market to the other exchange market for every transaction.

[coinfinger]

You might be able to do anonymous transfer within the exchange like you rightly said, but that is only not visible to the public, it is still very visible to the exchange itself, so the government can still get details of a transaction from an exchange if they force them to do so through court, but with cheap mixer, even the exchange itself will not be able to trace the transaction, like the way binance was not able to trace the transaction when the hacker stole that huge amount of money from their client’s wallet.

You can see that they tried everything possible but to no avail, which they later found out that the hacker used cheap mixer to actually take out the fund through their exchange. So I don’t think using exchange directly will be able to provide the full anonymity as you think.

[Viper1]

Don't know why people are talking about exchanges and mixers to try and make coins untraceable. If I remember correctly, a few years back someone stole some BTC I think it was, or maybe it was NXT? Doesn't really matter but they transferred it into some exchange, bought Monero and withdrew that. From there they were able to just make it all disappear.

[Zionatin]

Don't they bind addresses to your account? So when with deposit eth and trade for something else and come back at some point to sell something for eth then you get that eth back. If you just deposit and not trade won't they just send it back using the same address you just sent it to? I think it is best if you go from one currency to another and either keep that or trade that currency back to a second exchange and withdraw from there?

Don't know why people are talking about exchanges and mixers to try and make coins untraceable. If I remember correctly, a few years back someone stole some BTC I think it was, or maybe it was NXT? Doesn't really matter but they transferred it into some exchange, bought Monero and withdrew that. From there they were able to just make it all disappear.

This is what I am talking about with using another currency instead(see above)

[Viper1]

Don't they bind addresses to your account? So when with deposit eth and trade for something else and come back at some point to sell something for eth then you get that eth back. If you just deposit and not trade won't they just send it back using the same address you just sent it to? I think it is best if you go from one currency to another and either keep that or trade that currency back to a second exchange and withdraw from there?

Don't know why people are talking about exchanges and mixers to try and make coins untraceable. If I remember correctly, a few years back someone stole some BTC I think it was, or maybe it was NXT? Doesn't really matter but they transferred it into some exchange, bought Monero and withdrew that. From there they were able to just make it all disappear.

This is what I am talking about with using another currency instead(see above)

Yes, but everything is traceable unless you use something like Monero where you can transfer anonymously between a couple wallets before you finally send some to an exchange to convert back again. Sending the "same" amount in would also be a stupid thing as well as doing it within a short time frame. You'd need to spread it around over time to mask it. Well, that's assuming you had some largish amount. You'd probably be fine with small amounts.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Don't they bind addresses to your account? So when with deposit eth and trade for something else and come back at some point to sell something for eth then you get that eth back.

Not usually. Yes, each account has its own deposit address. In good exchanges, that deposit address will either automatically change after every use, or you will have the option to request a new deposit address, so you never have to use the same address twice, which is good for privacy reasons. However, most exchanges periodically sweep the funds from every user's deposit address in to a main, central wallet, and then pay out withdrawals from there. Leaving coins in each individual user's address would either leave them with huge amounts of dust, or leave them having to take coins from other users to pay a large withdrawal. So no, you don't usually get back the exact same coins which you deposited.

If you just deposit and not trade won't they just send it back using the same address you just sent it to?

The answer is still probably not. Although that might be cheaper and make more sense, most exchanges deposits and withdrawals are automated and don't have somebody making decisions at the other end. Simply put, you deposit to the address they give you, all deposit addresses are swept to a main wallet, and the main wallet pays out any withdrawals. Even if you try to withdraw exactly what you just deposited, the likelihood is the automated system would still perform as above.

I think it is best if you go from one currency to another and either keep that or trade that currency back to a second exchange and withdraw from there?

Changing currency isn't the stumbling factor to using an exchange for privacy. The stumbling factor is the exchange, and anyone working there or anyone they share data with, can see exactly what you've done. It doesn't matter it you deposit BTC and withdraw BTC, or deposit BTC, trade to ETH, withdraw some as ETH, trade the rest to XMR, and withdraw the rest as XMR. The exchange can still link all your activity, all your addresses, and all your coins.

[imstillthebest]

simple: mixers are created to provide you anonimity, exchanges are not.............

Perfect explanation mate, that is reality in addition for this if I am not wrong exchange are not allowing or accepting coins came from the gambling. So gambler need to use mixer before to transfer their winning fund unto the exchange, but I do not know why exchange not accepting coins derictly from the gambling.

how will they know if the coins you are going to depo are came from gambling/site ?

they will know it if the address has a gambling name on it ( recorded on the blockchain ) but you can always transfer it first on other wallets and then transfer it again on exchanges but that will not make sense it all since you will only waste your energy and fee  .

 better if you can only use mixers because they are not strict and also less hassel to use  .

[o_e_l_e_o]

how will they know if the coins you are going to depo are came from gambling/site ?

Go to https://www.walletexplorer.com/ and look at the 4th column entitled "Gambling". Click on any one of the sites there followed by "Show wallet addresses" to see lists of thousands of addresses known to be owned by each site. These are just the addresses which have been publicly collected for free. We also know exchanges pay large amounts of money to various third parties who specialize in blockchain analysis, and so they will have a much more extensive database to compare to.

but you can always transfer it first on other wallets and then transfer it again on exchanges

Even if you do that, it is still obvious to the exchange exactly what you have done. I've seen suggestions that exchanges will track the coins you deposit back up to 10 previous transactions, but nobody seems to know for sure.

There are endless reports of users having their accounts on various exchanges locked, frozen, or even closed entirely, because they deposited or withdrew from various gambling sites.

better if you can only use mixers because they are not strict and also less hassel to use

This is the correct answer. A good mixer liker ChipMixer will mix your coins regardless of where they come from and with much more privacy than an exchange.