Bitcoin mixers

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>Bitblender<...>

That one close nearly a year ago: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=436467.msg51242960#msg51242960

A good worth reading thread here on the forum on the topic is this one: 2020 List Bitcoin Mixers Bitcoin Tumblers Websites

[witcher_sense]

That's the theory. He was talking about the real world, where even using a decentralized system can get you busted in the real life by centralized organizations and govs. For them, that doesn't matter. If you receive illegal coins, you may end up in jail. Bitcoin being a permissionless network or not.

If a person is commiting a crime, then there is a high possibility for him to end up in jail. Thats for sure. The bitcoin network doesn't give you a right to act illegally, it merely doesn't care in case you do so. But that doesn't make the network itself illegal and transacted bitcoin nonfungible. Each bitcoin that was tainted by authorities still has its credible monetary properties and can be transferred and exchanged for another bitcoin. This is a fungibility secured by consensus rules of the network, no matter what other organizations say.

[desticy]

Therefore, you should choose only trusted and time-tested mixers.

Here are a few of them:
/en/][banned mixer]
Bitcloak
Bitblender
Chipmixer

From where did you assume [banned mixer] is "trusted and time-tested"? Have you at least used them before?

It also seems that they have been banned from the forum, for some reason: [banned mixer]

edit: and Bitblender...

I think you're right, I was a little hurried with the approval of time-tested.
Perhaps it’s right to add a branch link 2020 List Bitcoin Mixers Bitcoin Tumblers Websites to my comment.

[Febo]

What is the essence of bitcoin mixers? Does it really make sense to use them only to those who conduct illegal activities?

You should definitely avoid them if you have clean Bitcoins. There are two reasons for that. First is they are very expensive. You will get much less out than you put in. Second is you might end up with Bitcoins someone pay to hire a murder with.

[gentlemand]

You should definitely avoid them if you have clean Bitcoins. There are two reasons for that. First is they are very expensive. You will get much less out than you put in. Second is you might end up with Bitcoins someone pay to hire a murder with.

It wouldn't be a very good mixer if you could tell the origin of the coins you ended up with.

Most coins that go through mixers are clean, but they have a lengthy trail that would identify everything you've ever done in the past. That's the main point of using one.

[stompix]

You should definitely avoid them if you have clean Bitcoins. There are two reasons for that. First is they are very expensive.
You will get much less out than you put in.

Thist is a pure exaggeration, I wouldn't call the fees that Chipmixer charges expensive:

We use Pay what you want as pricing strategy. It mean you set how much value our service is to you.

Is Pay what you want too expensive for you?

Second is you might end up with Bitcoins someone pay to hire a murder with.

Common, not this BS!
There are also chances you might end up buying a used smartphone over ebay that belonged to Osama bin Laden. (we all know he is not really dead)

[joniboini]

The most expensive mixers that I know has a fee of 0.5%. I believe that's less than what exchange would charge for your withdrawal. Well, probably there are more expensive mixers out there but I doubt they'll use them if you can pay as little as you want to (0.001 BTC at most).

[witcher_sense]

You should definitely avoid them if you have clean Bitcoins. There are two reasons for that. First is they are very expensive. You will get much less out than you put in. Second is you might end up with Bitcoins someone pay to hire a murder with.

What bitcoins do you consider clean? I mean if they weren't recieved through process of mining by collecting a block reward, then these bitcoin can't be called "clean" and even they may have history of transactions via CoinJoin or third-party mixers. Moreover, imagine the situation when there is no more newly mined bitcoins. People will have to deal with old bitcoins, which probably have been used in illegal activities many times. What can we do about that? Isn't it better to have an option to obfuscate linkability of coins in order to avoid a scenario in which all the coins in bitcoin network would be called illegal?

[TryNinja]

~

I believe that in his case, clean equals to coins that went through enough unknown/"safe" sources to not be marked as coming from "ilegal" sources. I mean, even some mixers (or self "mixing" attempts) can be tracked back to the origin of their coins (A > B > C > D > E > F > G), so they could be determined "dirt" by companies doing analysis. But still, chances are that you will go through some "dirt"  coins from time to time.

[NeuroticFish]

This is also incorrect. Bitcoin is fungible coin within its network and it should be so only in own network, because it doesn't have value outside the blockchain. No matter how bitcoin could be named outside blockchain, the place where consensus rules are important and are being followed, it continues to work as neutral network that doesn't care whether a person a criminal or not. More importantly, it's a permissionless network, everyone can participate and make transacions with any coin, bitcoin will be equal to another bitcoin. By giving control of your private keys to the intermediaries, you are losing your right to participate in the network on permissionless level. You are losing your ability to transact freely and can't decide by yourself what coins you want to be spended. In this case, bitcoin might become non fungible coin for you, because you're outside the network and its consensus rules.

I understand your logic, but I don't agree with it. Or at least I don't agree with the labeling "incorrect".
As you know, everything is relative. And while I agree that to the network all coins are identical, I think that what matter most is the way humans are seeing them.

[witcher_sense]

I understand your logic, but I don't agree with it. Or at least I don't agree with the labeling "incorrect".
As you know, everything is relative. And while I agree that to the network all coins are identical, I think that what matter most is the way humans are seeing them.

You're right, I shouldn't have called your opinion on that matter incorrect. That was just another point of view, not even opposite to mine. I was trying to explain why it doesn't matter for the network what people say about it. It is just works in a way it was designed. By applying the same rules as we have in centralized systems today, authorities are trying to discredit the decentralized idea of monetary network by manipulating opinions and views of the people who even don't use the bitcoin network yet. They will continue to manipulate and continue to taint all bitcoins until bitcoins become dirty. But the rules of the network will still be the same and we will still be able to do transactions like we did before. To make the long story short, tainting bitcoins is manipulating and trying to convince people not to use bitcoin. The same idea lays behind the "danger" of bitcoin mixers.

[tvplus006]

What is the essence of bitcoin mixers? Does it really make sense to use them only to those who conduct illegal activities?

You should definitely avoid them if you have clean Bitcoins. There are two reasons for that. First is they are very expensive. You will get much less out than you put in. Second is you might end up with Bitcoins someone pay to hire a murder with.

Binance has a negative attitude to such bitcoins that were previously received through the mixer. And all funds are blocked by the exchange. Until now, there was no such practice of confiscating such bitcoins from the owner, they were simply returned to the sent address. This describes a case that occurred in December last year: https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-returns-frozen-btc-after-user-promises-not-to-use-coinjoin

[coolcoinz]

You should definitely avoid them if you have clean Bitcoins. There are two reasons for that. First is they are very expensive. You will get much less out than you put in. Second is you might end up with Bitcoins someone pay to hire a murder with.

Should I really care? When you get paid with cash do you think about the things those bills were used to pay somewhere in the past? I sure don't and I believe you also don't do it.
Bitcoins are like cash. Some of the bills in your wallet probably came through the hands of drug dealers and it doesn't make them tainted. Why should mixed bitcoins be tainted?

[khaled0111]

I use mixers all the time and I am not involved in any kind of illegal activities.
I trade bitcoins with a small group of persons and don't want anyone of them to know from whom I bought or to whom I sold. Mixers help with breaking the connection between sellers and buyers... as you can see, nothing illegal here  

[Chivas Regal]

When you go to the bank to set up an account you deposit fiat in the form of notes (maybe even a cheque or two). Later, you draw out money (usually from an AMT)  you are usually asked how you would like the funds, high value notes, small value notes, or a mix of both.  The notes have come from some one else.  They may or may not have a chequered past,  but you accept those notes with out question.  It's no different to a coin maixing service for crypto.  I'm surprised other alts haven't jumped on the band wagon. 

Bitcoin to alt --> Mixed ---> atomic swapped to another alt then mixes again and back to bitcoin.

[jseverson]

Should I really care? When you get paid with cash do you think about the things those bills were used to pay somewhere in the past? I sure don't and I believe you also don't do it.

Well you really should, with the pandemic going on and all lol.

In all seriousness though, it shouldn't matter in most situations. Taint analysis requires a fairly sophisticated process for accurate results, and that usually means they're fine-tuned enough to detect if 'dirty' coins changed hands.

As far as I know, in some countries this is strictly prohibited, and may even fall under criminal liability.

You may want to cite a source. All mixers that have been shut down so far were not shut down just for being a mixer.

[joniboini]

Bitcoin to alt --> Mixed ---> atomic swapped to another alt then mixes again and back to bitcoin.

You'll need to count the fees. I bet all this process will take more than 2% of your total tx value. Not to mention there is an increase of risk for each process.

Just use a mixer that breaks your coins connections completely by giving you a set of private keys for example if you start from bitcoin, that should save some money and decrease the risk.

[figmentofmyass]

Bitcoin to alt --> Mixed ---> atomic swapped to another alt then mixes again and back to bitcoin.

presently, it's somewhat trivial for blockchain analysis companies to monitor multiple blockchains for atomic swap contracts and equivalent value mixing transactions.

taproot will fix this by allowing users to obfuscate the underlying atomic swap on-chain. it can be made to look like any other standard transaction. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/etagx4/please_explain_taproot_and_schnorr_signatures/fffljnl/

if you do the bitcoin > 3rd party swap service > monero > 3rd party swap service > bitcoin thing, make sure to do some layered monero transactions in the middle. otherwise the swap service may have enough data to link your transactions together.

[figmentofmyass]

I began to study this issue, and found a lot of information that users of Bitcoin mixers can really get in trouble ... why not just use coins that specialize in anonymity?

traditional letter-of-guarantee style mixers are mostly broken, but there are still bitcoin mixers that can provide strong privacy guarantees.

the problem with some privacy coins is they aren't really that private. stay away from dash:

Dash users that wish to mix their coins contact a random masternode, which then collects the coins from the different users, and mashes them together in the CoinJoin transaction. It’s important to note that the masternode cannot steal the coins.

However, it does mean that Dash users must trust the masternodes with their privacy. After all, the mixing masternodes can link the sending and receiving addresses together; they know exactly which coins are going where.

While Dash does, with its GUI-interface, offer a more user-friendly CoinJoin solution at this point time, the privacy guarantees are weaker than on Bitcoin — never mind serious contenders like Monero or Zcash.

zcash and monero have their privacy drawbacks too:

Though Monero scores relatively well on practicality and decentralization, its anonymity has been put into question in the past.

Fireice_uk, a pseudonymous Monero contributor and the developer of the xmr-stak miner software, identified several weaknesses in the ring signature approach, noting that churning immediately exposes the true origin of the funds by creating a loop of transactions. They also demonstrated a way to break normal ring signatures based on leakage of metadata: the transaction’s time of creation can be compared with internet service provider records to identify the true output.

Though the cryptography powering Zcash shielded transactions is often described as fundamentally better than that of Monero’s, the dominance of transparent addresses places strong restrictions. Researchers from University College London, now officially known as UCL, were able to de-anonymize several transfers by tackling the conversion step between shielded and unshielded coins.