Is it possible that somehow I will get criminals BTC with mixing?

[Pffrt]

I have little knowledge on mixing method. Have done mixing couple of times only. I'm curious to know how mixing site mix the coins? Definitely they have another souece of BTC which they sent to customers address. Where they got the BTC? Where's the guarantee that the btc they are sending is fresh enough. Is it possible that somehow receivers will get another users BTC which is linked with criminal/scam?

[suchmoon]

Yes, it's possible. If you want "clean" BTC you should mine, not mix. The purpose of mixing is to break the trail of your coins and to increase anonymity but if you're worried about getting tied to "criminal" coins then perhaps you're mixing for the wrong reasons. You should avoid linking the mixed coins to your identity.

[AB de Royse777]

Is it possible that somehow receivers will get another users BTC which is linked with criminal/scam?

Possible but I do not think there are much to be worried.

We may already have Bitcoin those could be linked to a criminal or scam address. In the future we will see most of the address can be linked with the same if anyone goes back to x times to find the source of the coins.

Linking bitcoin with those illegal source is just an illusion drawn by the Bitcoin haters. Do you know the fiat note you are receiving came from which source even if you go back to 1 hand before you? No.

Where's the guarantee that the btc they are sending is fresh enough.

Unless you have a coinbase coin, you have no idea assuming the miner is mining the coins in the legal way (this does not even make sense --P ).

Bitcoin mixing is very simple:
In coinjoin, you join your coins with other x number of users and then randomly send the coins to the users.
In regular mixers, you have coins already received from another source and when you are sending your coin to mix, the service provider is sending you the coins that are not linked to you. That's how I understand it.

[crwth]

I was wondering how the BTC addresses have been loaded or something. I guess it’s entirely a chance to get tied to something that you are not in any way involved. In terms of having the assurance that the mix is Good, I don’t think it can be safeguarded by the mixer. It's probably all automated.

[Pffrt]

Linking bitcoin with those illegal source is just an illusion drawn by the Bitcoin haters. Do you know the fiat note you are receiving came from which source even if you go back to 1 hand before you? No.

Fiat has no transparency in transactions, so you don't know the source while BTC has transparency. Imagine I have mixed coins and got coins from an address which is linked to a criminal and somehow I mistakenly linked my identity with the BTC. Like sending them to an CEX. What will happen? I may find myself someday on jail, lol.

[suchmoon]

Fiat has no transparency in transactions, so you don't know the source while BTC has transparency. Imagine I have mixed coins and got coins from an address which is linked to a criminal and somehow I mistakenly linked my identity with the BTC. Like sending them to an CEX. What will happen? I may find myself someday on jail, lol.

Again, unless you mine the coins yourself you can't be sure where they're coming from. Your signature campaign payments can be tainted. Any trade you conduct on the forum may give you coins of dubious origins. This has nothing to do with mixing. If anything, coins coming from a mixer have a better chance to have their origin obfuscated. Mixers typically don't just send coins from one user to another, they tend to tumble them around for a while. But you really shouldn't rely on a mixer for anything other than the little bit of added anonymity.

[Pffrt]

But you really shouldn't rely on a mixer for anything other than the little bit of added anonymity.

The purpose of mixing is obviously anonymity. I have to sell BTC to local people here with fiat. I don't want them to see my BTC and trace my address and that's why I have used mixers. But if I got BTC which source is a criminal which is very posible too, won't I get ripped off? I have gotten your point also that anyone can use the scammed BTC or so. Was wondering how mixing sites operate.

[o_e_l_e_o]

But if I got BTC which source is a criminal which is very posible too, won't I get ripped off?

Ripped off by whom? The mixer isn't going freeze your funds, and if you are trading peer-to-peer with someone whom you don't trust to honor their side of the deal then you should be using an escrow or a platform with a built in escrow such as Bisq.

The only way you might get ripped off is if you send mixed coins directly to some centralized exchanges which look down on such things and may lock your account or seize your coins, even if the coins in question are not linked to illegal activities or otherwise "tainted".

[The Sceptical Chymist]

We may already have Bitcoin those could be linked to a criminal or scam address.

I have little doubt about that, nor am I really concerned about it personally.  Who knows what the person(s) did with the bitcoin before I ended up with it?  It's the same thing as cash.  I'm sure the $10 I spend at the convenience store has been used to buy drugs (or snort drugs, too) and probably a lot of other illegal things.  The only difference is that with bitcoin you can trace every transaction.  That doesn't mean that the history of the bitcoins you own should say anything about you. 

I don't know a lot about mixers, but I would think you'd have a good chance of getting "dirty" bitcoin commingled with your own funds.  I'm not sure about the demographic that uses mixing services, but if you're concerned about that issue I would avoid mixers--but it's going to be hard to keep all of your bitcoin "clean" unless you're a miner as other members have mentioned.

[stomachgrowls]

I have little knowledge on mixing method. Have done mixing couple of times only. I'm curious to know how mixing site mix the coins? Definitely they have another souece of BTC which they sent to customers address. Where they got the BTC? Where's the guarantee that the btc they are sending is fresh enough. Is it possible that somehow receivers will get another users BTC which is linked with criminal/scam?

Yes you can and knowing the fact that mixers are commonly being used by those people who do love to mix up their tainted coins and we know that most of hacked or scammed coins would pass through these mixing sites.

So tendency or chances of getting these linked coins to criminal or scam is there and as mentioned only coins that been mined can be considered fresh.If you are that much of concern of this matter then use mixing sites
on your own risk.

[Oasisman]

But you really shouldn't rely on a mixer for anything other than the little bit of added anonymity.

The purpose of mixing is obviously anonymity. I have to sell BTC to local people here with fiat. I don't want them to see my BTC and trace my address and that's why I have used mixers. But if I got BTC which source is a criminal which is very posible too, won't I get ripped off? I have gotten your point also that anyone can use the scammed BTC or so. Was wondering how mixing sites operate.

If you have made a lot of transactions with different people using Btc, then the chances of you linking to a criminal's address as one of the recipient is the same as from the mixing service. Nobody is going to ripped you off unless your mixed coins will be sent directly to your custodial wallet/exchange that has been strictly monitoring Btc movements from a suspected address and eventually you're very lucky to have your address associated with the scammer's address (which I don't think these exchanges are usually doing it) and you have like less than 1% for this happen.

So, regardless if you're using mixers or not, you still have chances of receiving Btc from the criminals address by simply transacting with other people, and that's not something to worry about If you're not really doing any criminal activities.

[sheenshane]

But if I got BTC which source is a criminal which is very posible too, won't I get ripped off?

Yes, that is possible that you might link to the criminal address but once you have used the Bitcoin mixer your address didn't link only 1 Bitcoin address(let assume that this is the address use of scammers) it will be linked by different addresses when you will use coinjoin service of Bitcoin mixer, this means that it is a method of combining Bitcoin payments from multiple users into a single transaction. So, you are probably safe and nothing to worry about, plus if you will use TOR browser another way to have better anonymity.

Just a tip, aside from mixing services the Samourai and Wasabi wallets are used coinjoin services, whose mixing service provides a greater anonymity.

[suchmoon]

Just a tip, aside from mixing services the Samourai and Wasabi wallets are used coinjoin services, whose mixing service provides a greater anonymity.

I don't think that's strictly true. With CoinJoin there is always a direct link between your pre-mixing and post-mixing funds. Centralized mixers can break that link completely and even "travel back in time". Granted if you CoinJoin many times you get fairly decent plausible deniability, which is probably good enough for most users. And the benefit of not having to trust a third party (both with your coins and your privacy).

[pooya87]

Linking bitcoin with those illegal source is just an illusion drawn by the Bitcoin haters. Do you know the fiat note you are receiving came from which source even if you go back to 1 hand before you? No.

Fiat has no transparency in transactions, so you don't know the source while BTC has transparency. Imagine I have mixed coins and got coins from an address which is linked to a criminal and somehow I mistakenly linked my identity with the BTC. Like sending them to an CEX. What will happen? I may find myself someday on jail, lol.

same thing is true about fiat, specifically if it is US dollar. the cash you have in your pocket may have been used by criminals right before they reached you. for example it could have been stolen funds or funds used in drug trafficking (which is almost all USD bills which are already contaminated by cocaine too) and the serial numbers were marked. if you were to be put in jail for receiving BTC that was coming from a transaction by a criminal in the past then you should also be put in jail for using USD bill that was used by a criminal before it got to you.

[TheUltraElite]

It is one of the "properties" (<I like to call it that) of using a mixer. It does what its name suggests. It mixes all the coins and then dispenses them back as if they were never different or coming from different sources. But correct me if you may.

That is the reason why many mixers have been targets of both the good and the bad people. Good in sense that authorities have tried to track down criminally acquired money from logs stored on mixers and use that. Those mixers were not actually secure since they did store the logs for longer periods, unlike the ones running successfully here. Bad in the sense that innocent people can end up getting tracked here too. However these are pretty remote possibilities but mixers shutting down has been a thing in the past.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I would go as far as to say that if you are using a service or exchange which you are concerned might discriminate against you because your funds have come from a mixer and may therefore be "tainted", that you look for an alternative service or exchange to use instead.

The vast majority of bitcoin in existence can be claimed to be "tainted" in some form or another. How far back do you look? 5 transactions? 10? 100? At some point, almost every bitcoin has been used for something deemed to be some degree of shady depending on who you ask, from casinos to mixers to darkweb markets to scams to hacks and so on. It's a completely arbitrary cut off, and anyone can simply bounce their coins around any number of transactions until they are deemed "clean" again.

Bitcoin is supposed to be fungible. Don't let centralized exchanges set themselves up as judge, jury and executioner and tell you otherwise. I have never once ran in to an issue trading coins directly from a mixer on decentralized exchanges.

[Slow death]

Where's the guarantee that the btc they are sending is fresh enough. Is it possible that somehow receivers will get another users BTC which is linked with criminal/scam?

imagine the following:

you take your bitcoin and use a mixer service and then you withdraw it to your bank, one day your bank starts to create problems for you and decide to investigate all the movements your bitcoin goes through until you reach the bank, if the bank realizes how the mixer service works, The bank will surely start to think that you are doing something illegal because the mixer services are unfortunately used by many scammers.

Note: I don't blame the mixer services, because the culprits are the scammers who use the mixer service badly

[akram143]

I have little knowledge on mixing method. Have done mixing couple of times only. I'm curious to know how mixing site mix the coins? Definitely they have another souece of BTC which they sent to customers address. Where they got the BTC? Where's the guarantee that the btc they are sending is fresh enough. Is it possible that somehow receivers will get another users BTC which is linked with criminal/scam?

As everyone said mixing is just to break the trail of your transaction cycle but they doesn't guarantee you that you are getting crime free bitcoin, people sell freshly minted bitcoins for premium prices as well so you can buy them if you care about the crime records.

Minxers are also cared about from where they are receiving the funds for mixing because lot of mixers were closed in the past since criminals used them.

[dothebeats]

There is a possibility, yes. You're only trying to break the trail of your coins in the first place and you're not really always handed out a clean, fresh set of coins every time you mix. They just swap and tumble whatever coins they have on their wallets and replace it with yours, essentially breaking the trail of your old coins with new/used ones that aren't connected with your transaction history. There isn't any guarantees that you'll be receiving fresh coins from the mixer, and if that's the route you want to take, you can buy coins directly from miners and those will be clean and free from any taints whatsoever.