Mixers under the threat?

[stomachgrowls]

The court hasn't even determined his fate yet.

I honestly don't think that running a bitcoin mixer per se would be breaking any laws in most countries - all you're doing is redirecting transactions on a public network. Obviously, the operation of a mixer can attract nefarious individuals with which the problem lies.

I also don't think that existing players in the mixer market would care too much. They have too much incentive to keep going given the volume of mixing they receive on the daily, and most have probably prepared substantially for any run-ins with law enforcement anyway.

If you function like a money transmitter even if it is only by redirecting funds in exchange for a fee I think you can get into trouble in a lot of countries. The prosecutors will find ways to bend their law such that you do function like a transmitter. If a person comes to you in real life and gives you a suitcase with $100,000 and says hey bring this to that address and I'll give you some reward, I am not sure which laws exactly you break but I know you would be in trouble.

I do see the same thing and for sure those mixer owners out there are really ready for that probability even though this talks about redirecting or some sort but still you would still get involved.

We have seen mixers closed its doors voluntarily and there are still which had been operating until today but we wont know on when would the time comes where government
would really be breaking or knocking off their doors to get involvement.

Wont really be surprised if one day we would really be seeing these kind of news pops out unexpectedly.

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[hazenyc]

The court hasn't even determined his fate yet.

I honestly don't think that running a bitcoin mixer per se would be breaking any laws in most countries - all you're doing is redirecting transactions on a public network. Obviously, the operation of a mixer can attract nefarious individuals with which the problem lies.

I also don't think that existing players in the mixer market would care too much. They have too much incentive to keep going given the volume of mixing they receive on the daily, and most have probably prepared substantially for any run-ins with law enforcement anyway.

If you function like a money transmitter even if it is only by redirecting funds in exchange for a fee I think you can get into trouble in a lot of countries. The prosecutors will find ways to bend their law such that you do function like a transmitter. If a person comes to you in real life and gives you a suitcase with $100,000 and says hey bring this to that address and I'll give you some reward, I am not sure which laws exactly you break but I know you would be in trouble.

I do see the same thing and for sure those mixer owners out there are really ready for that probability even though this talks about redirecting or some sort but still you would still get involved.

We have seen mixers closed its doors voluntarily and there are still which had been operating until today but we wont know on when would the time comes where government
would really be breaking or knocking off their doors to get involvement.

Wont really be surprised if one day we would really be seeing these kind of news pops out unexpectedly.

The issue is if you are operating a mixing service it is almost inconceivable that you can manage to stay anonymous. You would have to take care of every single detail and just one mistake is enough to reveal who you are.

[Insanerman]

~

I might be late in this thread but it is just a common idea that any government would prohibit companies and businesses that lets people be anonymous with their transactions. US government is only concerned that they cannot track people with huge profit from cryptocurrencies especially if they use tons of mixers for their holdings and transactions. Hence, if a country is developing laws and regulations with cryptocurrencies and its holders/users, then it is a clear no doubt that mixing can gain a little spotlight on the way.

[Stedsm]

I might be late in this thread but it is just a common idea that any government would prohibit companies and businesses that lets people be anonymous with their transactions. US government is only concerned that they cannot track people with huge profit from cryptocurrencies especially if they use tons of mixers for their holdings and transactions. Hence, if a country is developing laws and regulations with cryptocurrencies and its holders/users, then it is a clear no doubt that mixing can gain a little spotlight on the way.

TBH, mixing can only be helpful for treasurers who love to hodl their BTC for a very, very long time no matter the price, but they don't want other people to know/trace their transactions to their fresh addresses where they want to hodl their coins. Or it can be helpful to those who want to hide their money from their government. No doubt it can also be helpful to other dark deeds committing people which I won't like to discuss, but I believe they will hardly keep any money in BTC because its value gains and drops a lot and their deals can't wait for such gains to recover their losses.

The fact is, a person needs to know and understand how much private is normalcy and how much private is too much private for them. If privacy means everything for someone, there's no doubt they won't give a damn to the transaction fees (paid to miners) and would still use mixers to privatize their funds, but if they simply want to abide by their jurisdiction, then they may not go with this and will simply keep doing what they had been doing before.

[Joel_Jantsen]

Nah, the way it works is, it would be a scam if any other bitcoiner in the town does it but it's not a scam if Elon Musk does it because the latter would bring more taxes to the government right? This is the unfortunate truth of the capitalistic society.

[ReiMomo]

I guess the only option the guy has now is to hire the best lawyer in town. They will I guess be liable but the case could be lighter I can tell.
Let us say that they attract people that want to launder money but it doesn’t mean that they have mixers for that purpose. If executed well, the lawyer might be able to save the person.

Authorities have been eyeing these mixer services since then. FBI was using as well to liquidate some of their possessed Bitcoins and I feel bad about it.

Well, things have time to end and mixers are about to end as well. They were wrong when they opened the service in the public. I could have the services offered to the sharks if I were them.

[hazenyc]

I guess the only option the guy has now is to hire the best lawyer in town. They will I guess be liable but the case could be lighter I can tell.
Let us say that they attract people that want to launder money but it doesn’t mean that they have mixers for that purpose. If executed well, the lawyer might be able to save the person.

Authorities have been eyeing these mixer services since then. FBI was using as well to liquidate some of their possessed Bitcoins and I feel bad about it.

Well, things have time to end and mixers are about to end as well. They were wrong when they opened the service in the public. I could have the services offered to the sharks if I were them.

I can't remember exactly where I read that but when some guys from a decentralized exchange got under fire the approach to defend themselves was supposed to be dealing with "freedom of speech" and that writing code is not against the law per se. It's like writing code for a virus is not against the law, but executing is. As the developers from that DEX haven't executed anything, they wanted to go down that route. They just provided the code and others used it.

In this case, how actively involved is the provider of a mixer? Is he actively contributing in the background in order for the mixing process to be facilitated?

[o_e_l_e_o]

It seems like they have got to be high on the list of regulators looking to shut down sketchy operations.

Then they should probably be turning their attention to banks, who are responsible for laundering trillions of dollars of money annually, far more than mixers ever will. But no, they get a free pass because they buy out our politicians.

Do you think for one moment governments will not hunt down people running a mixer service that are used for criminal actions? (The owners of these sites cannot say, they did not know people are using their sites for criminal actions)

VPNs across the world are undoubtedly used by some people for criminal actions (whether or not that is a smart idea is a different conversation), but yet they are allowed to continue to function, run ads on social media and TV, some are even operated by companies trading on various stock exchanges, etc.

If they shut down mixers because of nonsense "money laundering" accusations, then they will also try to shut down every non-KYC exchange, every instant coin exchange/swap service, every non-KYC sportsbook, casino, gambling site, etc. Any address or transaction which can not be linked to a real name and identity becomes blacklisted.

The whole thing is nonsense.