How to create a bitcoin mixer

[pablocokeninja]

Hey guys,
I want to learn how to create a bitcoin mixer, is there's any tutorial available so i can develop it?

[Darker45]

Well, if you are not really a developer, I'm afraid it might end up next to impossible to create one from scratch. I hope I'm wrong. I know somebody can make something out of a tutorial but I don't think a Bitcoin mixer is one of them.

Anyway, I'm not discouraging you. For sure, you cannot be discouraged by a single comment of a random guy who doesn't know a thing about developing a Bitcoin mixer.

Here's what I found anyway: How to create a Bitcoin Mixer – Ultimate Guide (Source Code Inside!). And you might also learn something from this Master of Science thesis presented in ASU: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Bitcoin Mixers (But Were Afraid to Ask)

[ABCbits]

If you need tutorial, i doubt you'll create mixer which actually protect Bitcoin's privacy.

Here's what I found anyway: How to create a Bitcoin Mixer – Ultimate Guide (Source Code Inside!).

It's not good guide, since it encourage 3rd party API which obviously track API request.

[The Cryptovator]

Nothing wrong with your questions and I am not negative about it. Everything has been starting from scratch, so I believe you have a scratch on your mind. But to run a mixer at first you need a developer team and you should have developing knowledge as well to keep full control on your hand. The second thing you should have enough sources to collect clean Bitcoin. Also should have enough funds to keep to make sure circulation, otherwise, no one will use your mixer. You might take some idea to build a mixer, jambler provide Bitcoin mixing template those want to use them. Perhaps they will charge a fee for every transaction. As far as I know, a few mixers have been using their template to create a mixer, Go-Overt one of them. However I am not encouraging you to use a third-party script, just you may learn from their website how it works. So perhaps you would get a few basic knowledge of how you should proceed next step.

[bitmover]

Hey guys,
I want to learn how to create a bitcoin mixer, is there's any tutorial available so i can develop it?

Additionally to what others have said, you will need  at least hundreds of bitcoins...

If you are struggling to find a tutorial, imagine how hard it will be to get that money ...

I might be wrong,  but I believe it is cheaper to make a Conjoin wallet, which has a similar functionality

[mocacinno]

I've created a concept for somebody several years ago.
In it's essense, a "classical" bitcoin mixer isn't all that hard to understand... Just generate a mixing session where a user submits the address where he wants to receive clean coins, present him with a deposit address, monitor said address for unspent outputs funding said address, calculate how much clean coins the customer is entitled to receive and then create a transaction using a wisely chosen set of unspent outputs.

The real "magic" is chosing the correct set of unspent outputs. You can do so by seperating the "receiving" wallet and the "sending" wallet, maybe even on seperate machines, maybe even by deriving "receiving" addresses from an xpub, so you cannot spend the incoming unspent outputs, maybe by using things like exchanges or services with hot wallets, maybe by coinjoining, maybe by using other mixers, maybe by just tumbling your coins. You'll defenately need some knowledge to make sure your customer will stay happy, if he receives coins from his previous mix, he probably won't like your service.

On top of this, you need bulletproof hosting, DDos protection, a hardened (multi)server setup, darknet presence, anonymous tld registration,....

You'll also need to think about things like a letter of guarantee, output tuning, fee rate estimation, randomisation of the type of unspent output,...

Defenately not an easy task. With the current crypto climate, i wouldn't dare of writing up a mixing service anymore. To much heat to bring to yourself... Also, you'll need a pretty competent lawyer, mixing might be legal in some countrys and illegal in others...
My proof of concept many years ago was made up of a 3 server setup: a frontend sending PGP encrypted messages to the database and a backend hosting both receiving (watch-only) and sending (hot) wallet. Every server had his own keypair, all packages sent between any of the servers was always encrypted. The data in the database was also encrypted. The disks of the servers were encrypted. No logs whatsoever. The frontend was just a gui where the session was created, everything was stored in the db. The frontend had 2 network interfaces: an internal and an external. The database only had 1 internal interface on the same vlan as the external and backend server (the db could not be reached over the internet, it was patched using a fourth repo server that was turned off by defauld, had 2 network interfaces and was only started so the db server could be patched). The backend also had 2 interfaces: one on the internal vlan, one external interface. All 3 servers had a different OS/distro (freeBSD, centOS and debian), and each server was bulletproofed pretty well. The backend contained all code, everything was written in python, the wallets were connected over tor, and the peers were carefully selected.
And even then, it was ONLY a proof of concept i made for a thirth party, it was never brought into production. If it would have been brought into production, i would have had to bring in a second trusted dev to review my code, and move everything over to a bulletproof hosting facility. But this wasn't the initial setup anyway, it was not what my client had in mind to begin with, so we never did that.

If it's just a way for you to learn about the ecosystem: why not... If you're serious: honestly, i wouldn't touch your mixer with a ten foot pole after seeing you came onto bitcointalk and asked for a tutorial on how to create a mixer... Doing something like this correctly requires an above-average amount of knowledge about the bitcoin protocol, the bitcoin community, the scripting language you'll be using and proper system administration knowledge... It's not like you'll ever find a step by step tutorial that teaches you how to setup a good mixer.

[ultrloa]

Hey guys,
I want to learn how to create a bitcoin mixer, is there's any tutorial available so i can develop it?

I don't know how to code but just found this article on google maybe this can help you on your querries about how to create a bitcoin mixer check this links.

https://scramblerz.com/create-bitcoin-mixer/

And check this https://[banned mixer]/

Note: I only show that site to you and please DYOR.

[pablocokeninja]

I am a developer actually, i admin not knowing how to form my question, which is  i do not really understand the basis of how mixing can be implemented into the code, but i will check the sources you guys gave me.

[magneto]

Check what mocacinno wrote. Some real gems there.

I'd just like to reinforce the difficulty of actually setting something like this up. You'll need a significant amount of capital to start, advertise, and maintain your service. You'd also have to deal with the regulatory side of things which will likely be very muddy waters.

Even the most established mixers like Bitmixer have shut down before, and they probably had million dollar revenue generating businesses. Chipmixer has been victim to multiple attacks on their websites too. Handling these things will be a nightmare if you're not fully prepared.

[mocacinno]

@magneto: completely correct... I focussed on the technical part, but you do have to have quite a bit of BTC in order to setup a proper mixer. If you don't have enough coins, you might start dispersing tainted coins, and people won't like that... And it's true a good mixer operator will have a fulltime job running his mixer...

[OgNasty]

Check what mocacinno wrote. Some real gems there.

I'd just like to reinforce the difficulty of actually setting something like this up. You'll need a significant amount of capital to start, advertise, and maintain your service. You'd also have to deal with the regulatory side of things which will likely be very muddy waters.

Even the most established mixers like Bitmixer have shut down before, and they probably had million dollar revenue generating businesses. Chipmixer has been victim to multiple attacks on their websites too. Handling these things will be a nightmare if you're not fully prepared.

This. I would think creating the mixer is the easy part. Jumping through regulatory hurdles and keeping the site online would most likely be the major challenges you would face and depending on where you are located, may be impossible to overcome. Good luck!

[hugeblack]

The idea is simple and is to ensure the randomness of transactions so that traditional tracking methods cannot link the input point to the output.
Most mixers fail to break the link between input and output and which are currently successful are central models.
Also, some cryptocurrencies are designed to be traceable and centralized.


Generally, as any economic activity it needs a demand for it to be successful, most people are more concerned with price than privacy.

[Insanerman]

I am a developer actually, i admin not knowing how to form my question, which is  i do not really understand the basis of how mixing can be implemented into the code, but i will check the sources you guys gave me.

You should consider studying blockchain and developing it first. Jumping to creating a project might lead you onto some troubles especially if you jumped onto developing a mixer without further considering how mixing and blockchain in general really works. AFAIK you can find developing it alone difficult if you have no real investments. Most mixers started with huge capital or contacted some miners to work with their platform (to gain newly mined coins and mix it with the input coins). Hence, you should consider creating your own team of crypto devs and enthusiasts as well.

[shield132]

Buy cheap hosting and domain at NameCheap, get coin mixing script for some bucks, setup and done! Wait for the money to come...

Cmon, if you are asking this, then you have no idea what you are going to create!


You need a great mixing algorithm, you need to minimize the traces as max as possible and that includes the information stored on your server too. Your servers mustn't be seized, you should do everything carefully and I guess you need a team for that, the people who you trust the most. This business carries a lot of risks, you have to understand that in reality, your mixers aren't only used by bitcoin enthusiasts and governments will keep an eye on you (you are a guy they don't like).

Again, this isn't a business you'll ever do or you should ever do at least in near future. Only the profit shouldn't be a stimulus.

[Joel_Jantsen]

You need a great mixing algorithm, you need to minimize the traces as max as possible and that includes the information stored on your server too. Your servers mustn't be seized, you should do everything carefully and I guess you need a team for that, the people who you trust the most. This business carries a lot of risks, you have to understand that in reality, your mixers aren't only used by bitcoin enthusiasts and governments will keep an eye on you (you are a guy they don't like).

Did you forget to mention that they need to show/have a sufficient amount of funds for anyone to trust the service? Imagine them starting a mixing service and someone deposits 100 BTC. Boom, the service will turn into an exit scam as the site owner will make more money than they could with their mixing service.

[soliton]

Hey guys,
I want to learn how to create a bitcoin mixer, is there's any tutorial available so i can develop it?

The easiest way for you is to develop Web frontend for your mixing service and bring to bear  the shuffling algo from [banned mixer]

/faq.php#faq-2.1]
" Develop website design of your own mixer or use a template which we have prepared for you. In your personal account you can find HTML templates for Tor and Clearnet mixer version, PHP gateway to connect to our system. Download and upload them to your hosting."

Search engines list  a few Web services that use this business model but the question remains whether they are successful or not.

[mocacinno]

--snip--
The easiest way for you is to develop Web frontend for your mixing service and bring to bear  the shuffling algo from [banned mixer]
--snip--

easyest: yes
safest: nope

If you want to run a "real" mixer, it is imperative that you keep as little people in the loop as humanly possible... Giving all the hard stuff to a third party gives away any oversight you have. It basically forces your users to trust, not only you, but the complete staff at jambler. I would never, ever use a service that uses a third party backend for mixing... Those people are basically just affiliates that add just another potential attack vector without adding any benefits.

Next to this, i remember looking at jambler when they started out. IIRC, i had a bunch of misconfigurations, vulnerability's and other problems. I have not checked if they fixed them, but i took a quick glance today and it looks like they're still implementing a MITM right into their workflow by continuing to use cloudflare... I really don't think they fixed their other issues (eventough i did not check this... I would not touch a privacy-centered service using cloudflare with a ten foot pole).

[soliton]

The easiest way for you is to develop Web frontend for your mixing service and bring to bear  the shuffling algo from [banned mixer]

At this point, why don't you just become time-stressed coinjoiners on JoinMarket? You just need some Bitcoin and run the software to do it.

Well, I think you should address pablocokeninja rather than me. At this point,  I am perfectly fine with MyCryptoMixer when there is need for  me to  mask my own transaction. I don't wish to run software do mix the coins because it's very rare when I'm in the need to do it with my coins. As to others, I don't care of it.