ChipMixer.com has been seized.

[nioctib_100]

The problem here is that governments stopped going after the real scammers a long (decades) time ago, because they can't do that with the technical and social infrastructure they've got, but it's certainly possible. So they have resorted to criminalizing any service that is used by scammers, including legitimate ones

I don't understand why Chipmixer gets a pass for storing our private keys and whatever other data they have despite constantly assuring us that keys are deleted and no data is logged. He literally committed the cardinal sin of privacy. What if that data is released during the court proceedings? Sure it sucks for drug dealers and hackers, whatever, but what pisses me off is all the people who used Chipmixer to protect their privacy for (what they believe are) morally good reasons. People in countries where Bitcoin is illegal, and the people who used Chipmixer to donate to organizations or causes that go against what their government supports.  

What comes to mind right now is what's going on in Ukraine (and set aside your views on that for a moment, this is just the example that comes to mind). Imagine a Russian citizen who donated funds to support Ukraine's defense and hid that transaction from the Russian government with Chipmixer. On the other hand, imagine a Ukrainian citizen who donated Bitcoin to practically any Russian company in the past year and hid that with Chipmixer. If this data leaks, both of those people are facing prison or death.

 Just look at this.



Chipmixer really scammed us. I was rooting for him at first when I learned he wasn't yet caught (see my post here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1935098.msg61918045#msg61918045). But now that I've given it more thought and see how terribly he screwed his users over, I think he is far from a hero.

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[LTU_btc]

Or, there's one guy taking the fall now. I always thought that CM had deep pockets from the start, and that doesn't sound like a single guy from Vietnam.

I thought about it too. I think it's quite common practice when business hire some random dude to be their public person. His name is used for things like hosting, bank payments, communication and etc, while real work is done by other people who remain behind the curtains.

[bbc.reporter]

What will happened to those who use the mixer previously. Is there a chance that my Bitcoin will be connected by Bitcoin use from money laundering or we are still safe? I use Chipmixer every week to mix my coins. It’s sad to read this bad news.  

Agreed. This is very much similar to how the government has arrested Tornado Cash's developer for creating a tool to protect someone's anonymity and privacy. I reckon if a car was used by a criminal to kidnap someone, the government cannot arrest the car company or if a cellphone was used as detonator for a car bomb that killed hundreds of people, the government cannot arrest the cellphone company.

And yet, in the case of Tornado Cash, hundreds of millions worth of different coins linked to the mixer in one way or another were frozen. This was generally a blanket move. This wasn't just done selectively to suspicious wallets and addresses. This included funds of innocent and unsuspecting Tornado Cash users.

However, the argument remains the same. The government does not have the right to arrest the creator of the knife if his creation was used to murder someone. The government should arrest the murderer. I am shaking my head why there are some people who argue that the arrest and detention is acceptable because it is not.

[mindrust]

Or, there's one guy taking the fall now. I always thought that CM had deep pockets from the start, and that doesn't sound like a single guy from Vietnam.

I thought about it too. I think it's quite common practice when business hire some random dude to be their public person. His name is used for things like hosting, bank payments, communication and etc, while real work is done by other people who remain behind the curtains.

Binance is doing the same thing too. All we know about Binance is CZ. It is like CZ is behind everything.   He is accepting deposits, he is approving withdrawals, he is processing KYC's, he is dealing with the FBI/CIA, he is dealing with the twitter folks, he is a one man army.

CZ!

CZ!!!

CZ!!!!

Without CZ, Binance wouldn't exist. God bless him.

However, the argument remains the same. The government does not have the right to arrest the creator of the knife if his creation was used to murder someone. The government should arrest the murderer. I am shaking my head why there are some people who argue that the arrest and detention is acceptable because it is not.

What about CM storing keys though? If true, that's going to cause some serious trouble on its users and they openly said, they don't do it. People used CM to stay anonymous, if CM stored their users IP's, addresses etc... Wouldn't be that lying? Would it be better if they stayed in the business and kept logging their users? Grow the jackpot even bigger for the FEDs?

It seems to me, you just can't trust anybody or any service these theys. You just don't know who is a fucking badge.

[PrimeNumber7]

Am I the only one who's surprised that 1900 Bitcoin was stored in hot wallets?

I don't think it is really possible for a mixer to not store all their coin in their hot wallet. If CM used cold wallets, moving coin to/from the cold wallet really couldn't be done on-chain, otherwise, it would be clear which groups of addresses belong to CM. Also, CM's operational model effectively put all their coin on a hot wallet, regardless of the location of it's private keys due to the fact that CM had such a low threshold for someone to get a "chip", which is effectively an IOU from CM to their customers -- all that is needed is a browser session.

[LoyceV]

Am I the only one who's surprised that 1900 Bitcoin was stored in hot wallets?

I don't think it is really possible for a mixer to not store all their coin in their hot wallet. If CM used cold wallets, moving coin to/from the cold wallet really couldn't be done on-chain, otherwise, it would be clear which groups of addresses belong to CM. Also, CM's operational model effectively put all their coin on a hot wallet, regardless of the location of it's private keys due to the fact that CM had such a low threshold for someone to get a "chip", which is effectively an IOU from CM to their customers -- all that is needed is a browser session.

Keeping funds offline would have been possible: once in a while, when they run out of chips, users could only get a voucher until new chips were created. In the same way funded keys could have been kept offline.
I think the backup-scenario sounds logical: 7 GB of data including several snapshots which includes some of the used private keys. I'm now curious if there's anyone left with (older) chips that haven't been emptied. I checked the changes here yesterday, I'll do the same to day to see if more keys got swept. If that happened, I assume it's their owner emptying them now.

Update:
1 mBTC chips: March 16: 373824 - March 17: 374196 - Difference: 372 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: 0.372 BTC.
2 mBTC chips: March 16: 79035 - March 17: 79117 - Difference: 82 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: 0.164 BTC.
4 mBTC chips: March 16: 30463 - March 17: 30546 - Difference: 83 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: 0.332 BTC.
8 mBTC chips: March 16: 13950 - March 17: 13958 - Difference: 8 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: 0.064 BTC.
17 mBTC chips: March 16: 5053 - March 17: 5051 - Difference: -2 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: -0.034 BTC.
32 mBTC chips: March 16: 3452 - March 17: 3430 - Difference: -22 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: -0.704 BTC.
64 mBTC chips: March 16: 1359 - March 17: 1343 - Difference: -16 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: -1,024 BTC.
128 mBTC chips: March 16: 830 - March 17: 820 - Difference: -10 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: -1,280 BTC.
256 mBTC chips: March 16: 392 - March 17: 371 - Difference: -21 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: -5,376 BTC.
500 mBTC chips: March 16: 57411 - March 17: 57443 - Difference: 32 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: 16 BTC.
512 mBTC chips: March 16: 277 - March 17: 276 - Difference: -1 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: -0.512 BTC.
1000 mBTC chips: March 16: 96525 - March 17: 96558 - Difference: 33 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: 33 BTC.
1024 mBTC chips: March 16: 267 - March 17: 256 - Difference: -11 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: -11,264 BTC.
2000 mBTC chips: March 16: 19792 - March 17: 19801 - Difference: 9 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: 180 BTC.
2048 mBTC chips: March 16: 57 - March 17: 55 - Difference: -2 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: -4,096 BTC.
4000 mBTC chips: March 16: 4496 - March 17: 4486 - Difference: -10 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: -40 BTC.
4096 mBTC chips: March 16: 114 - March 17: 114 - Difference: 0 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: 0 BTC.
8000 mBTC chips: March 16: 1284 - March 17: 1282 - Difference: -2 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: -16 BTC.
8192 mBTC chips: March 16: 15 - March 17: 15 - Difference: 0 funded addresses. Total balance sweeped: 0 BTC.

Based on this, I can't really tell if any more chips have been swept.

[PrimeNumber7]

Am I the only one who's surprised that 1900 Bitcoin was stored in hot wallets?

I don't think it is really possible for a mixer to not store all their coin in their hot wallet. If CM used cold wallets, moving coin to/from the cold wallet really couldn't be done on-chain, otherwise, it would be clear which groups of addresses belong to CM. Also, CM's operational model effectively put all their coin on a hot wallet, regardless of the location of it's private keys due to the fact that CM had such a low threshold for someone to get a "chip", which is effectively an IOU from CM to their customers -- all that is needed is a browser session.

Keeping funds offline would have been possible: once in a while, when they run out of chips, users could only get a voucher until new chips were created. In the same way funded keys could have been kept offline.

It is not a good security practice to transmit actual private keys between servers.

Notwithstanding the above, if someone can cause CM to belive that they have a chip, they effectively have access to the coin. So if someone were to trick CM into believing that coin was deposited, when in fact it was not, and they were able to do so in a way that CM could not differentiate from legitimate deposits, CM would need to either not honor all legitimate deposits, or ultimately honor the illegitimate deposits.

I think the backup-scenario sounds logical: 7 GB of data including several snapshots which includes some of the used private keys. I'm now curious if there's anyone left with (older) chips that haven't been emptied. I checked the changes here yesterday, I'll do the same to day to see if more keys got swept. If that happened, I assume it's their owner emptying them now.

Over 7 TB of data was taken from CM. I would want to know what the other 99% of this data was.

[Synchronice]

Given how many selfies they include of him in the press release report at https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1574581/download, I'd wager a terabyte or two are just his own personal photos  

I saw his selfies and I truly wonder why was he shooting such a dumb selfies

I guess people still trust their iPhone devices with their ''safe and secure'' iCloud diligently taking selfies and saving exact locations all the time  

iPhone has good selfie camera, that's the reason and this person is a selfie addict
Btw there is nothing wrong with it, he is a human and you know, no one can hide that much from this world. You have to go outside, sometimes you have to see friends, have some fun, maybe see a doctor, go to the gym, etc. I don't get the idea of life if you earn a lot of money and hide from everyone and everything.

I collected his quotes from press-release document and put all together:

AML/KYC is a sellout to the banks and governments, please do not use AML/KYC exchanges. That’s what KYC exchanges lead to. All your data will be shipped to IRS. If your money is in a bank, it’s like bitcoin on exchange - you don’t have private keys. It can be frozen, it can be traced, it can be watched very carefully. If you have cash, you can do whatever you want. Nobody can invalidate it. Nobody can track it. Except police that can take it from you. Bitcoins are better. Nobody knows you have it (unless you use KYC exchange), you can exchange it for cash wherever you want.
Their (BTC-e) admin was arrested because they did not implement Know Your Customer AKA Spy On Your Users procedure and your money was stolen by government. Non-KYC exchanges should be trusted. KYC exchanges should not because they are working with governments. Money laundering’ is a crime made-up by governments that spy on their citizens.

His words definitely makes sense and makes someone very optimistic about people who are here to do something good for public. So, because of that, what amazes me is that he was holding 7 terabytes of data. Chipmixer logs alone would never take that much data, they wouldn't even take 1/1000 of it.
I'm afraid his only interest was money and was faking it by those beautiful words. While no one knows what's that 7 terabyte, I bet, he actually wasn't giving a f to users' privacy.

[Darker45]

What will happened to those who use the mixer previously. Is there a chance that my Bitcoin will be connected by Bitcoin use from money laundering or we are still safe? I use Chipmixer every week to mix my coins. It’s sad to read this bad news.  

Agreed. This is very much similar to how the government has arrested Tornado Cash's developer for creating a tool to protect someone's anonymity and privacy. I reckon if a car was used by a criminal to kidnap someone, the government cannot arrest the car company or if a cellphone was used as detonator for a car bomb that killed hundreds of people, the government cannot arrest the cellphone company.

And yet, in the case of Tornado Cash, hundreds of millions worth of different coins linked to the mixer in one way or another were frozen. This was generally a blanket move. This wasn't just done selectively to suspicious wallets and addresses. This included funds of innocent and unsuspecting Tornado Cash users.

However, the argument remains the same. The government does not have the right to arrest the creator of the knife if his creation was used to murder someone. The government should arrest the murderer. I am shaking my head why there are some people who argue that the arrest and detention is acceptable because it is not.

Well, views differ. Apparently, your view isn't shared by the government. It is unfortunate, however, that the government is the one that is more powerful than you. If you think that they don't have the right to do this and that, but they don't agree, they will prevail.

So whether you think the government does not have the right to arrest somebody who is just writing an open source code, Alexey Pertsev is in fact still in jail right now. Whether we believe that starting a marketplace is not a crime, Ross Ulbricht is actually rotting in jail until today. So while we all agree that providing the people the means to protect their privacy isn't a crime, this Nguyen could indeed end up in jail as well.

[redsun114]

What will happened to those who use the mixer previously. Is there a chance that my Bitcoin will be connected by Bitcoin use from money laundering or we are still safe? I use Chipmixer every week to mix my coins. It’s sad to read this bad news.  

I don't think that the users have any threat from this unless someone has been using the service for mixing the Bitcoins they got from some illegal activity and even in that case, I don't really think it's possible for them to track anyone down, or can they? I'm not entirely sure about that. But as long as you haven't done anything wrong, you should be okay.

It's really unfortunate, to be honest. I've been seeing chip mixer for years on this forum, and though I never used their services it is still sad to read this news and to see their website being seized.

[bbc.reporter]

What will happened to those who use the mixer previously. Is there a chance that my Bitcoin will be connected by Bitcoin use from money laundering or we are still safe? I use Chipmixer every week to mix my coins. It’s sad to read this bad news.  

Agreed. This is very much similar to how the government has arrested Tornado Cash's developer for creating a tool to protect someone's anonymity and privacy. I reckon if a car was used by a criminal to kidnap someone, the government cannot arrest the car company or if a cellphone was used as detonator for a car bomb that killed hundreds of people, the government cannot arrest the cellphone company.

And yet, in the case of Tornado Cash, hundreds of millions worth of different coins linked to the mixer in one way or another were frozen. This was generally a blanket move. This wasn't just done selectively to suspicious wallets and addresses. This included funds of innocent and unsuspecting Tornado Cash users.

However, the argument remains the same. The government does not have the right to arrest the creator of the knife if his creation was used to murder someone. The government should arrest the murderer. I am shaking my head why there are some people who argue that the arrest and detention is acceptable because it is not.

Well, views differ. Apparently, your view isn't shared by the government. It is unfortunate, however, that the government is the one that is more powerful than you. If you think that they don't have the right to do this and that, but they don't agree, they will prevail.

So whether you think the government does not have the right to arrest somebody who is just writing an open source code, Alexey Pertsev is in fact still in jail right now. Whether we believe that starting a marketplace is not a crime, Ross Ulbricht is actually rotting in jail until today. So while we all agree that providing the people the means to protect their privacy isn't a crime, this Nguyen could indeed end up in jail as well.

Agreed that we have different views and the government is more powerful. However, based on the argument, I am not implying to everyone that no one will get arrested. I am only saying that if someone developed a tool to use for privacy and it was used for criminality, it is not creator of the tool who should be liable. This very much similar to the arrest they did to developer of Tornado Cash.

Also, if the government tells you to stop using bitcoin because it is illegal according to their view, would sell all the bitcoins you have because of their power or will you fight for your right?

[malcovi2]

https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/minh-quoc-nguyen

I do not know why he would live in a country where authorities would get him anytime.

[AliErkic]

After a few controversies last year, when ChipMixer was abused by Hackers, it seemed already fishy to point at ChipMixer, a service which is now proven to be deeply involved in washing hacked, extorted and stolen coins and also Darknet markets.

Does nobody care how ChipMixer grossly violated written agreements? Agreements of it's foundation (Mixing reinventent for your Privacy?). ChipMixer boldly promised to delete all logs, don't keep confidential information and don't store private keys of payout Chips. It lied to everyone.  
But I just can read "dUh GovErnMenT baD" here, just because government stopped watching criminals obfuscating crime coins in ChipMixer, which is very harmful and resulting in scammers getting away. Luckily, it will lead to many criminals being caught now.
Even when your point of view is selfish and you don't care about criminals depositing coins in ShitMixer, you don't question how ShitMixer lied to everyone?
Basically, ShitMixer violated all good practices of privacy by storing logs, keys and more because it's a centralized shit service, which lied directly in our face because it could.
But very few criticism here against ShitMixer's lies.

[DooMAD]

ChipMixer boldly promised to delete all logs, don't keep confidential information and don't store private keys of payout Chips. It lied to everyone.  

Unless you are somehow privy to information the rest of us don't have access to, it's yet to be established that ChipMixer kept logs.  We know that data was seized, but people are merely speculating on what that data might be.  If you could try fo keep any accusations you might wish to make evidenced by verified information, that would be appreciated.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Also, if the government tells you to stop using bitcoin because it is illegal according to their view, would sell all the bitcoins you have because of their power or will you fight for your right?

That's why stay anonymous. I see members post their social profile, picture, phone number, website address and many more things that can lead to identify you easily. It's not just the government you need to do it for your own personal safety.

When you will be known to have Bitcoin in your procession, people will think you are reach no matter if you have even lass than 1 mBTC. If they identify you in real life then bad people will try to take advantage from it. Thing can end very bad.

[james3441]

ChipMixer boldly promised to delete all logs, don't keep confidential information and don't store private keys of payout Chips. It lied to everyone.  

Unless you are somehow privy to information the rest of us don't have access to, it's yet to be established that ChipMixer kept logs.  We know that data was seized, but people are merely speculating on what that data might be.  If you could try fo keep any accusations you might wish to make evidenced by verified information, that would be appreciated.

There's not much to speculate.
Fact is that private keys which were supposed to be deleted were seized. Otherwise LE would not be able to move funds.

Based on this one lie from chipmixer, which claimed to delete full session information including private keys, you should expect more lies and that they stored all logs forever.
Including information which input led to generated private keys outputs.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Fact is that private keys which were supposed to be deleted were seized.

I don't think that was written anywhere, and I neither think private keys should be deleted at all. You should never delete a private key.

From their FAQ:

How long do you keep logs?

Your session lasts for 7 days. After that, your session and all its data will be removed. You can also destroy your session before time is up. We keep statistical data ie. how much was donated.

The fact that they destroy the session doesn't mean they destroy private keys. I'm confident that they must have deleted the logs, as they said.

[Husires]

THIS has been going on for several years, and a picture has spread. Has he not been arrested yet? Or any additional information. It is strange that we did not hear the authorities' response to this memorandum and whether they were looking for him or not.


I am interested in the amount of 1.3 bitcoins in ChipMixer signature  campaign address, what will happen to it? Is it kept by the campaign manager, distributed, or sent to a charitable organization? Or what

https://mempool.space/address/1ChipWGhJtEWCeSq3cra4HmKhvYqe8Tvty

[mindrust]

I'm confident that they must have deleted the logs, as they said.

That's too much confidence you are having in CM.

What happened to "Don't trust, verify." ?

How do you verify CM's promises? Did they let you in and show their database? I know that don't make sense because it is impossible to verify CM's actions. It is just a promise. Could be true, could be wrong.

[BlackHatCoiner]

That's too much confidence you are having in CM.

I justify it. They've been running the most trustworthy Bitcoin mixer since 2017, with no exit scams, no coins sweeped without the user's consent, best customer support, and by doing exactly what they've been saying in their FAQ. Why should I change my stance when I know absolutely nothing about that data, other than it included private keys (which were never supposed to be deleted in the first place)?

What happened to "Don't trust, verify." ?

It might have been taken less seriously, I agree. This incident points out for once more the importance of self-custody. But, nevertheless, some businesses need to gain your trust to operate.