[ANN] Whirlwind.money | ⚡No Fee⚡ | Ultimate Privacy | Anonymity Mining 12% APR🔥

[JollyGood]

I think it is safe to conclude the $40,000 DAI will cover signature campaign participants but what will happen to the remaining amount left over?

[1714232295]

1714232295

[1714232295]

1714232295

[1714232295]

1714232295

[LoyceV]

When people should have been suspecting Whirlwind to be scam is when they began anonymity mining or something with 12% APR.

There were questions about it:

Our goal is to grow the Anonymity Set to 10,000 deposits so until that is reached we will offer a reward to everyone using the service. Each month we will allocate 1BTC to distribute between all funded Notes proportionally to their balance. Payments will be made every day and you are free to withdraw your deposit anytime. If the amount allocated for rewards is 1BTC a month that means 1/30 = 0.0333BTC will be distributed every day.

If the multi-sig balance is 10BTC and you have a Note with a 1BTC balance you will automatically receive 10% of 0.0333BTC every day you keep your Note funded, which is 0.0033BTC a day.

On second thought: this sounds a lot like the many "services" in the past that paid interest on Bitcoin deposits. Usually, that didn't end well.
Are you sure you want to be associated with those?

Do you have any example of a service that had an actual reason for offering a reward on Bitcoin deposits?

The goal of this campaign is to grow the Anonymity Set

I think their "anonymity set" (which means the total number of deposits) was around 400 at the time. So, by offering 12%, they only managed to get on average 1 deposit per day since then. Maybe most people recognize by now when something is "too good to be true" by now. At that rate, it's going to take 25 years to reach their goal (of 10000 deposits), which makes it clear things didn't go as they expected.

$40k in DAI

This is from the review campaign, isnt it?

Should this sum only be used to pay out the unpaid contributions from the Bounty campaign ~ or if someone used the mixing service and still waiting for the withdrawl?

It wasn't very clear, but I'd say it was implied that it's okay to use the $40k to cover the risk of the anonymity mining. See these posts. The money in escrow was initially meant to cover the review campaign, but wasn't asked back. After that, whirlwindmoney agreed to add a 7 day delay if they ask the money back. Come to think of it: this delay could very well be the reason the money is still in escrow and this scenario was prevented. You're welcome

I don't see the problem here, it's money from ww, it shouldn't be a problem if it's used to cover the mess they made

That makes sense.

the unpaid promised interest (12%)

The EU bank guarantee stops paying interest the moment a bank goes bankrupt, but you'd get interest until that happened. Considering it is at most a few percent, and considering how complicated it will be to calculate (and prove) the exact amounts, I'd say forget about the "interest". But I have no skin in this game.

Can WWM manipulate notes data, such as changing balance to zero or creating fake notes and claiming part of the $40,000.

Of course. They can create and sign any LoG they want. Or even make a real deposit through their own site, and use that deposit to claim the majority of the $40k. Or maybe they did already, there were a few larger deposits into the multisig addy lately.

[drwhobox]

I think it is safe to conclude the $40,000 DAI will cover signature campaign participants but what will happen to the remaining amount left over?

Wait for the whirlwind team to comeback, sign a message and return. If they don't after waiting a fair amount of time then may be do some games and rounds for the forum users and sponsor the games. It's sad to see the bad ending of a promising business.

[mk4]

Made 2 withdrawals yesterday, 0.025 and 0.01. I was wondering why my funds haven't gone through yet though I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Now after multiple people messaging me, no wonder I haven't gotten my money lol.

In hindsight, I was too complacent. Dumb dumb move.

[1miau]

First of all many thanks @Hhampuz and @minerjones for managing refunds. It's really sad to see how whirlwind.money wasted a big opportunity to become a famous and trusted mixer. Scammers are still a big problem for crypto and one would tend to say:



Unfortunately it's similar for me, like fillippone. I haven't been into the campaign that long but I made the mistake to underestimate these criminal's energy and left my weekly rewards, mainly for 12% profits / year, on whirlwind's website.  
Expecting that they are here to establish their service long-term and also many incentives from them pointed into that direction, my risk calculation was way off, it looks like.
I‘ve tried to send some of it to my personal wallet last week, but there has been an error showing up on the wirlwind website. As I haven’t been in a hurry, I’ve just kept it there. Whirlwind hasn’t fixed anything since then.

After all, whirlwind.money wasted a big opportunity to become a famous and trusted mixer. Instead, they decided to pull of an exit scam. Shame, shame.  

If you are interested, please contact PM for DAI address.

Great offer and I've sent you a PM. I know DAI very well but the part of needing ETH is crucial for me here. It's always a problem for ETH tokens and bad for privacy reasons to require ETH because it will link wallets and leave a trace in the Blockchain.
So, if you can collect all DAI, where we only need to spend ETH from 1 source, it'll be a plus for everyone's privacy.
I'll also gladly cover your tx fees and effort.
+1 offer

[1miau]

So, if you can collect all DAI, where we only need to spend ETH from 1 source, it'll be a plus for everyone's privacy.
I'll also gladly cover your tx fees and effort.
+1 offer

You are right, which is why I suggested sending DAI directly to me to save users the headache of looking for some more ETH, which they need for just 1 transaction. After that, in any case, they would have left dust on their wallet, which cannot be properly applied anywhere, and it will be a waste of money, especially for those who have never worked with altcoins and are not going to.

Exactly that and the ETH being tied to the wallet / DAI would also be a privacy risk to send it elsewhere because of unnecessary wallet connections.
In addition, exchanging that small amount again doesn't work very well because it's not enough.

And I don't have many unused ETH addresses available right now. 

So, many good reasons in favor of your deal. 


Also I'm curious, why Whirlwind provided DAI into the escrow from minerjones? 
Any specifical reason for this and why not Bitcoin?

[TryNinja]

Also I'm curious, why Whirlwind provided DAI into the escrow from minerjones?  
Any specifical reason for this and why not Bitcoin?

Probably because BTC is too volatile? DAI is always worth $1 and it’s probably the best you can get for a kinda-decentralized and trusted stablecoin. USDC and USDT can be frozen, other non conventional stables are too risky, etc…

To other users who want to do all on their own, you can just use an exchange deposit address to get your DAI and swap it for BTC right away. No need to get ETH and pay for transaction fees

[1miau]

Also I'm curious, why Whirlwind provided DAI into the escrow from minerjones?  
Any specifical reason for this and why not Bitcoin?

Probably because BTC is too volatile? DAI is always worth $1 and it’s probably the best you can get for a kinda-decentralized and trusted stablecoin.

Makes sense but on the other hand we all know that Bitcoin tends to go up, overally. 
In theory, holding DAI (tied to USD) is not the best deal.

But of course, these are valid reasons above why they've provided DAI.

[Stalker22]

I haven't been keeping up with the recent news on this... So, we have another bitcoin mixer go out of business? Exit scam?
Has anyone managed to come up with a ballpark figure for the total amount they scammed?

[mikeywith]

I haven't been keeping up with the recent news on this... So, we have another bitcoin mixer go out of business? Exit scam?
Has anyone managed to come up with a ballpark figure for the total amount they scammed?

Given the nature of the scam, I think it's a lot of money.

The multisig pool address has 12.7 BTC in it, somewhere around 350k USD, judging by how much they spent on their review campaign, the other campaign, the leftover in escrow, the website, the code, the design, and all that, it makes me doubt that they would settle with just 350k, also, it's almost sure that the 350k sure includes some of their own funds.

So this was a lot of money, time, and effort invested, 100k profit or so won't cut it, my guess is somewhere around the 9th of this month the mixer hit the jackpot, a large deposit came in, and that's what triggered the code/person into executing the exit scam, notice that, the multisig address doesn't necessarily receive all the deposits, you get a different deposit address and what happens next is up to them.

We may find out eventually if a large deposit was made, someone might come here and tell the story, also to anyone that might say "Oh it was obvious, I knew it" I'd call b.s on that, it was a "masterpiece", the guy/guys behind it were pretty intelligent, far more sophisticated than the average "send me your 1 BTC and get 2 BTC tomorrow".

The crypto space is crazy, and even more, reasons to NEVER trust anyone or anything regardless of how legit they look, but 'risk' is a part of the ecosystem, we could only hope this serves as yet another lesson to every one of us.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Is there a chance some really big shit is going on in their lives, and they are incapable of going online? For like... A month? I really can't believe this is an exit scam. The service seemed legitimate.

I'm really pissed off, and not because I lost money; fortunately, I had grasped that "don't leave coins to third parties" cliché. I'm so pissed off because I've been advertising and recommending this shit for months, in such a way that I'm practically part of this scam. And it's just feels awful.

It makes you question the integrity of the service you're currently carrying in your signature.

[LeGaulois]

Is there a chance some really big shit is going on in their lives, and they are incapable of going online?

They almost lied to @Hhampuz while saying stuff like
"in travel" "not the credential to fix the site" "will come to the forum to post tomorrow"

Anyway, they will probably come back under a new domain name

[mikeywith]

Is there a chance some really big shit is going on in their lives, and they are incapable of going online? For like... A month? I really can't believe this is an exit scam. The service seemed legitimate.

The only valid excuse would be that this whole service is run by a single person, and that person is dead, in jail, hospital, or anything that stops him from physically operating the mixer, and that won't be any better than the whole service being a straight-out scam.

Even if they have temporarily lost access to everything, they could have created a new account on the forum and said something, this could be done using a mobile phone anywhere on the planet where they have internet, there is no excuse to

- Not show up on the forum for a month.
- Not Reply to any e-mails for weeks.
- Not Fix your service for weeks.

A 10-word post by a newbie account claiming to be affiliated with Whirlwind would make things seem a lot less scammy, but this silence leaves no questions.

So even if they come back with whatever excuse and compensate everyone, how would anyone trust them again? it's game over for Whirlwind, if they plan to do another scam or relaunch their "legit but terrible service", they would need to start fresh, using a different name, style, and everything.

I'm really pissed off, and not because I lost money; fortunately, I had grasped that "don't leave coins to third parties" cliché. I'm so pissed off because I've been advertising and recommending this shit for months, in such a way that I'm practically part of this scam. And it's just feels awful.

It makes you question the integrity of the service you're currently carrying in your signature.

Ya doesn't feel great, but don't blame yourself, because

1- You didn't know it would turn out to be this.
2- You had no way of knowing.
3- You were not a part of the scam, but rather a victim.

As a campaign participant or a campaign manager, you are not responsible for the quality or the integrity of the service, yes you shouldn't promote services you know to be a scam or has a terrible reputation, but as long as the service works, looks legit at that time of you wearing their signature I don't think anyone should hold you responsible for anything, everyone who uses it is responsible for their own actions.

[FinneysTrueVision]

Is there a chance some really big shit is going on in their lives, and they are incapable of going online? For like... A month? I really can't believe this is an exit scam. The service seemed legitimate.

I'm really pissed off, and not because I lost money; fortunately, I had grasped that "don't leave coins to third parties" cliché. I'm so pissed off because I've been advertising and recommending this shit for months, in such a way that I'm practically part of this scam. And it's just feels awful.

It makes you question the integrity of the service you're currently carrying in your signature.

One of the main developers for JoinMarket is going through long covid and was offline for many months yet the service still continued running smoothly but these guys can't process withdrawals because they were on a trip? Did that trip include meeting with law enforcement because otherwise this makes no sense and just looks like a typical exit scam.

I don't have a problem with mixers existing and advertising their business but considering how often they shut down due to scam or government seizure on top of being centralized, closed source, and custodial they are at the very bottom of privacy services that I would consider using or recommending.

[nioctib_100]

I got an email back from whirlwind just now and it was as I suspected - something happened.

Basically, main people lost access due to travels while people still with access didn't have the right credentials to solve basic issues that caused withdraws to get stuck on the back-end. I've been assured that nothing has been lost and that all will be taken care of tomorrow meaning all currently pending withdraws will be processed and things return back to normal. It was an unfortunate situation is all!

I've asked my contact at whirlwind to reply in this thread whenever they can with further details, so from now until then/tomorrow night there is no need to panic even if I wouldn't recommend you to deposit until the backlog is cleared. Campaign participants will also be paid out as per usual tomorrow, regardless of if you've removed your signature or not.

It seems like this was the last contact. Hhampuz, can we get anymore details? What exactly did they say to "assure that nothing was lost" because it sure seems like our Bitcoin is lost.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

One of the main developers for JoinMarket is going through long covid and was offline for many months yet the service still continued running smoothly but these guys can't process withdrawals because they were on a trip? Did that trip include meeting with law enforcement because otherwise this makes no sense and just looks like a typical exit scam.

I don't have a problem with mixers existing and advertising their business but considering how often they shut down due to scam or government seizure on top of being centralized, closed source, and custodial they are at the very bottom of privacy services that I would consider using or recommending.

There are no doubt left that it is not an exit scam. If you need to save a thousand dollar business which you are willing to continue, you will find a way to send a message no matter what position you are in except you are no more breathing.

[1.] Asking to send coins [invest] and giving 12% APR.
[2.] Sending marketing payments in notes and motivating everyone to keep their coins with them.
[3.] Not responding support email [excusing some BS]. No one heard the accuser though at that time.
[4.] Totally gone inactive from the community which you consider your biggest customer base.

These were good red flags but unfortunately most of us never considered it flag as they were manipulating everyone with the hype. People forgot that "too good to be truth" is always meant to scam.

A typical mixer should perform fast, lightening fast. Like Chipmixer used to be.

Deposit > 1 confirmation > withdraw
The distance should be only 1 block.

[mk4]

Is there a chance some really big shit is going on in their lives, and they are incapable of going online? For like... A month? I really can't believe this is an exit scam. The service seemed legitimate.

I'm really pissed off, and not because I lost money; fortunately, I had grasped that "don't leave coins to third parties" cliché. I'm so pissed off because I've been advertising and recommending this shit for months, in such a way that I'm practically part of this scam. And it's just feels awful.

It makes you question the integrity of the service you're currently carrying in your signature.

The thing that sucks is we can't even know for sure if a service is going to end up being a scam. We liked ChipMixer due to their reputation and long-running service but who would've know if they end up wanting to scam anyway.

[bct_ail]

It is time to learn from the mistakes. One mistake was to rely on the change from self-hosted wallets to public key note.
So what options do we have to avoid this in the future? Can we demand from the campaign owner that we insist on the payout to personal self-hosted wallets? Or would the campaign owner insist on his right as payer according to the motto. "I pay, I make the rules"?
What would happen if he did not comply with our demands? Quality posters would not be in his campaign and other user with shitposting quality would fill up the slots? Would the campaign owner do that? Does he care about the quality of the users/posts or it is all about advertising on the forum for him? Would we want to advertise this behaving?

In many campaigns, the Bounty Managers have a wallet on which the funds of a campaign are stored. And this wallet is fulled at regular intervals. We need to demand more of such securities. A new campaign owner must build trust first. Why should we trust a new service? They have to trust us.

[_act_]

The thing that sucks is we can't even know for sure if a service is going to end up being a scam. We liked ChipMixer due to their reputation and long-running service but who would've know if they end up wanting to scam anyway.

We did not heard that Chipmixer scammed anyone, what happened was that the site was taken down by the government becuase the mixing site was linked to mixing of illegal coins. But that Chipmixer was linked to scamming its customers, there is nothing like that. Whirlwind is nothing but directly scammed its customers.

[JollyGood]

The problem now (as you rightly put it) is that even if it were a one person behind the project somehow a message could have been relayed to explain what was happening. If he were to return to the forum Whirlwind will not be able to recover from the loss of trust even if something happened to physically stop him from operating the Whirlwind website.

The Whirlwind forum representative was active during the early days and was definitely knowledgable, you could tell by the posts he was making he knew a lot on what he posted. He answered questions and made comments. There were no real signs anything untoward was going on or was going to happen. The 12% APR anonymity mining maybe was the first opportunity to guess they could be stretching it a bit but again the word hindsight is apt here.

With the lack of proper email support going back months and lack of withdrawal for both signature campaign participants and customers mixing on their website (along with silence from Whirlwind), it will be impossible to repair any damage even of it were one person running the business who was unable to physically operate the mixer.

Regarding the $40,000 DAI, they were no obligation to leave that money in an escrow. Yes we can call it an exit-scam but there seems to be more to this than meets the eye. I cannot understand why they would do it when other mixers using the forum did not deposit funds in that matter but please correct me if I am wrong. Scammers do not usually behave that way. Why would they walk away from Whirlwind knowing they would lose the $40,000 DAI especially when it seemed as though Whirlwind was not profitable with it being a new mixer.

The only valid excuse would be that this whole service is run by a single person, and that person is dead, in jail, hospital, or anything that stops him from physically operating the mixer, and that won't be any better than the whole service being a straight-out scam.

Even if they have temporarily lost access to everything, they could have created a new account on the forum and said something, this could be done using a mobile phone anywhere on the planet where they have internet, there is no excuse to

- Not show up on the forum for a month.
- Not Reply to any e-mails for weeks.
- Not Fix your service for weeks.

A 10-word post by a newbie account claiming to be affiliated with Whirlwind would make things seem a lot less scammy, but this silence leaves no questions.

So even if they come back with whatever excuse and compensate everyone, how would anyone trust them again? it's game over for Whirlwind, if they plan to do another scam or relaunch their "legit but terrible service", they would need to start fresh, using a different name, style, and everything.