Participating in Mixer Signature Campaign

[albon]

Nevertheless, staff were asked to stop advertising mixing services. We are promoting mixing services. Will it be an issue for bitcointalk forum in general? What about the people advertising the mixer? Would it be better to quit advertising mixer services? I was thinking about this ever since I have seen OmegaStarScream's quoted post. Is it time to think about this?

I respect any decision announced or applied by Theymos; this forum administrator has a long-term view of whether or not what might expose him or his staff teams to legal accountability; he applied this decision to the staff and not to all forum users. After Chipmixer was closed due to irregularities and legal crimes by the U.S and European authorities, and before that, it already had a signature campaign here in the forum, and it was closed after years of promotion; this is what made most people take a bad impression of mixers, but I see that the good side of mixers is that it gives users the benefits of privacy, security and complete anonymity. It is also an excellent service for those who deal in crypto in countries that ban cryptocurrencies and do not want to be pursued by governments and others. I know that criminals, outlaws, hackers, and those who deal with money laundering may also use them, but in my opinion, whoever misuses these mixers is supposed to be punished, not those who promote them.

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[LTU_btc]

If you're in mixer signature campaign, now you don't have to do anything. There is no need to show initiative. Mixer campaigns is allowed on Bitcointalk as long as theymos won't decide different. If one day he will decide to ban mixer campaigns, then you wouldn't have to make decision to leave campaign - all mixer campaigns simply would end then.
What theymos told to staff members is different story. Bitcointalk staff isn't same thing as regular members - they can be considered as employees of Bitcointalk. Emplyees of Bitcointalk advertising ''money laundering'' related stuff - it can bring problems for Bitcointalk. While regualr members can continue advertising basically everything, not just mixers, but also all kind of scams.

[robelneo]

We (staff) were asked to stop advertising mixing services.

As for gambling services, then that's simply because of my religious beliefs.

theymos asked this for obvious reasons. What I'm curious about is whether any law enforcement was there behind the decision.

I don't think there is, it's more of a precautionary measure, an insight from a website operator's perspective

Nevertheless, staff were asked to stop advertising mixing services. We are promoting mixing services. Will it be an issue for bitcointalk forum in general? What about the people advertising the mixer? Would it be better to quit advertising mixer services? I was thinking about this ever since I have seen OmegaStarScream's quoted post. Is it time to think about this?

It frees them from direct liability if ever, there's a difference from direct forum advertisement where the forum administrator is getting paid for showing ads and what members are promoting, signature feature is an incentive for members to their promote services and products not endorsed by the forum.

[Pmalek]

As I see it, mixing services are not inherently illegal. They can be useful for legitimate purposes, such as protecting users' privacy and security, or preventing unwanted surveillance.
...
So the question is, are all mixer services inherently illegal?

Enjoy it while it lasts. Wanting privacy and less surveillance and eyes watching you is directly the opposite of what the government wants. That makes you a threat to their ideals. The perfect citizen doesn't mind having its email, social media, phone, and their whole house equipped with surveillance equipment and smart gadgets. They are not illegal yet, but the suites will, sooner or later, find ways to make it look like they are solely for criminals. After that, it's about collecting enough votes to blacklist them.

[Renampun]

If you're in mixer signature campaign, now you don't have anything. There is no need to show initiative. Mixer campaigns is allowed on Bitcointalk as long as theymos won't decide different. If one day he will decide to ban mixer campaigns, then you wouldn't have to make decision to leave campaign - all mixer campaigns simply would end then.
What theymos told to staff members is different story. Bitcointalk staff isn't same thing as regular members - they can be considered as employees of Bitcointalk. Emplyees of Bitcointalk advertising ''money laundering'' related stuff - it can bring problems for Bitcointalk. While regualr members can continue advertising basically everything, not just mixers, but also all kind of scams.

right, the staff are part of the BTT forum and they have to be prepared with the joint decisions made by the administrators while ordinary members like us are just ordinary registrants who join the forum. then when there is a warning from the government (because enough advertising activity is being monitored), it won't be a problem and the administrator can still debate it with the government.

[virasog]

We (staff) were asked to stop advertising mixing services.

As for gambling services, then that's simply because of my religious beliefs.

theymos asked this for obvious reasons. What I'm curious about is whether any law enforcement was there behind the decision.

Nevertheless, staff were asked to stop advertising mixing services. We are promoting mixing services. Will it be an issue for bitcointalk forum in general? What about the people advertising the mixer? Would it be better to quit advertising mixer services? I was thinking about this ever since I have seen OmegaStarScream's quoted post. Is it time to think about this?

These days there are a lot of mixing campaigns popping up on bitcointalk. There was a time when we only had the gambling campaigns dominant with only one mixer campaign (chipmixer).
I think for the time being, only the staff has been told not to join the mixing services but overall such campaigns are not banned on the forum.
Theymos must be closely looking at the situation and if he wants he can disallow the mixing campaigns in the future. However, as of now, there is no issue with it and we can promote the mixing services on this forum.

[ultrloa]

For now no proper government ruling about totally banning mixers and declare this as illegal. So I guess ordinary forum user can enjoy their participation on mixer without any worries about it. But if government put a legal action to ban mixer and its usage then maybe its really up to the forum administrator to file any action regarding on advertisement since they might get a trouble if government will find out that mixer advertisement is rampant here. This will be bad for us forum user if government include this forum to shutdown because of that activities.

[JayJuanGee]

For now no proper government ruling about totally banning mixers and declare this as illegal. So I guess ordinary forum user can enjoy their participation on mixer without any worries about it. But if government put a legal action to ban mixer and its usage then maybe its really up to the forum administrator to file any action regarding on advertisement since they might get a trouble if government will find out that mixer advertisement is rampant here. This will be bad for us forum user if government include this forum to shutdown because of that activities.

You are speculating too many steps in advance... so first of all, we already know that some governments may well be skeptical of mixing services, but then if they create some laws against such mixing services, then it is likely that some kind of a consideration would need to be made in regards to the language of the law.  The same is true when there is an enforcement action that takes place, then there still could be questions regarding what is the conduct that they are proclaiming to be illegal.. is it the creation of the mixing service?  is it the general use of the mixing service?  Is it the committing of fraud or the knowing allowance of others to commit fraud?  How about advertising such service? or talking about such services?  is it illegal to advertise or to talk about such services? 

Those are different categories of things that would have to be included within such government action that you are proclaiming to potentially be illegal, and then there is another question regarding the extent to which a forum (or a website service provider) might be held liable for the conduct of its users versus its own conduct.. and when you are referring to governments, there is no world-wide government or entity that necessarily would have jurisdiction over all of the world or all of the conduct, so there could be some questions about whether a government entity could either request the shutting down of some services or request the offering of such products be discontinued, and surely we have seen that some jurisdictions (such as the USA government) do attempt to engage in broad reach of their jurisdiction (which some folks label as overreach).

So merely having vague and general proclamations by governments that mixing services bad or some other bullshit would not necessarily automatically either cause people to stop a certain kind of behavior, such as offering a service, or to even give up upon finding some way around it or even to potentially fight against any kind of government taking that might have had occurred - which is one of the things that seems to be boiling up around some of the USA banking services (or even some of the regulatory agencies such as the CFTC or SEC) recently (maybe we could characterize some of these matters as "operation chokepoint 2.0" as Nick Carter and some others have labeled it) in which there are some claims and even potential legal actions against USA governmental regulators in regards to a variety of the lack of due process practices that some of the entities are following, and even in the USA, historically there have been due process rights including that agencies are supposed to either be following mandates that they have or they are supposed to either engage in their own rule making with opportunities for the public to respond or they are supposed to follow clear guidlines, and there are quite a few questions regarding the extent to which various agencies are following procedures that they are supposed to follow and the mere fact that they might have gotten directives from persons higher up (whether congressional or executive) may well not save them from their requirements to follow the law, even though we are seeing that stupid ass desperation seems to be part of the various formulas too.. in regards to the status of the dollar, scares about bitcoin and "crypto" and sometimes these fears are framed in terms of vague categorization of "national security interests," terrorists and criminal money launderers, or protect the children or some other things that may or may not be part of the actual factual foundation.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

Theymos is like the president in the forum, and the staffs are other arms of his government in the forum. In this community, every regular member can advertise whatever they like, including scams, but the level of scamming is regulated, just like it is in every country. But aren't there going to be some questions about why the president allows such service to continue in the community? Well, since there is no law yet against mixers, Thymos will not yet rule out the mixers campaign in the forum. We can enjoy it while it lasts, but I really don't think there will be any laws in the future about stopping Bitcoin mixers. It's a regular saying now that mixing is not bad, and that's a very true statement. It's not bad for a person to choose to increase their asset privacy. Perhaps not every individual who chooses to mix their coins obtains the coin in an illegal way.

For example, if a robber, a thief, or all different kinds of bad people go to a bank, hospital, or higher institution, shall the government decide to shut down the organization because crime commuters are carrying out illegal activity there? The answer is no, they can only carry out their investigation unless it's a serious case before they can cease the place until their investigation is over. The government cannot shut down every hospital in a country just because one hospital treated a thief, or can they?

[Synchronice]

We (staff) were asked to stop advertising mixing services.

As for gambling services, then that's simply because of my religious beliefs.

theymos asked this for obvious reasons. What I'm curious about is whether any law enforcement was there behind the decision.

Nevertheless, staff were asked to stop advertising mixing services. We are promoting mixing services. Will it be an issue for bitcointalk forum in general? What about the people advertising the mixer? Would it be better to quit advertising mixer services? I was thinking about this ever since I have seen OmegaStarScream's quoted post. Is it time to think about this?

It's very logical from forum owner's perspective to disapprove the advertisement of mixing services for staff members. This isn't typical forum, this is a forum where bitcoin was born, were satoshi was posting, where a lot of altcoins, startups, crypto and blockchain businesses were invented. The advertisement of mixing services from staff looks different in this case, it looks like staff is into. And you know, there are some problems and dislike from governments, so, it's not a problem today but can be a problem tomorrow, so this forum decided to be one step away.
Also, a huge problem can arise if somehow it happens that one of staff member is into it, then the whole forum can be in trouble. Just my thoughts.
 This isn't a problem right now but can be a problem, especially if we keep in mind that Bitcointalk was mentioned in Justice.gov files for the first time in it's history if I am not wrong.

We, the members of this forum, are a lot of people from all over the world, from different countries with different laws and without connection between each-other. Also, we do nothing wrong right now, it's 100% acceptable. If it becomes problem, then no one will let you to promote mixing services.

[Upgrade00]

In this community, every regular member can advertise whatever they like, including scams, but the level of scamming is regulated,

Scams are not regulated at all here. You however cannot advertise malwares on your signature.

Thymos will not yet rule out the mixers campaign in the forum.

I doubt he would ever. As long as there is a mixer to operate and run a signature on the forum it means it is active and legal. If such mixer experiences some issues and gets seized their signature campaign would stop automatically, but I don't think the admin would shut down a campaign for a project that is fully functional.

[JayJuanGee]

Theymos is like the president in the forum, and the staffs are other arms of his government in the forum. In this community, every regular member can advertise whatever they like, including scams, but the level of scamming is regulated, just like it is in every country. But aren't there going to be some questions about why the president allows such service to continue in the community? Well, since there is no law yet against mixers, Thymos will not yet rule out the mixers campaign in the forum. We can enjoy it while it lasts, but I really don't think there will be any laws in the future about stopping Bitcoin mixers. It's a regular saying now that mixing is not bad, and that's a very true statement. It's not bad for a person to choose to increase their asset privacy. Perhaps not every individual who chooses to mix their coins obtains the coin in an illegal way.

For example, if a robber, a thief, or all different kinds of bad people go to a bank, hospital, or higher institution, shall the government decide to shut down the organization because crime commuters are carrying out illegal activity there? The answer is no, they can only carry out their investigation unless it's a serious case before they can cease the place until their investigation is over. The government cannot shut down every hospital in a country just because one hospital treated a thief, or can they?

Your various analogies are a bit weird.

I am not going to proclaim to know all aspect of requirements or obligations, but it does seem that when we are making comparisons we need to attempt to make the right kinds of comparisons in order to get some sense of the right answers, and I would imagine that any kind of entity that is offering internet services (such as a forum) is going to seek some levels of counseling and advisors, in order to have some sense of parameters regarding how far that they might be able to go in terms of offering services or if they might be personally liable for the conduct of their members or any services that they offer.

I am not really opposed completely to the idea of theymos as a president of a company, but I think that the fact of the matter is that the forum is not a company, but it is completely owned my theymos.  I am pretty sure that it was him and Cobra, and then they worked out a deal in which it is ONLY theymos... so in that sense, owner is different from president.

I am not sure if I should go on more, but a better analogy might be that if theymos is an principle, then if anyone receives any kind of benefit from him in terms of representing him or the forum, then things that they do could be attributable to the owner (the principle).. the forum members are different... I doubt that anyone really wants to attempt to flesh out these kinds of matters within public threads, and that is sometimes why there might be consultants who are involved in regards to perhaps understanding the extent that there might be boundaries that can be crossed or that should not be crossed.

Your hospital, bank or higher institution analogy is also kind of strange because the use of various services in the meat space will have differing obligations.  For example, in a hospital, if a person goes to the hospital for treatment, and in the course of treatment, the medical staff learns that crimes might have been committed, they may or may not have obligations to report the crimes, and the extent to which they can refuse services is likely going to vary depending on if the services are life threatening or not or if the disease is communicable, they might need to report it... or they might have obligations in regards to whether they can share information about the medical treatments and conditions of their patients.  The obligations of banks have changed through the years, and maybe we go back to some of the concerns of overreach in which some governments try to impose obligations, even if it might be questionable if they have jurisdiction over the activities.  We could go all over the place with your attempts at analogies, and I feel that I already have said enough, even though I have my doubts about whether if anything I said was very helpful.

[Woodie]

Mixer Signatures have been running on the forum for a very long time and seeing this new development could be that the  dust has not settled from the Chipmixer saga and the call to keep mods off mixing services is trying not to give a stamp of approval of services that could bring the forum in disrepute , and if things go on as they are i foresee a situation where mods could actually be paid for their time spent on the forum to keep this place functional (***don't take my word for it***)

For now no proper government ruling about totally banning mixers and declare this as illegal.

Totally agree!

Btw what makes mixers illegal if i may ask, them promoting  anonymity and privacy or because  owners dont put a face to their businesses ??

Doesnt bitcoin fall in this category too as its illegal in some counties...

And where does this  leave coins such as Monero ?

[hugeblack]

The question that puzzles me is, will one of the staff agree to withdraw from his position in return for wearing the signature of the mixing campaigns? I mean, if we think about it, the amounts that are paid to the staff are small compared to about $ 150 per week.

We note that the United States has become strict with crypto, and it is only a matter of days and mixing services will be banned, so sooner or later these campaigns will end, so if you are thinking in the long term, it is better to avoid joining them.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

Btw what makes mixers illegal if i may ask, them promoting  anonymity and privacy or because  owners dont put a face to their businesses ??

I am not claiming to have known it all, but from what I have learned so far, no government has declared crypto mixers illegal; it's either they end up ceasing the mixer or blacklisting it for use by citizens of their country, and these things only happen if they have discovered or linked any money laundering activity to that mixer. Not because the mixers promote anonymity or the owners doesn't show their face.

An example of a former case ban is the Tornado Cash crypto mixer, whose use by the country's citizens was banned by the US Department of Treasury as a result of a $7 billion case of money laundering activity.

The Bitcoin mixer is only designed to protect user privacy and synonimity, nothing else, but due to some people that use it for illicit activity and crim to launder money, that's why the Treasury Department is against it.

Doesnt bitcoin fall in this category too as its illegal in some counties...

Bitcoin is not illegal; it is only banned in those countries.

And where does this  leave coins such as Monero ?

Monero also protects users privacy, so it can only be banned in some countries that also disagree with the privacy of crypto users, just as Dubai has placed a ban on privacy coins.

[LoyceV]

The question that puzzles me is, will one of the staff agree to withdraw from his position in return for wearing the signature of the mixing campaigns? I mean, if we think about it, the amounts that are paid to the staff are small compared to about $ 150 per week.

Are you sure about that? I recently checked some of the Mod-payments, and they were higher than I expected. Of course, this is different for each Mod, but so are signature payments.

[Mate2237]

If you're in mixer signature campaign, now you don't have anything. There is no need to show initiative. Mixer campaigns is allowed on Bitcointalk as long as theymos won't decide different. If one day he will decide to ban mixer campaigns, then you wouldn't have to make decision to leave campaign - all mixer campaigns simply would end then.
What theymos told to staff members is different story. Bitcointalk staff isn't same thing as regular members - they can be considered as employees of Bitcointalk. Emplyees of Bitcointalk advertising ''money laundering'' related stuff - it can bring problems for Bitcointalk. While regualr members can continue advertising basically everything, not just mixers, but also all kind of scams.

I don't think theymos will stop Mixing companies to advertise their products in the forum, and the only time theymos can do that is when a president strongly confirmed that the mixing is a scam  or money laundering company them at that time he might make a pronouncement to stop his members which he has done not to participate but to stop the company in the forum is what I can't not tell because All the allegations level against 1Xbit both the forum and outside the forum yet 1Xbit is still running well in forum therefore, the mixing company might still run in the forum but limited members will like to promote such a company.

And not Mixers companies are bad or have a fraudulent activities, some of them are genuine, so we can't use what happened in one to generalize others.

[LoyceV]

I don't think theymos will stop Mixing companies to advertise their products in the forum, and the only time theymos can do that is when a president strongly confirmed that the mixing is a scam

I've only once seen theymos ban a signature campaign, for encouraging spam:

129 users who were wearing a yobit signature and had at least 1 good report against them in the last 14 days are banned for 14 days. All yobit signatures are wiped. Signatures containing "yobit.net" are banned for 60 days.

Even though this exchange had many scam accusations against it, that's not why it got banned. After 2 months, it continued (with slightly less spam).

[tranthidung]

After 2 months, it continued (with slightly less spam).

Less spam because most active spammers were banned and the campaign was managed by yahoo62278 after all. He blacklisted many spammers from that campaign and rejected to pay for spam posts.

List of banned participants in the Cryptotalk Campaign. It started with Yobit, then changed to Cryptotalk.

[noorman0]

-snip-
Btw what makes mixers illegal if i may ask

Because it is not registered with a legal entity,
As for mixer services, basically it is impossible to get legality because serving "privacy" is not liked by the government. Then, any unregistered service will be inferred to be illegal and to contain "malicious" activity as is generally suspected.