YoMix warning

[o_e_l_e_o]

The only question I have for you and those of you who know more about the subject is, to what extent is the excuse that they give that they are simply doing it to comply with the law true?

Boilerplate nonsense. They only care about covering their own backs, nothing more. They don't care about preventing money laundering or combating terrorism or any of the other bullshit excuses they use. They care only about their own profits, and they don't care if you are wrongly accused or you lose your coins in the process.

Uphold, like most centralized exchanges, likely simply buy the services of a blockchain analysis company, and that blockchain analysis company tells them which coins are "tainted" and which ones are "clean", which coins to censor and which coins to accept. The reason they can't say any more on the subject is probably because they don't actually know why they are censoring your coins - they've been told to do it and so they will do it without question to protect themselves, and they don't care at all about the user on the other end.

[examplens]

I sold an old laptop to a friend for cash. I used the cash to pay a builder who was doing some work for me, and he disappeared without completing the job. Therefore, beware of selling things to my friend!
I traded cash for bitcoin using Bisq. A scammer on Telegram then convinced me to send them my bitcoin and I lost everything. Therefore, beware of using Bisq!

With the fact that you also saw what the OP stated here, I am even closer to the opinion expressed by hugeblack

I think @OP is linked to an account that mistakenly copied a different address and when mixing to that address he blamed YoMix.

He is referring to this user who accused Yomix of supporting scammers because they did not want to stop the transaction when he bought a forum account from fraudsters.

I inputed a scammer's bitcoin address when sending BTC through the mixer by mistake.
YoMix sent the transactions with fees that are too low and therefore the transactgion has been pending for days now.

I already contacted them through their contact form with my letter of guarantee (which is 100% proof I am the one who used the service) and asked them to do a double spend to a different address with higher fees so the scammer doesn't get my money.

They simply closed my tickets and didn't help me.  The transaction is still pending. They can do something, but I guess they're not interested... I told them they can keep part of the transaction as bounty but I guess they preffer a scammer gets paid? Crazy...

[Agbe]

My first mixing experience was with https://[banned mixer] and they asked me to save my mixing code which I did, and the mixing process was very fine and successful. Though because of the mixing fee I chose, the transaction took about 7 hours but finally, I received alert of the coins. And from your story even at the first clause, you did not tell what really happened, you are hiding somethings and from my understanding, you are using alt-account and that cause part of your hiding story because you don't want to identify your real self. This is not a matter you use an alt-account for. You said you have not done it in any other platform, then you would have narrate everything happened so people would have called the attention of Yo!Mix here to verify but here, it is an allegation without prove that Yo!Mix was the one. That screenshot might be a transaction you had done at somewhere else.

[Plaguedeath]

I think you made a mistake by doing the mixer service and then using an exchange wallet. It is clear that centralized exchanges have a rule of not accepting deposits from the results of the mixer service because this violates their rules which they consider to be money laundering.

I have used the Mixer service several times but never sent it directly to a centralized exchange because I knew it would be dangerous if it was detected and the balance would be held, use another wallet to be safer, but this is not entirely YoMix's fault because the Uphold exchange itself has strict regulations.

Mixing is actually not money laundering, they're wrong to think it's a money laundering.

There's no different for using another wallet, it's a concealing and they can easily recognize if the funds was come from mixing service.

You said you have not done it in any other platform, then you would have narrate everything happened so people would have called the attention of Yo!Mix here to verify but here, it is an allegation without prove that Yo!Mix was the one. That screenshot might be a transaction you had done at somewhere else.

Yomix not owe anything to respond to this particular topic, it's a matter between him with Uphold.

@OP should change the title to "Warning, Uphold is refuse funds from mixer".

[hugeblack]

My first mixing experience was with https://[banned mixer] and they asked me to save my mixing code which I did,

Personally, I do not like the idea of mixing code. It is true that you must trust the mixer and that all the mixers currently in place are centralized, but using that code may mean collecting more data about you or that they do not delete the data as a worst-case scenario.

@OP should change the title to "Warning, Uphold is refuse funds from mixer".

I don't think he would do that, and he didn't even try hard to defend his arguments.

[pixie85]

Mixes bitcoins and then send to a centralized exchange. When his account is blocked, goes ahead to blame Yomix for putting him on FBI watch list. Who does that?
What was the point of mixing coins then if you were going to send them to a centralized exchange them?

OP, I don't know how long you have used crypto, but you have no one else to blame but yourself. If you want complete privacy and custody of your funds, then avoid centralized exchanges. Simple as that.

OP did not even prove that using YoMix was the reason his account was blocked.
The mail from Uphold doesn't say anything about the reasons for the ban.

I'd say the outcome is still good for OP.
1. He will no longer have to use Uphold that has an ongoing class action lawsuit against them.
2. He will learn to use Mixers or will stop using them the wrong way. In both cases it's a +

If the amounts moved back and forth are small FBI won't even notice you OP.

On top of that I see that the Uphold company is based in London, which is the money laundering capital of the world for large amounts of money.

Uphold is headquartered in New York, 6 W 18th St 3rd Floor, United States, and has 2 office locations.
https://craft.co/uphold/locations

[shield132]

I think you made a mistake by doing the mixer service and then using an exchange wallet. It is clear that centralized exchanges have a rule of not accepting deposits from the results of the mixer service because this violates their rules which they consider to be money laundering.

I have used the Mixer service several times but never sent it directly to a centralized exchange because I knew it would be dangerous if it was detected and the balance would be held, use another wallet to be safer, but this is not entirely YoMix's fault because the Uphold exchange itself has strict regulations.

Mixing is actually not money laundering, they're wrong to think it's a money laundering.

There's no different for using another wallet, it's a concealing and they can easily recognize if the funds was come from mixing service.

How do mixers work? Do they use system similar to P2P if the number of coins of multiple users match each-other? Then it can create serious problems.

I know mixing is not money laundering but look at this:
1. Mixer receives money from someone who has done illegal activity.
2. Mixer stores that money on address A
3. I create a mixing order, deposit money to mixer and hours later I declare address B where I want to receive money.
4. Mixer sends me money from address A to address B. Address A has received money from someone who has done illegal activity, so there is a chain: Laundered money -> Address A -> Address B that belongs to me. This is probably what exchanges see and it's very hard to convince them that you are not associated with illegal activities.

[alani123]

Having a mixer be detected could potentially mean bad opsec from the mixer's side. It's true that oftentimes mixers are used by people with notorious purposes, but the issue here is that the mixer can't simply disregard coins it received from people that end up making illegal transactions that could even be traced later.

However, the mixer's mistake lies in the fact that they didn't bother to actually "mix" the coins enough so as they can't be detected from whatever basic heuristic detection an automated exchange could be using. So by warnings like these I would indeed try to stay away from a service that doesn't fulfill it's basic function. A mixers job isn't just giving you coins that aren't yours. It's to give you coins whose origin isn't so easily detected... If they fail at that it's like a plane that can't take off. Seems nice but not very useful.

It seems as though OP learned the hard way that some mixer services simply don't care to output coins that are even more tainted and more easily traceable than what you might have put in... But that's not to say that the perfect mixer exists. Bitcoin tracing methods have been getting better. Oddly enough in the end using unorthodox methods like withdrawing from an exchange makes for better and also much cheaper mixing.. 

[Darker45]

This appears too biased and blown out of proportion. This might not have anything to do with the mixer.

Having a transaction after 3 years of inactivity could be flagged as suspicious. Most, if not all, centralized platforms' trigger system would detect it as an unusual activity. Even here on the forum, a sort of a warning would appear on the profile of an account that has just "recently woke up from a long period of inactivity." And that's even just after 6 months of inactivity, if I'm not mistaken.

Assuming that the closure of your account is due to terrorism financing is a bit of an exaggeration. If it were so, your funds would have been frozen and you wouldn't have been allowed to get your money back.

Anyway, I'm curious how Uphold's automated reply fails on grammar.

[o_e_l_e_o]

This is probably what exchanges see and it's very hard to convince them that you are not associated with illegal activities.

If a transaction has happened then it is impossible for the exchange to prove that that bitcoin has not changed hands in a completely legal and legitimate transaction. Look back far enough and every bitcoin in active circulation could be "tainted" by some algorithm or another. Every bank note in active circulation is probably the same. The problem here is not where the coins came from - the problem here is the centralized exchange making arbitrary, unprovable, and almost certainly false assumptions about OP's coins with zero retribution.

Oddly enough in the end using unorthodox methods like withdrawing from an exchange makes for better and also much cheaper mixing.

No, it doesn't. It provides the exchange with a 100% provable link between your coins and your KYCed identity and provides absolutely zero privacy whatsoever.

[alani123]

Oddly enough in the end using unorthodox methods like withdrawing from an exchange makes for better and also much cheaper mixing.

No, it doesn't. It provides the exchange with a 100% provable link between your coins and your KYCed identity and provides absolutely zero privacy whatsoever.

There's still plenty of exchanges that don't require any form of documentation for "Know Your Customer" regulations if you're dealing with crypto-only transactions.
Might sound odd but almost no country has come up with a full framework for crypto regulation, let alone fully enforcing it. For instance, even people from the U.S. can access most Chinese exchanges to this day, and exchange crypto-to-crypto without passing any checks.

Think about it, any top-10 exchange will have billions worth of BTC circulated through its systems every month. Yes, the receiving parties will be able to trace that the BTC might have passed through the exchange, but the origin of these funds is going to be as obscure as possible.

Compared to the average mixer, that circulates at best a few thousand BTC at any given time, no matter how much a mixer tries, it'll never be able to be as obscure about origin and "cleanness" of funds. Hell, even North Korea's Lazarous group is known to be laundering tons and tons of money they hacked from DeFi through no-KYC exchanges.

If OP here had made a single pass-through from a no-KYC exchange there's no way Uphold would have detected him. On the contrary, the mixer got detected in spite of all its efforts and hefty fee.
To think that Uphold, being as incompetent as they are, has systems in place to detect mixers, it's sure as hell is pretty rudimentary to detect such transactions except if the mixing service is exceptional at what it's doing and also has clean coins at hand. Which I doubt they would just hand over to any run in the mill customer doing small transactions like that.

[stompix]

@OP I'm sorry to say this, but it's really stupid if you link mixed coins to centralized exchange because centralized exchange will never want to accept sources from a mixer.

I've send mixed coins by mistake to Bitstamp, there was another CM campaign user that did so just like me without a problem, I think another one sent them to Biannce and yet we have no issues with it even after CM was taken down.
It ala comes down to the mixer, the sum of funds, and the user, if you're a guy who just deposited $100 a month and then you're spending $30k obviously you're going to trigger flag but for small sums with the correct mixing, nobody is going to give you any headaches.

Oddly enough in the end using unorthodox methods like withdrawing from an exchange makes for better and also much cheaper mixing..  

How do you get the funds there in the first place?
That's what OP tried and got into the troubles were seeing!

There's still plenty of exchanges that don't require any form of documentation for "Know Your Customer" regulations if you're dealing with crypto-only transactions.

And we have hundreds of stories from these no KYC exchanges that suddenly decide your funds are suspicious and ask you for every single possible document, knowing all to well you will not be able to provide them and just freeze your coins. To whom are you going to complain? File a report against a company in Cayman Island or Bahamas?  

I sold an old laptop to a friend for cash. I used the cash to pay a builder who was doing some work for me, and he disappeared without completing the job. Therefore, beware of selling things to my friend!
I traded cash for bitcoin using Bisq. A scammer on Telegram then convinced me to send them my bitcoin and I lost everything. Therefore, beware of using Bisq!

Lol, you got me there for a moment I didn't realize it was an example and I was like wtf, o_e_l_e_o getting scammed over telegram?  

[alani123]

And we have hundreds of stories from these no KYC exchanges that suddenly decide your funds are suspicious and ask you for every single possible document, knowing all to well you will not be able to provide them and just freeze your coins. To whom are you going to complain? File a report against a company in Cayman Island or Bahamas?  

Literally any mixer could freeze any order for whatever reason known to man. And it's not like this hasn't happened before.
From admins going AWOL to simply not caring to maintain their systems, all the way to outright scams. Mixers are also a 100% centralized and trust based system. There's not any documentation proving that they're better at what they claim to do than a simple exchange.

[buwaytress]

I wouldn't take any exchange's warnings at face value. They all subscribe to 3rd party alerts, who all use software originating from the same source. It's called cheap AML compliance.

I would say, however, you learnt a couple of lessons here:
- break the on-chain link with services, no matter CEX, casino, or mixer. It only involves one extra transaction, costs next to nothing, and helps preserve your privacy. 90% of services don't look beyond previous tx.
- Yomix obviously needs to improve their own privacy measure and break their on-chain link.

[digaran]

Shouldn't mixers be miner as well to consolidate hundreds of transactions by including all the balance as fees and receive untainted coins?
And how can you say a coin came from x or y mixer, aren't they supposed to be a privacy providing service?
If you or anyone other than the mixer knows the origin of a transaction, it's not a mixer then, is a honeypot.

But since they never claimed or mentioned the name, it seems that mixer is not doing his job correctly, they shouldn't even give you someone els's coins who used their services before, what they should give you must 100% come from another source.

But if you think about it, is there a way to identify all the tainted coins and determine whether they came from the original culprit or just an unsuspected user?

Anyways, if you have nothing serious to hide, you should follow up on your case and file a complaint, at the end you will win if you can prove you didn't do anything wrong. Then you could expose that exchange for being a "legitimate" scammer.

[examplens]

<...>

The OP provided no evidence of his claims except for the screenshot, which is more than suspicious, where Uphold informs him about the account closure. He did not offer any proof that the closing of the account was due to tainted coins or that these coins came from the Yomix service. That is why his claims must be considered with a great deal of reserve, he registered an account to make such accusations.

[khaled0111]

The OP provided no evidence of his claims except for the screenshot, which is more than suspicious, where Uphold informs him about the account closure. He did not offer any proof that the closing of the account was due to tainted coins or that these coins came from the Yomix service. That is why his claims must be considered with a great deal of reserve, he registered an account to make such accusations.

Well, we have to agree with TryNinja that this thread is nothing but a part of smearing campaigns against mixers and specifically Yo!Mix.
OP created a new account complaining a certain situation and blamed a particular service fir it but he never came back to answer any of our questions! Thus looks the same as topics started by newbies asking you "I won xxx dollars from this platform, is this platform legit"

To OP, a mixers role is to break the connection between the sending address and the receiving address, that's all. No matter what mixing technique you use (except for chipmixer), any one who would look up the receipient address would realise that the coins have been mixed.
Next time, other than thinking only about mixing your coins to hide your traces, think about "plausible deniability": anyone can see that your coins are coming from a mixer (specifically centralized services) but none of them can prove it's you who have used the mixing service.

[FinneysTrueVision]

How do mixers work? Do they use system similar to P2P if the number of coins of multiple users match each-other? Then it can create serious problems.

I know mixing is not money laundering but look at this:
1. Mixer receives money from someone who has done illegal activity.
2. Mixer stores that money on address A
3. I create a mixing order, deposit money to mixer and hours later I declare address B where I want to receive money.
4. Mixer sends me money from address A to address B. Address A has received money from someone who has done illegal activity, so there is a chain: Laundered money -> Address A -> Address B that belongs to me. This is probably what exchanges see and it's very hard to convince them that you are not associated with illegal activities.

For a mixer to be effective you must have a sufficiently large pool of users to provide better obfuscation. The more participants there are the more complex it becomes to link an output to specific prior activity. Exchanges might decide they will just blanket ban all coins coming from mixers or sometimes they will use an algorithm to assign a score and if it is determined your coins are too dirty they will close your account.

[Z-tight]

Literally any mixer could freeze any order for whatever reason known to man. And it's not like this hasn't happened before.
From admins going AWOL to simply not caring to maintain their systems, all the way to outright scams. Mixers are also a 100% centralized and trust based system. There's not any documentation proving that they're better at what they claim to do than a simple exchange.

I totally agree with you, mixers are a very risky service as a lot of people have pointed out on this forum, you lose custody of your funds during the mixing process and you have to trust the mixer to pay to your receiving address, it is similar to centralized exchanges on the basis of trust, you could deposit your funds in any of these services and lose it, because you lost custody of it. People who use mixers should be aware of this, and if you want a self custodial privacy protection service, use CoinJoin.

[Saint-loup]

I recently did an in person transaction and got paid in BTC. Honestly it wasn't anything shady but who knows where these coins were previously... So I thought to use a mixer before cashing out. I have an Uphold account for many many years and never had any issues, so I just mixed my coins with YoMix and deposited there. This was my first transaction I did in Uphold since 3 years ago and in the very next day I get this email. No other transactions were done in the meantime so it's certain this is related to YoMix.

This would mean that the address YoMix used too give me funds immedietly got detected as being connected to terrorism financing. It's well beyond me how a "bitcoin mixer's" developers could be so incompetent.
So I guess thanks YoMix for putting me on an FBI watchlist. Be warned anyone. If it's so easy for an exchange to detect a bitcoin "mixer" it sure as hell means that it's not an actual mixer.

Thank you for sharing that bro, it's a rather bad news for you since it will be hard for you to use Uphold now and for this mixing service, but it's a rather good one for Uphold. It shows they don't try to scam people by asking endless KYC in order to keep the funds for themselves when they spot "dubious" transactions(at least from their point of view). But why did you use a mixing service if it's not too intrusive?