Mixers to be banned

[Pmalek]

Several people seem to be concerned that the current policy will be too disruptive/constraining. How about I make this modification to loosen it a bit: you can direct people to mixers by name (even in something like a "top 10 mixers" topic), as long as:
 - You don't directly post their URLs.
 - It's not a paid ad, and you're not representing a mixer.

Would this be sufficient to address the concerns?

Someone might have asked and commented the same already, so I apologize if I am repeating it. There were 5 pages of posts after you posted this.

The suggestion makes more sense. However there is a problem. The results you get on search engines by searching for a mixer are not to be trusted. If a user tells someone they can use ABC mixer, it's quite possible that the first 3 results on a search engine all lead to phishing sites. You are basically directing them to a phishing site without the correct URL. If the URLs are to be banned, can that same user who makes the recommendation say, contact me via PM or Telegram so I can give you the correct link? This way, no illegal links are posted on the forum.

[Hispo]

So are we supposed to expect other privacy enhancing projects to be also banned from the forum in the future? It is a legitimate question I have, because I certainly did not expect this kind of measure to become a reality so fast.
Is there a real posibility we won't be allowed to talk about Monero or Coinjoin in the c
Near future because of legal threats against this forum?
I understand self-preservation is a priority, I just want to be warned in advance for the sake of not feeling sadder than I am supposed to in the future about the decisions of the administration.
Anyways, thanks for keeping us posted about this and please continue to listen to this community...

[so98nn]

Gee, I am sure this wasn't a a simple decision, but let us welcome it considering we have seen increased spikes in how mixers are getting published. If you go to the announcement thread then we can already see dozens of mixers coming out of nowhere. Yes, they might have legit services but we are not sure and never will be sure who is using that service for illegal activities.

I am sensing a connection between publicizing those mixers on the forum and then the forum also getting legal action because we were publishing them. That is an excellent decision considering what's happening in the "regulatory world". Let us not get connected with such marketing relationships that can hamper the forum's image. Afterall this is not the small forum where a few hundred peeps are wandering around but its ideally a whole universe in itself.

I think we are looking at a project that came and gone just like a creamy layer on cake. (Reminds me ICO era, the failed ones)

[joker_josue]

In fact.  Theymos, I think you made a HUGE mistake by doing this.  You are showing publicly a weak spot.  By banning Mixers out of fear of a Bitcoin Talk shutdown, you are showing the Authorities there is a weak spot they can hit every time they want further restrictions on Bitcoin Talk.  If they want Monero banned next?  All they have to do is start a public crackdown on Monero in a few countries and there it goes.  More Censorship!  Hooray!

Perhaps Theymos did not use the most accurate words to disclose this information, but based on the various observations made, it is possible to understand what is involved here.

It is not prohibited to talk about mixers, what is not authorized is to promote mixers. They are two very different things.

I already gave the example of torrents here. Maybe you don't know, but 10 years ago, when the authorities started to hunt down torrent sites, they reached a point where they had difficulty closing these sites - they shut down one and 10 were born. Faced with this difficulty, authorities adopted another strategy: going after sites that listed links to torrents. In this sense, several forums and blogs were closed and their owners arrested/fined, for promoting torrent links. Note, these forums and blogs did not host any torrents, they only told visitors where to find the content.

For example, the biggest torrent search engine, which did not host any torrents, the owner decided to close the site, because he was about to have problems with the authorities. And all of this happened despite torrents not being illegal. The content of some is what they are.

The same can happen with mixers. The authorities' difficulty in closing mixers - associated with hacks - may lead them to start attacking forums, blogs or websites that promote these services. What the forum administration is doing is preventing something like this from happening to Bitcointalk.

Please note, I do not agree with the way the authorities act. And I regret that this type of decision has to be made. But that doesn't stop me from understanding what's behind the decision. We have to look beyond just the moment we are living in.

Therefore, I would like to highlight what I said in my previous post:

The other day I heard a very interesting phrase: "In the 21st century, remaining anonymous is almost impossible. But the more discreet you are, the more easily you can do what you want without being seen."

And I think that's what we want to be, to continue without being visible, so that we can defend what Satoshi created that helps us fight financial centralization. The forum was not created to combat centralization, but to debate the tool that does it. If this forum ceases to exist, this fight may be lost.

[cryptosize]

There is a high chance that account FIODNederland is legit because: The account was created 2.5 hours before fiod.nl published this article, and posted about it 6 minutes after publication. [Quote from archived post, posted by LoyceV]

and theymos cashed their copper membership fee 

Just came across this post and now I wonder who would put up that post. I mean the timing that Synchronice mentioned is very interesting, the account being set up as a Copper Member is very interesting, and the likelihood that countless of accounts here work on behalf government agencies is quite high, isn't it?

Interesting "coincidence".

What does "Copper Member" mean? Does this forum have a paid subscription or what?

[KonstantinosM]

It was only a matter of time. This is a good decision both morally and strategically. Unfortunately this is no longer the place to host mixers.

It's really the only path forward for the forum. I'm always in awe of how well run this place is and how much work has been put in it, it'd be a shame to throw it all away.

[mv1986]

There is a high chance that account FIODNederland is legit because: The account was created 2.5 hours before fiod.nl published this article, and posted about it 6 minutes after publication. [Quote from archived post, posted by LoyceV]

and theymos cashed their copper membership fee 

Just came across this post and now I wonder who would put up that post. I mean the timing that Synchronice mentioned is very interesting, the account being set up as a Copper Member is very interesting, and the likelihood that countless of accounts here work on behalf government agencies is quite high, isn't it?

Interesting "coincidence".

What does "Copper Member" mean? Does this forum have a paid subscription or what?

For a small fee you can set up an account that grants you certain functions a newbie account wouldn't have. That way you can post images, like the account did with the website of the seizure. It's almost granted that this person understands Bitcointalk relatively well if you also take into account the timings, like the setup of the account, the paid Copper membership, the post and the publication of the article talking about the seizure. Could be someone from the investigation team that worked on the Sinbad case.

[DooMAD]

What does "Copper Member" mean? Does this forum have a paid subscription or what?

You've been here for nearly 6 years and still don't know what copper membership is?  That's a little odd, but okay.

10 years ago, when the authorities started to hunt down torrent sites, they reached a point where they had difficulty closing these sites - they shut down one and 10 were born. Faced with this difficulty, authorities adopted another strategy: going after sites that listed links to torrents. In this sense, several forums and blogs were closed and their owners arrested/fined, for promoting torrent links. Note, these forums and blogs did not host any torrents, they only told visitors where to find the content.

For example, the biggest torrent search engine, which did not host any torrents, the owner decided to close the site, because he was about to have problems with the authorities. And all of this happened despite torrents not being illegal. The content of some is what they are.

The same can happen with mixers. The authorities' difficulty in closing mixers - associated with hacks - may lead them to start attacking forums, blogs or websites that promote these services. What the forum administration is doing is preventing something like this from happening to Bitcointalk.

An apt comparison.  You can discuss warez and illegal file sharing here on the forum, but if you start linking directly to copyright material downloads, expect to have your post deleted and repeat offenders could conceivably be banned.  

Obviously people can make the argument that mixers aren't technically illegal yet, but the authorities are certainly treating them as though they were.  And whether we proclaim that's over-reach or not, it's still not worth losing the forum over, IMO.

[Findingnemo]

But then I think it is even more important for such warnings or pages to be required for advertisement of CASINOS too.  They are in my opinion much more damaging than a Mixer.

Probably that will be the next step or even further complete signatures will be disabled in that way no more advertisements regarding illegal services, scams, etc.

But understand the difference here, casinos may turn out to be a scam and run away with all the users' money but with mixers what authorities paint is like to the most extreme, laundering the money from hacks also they might even come with the required evidences to shut down the similar services so as admin theymos is deciding between going all down or just the extra baggage. He chose the right way in my opinion but if we try him to push it too hard then as I said disabling the advertisement completely will be the solution.

[cryptosize]

Is this the shiny future we should be waiting for?  Guess we are supporting the 2030 Own Nothing Be Happy ideology too?

You know what's ironic?

Some people on this forum staunchly endorse WEF's agenda ("human-made" climate change hysteria, Digital ID, CBDC etc.), but they agreed with your post and even gave you merit.

Why? Because they're afraid of losing their precious mixer income.

They still believe Great Reset is a silly, tinfoil hat conspiracy theory for lunatics. They still believe Klaus Schwab is a good guy.

I have zero pity for them. They got what they deserve. It's called karma.

There is a high chance that account FIODNederland is legit because: The account was created 2.5 hours before fiod.nl published this article, and posted about it 6 minutes after publication. [Quote from archived post, posted by LoyceV]

and theymos cashed their copper membership fee 

Just came across this post and now I wonder who would put up that post. I mean the timing that Synchronice mentioned is very interesting, the account being set up as a Copper Member is very interesting, and the likelihood that countless of accounts here work on behalf government agencies is quite high, isn't it?

Interesting "coincidence".

What does "Copper Member" mean? Does this forum have a paid subscription or what?

For a small fee you can set up an account that grants you certain functions a newbie account wouldn't have. That way you can post images, like the account did with the website of the seizure. It's almost granted that this person understands Bitcointalk relatively well if you also take into account the timings, like the setup of the account, the paid Copper membership, the post and the publication of the article talking about the seizure. Could be someone from the investigation team that worked on the Sinbad case.

And yet, theymos claims he was "never" contacted by authorities:

I'm curious myself if there were any formal requests or warnings received

We've received no warnings or requests to change policy from law enforcement regarding mixers.

 

What does "Copper Member" mean? Does this forum have a paid subscription or what?

You've been here for nearly 6 years and still don't know what copper membership is?  That's a little odd, but okay.

Believe it or not, I don't pay too much attention to stuff like that. I know some forums (such as NeoGAF) do have a subscription.

[mv1986]

There is a high chance that account FIODNederland is legit because: The account was created 2.5 hours before fiod.nl published this article, and posted about it 6 minutes after publication. [Quote from archived post, posted by LoyceV]

and theymos cashed their copper membership fee 

Just came across this post and now I wonder who would put up that post. I mean the timing that Synchronice mentioned is very interesting, the account being set up as a Copper Member is very interesting, and the likelihood that countless of accounts here work on behalf government agencies is quite high, isn't it?

Interesting "coincidence".

What does "Copper Member" mean? Does this forum have a paid subscription or what?

For a small fee you can set up an account that grants you certain functions a newbie account wouldn't have. That way you can post images, like the account did with the website of the seizure. It's almost granted that this person understands Bitcointalk relatively well if you also take into account the timings, like the setup of the account, the paid Copper membership, the post and the publication of the article talking about the seizure. Could be someone from the investigation team that worked on the Sinbad case.

And yet, theymos claims he was "never" contacted by authorities:

There is no need for anyone to contact theymos to pay that fee. Anyone can do that if they wish.

and theymos cashed their copper membership fee 

That was obviously written with a sense of humor.

[JayJuanGee]

I wish that more work was being done on creating decentralized, uncensorable, but also usable forums. I would love nothing more than to be able to shut down bitcointalk.org due to some decentralized solution making it obsolete. Find me a 501(c)(3) nonprofit working on this, and I'll donate to it.

Sure.. bitcoin is a not a social platform.. and in that regard there are certain kinds of projects that are not going to be 501(c)3, yet bitcoin is a good project to contribute towards.

As far as open and social platforms and your own hoping to become obsoleted, I hope that you are considering contributing to Nostr?  https://nostr.com/

[cryptofrka]

Several people seem to be concerned that the current policy will be too disruptive/constraining. How about I make this modification to loosen it a bit: you can direct people to mixers by name (even in something like a "top 10 mixers" topic), as long as:
 - You don't directly post their URLs.
 - It's not a paid ad, and you're not representing a mixer.

Would this be sufficient to address the concerns?

It is a step in the right direction. My question remains though - why can't a legit mixer have an ANN thread and market its service? Does Bitcointalk breach some rules by allowing it?
Were there any problems for BTT after CM went down/do you expect to have any now due to Sinbad's situation?

I don't really care about mixers that much - but the thing is that such decisions open doors to more censorship in the future. No KYC? Ban. Discussing VPN? Ban. And that's a fucking scary thought.

is it actually OK that in a forum of such size and significance we have authoritative leadership that simply makes a decision like this without any sort of consulting?

Of course. Bitcointalk isn't a democracy:

theymos as our benevolent dictator

Yeah, I know that's how it currently is. But I honestly think that theymos would be the first to jump at the opportunity to have a better/more decentralized solution.

To quote a post I fully agree with:

Well, I think we are already in such a campaign against everything "freedom": banning mixers on this forum, large pools imposing KYC, and some of them started practicing transaction censorship.

I can't blame theymos just as much as I can't blame some of those pools and exchanges who have no option but to comply with the governments. I think we as a community failed big time.

14 years have passed, and we have not built anything truly decentralized

- No decentralized forum/community platform
- No truly decentralized exchange
- No truly decentralized mining pool
- No truly decentralized mixer

Too much power/responsibility is put in the hands of a few, creating terrible single points of failure. It's only a matter of time before they start banning everything that contributes to users' privacy/anonymity on the blockchain. We need to start looking for alternatives to everything we use today, something truly decentralized by ownership.

We again use what's easy, what's convenient, what's controllable. BTC was a breakthrough specifically because it opposed it, and it feels that we're making a full circle.

[BitcoinsGreat]

Several people seem to be concerned that the current policy will be too disruptive/constraining. How about I make this modification to loosen it a bit: you can direct people to mixers by name (even in something like a "top 10 mixers" topic), as long as:
 - You don't directly post their URLs.
 - It's not a paid ad, and you're not representing a mixer.

Would this be sufficient to address the concerns?

Can we have one more addition to it.
We do not have paid ads, or links to the urls to the mixers but we keep the ANN threads active and do not lock them or move them to archival. The reason for this we need that those discussions are very useful for those who are using mixers and also we need to remain in touch with the progress and update with the mixers.

[mindrust]

You know what's ironic?
Some people on this forum staunchly endorse WEF's agenda ("human-made" climate change hysteria, Digital ID, CBDC etc.), but they agreed with your post and even gave you merit.
Why? Because they're afraid of losing their precious mixer income.
They still believe Great Reset is a silly, tinfoil hat conspiracy theory for lunatics. They still believe Klaus Schwab is a good guy.
I have zero pity for them. They got what they deserve. It's called karma.

This.

I have created threads on these topics and they never gathered any attention. Especially the id2020 thread only had 2 posts from the other members. (7 mine, 2 from timelord and franky)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5320484 > Vaccine passports

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5320443 > id2020

The other dude says theymos made a mistake banning the mixer talk like he would do something different.

The history of the mankind is the history of hypocrisy.

Long story short:

"Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die."

We indeed deserve what's coming to us.

[LoyceV]

It is clear they are increasingly forcing more hate into Bitcoin.  But we need to stand up and fight, not accept and obey.

Are you willing to do that publicly? Judging by your username, and judging by what I've read about you, you value your privacy. I don't think Bitcointalk's Admin isn't as anonymous as you are, which means there can be real-life consequences.

As soon as Bitcoin Talk does Censorship I will start looking for an alternative and I am convinced I am not the only one.

Are there any good alternatives? I think theymos has a good point here:

I wish that more work was being done on creating decentralized, uncensorable, but also usable forums. I would love nothing more than to be able to shut down bitcointalk.org due to some decentralized solution making it obsolete. Find me a 501(c)(3) nonprofit working on this, and I'll donate to it.

I wouldn't mind downloading 60 million posts just to be able to acces a fully decentralized version of Bitcointalk, but if spammers make that 60 billion posts, it's going to have a usability problem.

And yet, theymos claims he was "never" contacted by authorities:

I'm curious myself if there were any formal requests or warnings received

We've received no warnings or requests to change policy from law enforcement regarding mixers.

The way I read this, it's carefully worded and doesn't say what you think it says.

[un_rank]

How good it is to be a bsvcian.

This is honestly a ridiculous name.

The authorities will never declare a hunt of our BSV coin.

That makes 5 thousand coins that will not be noticed or hunted.

- Jay -

[cryptosize]

You know what's ironic?
Some people on this forum staunchly endorse WEF's agenda ("human-made" climate change hysteria, Digital ID, CBDC etc.), but they agreed with your post and even gave you merit.
Why? Because they're afraid of losing their precious mixer income.
They still believe Great Reset is a silly, tinfoil hat conspiracy theory for lunatics. They still believe Klaus Schwab is a good guy.
I have zero pity for them. They got what they deserve. It's called karma.

This.

I have created threads on these topics and they never gathered any attention. Especially the id2020 thread only had 2 posts from the other members. (7 mine, 2 from timelord and franky)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5320484 > Vaccine passports

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5320443 > id2020

The other dude says theymos made a mistake banning the mixer talk like he would do something different.

The history of the mankind is the history of hypocrisy.

Long story short:

"Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die."

We indeed deserve what's coming to us.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. I'm glad I'm not alone.

I've also made anti-WEF threads and they've garnered some attention, but they mostly tried to mock me and dismiss me as a "crazy conspiracy theorist".

How does it feel now to have a taste of their own medicine?

For me personally Bitcoin carries a clear political (libertarian) message: never trust the state and puppet politicians.

Whoever trusts/endorses even a single bullet point from WEF's Great Reset agenda is definitely my enemy.

I can't really blame theymos either, this forum is centralized and he has to protect himself. I'm surprised we don't have a decentralized forum alternative 14 years later on. Hopefully Nostr will fill this niche.

[digaran]

Who says they didn't contact him? I have an expose on off topic, you can read it to have your eyes opened. Besides it's not end of the world, if this experiment fails, we will find another one.😉
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5476309.msg63258038#msg63258038

[mrust_mobile]

Theymos very well might be writing his posts from jail. Has anyone seen him lately? Talked to his mom? Was he home last night?