Mixers to be banned

[digaran]

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

Really? Long live Cyrus the virus.😂, all kneel before the new king. I heard the food is not good in prison.
If you didn't know, this is the loyalty of most people, they don't care about Bitcoin or the future of the world, some are Bitcoin's enemies, some are, well the rest are just here for the money, nobody really fights to establish some standards, they all want to impose their own, based on their benefits. Where is the money? That's all they think of. You can only see a few truly concerned here.

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[Myleschetty]

So, to sum up. If a service:

- is taking property and returning roughly the same property,
- advertises itself as providing privacy,
- requires user to forfeit custody of coins,
- and does not collect KYC

is illegal in this forum.

Really sad turn of events for the Bitcoin forum.

I think what we're seeing is no one above the law and an issue like this is what I fear the most ever since a company like BlackRock was powerful enough to control the President file for Bitcoin spot ETF which a lot of people were happy about it and never consider the negative effect of it.
I believe we should tighten our belts for things that will happen next year because if Mixer is banned on this forum I think we should be scared that privacy is vanishing out of the tight air.

[BabyBandit]

First I feel sorry for those who have mixer as a signature campaign but I am sure you will find something good anyway to sign. But it is quite surprising that so many are complaining about this decision after everything that has happened lately. Many seems to have a perception of reality and I can understand that majority have no clue how to run a business and that's okay but come on....
It is easy to sit and point and shout when you don't have to make a decision yourself or get consequences for the decision. I think it could not go another direction after whats happen if the forum wanted to survive, we don't know whats have happen behind closed doors. I doubt anyone think's Theymos took this decision because he wanted to cut some users income or don't value the privacy of the forums users. And come on guys, I doubt majority of you ever mixed a single satoshi.   Overall a very good decision, not least for the future. Thank you for good moderating Theymos. One day those who don't want to understand will understand.
And let's not forget. Crypto is privacy even without mixers. I can also almost assure you that the value of Bitcoin is not standing and falling with this forum, It's a big world we living in.

Good luck to you all.

[digaran]

This forum is not a business, but I personally don't care if there is no signature/ads, I don't want us to break our own legs, to watch our own mouth every time we talk. But I don't mind the ban on links and name suggestions, if that's bad, we will all throw it away.

If you don't make the rules, they will make it for you, a few days ago I believe I asked for a similar sets of rules for a specific board. and this happened. This ban is understandable, we just have to push, so he doesn't turn into an actual tyrant/dictator. harsh reminders are needed from time to time. Now he knows, if he deviates from the ideology, he will no longer be a Bitcoiner.

[Upgrade00]

And come on guys, I doubt majority of you ever mixed a single satoshi.  

In true decentralization even a tiny minority should be allow d to use services as they wish. If we follow this same argument we should have no issues having decentralized, P2P exchanges being restricted on the forum.

Overall a very good decision, not least for the future. Thank you for good moderating Theymos. One day those who don't want to understand will understand.

I understand the reason for the decision but do not think it's the best given the circumstance and the possible outcome of it.

[BabyBandit]

And come on guys, I doubt majority of you ever mixed a single satoshi.  

In true decentralization even a tiny minority should be allow d to use services as they wish. If we follow this same argument we should have no issues having decentralized, P2P exchanges being restricted on the forum.

Overall a very good decision, not least for the future. Thank you for good moderating Theymos. One day those who don't want to understand will understand.

I understand the reason for the decision but do not think it's the best given the circumstance and the possible outcome of it.

I agree with the point you trying to make but what if the decentralization risk the existence? Anyway this forum is everything else then a decentralized place. And Theymos can do what he please, if his actions don't please us we are always free to leave at anytime. For me it's not important what you are allowed to do for commercial or not do, that's not the reason I am here and that's should not be the reason for anyone to be here. I understand majority of people here use this as a main source of income, but is that how it should be? If I need money I work and not involving myself in e-drama.

[nakamura12]

I am not sure if I remember what name of the mixer it was and I think it was bettercallraul that got seized and it also launched their own signature campaign here but it is also seized by the government. Well, i think it's s good decision for theymos to make even though it is hard to provide a notification or announcement in the forum about not allowing mixers or banned in forum. It would be bad for the forum if the government take action since there are mixers being mentioned here and even promoted.

[_BlackStar]

In the end mixers will be banned? It's a tough decision - but I understand what the point is.
Of course, not many people expect mixers to be banned in forum, especially those who like privacy. I'm not sure what the negative impact of banning mixers on the forum would be other than no longer seeing signature of mixers being used by the best contributors - but the essence would probably be better for the forum and its survival.

[PrivacyG]

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.

I do agree there can be real life consequences.  This is why I am thinking of a different approach.  I think censoring from the start is drawing a very thin line and makes the future even more uncertain for Bitcoin Talk,

A better route would have been maybe requiring Mixers to advertise on Bitcoin Talk only if the links direct you first to a page where you are shown some sort of warning about using the Service for criminal purposes.  Or requiring such warning to be included in the Signature Campaign.  Some body who WANTS to use a Mixer will look for it anyway, whether the link is available on Bitcoin Talk directly or not.  After all, you can not oblige some body to not break the law.  But you can show a preventive warning.

I think it is not as important for the safety of theymos to BAN Mixers straight away as it is to rather promote a strong statement against the use of criminal funds with existing Mixers.  I imagine the Dutch Local Authorities would not be too happy to find out theymos has banned Mixers only to continue promoting Coin Joins but will instead be much happier if theymos made it clear every single time that Mixers are NOT to be used with illegal funds.

Otherwise it sets a dangerous precedent.

I think of it like smoking ads.  You are being told cigarettes can destroy your health.  Now you know the risk and continuing to do so will only decline your health.  Even at a first glance, it would make Bitcoin Talk much less suspicious to Authorities than the version we have today.  Then the possible consequences are much lower for theymos too.  What can they do to some body who has explicitly publicly stood against the criminal use of Mixers?  Now compare that to what they can do to some body who banned Mixers only to continue supporting the one thing they hate the MOST.  Coin Joins and Monero.  They would have a much better case to form that way.

I guess.

[digaran]

Dude stop making excuses, mixers are used to circumvent sanctions, the criminal use is less than %20 of total mixing circulation. This is not about privacy, this is a hidden third world war and we are in the middle, these things are useless to discuss, we need our own digital nuke to survive this war. Let them go. Insisting will cause more suspicion. Just a revise of the rules would suffice.

[philipma1957]

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.

I do agree there can be real life consequences.  This is why I am thinking of a different approach.  I think censoring from the start is drawing a very thin line and makes the future even more uncertain for Bitcoin Talk,

A better route would have been maybe requiring Mixers to advertise on Bitcoin Talk only if the links direct you first to a page where you are shown some sort of warning about using the Service for criminal purposes.  Or requiring such warning to be included in the Signature Campaign.  Some body who WANTS to use a Mixer will look for it anyway, whether the link is available on Bitcoin Talk directly or not.  After all, you can not oblige some body to not break the law.  But you can show a preventive warning.

I think it is not as important for the safety of theymos to BAN Mixers straight away as it is to rather promote a strong statement against the use of criminal funds with existing Mixers.  I imagine the Dutch Local Authorities would not be too happy to find out theymos has banned Mixers only to continue promoting Coin Joins but will instead be much happier if theymos made it clear every single time that Mixers are NOT to be used with illegal funds.

Otherwise it sets a dangerous precedent.

I think of it like smoking ads.  You are being told cigarettes can destroy your health.  Now you know the risk and continuing to do so will only decline your health.  Even at a first glance, it would make Bitcoin Talk much less suspicious to Authorities than the version we have today.  Then the possible consequences are much lower for theymos too.  What can they do to some body who has explicitly publicly stood against the criminal use of Mixers?  Now compare that to what they can do to some body who banned Mixers only to continue supporting the one thing they hate the MOST.  Coin Joins and Monero.  They would have a much better case to form that way.

I guess.

Coin Join / Monero is not the way to go here.

My opinion is don't do Coin Join / Monero

State they are not allowed on the forum 2024.

Leave hiding shit alone.

Wait til the 2024 election. Maybe Next  President admin alters rules.

Pot was illegal in most USA states now lots of states make it legal.

So maybe by Feb 2025 mixers are not so bad.

[Timelord2067]

Of course. Bitcointalk isn't a democracy:

theymos as our benevolent dictator

Does that mean you're now going to go back to that other thread you were participating in sledgings others for having a differing opinion and withdraw those comments you made?

On topic comment: it's interesting to see those who were profiting from Chipmixer's overly generous campaign are now repositioning themselves with various "I didn't know" ramblings.

I'm glad my half hearted "throw my hat into the ring" to join that campaign was unsuccessful - imagine various governments wanting to identify anyone who participated to charge them with proceeds of crime offences.

[mikeywith]

I think it is not as important for the safety of theymos to BAN Mixers straight away as it is to rather promote a strong statement against the use of criminal funds with existing Mixers. 

It all boils down to how much thought theymos gave this decision.

Let me highlight another very similar example in the shadows of mining pools, Mara pool (a U.S based pool) has been censoring OFAC listed addresses since 2021, on the other hand, Foundry (another U.S based pool 8 times bigger than Mara) does not censor those transactions, so what gives?

There are a few possible scenarios here, one of these two large corps has a bad lawyer who did not point them to the "right" direction, so it's either Foundry is in the wrong and is going to be in deep shit for not banning those transactions, or Mara sucked the government's dick for nothing.

Judging by the size of Foundry, I find it hard to believe that they do not know for certain that they are perfectly safe without censoring those transactions, or else -- it's a huge risk for not too much reward for them.

So now if we reflect this on the forum/theymos, I hope that if we have to bend over, we should at least do it while knowing that it's worth it and that any other option is not viable.

I hope that Theymos will do his best (assuming he has not) to evaluate the situation by consulting some good lawyers who would either point him to a complete ban or maybe just a warning and a set of rules that indicate using certain mixers that engaged in "laundering" criminal funds is against the forum rules and to delete and ban everyone who promotes those particular mixers but not mixers in general.

I asked AI about the legal status of forum content and its owner (ya may not the best place to ask but anyway)

In the United States, forum owners are generally protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). This law provides immunity to online platforms, including forums, from being held liable for the content posted by their users. Section 230 protects forum owners from legal action related to content moderation decisions, as well as from liability for the content itself.

However, it's important to note that there are exceptions, and forum owners may still be held responsible for certain types of content, such as intellectual property violations, federal criminal law, or violations of other specific statutes.

In practice, forum owners often establish and enforce terms of service that outline the rules for user behavior and content posting on their platforms. They may reserve the right to remove or moderate content that violates these terms. Additionally, they may cooperate with law enforcement if illegal activities are identified on their platform.

So there is still a slight possibility that the forum could get away with just

1- Banning all sanctioned/seized mixers.
2- Banning everyone who encourages the usage of mixers for criminal purposes.

Of course, going with the assumption that mixers (in their bare form are not illegal)

at least this shouldn't be an unconditional submission to the government: if theymos has concluded that retrieving is the only option here, we should accept it and remember the fact that while we as members are only subject to losing the forum, he could lose his freedom.

[Mrbluntzy]

I am just seeing this post now through the news update

on the forum.

 From what I was told about bitcoin mixers, it is not illegal to use it but the only problem is that some individuals used some of those bitcoin mixers to mixe stolen money which can not be traceable after but this doesn't mean that there are no body using those mixers for just some genuine purpose, many bitcoiners are using it for the purpose of increasing their privacy and it's for genuine reasons.

I am just short of words and I agree with what theymos said that it is "gray"

thymos your decision have been made but if you have time to read this message, I want to say that I have look around every different website in search of information about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency but I have not seen a website that is very strong like this one and I feel it will be very bad that people can not talk about bitcoin on this website meanwhile this website is for bitcoin discussion, security and privacy and the mixers we are talking about contribute to privacy. So, how then can people here not mention mixer?

Since you are removing mixer from signature, I will suggest that you should not put up a rule that will prevent people from talking about mixer. Talking about privacy can lead to talking about mixer.

All you are doing is for the protection of the place and it is very very good but the forum can not be sanctioned if people only talk about mixer.

[digaran]

Here is the idea if someone wants to dictate their own rules on this forum, what if someone advertises mixers on porn sites which are available on this forum?  Since mixers are not illegal, what if mixers try to put their ads on everything crypto related? Then we can never link to any source. this is a self crippling tactic @theymos. Even though we all agree it could be good for community to do this, but I guess you rushed it, didn't think this through.
Edit :
Maybe you might wanna think about vanity addresses with the names of mixers, ban them as well? You realize there are so many ways to mess with Bitcoin if a Bitcoin service is banned?

[Kruw]

Coin Join / Monero is not the way to go here.

My opinion is don't do Coin Join / Monero

Why not?  Coinjoins are strictly superior to mixers because you don't trust anyone with your data or your funds.

[Litzki1990]

If all mixer campaigns are stopped then many people will directly lose their jobs and many people are directly dependent on their jobs. So if there is a different plan without banning mixer campaigns, I think you should think about it.

Without mixers, there are many other campaigns for you. You only need time to see other gates open for you. You need patience, that's it.

Your account was created in 2017 and it means you have gone through two bear market especially the 2018 and 2019 bear market. I believe you know how very little signature campaigns and available slots for each in 2018 or 2019. The current bear market since 2021, 2022 and lasts till 2023 is actually much much better than 2018 or 2019, with so many campaigns.

If you exclude mixer campaigns, there are still more campaigns for you to join than 4 or 5 years ago. Think about it, don't think pessimistic and don't only think about yourself.

You need jobs in Bitcointalk? First you need the forum to be lively, not a seized one.

In the meantime till Jan 1, 2024, use some time to read Welcome message and stop complaining about it. The decision is made, and it is what it is. Even signature is a privilege, not a right!

In the beginning I said that if promotion of mixer campaigns is harmful to our forum then it can definitely be decided to remove mixer campaigns but if there is an alternative way we can manage mixer campaigns in this forum is a different matter.

[SamReomo]

In the beginning I said that if promotion of mixer campaigns is harmful to our forum then it can definitely be decided to remove mixer campaigns but if there is an alternative way we can manage mixer campaigns in this forum is a different matter.

I think we all can understand that why Theymos took the decision to ban the mixers and we should not even think that there can be an alternative way to have those mixer campaigns anymore. I think the mixers have been on the forum for a long time and they have ran many campaigns on our forum but not it's time for us to say goodbye to them and follow the rules of the respected admin who's actually doing it for the betterment of the forum.

[philipma1957]

I think it is not as important for the safety of theymos to BAN Mixers straight away as it is to rather promote a strong statement against the use of criminal funds with existing Mixers.

It all boils down to how much thought theymos gave this decision.

Let me highlight another very similar example in the shadows of mining pools, Mara pool (a U.S based pool) has been censoring OFAC listed addresses since 2021, on the other hand, Foundry (another U.S based pool 8 times bigger than Mara) does not censor those transactions, so what gives?

There are a few possible scenarios here, one of these two large corps has a bad lawyer who did not point them to the "right" direction, so it's either Foundry is in the wrong and is going to be in deep shit for not banning those transactions, or Mara sucked the government's dick for nothing.

Judging by the size of Foundry, I find it hard to believe that they do not know for certain that they are perfectly safe without censoring those transactions, or else -- it's a huge risk for not too much reward for them.

So now if we reflect this on the forum/theymos, I hope that if we have to bend over, we should at least do it while knowing that it's worth it and that any other option is not viable.

I hope that Theymos will do his best (assuming he has not) to evaluate the situation by consulting some good lawyers who would either point him to a complete ban or maybe just a warning and a set of rules that indicate using certain mixers that engaged in "laundering" criminal funds is against the forum rules and to delete and ban everyone who promotes those particular mixers but not mixers in general.

I asked AI about the legal status of forum content and its owner (ya may not the best place to ask but anyway)

In the United States, forum owners are generally protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). This law provides immunity to online platforms, including forums, from being held liable for the content posted by their users. Section 230 protects forum owners from legal action related to content moderation decisions, as well as from liability for the content itself.

However, it's important to note that there are exceptions, and forum owners may still be held responsible for certain types of content, such as intellectual property violations, federal criminal law, or violations of other specific statutes.

In practice, forum owners often establish and enforce terms of service that outline the rules for user behavior and content posting on their platforms. They may reserve the right to remove or moderate content that violates these terms. Additionally, they may cooperate with law enforcement if illegal activities are identified on their platform.

So there is still a slight possibility that the forum could get away with just

1- Banning all sanctioned/seized mixers.
2- Banning everyone who encourages the usage of mixers for criminal purposes.

Of course, going with the assumption that mixers (in their bare form are not illegal)

at least this shouldn't be an unconditional submission to the government: if theymos has concluded that retrieving is the only option here, we should accept it and remember the fact that while we as members are only subject to losing the forum, he could lose his freedom.

Mixers are a tool. Much like a hammer or a chainsaw.

You can do well with them or you can do bad.

So two got busted as they were misused.

Hackers cleaning stolen coins = bad.

So for the sake of safety shutting them down for a while is not that stupid.

USA will have their elections in 2024 so a year from now we may have a different leader and go in a different direction.

It is annoying but we can survive it.

Oh why does an honest person need a mixer. Simple honest guy came here in 2010 and owns 1000 or more coins.

He reports when he cashes some. Since he got his 1000 plus coins in 2010 value was 1000 bucks.  He does not want them traced back when he sells a free.





So look below














Perfectly legal to do this in the USA:

1) Buy 1000 coins for $1000 bucks in 2010
2)  when you need money send 10 to a second address
3) then send 5 to a mixer
4) then send 5 to coinbase pay tax.
5) on a 1 dollar cost basis. 5 x 40000 = 200,000 dollars cost basis of 5 bucks pay your tax. on 195000 profit
5) fully legit use of the mixer.
6) no one knows you have 995 coins and are a target
6) no crime repeat
7) no crime a clean mixer use.

[Danydee]

Ok, why did you all have not banned all those f** Shit/Scams newCoins, ICOs, tokens etc... when we see that bitcointalk was the first vector of promoting all that early shitcoins !

You're asking the wrong person: ask your government. My guess is that government works too slow to make a difference here: they're still debating about it long after it ended.

Excuse me if I didn't get your point ,

My inquiry is about how on a forum strictly regulated when sometimes some rules can look very trivial, tha explosion explosion on scam-coins has not get any control and could looks as have got been encouraged by creating a special section.  (for reminder Bitcointalk was the biggest promotion vector at the time first altcoins has started appearing)



Don't take it at the first degree, this is maybe just a little retrospection on how some things could have been got better by doing no much !