Mixers to be banned

[Shenanigan]

It's better for the mixers to be banned than for the forum to be banned

Look at all the happy bootlickers in here.....

I am surprised to see how much this forum members and those associated with the upcoming banned campaign are still bumping this topic.

These looneys thinks that if they cry for a long time, the mixers will be returned to them.

If the owner of the forum said no then I think it would be not right to question him. Considering the number of individuals not happy, I am not sure what they want. Mixer would not thrive anymore here, even though this forum is where they can advertise and get the highest number of users. While it is not happening in the next 27 days why argue with the authority of the owner of this forum?  

That's right

[d5000]

My stance on this discussion (dunno if someone will read it after more than 15 pages ):

We should first think about why mixing services are there, and why they do not only provide "legitimate" use cases, but why it should be considered a human right to use them. The blockchain is completely public. Everybody with some blockchain analysis skills can link your addresses to merchants or employers and thus know what you buy and where you work. That's something not possible with the banking system, as long as the logs of the banks aren't hacked, and without mixers you would need advanced techniques to preserve your privacy in the same way. (For sure, you could "mix" your coins on a KYCed exchange too for this purpose, but if you only need the exchange for that purpose, it would mean you take the risk your documents may be hacked and used for identity theft. You could also CoinJoin or P2P altcoin exchanges but that's already an "advanced" technique).

And even if mixers can be used in money laundering schemes, mixing is not the core part of money laundering. It can be used to hide a particular trace, but you can't convert mixed coins into "clean" money without using advanced techniques like founding a company (or collaborating with one) which receives the mixed coins and converts them into "legitimate" money. This means, while you can cash out small and medium quantities to fiat (via P2P, for example) you won't be able to buy a house with that money if you need to provide a proof of funds like it's common in many countries.

I can however understand the decision to not allow mixer ads anymore. Ads can give the public outside of the community the impression that there is a link between the forum and mixers. If a particular mixer is actually used with the collaboration of their owners in money laundering schemes, and advertises here (without knowledge of the community of course), then for the government agencies it may give the impression that this behavior is tolerated in the forum, even if this isn't the case. So I can understand the perspective of the forum admin to ban them.

So my proposal is actually simple: talking and also linking to mixers, as long as they aren't seized (and thus be considered illegal) should be allowed, but for mixer ads, I could understand a ban.

Doesn't mean I'm happy with that, I think there should be ways to advertise mixing services which are legal in the country they operate, and for example provide their company address. Don't know if many of these services exist though.

I wonder, how Lightning Network is classified. Is it a mixer or not?

LN "as a whole" doesn't fit the requirements. You always need two channels to use LN as a mixer, and "sending to yourself" is not necessarily what's advertised (does Phoenix Wallet advertise this service as a core part of their software?). The funny thing is that if you use it with one channel only, it could be seen as the opposite of a mixer, as for "the blockchain" (i.e. non-Lightning-aware software) when you close the channel you simply move the same coins you entered, but their "economic value" may come from a completely different source (which includes of course criminal activities).

[dkbit98]

Must we start to worry in what other ways pressure may be applied on Bitcointalk and its operators?

It's better to prepare and work on alternative solutions than to worry about this.
There is nothing we can do since identity of bitcointalk owner is known publicly, and servers are located in his country.
I can understand theymos from this position, it was probably not an easy decision to make, but he just opened big can of worms and pandora box  
On positive side, there will be a lot of space open for new and old campaigns to hire good quality members, so it's not the end of the world ^(yet).

[apogio]

If the owner of the forum said no then I think it would be not right to question him.

While it is not happening in the next 27 days why argue with the authority of the owner of this forum? 

"Why argue with the authority of the onwer of this forum?"

Do you keep the same stance in every occasion in your life?

Let's say the "owner" of "something" wants YOU to do something you don't like, don't you have the right to express your opposite opinion?

Even theymos himself knows that we have the right to express an opposite opinion. We didn't insult him, we didn't poduce violence through our writtings, but we want to express our opinions.

[LoyceV]

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.

I don't see the point: criminals already know what they're doing is illegal. It sounds like a gun shop putting up a sign: "don't rob banks". Innocent people weren't going to do it, and the bad guys already know robbing banks is not allowed.

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.

If warnings showing ugly lungs don't make people stop damaging their health, how would a warning not to break the law stop criminals from doing what they do?

Does that mean you're now going to go back to that other thread

How about you stop making things up about me.

my problem is with the accusations that 50% of the coins in sinbad were bad.

That makes it much worse than the average. And that makes me wonder:

Why in the world would any mixer that wants to remain in business for the long term accept funds that are so tainted

What if it's the other way around, and that's the reason the mixer was created in the first place?

I think there is a clear difference when a mixer is being used to mix for the average person conducting non-criminal acts for the sake of increasing privacy and an enterprise that has been created with laundered money to offer a mixing service

Even worse than that: the latter needs the former.

I used to think mixers are good sites that can be used for good and evil, just like a car can be used for good or to get away after robbing a bank. But given enough mixers, there is a possibility that at least some mixers are created by bad people, and in that case they need good people to hide their bad money.

[mv1986]

~

This is from August 2022, Chainalysis:

Are crypto mixers legal?
Despite their use by criminals, crypto mixers are not explicitly illegal in most jurisdictions. Whether they are compliant, however, is a different question.

In the United States, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has confirmed that individuals and centralized businesses offering custodial mixing services must register as money transmitters under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), and have three key obligations:

- register with FinCEN,

- maintain an anti-money laundering and know-your-customer compliance program, and

- meet all applicable reporting and record-keeping requirements.

We aren’t aware of any custodial mixers currently following these rules. And given that privacy preservation is the main reason that many users interact with crypto mixers, it seems unlikely that one could implement these procedures and still retain their users.

There is more interesting info to be found if you use the link, but I think it is quite easy based on these requirements for US prosecutors to operate internationally because American citizens are served by all mixers and that case can easily be made. They could just find one single person to have used a particular service. Worst case is that a mixing service really launders tens of millions of stolen funds. But I underlined the part that Chainalysis correctly brought up as the major contradiction: KYC + mixing coins makes zero sense.

[EarnOnVictor]

I've not engaged any of your post prior to the last one so what exactly are you waffling about?

Your example is pointless as I don't see how it relates to the subject matter. Even what you replied to from my early post is merely an excerpt that doesn't relate to anything justifiable in your reply. Exchanges are pure business models different from Mi**ers, why do you make them look like same?

Who owns Si***ad to make him accountable? But where is the former CEO of FTX now? Is he not being made accountable? Who is making the Si***ad owner accountable?

So, you don't expect the same punishment to be meted out to the two companies, don't relate what is not the same.

At this point, Gentleman, you're just trolling! S!nbad did not defraud or rug pull; read the article to find out why they were sized.

Trolling? That is laughable. Don't tell me you are one of those dictators who always want their views accepted, no question asked. If you are, then you had better be trolled indeed.

Mind you, I'm fully aware of the situation, it's you who is beating around the bush and deviating from the context of my initial post.

Does holding FXT owner accountable bring back clients who have lost everything and committed suicide? Did any client  recover their losses in full?

Another deviation! You know what? I better leave it be, it seems we are not on the same planet.

[Danydee]

why argue with the authority of the owner of this forum?  

He said (no) for from the starting of 2024 ,

there were been years he did say nothing !

And it is not the "owner", is more likely the Big manager !




Question:  Who you, The adjustment bureau ?!   🤣

[virasog]

I am surprised to see how much this forum members and those associated with the upcoming banned campaign are still bumping this topic. If the owner of the forum said no then I think it would be not right to question him. Considering the number of individuals not happy, I am not sure what they want. Mixer would not thrive anymore here, even though this forum is where they can advertise and get the highest number of users. While it is not happening in the next 27 days why argue with the authority of the owner of this forum?  

Well, do not be surprised if we keep on seeing this conservation active for another 27 days until the mixers are banned and I am sure at that time theymos will lock this thread too. Till then keep the ideas and emotions flow in  

These looneys thinks that if they cry for a long time, the mixers will be returned to them.

Don't know if this cry is only for the mixers going away from this forum (the people can still use the mixers even if they are not discussed on the forum), it's also about the signature campaigns and earnings associated with the mixers on this forum. 

[GeorgeJohn]

For me it's better for mixer to leave bitcointalk than government seize bitcointalk because of promotion of mixers in the forum, I know the reason many comments is emphasising indirectly of mixer not to leave the forum, the thing I know that should be the major objective of people lamenting in favour of mixer is because they give high offer in signatures but we have to consider the existence of bitcointalk, because its obvious that as long as mixers is been existing in the forum they will other commitments of mixer in which bitcointalk will not be aware unless law enforcement agencies seize their platform before forum will get aware, and besides government can come to attack forum saying that they are promoting scam and because of it they may seize forum. So it's better theymos ban mixer as he said before they will implicate bitcointalk

[aoluain]

Must we start to worry in what other ways pressure may be applied on Bitcointalk and its operators?

It's better to prepare and work on alternative solutions than to worry about this.
There is nothing we can do since identity of bitcointalk owner is known publicly, and servers are located in his country.
I can understand theymos from this position, it was probably not an easy decision to make, but he just opened big can of worms and pandora box  
On positive side, there will be a lot of space open for new and old campaigns to hire good quality members, so it's not the end of the world ^(yet).

Thats the thing, I would rather the Forum to continue operating at the expense of advertising
Mixers.

Its a sad thing thats happening given that mixing Bitcoin is to us normal and a very
important tool to have at our disposal, this doesnt change from the 1st of Jan though.

We can all still talk about mixing coins but in the same vain as Harry Potter and
"he who must not be named"

[d5000]

There is more interesting info to be found if you use the link, but I think it is quite easy based on these requirements for US prosecutors to operate internationally because American citizens are served by all mixers and that case can easily be made. They could just find one single person to have used a particular service. Worst case is that a mixing service really launders tens of millions of stolen funds. But I underlined the part that Chainalysis correctly brought up as the major contradiction: KYC + mixing coins makes zero sense.

Yep. But that's the view of one country with about 4% of the global population. Of course there are more, like EU states under MiCa, with similar requirements for any service which stores customers' coins. But in many countries crypto services aren't regulated, and in others (like Switzerland), for KYC to apply there are thresholds which could be respected by mixers without putting into risk their business model. They simply could implement a policy like "only X coins per IP/day", and to circunvent that, you need proxies or VPNs so that would be again an "advanced" technique (and it would be simpler to use Monero for example).

There should be ways for mixers to use geofiltering to exclude users from the KYC-demanding countries. Tor may be an issue there, but normally if a company takes "reasonable" action against being used by customers of a particular country, they should be fine against prosecution from the US and other privacy-unfriendly states.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I don't see the point: criminals already know what they're doing is illegal. It sounds like a gun shop putting up a sign: "don't rob banks". Innocent people weren't going to do it, and the bad guys already know robbing banks is not allowed.

The current situation neither makes sense. It is the same as saying that it is illegal to use guns unless not bought from gun shops. Alright, so innocent people won't buy guns or will be inconvenienced at buying guns as they will have to look for alternatives, and criminals will definitely find guns elsewhere.

Gun shops = mixers.
Guns from elsewhere = XMR, coinjoins etc. (which, just between us, are more effective and therefore "dangerous" than the former)

[philipma1957]

My stance on this discussion (dunno if someone will read it after more than 15 pages ):

We should first think about why mixing services are there, and why they do not only provide "legitimate" use caes, but why it should be considered a human right to use them. The blockchain is completely public. Everybody with some blockchain analysis skills can link your addresses to merchants or employers and thus know what you buy and where you work. That's something not possible with the banking system, as long as the logs of the banks aren't hacked, and without mixers you would need advanced techniques to preserve your privacy in the same way. (For sure, you could "mix" your coins on a KYCed exchange too for this purpose, but if you only need the exchange for that purpose, it would mean you take the risk your documents may be hacked and used for identity theft. You could also CoinJoin or P2P altcoin exchanges but that's already an "advanced" technique).

And even if mixers can be used in money laundering schemes, mixing is not the core part of money laundering. It can be used to hide a particular trace, but you can't convert mixed coins into "clean" money without using advanced techniques like founding a company (or collaborating with one) which receives the mixed coins and converts them into "legitimate" money. This means, while you can cash out small and medium quantities to fiat (via P2P, for example) you won't be able to buy a house with that money if you need to provide a proof of funds like it's common in many countries.

I can however understand the decision to not allow mixer ads anymore. Ads can give the public outside of the community the impression that there is a link between the forum and mixers. If a particular mixer is actually used with the collaboration of their owners in money laundering schemes, and advertises here (without knowledge of the community of course), then for the government agencies it may give the impression that this behavior is tolerated in the forum, even if this isn't the case. So I can understand the perspective of the forum admin to ban them.

So my proposal is actually simple: talking and also linking to mixers, as long as they aren't seized (and thus be considered illegal) should be allowed, but for mixer ads, I could understand a ban.

Doesn't mean I'm happy with that, I think there should be ways to advertise mixing services which are legal in the country they operate, and for example provide their company address. Don't know if many of these services exist though.

I wonder, how Lightning Network is classified. Is it a mixer or not?

LN "as a whole" doesn't fit the requirements. You always need two channels to use LN as a mixer, and "sending to yourself" is not necessarily what's advertised (does Phoenix Wallet advertise this service as a core part of their software?). The funny thing is that if you use it with one channel only, it could be seen as the opposite of a mixer, as for "the blockchain" (i.e. non-Lightning-aware software) when you close the channel you simply move the same coins you entered, but their "economic value" may come from a completely different source (which includes of course criminal activities).

exactly this.  i had a mason fix my front porch. I paid him 2 checks one for 2000 usd the second for 1000 usd.

does he get to see that my checking account has 10 million (wish it did). my remaining blance stays hidden.


the world governments are morons. they used sinbad to catch huge vast 50% illegal mixing.  and they shut it down. fine okay if it did that but this means they can use more mixers to catch more illegal coin action.

so they should encourage mixers and give bitcointalk the ability to advertise mixers like a mofo.

then contact the mixers to find crooks.

we did the governments of the world a favor by attracting 50% illegal activity (their words not mine)

to sinbad.

I think if sinbad has 5000 confiscated coins every sinbad ad should be reward 10% of the take.

if it wasn't for us the evil doers would not have been caught.

[BenCodie]

I have no issue with mixer advertisements being banned...it is certain that the intentions and motives of the entire user base can not be said to be 100% innocent and purely for the right of privacy

However, we should not be limiting or censoring their entire discussion.

They should be allowed to be discussed in the services discussion board, and announcements should be allowed in the announcements board.

The reason for this is more for scam prevention than anything. Imagine how many people will be scammed because they don't know what service is legitimate or not? What we will find is that there will be scam accusation topics discussing mixers, but then no where else on the forum will.

It is wrong for the forum to have no policy on mixers to now completely censoring them. That is entirely wrong, and a very bug statement that BCT is in favor of working with LE rather than discussing with its users the fair medium and standing strong on tuat fair medium.

Additionally, now that privacy has taken a hit yet again....why don't we have a board to discuss legitimate privacy and security topics as this is now integral to ensure users are secured against threats?

Theymos, it's unfair to take a shield away from users just because of its material and brand, and not give them a perfectly compliant shield in return. A Cyber security and Privacy board is the compliant shield and is needed more than ever now if you care about the BCT communities human right to privacy.

Satoshi would have added this board by now and I don't think anyone can argue with that.

[tread93]

Theymos, I understand this decision had to be taken to save the forum from alot of accusations in aiding fraudulent activity in the future but what next are we going to ban? Will crypto non KYC casinos be next as they too can be used for mixing. The government are winning and there's nothing we can do about it. It's sad that one of the most rewarding service on the forum that pays their participants a decent amount of money is going away. I guess we'll return to the casinos taking over the forum. Mixers were associated with Bitcoin and it was nice seeing them around as it remembered us of privacy. I didn't use a mixer until I say an advert of one on the forum and currently promoting one because of their usefulness. It's just sad that we're killing privacy everyday.

Will it come to a time of KYC-mixers?

It sounds weird now but maybe in future, it will happen and with KYC, mixers will be allowed by laws. The point is to avoid criminals to use mixers, not good people who want privacy to use mixers.

Where's the privacy going to be when you have already submitted your kyc that can be access by hackers or the government whenever they want to. The point is the government wants to monitor everything so services that makes it difficult for them to know what is going on is a threat to them and they're try to eliminate them on time and not give them similar doubts they did to Bitcoin and see where Bitcoin is today (impossible to kill). I also see things heading the way of kyc-mixes as the government is okay with privacy that's under their supervision.

I think that this move is definitely in the best interest of all the users on here, and being affiliated with any such mixers is probably not the best to have shown anywhere publicaly if mixers like Sinbad are getting shut down. The coins mixers are definitely seen as a threat to the US Govt' because they have been linked many times to the laundering of money. Privacy is a non-renewable resource in this day and age and the day that we are purely in a cashless society will be a very grim day for everyone. It was a good run I suppose w/ the mixer campaigns! Definitely feeling for all the signature campaigners, it was a great way to make a little extra and talk about something we all liked and kept up with daily. This move won't stop the mixers though, they will continue on through other online forums and online advertisment efforts.

Also, I just read Ben's comment above on the Cyber Security Board and I couldn't agree more! People need to be aware of industryi standards in a way that relates to crypto preservation and anti-theft safety and security practices, especially here where we have so many newbs who have no clue, even higher ranked forum members.

[examplens]

I was privately absent from the forum for a few days and this greeted me. A very bad decision by the forum administration and this is nothing but the introduction of censorship. I have read most of the discussion, and I completely agree with PrivacyG and what he stated here. Well, I won't repeat the same things.

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?

The whole idea is wrong and leads to the marginalization of the Bitcointalk community. It is almost certainly leading the forum towards the introduction of KYC and is sliding to become a training ground for Gambling and NFT discussions.

So many loopholes were found in the implementation of this censorship, so it will be very interesting to see how the moderators manage this in practice. Different interpretations will cause new discussions, so it is to be expected that the Meta section will be full of questions about whether any discussion is in accordance with these strange rules. Also, this is expected to cause some new bans, I am of the opinion that for such unclear rules, the forum does not have a sufficiently organized moderation. and so far we have seen that moderators' reactions are only after several months or even years when a ban appeal appears.

Next, LoyceV has already mentioned various threads that contain a collection of scam mixer services. So, the new rule is that they (scammers) can be mentioned and written about, and for example, the mixer who has been here on the forum since 2018 has been expelled.
Should we add an example that the Russian board has a dedicated section for HYIP scams? A separate place for Ponzi, hyip, cloud mining and similar seeds. Nobody got banned for that.

One very important thing. Many non-forum users, when stuck in a problem with a Bitcoin service, come to the Bitcointalk forum to present the problem and ask for help from this community. It has happened in quite a lot of cases that because of the pressure on the forum and maintaining the reputation here, the service is more attentive to solving the problem.

For most mixers, this forum is the only place where they have their official representatives. Now I even think that the investigative authorities do not approve of this decision, because one source of information that they used during the investigation eludes them.

I sincerely hope that the bigger picture will be looked at and this decision will be reconsidered.

3. The service does not collect KYC-type info from all users.

So what's next?
Are you going to ask all members to perform KYC on bitcointalk?  
There are plenty of legit websites you can use without kyc, virtual cards, vpn services, casinos, etc.

It is even possible to register on Google without KYC. It's a bit unbelievable to me that this is a theymos statement. 

[digaran]

I think if sinbad has 5000 confiscated coins every sinbad ad should be reward 10% of the take.

if it wasn't for us the evil doers would not have been caught.

What are you saying man? Are you saying that any undercover agent should get %10 of the dirty money? What does a forum poster do other than posting? Lol
This statement of yours is wrong on several levels, the cops do the work, you want the "confiscated" to be shared? I can't digest this logic.

But I like it, let us all go undercover and get paid with hacked money.😉

[philipma1957]

I think if sinbad has 5000 confiscated coins every sinbad ad should be reward 10% of the take.

if it wasn't for us the evil doers would not have been caught.

What are you saying man? Are you saying that any undercover agent should get %10 of the dirty money? What does a forum poster do other than posting? Lol
This statement of yours is wrong on several levels, the cops do the work, you want the "confiscated" to be shared? I can't digest this logic.

But I like it, let us all go undercover and get paid with hacked money.😉

Irs pays 10% to some one that reports a tax evader.

The fbi regularly uses civilian as assets. pays them.

so if the hundred or so people that had sinbad signatures get a reward for attracting criminals to use sinbad why would not  they get some of the confiscated funds.

We need a good class action lawyer to sue the government agencies for proper compensation.

Btw as I understand the new rule I can keep this signature the way it is. or do I deactivate the links in it.

I fully intend to comply with theymos rules. as i understand them them This goes on dec 31 and I am all good.

[digaran]

We need a good class action lawyer to sue the government agencies for proper compensation.

Btw as I understand the new rule I can keep this signature the way it is. or do I deactivate the links in it.

I fully intend to comply with theymos rules. as i understand them them This goes on dec 31 and I am all good.

That's a different story, you can ask people to report criminal activities and give them money, there is even a big percentage of the embezzled  money that goes to the whistle blowers. This case is different the money does not belong to the government, it belongs to people, besides we are not attracting criminals here, in fact no criminal logs in this forum, they just watch from distance, not to mention all of these operations of all on forum mixers, are just a distraction, the big fishes are operating elsewhere.

But do we know which one of the existing mixers are honeypots? I'm willing to bet half of them are honeypots and the rest are a front, a facade to keep the LE busy.
The largest money washing machines are big centralized exchanges, just like the big banks.