Mixers to be banned

[philipma1957]

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.

yep and to anyone with a good stack of coins that have a low capital cost privacy is import.

like I said before when I write a check to pay my mason he does not know what is left in my bank account.


mixers are one of the only ways to hide non taxable coins.

if a guy is holding 50 coins from a block he hit  in 2011. He wants  to cash a few in 2011 that block was worth under 500 bucks and he reported hitting the block in 2012 paid his tax.In the USA 🇺🇸 if he held it to now he owes no tax.

If he wants to cash some of it he should not need to reveal the rest as it is not taxable.

This is very interesting as we have seen many older untouched blocks from 2009 to 2010

I wonder if they have been held in case the government wants to do this.

The feds could get burned bigly over this. In the meantime bitcointalk can wait on the sidelines as the best way to end this issue is some of those old blocks get cashed mixed and there are lawsuits over it.

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[LeGaulois]

It's a bit like if the TalkGold forum banned advertising banking services


Anyway It's going to hurt the whole niche for sure and forums won't be the only one following this decision. For exemple, blogs won't allow purchasing advertising space on their website.

And scammers will make a lot of cash from it. Bitcointalk is considered having a high DA and with high PA and that's what bothered scammers a lot.
I know Theymos can say: "outside this forum is not my business". Yes, true, the matter is the forum and not the world wide web

As for promoting a mixer, it won't be difficult to bypass the change. The admin then will have to make more changes for a total ban because the quote below will only work 3 months about

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?

[philipma1957]

It's a bit like if the TalkGold forum banned advertising banking services


Anyway It's going to hurt the whole niche for sure and forums won't be the only one following this decision. For exemple, blogs won't allow purchasing advertising space on their website.

And scammers will make a lot of cash from it. Bitcointalk is considered having a high DA and with high PA and that's what bothered scammers a lot.
I know Theymos can say: "outside this forum is not my business". Yes, true, the matter is the forum and not the world wide web

As for promoting a mixer, it won't be difficult to bypass the change. The admin then will have to make more changes for a total ban because the quote below will only work 3 months about

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?

I am not following you as to why this quote will work for 3 months time?

[LeGaulois]

I am not following you as to why this quote will work for 3 months time?

Hi @philipma1957

Someone can make for exemple make a signature design with no link. He writes "Go to visit abcd.mixer"
People just have to open a new tab and search for the domain name

In a post, the same can be done, it's fine since I don't directly post their URLs

[cryptosize]

Personally, I never understood why advertising mixers on a forum in 2023 makes sense from a financial perspective (compared to Facebook or Twitter).

It doesn't make a lot of sense, because even this forum has miniscule traffic compared to behemoth social media platforms. Forums are generally dead in 2023.

BUT it does make sense to lure innocent BTC hodlers to send their clean coins and mix them with tainted ones (like those from MtGox, Silk Road etc.)

Hell, I remember a certain someone (which I won't name, but he's pretty well-known on this forum) being overly enthusiastic about a certain mixer (WhirlWind, I think?) offering 12% APY.

That guy is generally pro-self custody, he doesn't trust exchanges (and rightly so), but he was willing to forfeit custody of his coins to gain 12% APY.

Please tell me: who pays that 12% APY and from where?

BTC is not FED to print money out of thin air. BTC is a deflationary currency. Hell, even the USD via FED's bonds offers 5% APY at most, no more than that!

Believe it or not, I tried to warn him (even though I had zero obligation to do so) that this sounds too good to be true, but I'm not sure if he listened to me. It would be a shame if he lost his coins.

Now it makes sense to me why they offered 12% APY: it's because they wanted to lure BTC hodlers with clean coins.

There is no free lunch. If you don't know the source of yield, you're the yield.-

[philipma1957]

I am not following you as to why this quote will work for 3 months time?

Hi @philipma1957

Someone can make for exemple make a signature design with no link. He writes "Go to visit abcd.mixer"
People just have to open a new tab and search for the domain name

In a post, the same can be done, it's fine since I don't directly post their URLs

Thank you for the reasoning behind your post. I understand the loophole now.

[julerz12]

Someone can make for exemple make a signature design with no link. He writes "Go to visit abcd.mixer"
People just have to open a new tab and search for the domain name

In a post, the same can be done, it's fine since I don't directly post their URLs

Isn't that still counted as advertising a mixer or a paid-advertisement?
Pretty sure, no one would wear a signature with a mixer's name on it (even w/o any URLs) without getting any payment/incentive.

Any remaining mixer signatures (etc.) may be deleted. Anyone persisting in advertising mixers will be banned.

- It's not a paid ad, and you're not representing a mixer.

Thank you for the reasoning behind your post. I understand the loophole now.

There is no loophole.
There won't be any signatures blatantly advertising a mixer starting Jan. 1, 2024, unless they want to get banned then by all means, be my guest.

[PX-Z]

Hey @theymos can we at least extend this decision to maybe 2-3 months instead of 1? Why, just because, it's bitter pill hard to swallow (just like what had mentioned) and it's a new year to be celebrated of not to mourn lol

[garlonicon]

can we at least extend this decision to maybe 2-3 months instead of 1?

No, here is why: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5446803.0

See? March 29, 2023. People had enough time to see, in which direction things are going.

it's bitter pill hard to swallow

It has to be. Current mixers are seized by the government, that is the reason. You still want to advertise a mixer? Good, then make one, where coins could never be stolen, for example CoinJoin (transaction is valid, and signed by everyone, or never happens).

it's a new year to be celebrated of not to mourn

The timing is perfect. If not now, then it could be introduced in 2025. Choosing new year for new rules is perfect, for many reasons, including tax-related things.

[jokers10]

When many talk about mixers as a way to hide assets from gov, didn't you pay attention on how the situation with Chipmixer or Sinbad went? Authorities first named the exact offenses connected to these mixers and only then they seized servers and made efforts to arrest the suspects. They knew all they need before they acted. But you never know which address in Bitcoin of whom, so how did they know that those criminals used right those mixers?

You can't hide anything in blockchain from a big enough organisation like a gov of a big country or a big corporation, because they have enough analysts and resources to find out all they want. Mixers can be effective only to hide your assets from your neighbor or a salesman from a corner store. Bitcoin blockchain is transparent and guys from gov will know all they need.

(WhirlWind, I think?)
...
Now it makes sense to me why they offered 12% APY: it's because they wanted to lure BTC hodlers with clean coins.

Whirlwind is not that case, it ended with a probably exit scam, so they probably collected BTC at a high percentage to make a Ponzi scheme.

[mv1986]

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.

It is not that I agree with you 100%, actually I do. But I wonder what issues do arise when - let's say - US authorities themselves (undercover of course) use a VPN and give a mixing service a try with a million dollars and it works. Wouldn't they immediately have a legit case in their hands to start prosecution? I don't know how it works, but if authorities need a case to take action, isn't setting one up the easiest part of it all? They specifically prosecuted Binance for serving US customers (among other things of course). If that is enough to get prosecuted, I think no mixing service could ever get away from them and that is why the KYC requirement is the insurmountable hurdle as no service would collect KYC data. But I would like to hear any differing opinion on that.

[Timelord2067]

Ponzi....

It's unlikely #theymos will ban Ponzi participants given all the admin/mods are turning a collective blind eye to such goings on (and protecting ban evaders too)... 🤔

[hilariousandco]

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?

I think the biggest issue is probably the worry about people being banned for merely mentioning a mixer but you have to be careful about creating loopholes for those that wish to promote them here and people can and will be sneaky about trying to skirt any restrictions.

Ponzi....

It's unlikely #theymos will ban Ponzi participants given all the admin/mods are turning a collective blind eye to such goings on (and protecting ban evaders too)... 🤔

If they're currently allowed here then why would staff do anything about them as it's not our job. I'm sure there's many mods who would happily remove or ban them if they could.

[BoXXoB]

It's unlikely #theymos will ban Ponzi participants given all the admin/mods are turning a collective blind eye to such goings on (and protecting ban evaders too)... 🤔

If they're currently allowed here then why would staff do anything about them as it's not our job. I'm sure there's many mods who would happily remove or ban them if they could.

I think the bigger problem here is that this change is controversial not because people think mixers are inherently good and should be endorsed but because there has been a certain degree of freedom on the forum.

Now suddenly (or less suddenly) it is being censored by banning mixers while allowing other questionable services to remain. The treatment is not equal and may lead to other decisions that overall ruin Bitcointalk as we know it.

[Woodie]

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.

The fact that mixers around here have the best incentives means them going down could mean less traffic coming into the forum and less active users altogether!

And with the likelihood of gambling sigs becoming the dominant services once again, this could mean the so called top contributors could become regulars in boards such as the Gambling board which for some reason is considered the hub of spam

One other impact that will come from this is an increase in post quality as places in sigs get to become competitive...

[Synchronice]

I have an assumption that majority of people on this forum don't care about the fate of bitcointalk and only care about your pocket. You guys suggest admin to ignore warnings and still let users to promote mixers to get some $$ in pocket but none of you take the responsibility on the fate of this forum. What if theymos follows your advice and ignores all the warnings and threats? Are you guys responsible that this forum won't get closed/seized by authorities? Are you a guarantor? No, right? So don't be a selfish and think critically. I know many of you will tell me that it's 0:1 for bitcointalk but deep in your heart, many of you know that you don't care about privacy but about bucks received from mixers. There are only a few people on this forum that genuinely care about privacy. A guy that sends mixer earnings to Binance, can't suggest Theymos to not play safe and start a riot.

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.

Are you serious, really? You can't get a reward for attracting criminals, you are not an FBI agent, you might get punished for that Register a website and start promoting of darknets to attract criminals, you'll see the results of your actions and that will be everything other than reward.

[NotATether]

I think the bigger problem here is that this change is controversial not because people think mixers are inherently good and should be endorsed but because there has been a certain degree of freedom on the forum.

Now suddenly (or less suddenly) it is being censored by banning mixers while allowing other questionable services to remain. The treatment is not equal and may lead to other decisions that overall ruin Bitcointalk as we know it.

Let's start by archiving this board, huh?

Exactly zero active users on that board who are not scammers. Nobody's gonna miss them.

[sheenshane]

I'm quite late and it's 20 pages already, I skipped some pages upon reading and I noticed that most didn't agree with the decision of Theymos.
This is a tough decision made by the admin, we know it has a different impact not only on the forum participants (pocket) but also on the forum itself which is to lessen the potential profit that comes from the mixers ads in the forum, a decision to ban them might also have financial implications that need to be carefully weighed.  But the admin concern here is to protect the future of our forum to take care of possible seizing by the government by helping mixers promotion.

I understand Theymos' decision.
For the sake of the forum's existence, let's move forward, nothing to argue with the admin's decision and it has been weighed, IMO.

Just my two cents.

[Shenanigan]

For the sake of the forum's existence, let's move forward, nothing to argue with the admin's decision and it has been weighed, IMO.

At first mixers were banned
Now are you trying to prohibite discussions


The forum is turning into dictatorship. Satoshi would not approve of this

[mrust_mobile]

The forum is turning into dictatorship. Satoshi would not approve of this

This forum was never a democracy.

satoshi wouldn't give a shit.

Wake up snowflake.