Mixers to be banned

[cryptosize]

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

Satoshi used his brain to invent a decentralized currency, he didn't cry like a baby just because he lost money.

Care to invent a decentralized forum?

More action, less words.

[Erumo]

Who complaining more about mixers ban? Those who really used them and advised them to others, or those who only care about wearing signature and money? Forum is not just a place where you come, post your 15-25, get btc and run away.

[BoXXoB]

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.

Exactly. How come these "investor-based games" i.e. scams deserve their own dedicated board but mixers are straight up banned. Ban every single one of these shady services if you ban one.

This is coming from a person who has NEVER endorsed a single mixer. I've never worn a mixer signature. I don't think there's any need for mixers. It's just this decision being weird considering what else is still allowed on the forum.

It would be far less controversial if mixer signature campaigns were banned instead of banning them completely.

[PrivacyG]

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.

It is very strange if you think it through.

We will have to rephrase our Bitcoin Talk posts and talk in a different manner because of this new policy.  I will be afraid to post a new reply because WHAT IF I get banned for even MENTIONING something I was not supposed to.  New members of the Forum will ask innocent questions that may now get them banned.

Feels like just another website of 2023.  You either say what you are supposed to or you are out.  Shadow banned or banned entirely.

Then you look at the whole forum and wonder why the fuck is this thread even a thing.  1xBit has advertised a scam service for a VERY long time on Bitcoin Talk with no repercussions.  So many members took actually criminal money from a criminal service and many of them are still around continuing to advertise.  See kotwica666 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=303259), the rise (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=922508) and more.  A lot of the 1xBit Signature Campaign participants are not active any more but still promote their Scam in their Signature and Avatar.

Here is where I draw a small line and get to the result.  So Scams which are literal criminals affecting MANY Bitcoin Talk readers are welcome here but Mixers get banned because they affect the freedom of theymos?  I do not say theymos should stop worrying about his freedom.  But it seems more reasonable to care for every body and it seems kind of weird to see scammers hanging around here free and pretty much spitting on every single victim on this 'freedom of a Forum' but then theymos feels threatened once and he cracks down on Mixers.

Not only this.  But theymos, have you ever looked at the Services board?  Some body is selling 'Anonymous debit cards with no KYC' opened under some body elses name (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5244746.0).  This thread has been active since 2020.  How legal is it to have Debit Cards sold on Bitcoin Talk?

It is baffling.  I can talk about 1xBit and I think I will not get banned even if I start promoting their Signature TODAY.  Or if I mentioned their link in many of my posts.  I can buy actual Debit Cards from REAL BANKS and use them.  But I can not talk about Mixers no more?

Anyway.  I said this many times in the past and will repeat it.  If Mixers are proved to TRULY be a criminal tool and a majority of the Mixing Transactions is crime.  Then ban them.  I am not supporting crime in any way and will never do it.  But I have yet to see an Authority proving Mixers are as bad as they make it seem.

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

I missed this statement completely.  It is outrageous to see theymos pointing out non Know Your Customer as an indication for a 'criminal Service'.  What in the world!

-----

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.

But then what is the point of banning Mixers on Bitcoin Talk.  Particularly if theymos has not even received a warning from any Authority at all.  Innocent people do not have criminal funds to send through Mixers and the bad guys already know using criminal funds is already not allowed as per most Terms of Services of most Mixers.

I think there are so many more things theymos could receive a warning from Authorities about.  Some of them worse than Mixers.  Maybe the hundreds of Scam ICOs and all the Scam Services that have ever been promoted here?  It seems like Bitcoin Talk is fine with advertising actual Scams!

[Vispilio]

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?

“As the essence of Matter is Gravity, so, on the other hand, we may affirm that the substance, the essence of Spirit is Freedom.”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (from The Philosophy of History)


Similarly, we can conclude that the essence of Crypto is the sovereignty of individual genius over any restrictions that might be imposed by the state or the mainstream establishment.

[philipma1957]

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

This forum was never a democracy.

satoshi wouldn't give a shit.

it's really sucks

Dude it is not a dictatorship.

I probably suffered the worst signature loose of all.

I had to refund months of a prepaid signature. paid to me in btc and the btc went up 10%

I lost thousands due to this decision.

If btc goes up more like 10,000 plus will be lost to me.

It is not about the earnings. what matters is the forum continues and we pivot as best we can.

theymos is doing a good job it is not easy to operate in the USA. 🇺🇸 laws are fucked up.


Here is a simple example you are 18 your girlfriend is 17 you drive over the george washington bridge while she is giving you a handjob. On one side of the bridge you are not a pedophile on the other side of the bridge you are a pedophile. Age of consent is 17 in NY and 18 in NJ.


so it seems off topic but it is not it illustrates how laws differ.

We have zero idea of what he was told. and we had a federal agency get tagged by moron dt members.

not clever on their part.

[Shishir99]

What if theymos follows your advice and ignores all the warnings and threats?

What warning and threats are you talking about? Theymos did not get any threats or warnings from anyone and he confirmed this.

Are you guys responsible that this forum won't get closed/seized by authorities? Are you a guarantor? No, right?

No, I am not the guarantor, and no one else too. But are you a guarantor that theymos won't start censoring the casinos next? and then coinjoin? then exchanges?  

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.

I am not wearing mixer signature. I didn't wear any mixer signature before. So, your logic does not aplies for me.

I see this forum as an internet forum where people have freedom of speech and they can discuss everything that is not illegal. Do you consider mixers as illegal services? Casinos are not legal in many countries including mine. Even Bitcoin is not legal too. A entity cannot seize a platform like this without taking legal action because forum is not connected with any mixer, casinos or exchanges. The forum has enough fund to hire a lawyer. If you are not doing anything illegal, you should have balls to speak against anyone.

[Wapfika]

Who complaining more about mixers ban? Those who really used them and advised them to others, or those who only care about wearing signature and money? Forum is not just a place where you come, post your 15-25, get btc and run away.

The majority of the user complaining about the ban is due to signature campaign payment and the rest is due to censorship since we can’t deny that campaigns here motivate every user to post in daily basis. Only few users are posting just because they are really interested on discussion with 25 post+ per day.

But there’s nothing wrong on getting paid here since it can help user from 3rd world country to have an extra help financially. So this movement might be just the start to ban other campaigns in the future which is the real concern by everyone due to the censorship.

[Vispilio]

Here is a simple example you are 18 your girlfriend is 17 you drive over the george washington bridge while she is giving you a handjob. On one side of the bridge you are not a pedophile on the other side of the bridge you are a pedophile. Age of consent is 17 in NY and 18 in NJ.


so it seems off topic but it is not it illustrates how laws differ.

So you hang out with intellectual girls who understand that you are both teens and who will say nothing if some lumbering police officer pulls you over, you can have the handjob and more in any state you want.

If your girlfriend turns out to be a coward who doesn't understand how the fulfillment of savage instincts (in a mutually beneficial way), undomesticated by the ego, can enhance human life, then you dump her and move on to better girls... Might give some clues about why this forum has been on a consistent decline since years in views and engagement...

[mrust_mobile]

theymos is doing a good job it is not easy to operate in the USA. 🇺🇸 laws are fucked up.

True. Considering that most international casinos/exchanges don't accept any users/players from the US (unless they set up an office in the US) because of their fucked up laws, I am actually surprised we made it this far.

Over the years, lots of people made this forum their primary source of income. When I first joined here people were saying sig camps ain't no jobs but... (and it wasn't a lie) Here we are.

[digaran]

After sleeping on it I have now a few theories:
1- the LE didn't contact theymos to ask him to announce the shut down because they didn't consider him responsible, but theymos considered their threats as a personal warning and decided to ban mixers.

2- he thinks they kind of insulted him by coming here unannounced and posting like that, so he is now trying to get back at them by banning all mixers which some of them might very well be honeypots for LE, and by doing this they now will have to spend more time and resources to keep tracks of every movements of all the mixers.

3- he just doesn't want more attention from LE, because there are really some teenagers running around doing stupid things like defying authorities in the middle of their operations, and since he doesn't want  tell them what is wrong and what is right all the time, he is now hitting a few birds with one stone.

First bird: we don't condone criminal activities.

Second bird: don't mess with LE guys. Why would you tag them? Don't you know you can't go slap a police officer ever not to mention while they are on duty?

Third bird: hey LE agencies, go find your criminals and threaten them somewhere else, not here.

Fourth bird: we are good people and law abiding citizens, remember that LE people.

Fifth bird: we believe mixers are only good for criminals, we also believe bankers are criminals as well that's why we support Bitcoin and as well as LE agencies which work for bankers. A contradiction, I know right?
Last one is a joke : he did this and asked the agent: how do you like it boss?😂

[Woodie]

Considering mixers arent so much different from Custodial exchanges, if these guys rebranded as exchanges..can they continue to operate here?


Maybe its time to have some kind of geofenced forum, US users will not access mixer related content, and for everyone else no restrictions applied

[cryptosize]

Considering mixers arent so much different from Custodial exchanges, if these guys rebranded as exchanges..can they continue to operate here?


Maybe its time to have some kind of geofenced forum, US users will not access mixer related content, and for everyone else no restrictions applied

Mixer fanatics do not want legal mixers with KYC.

They better start using Monero... BTC isn't made for everything.

[Rikafip]

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.

Yep, just one of the things that never made much sense to me and now even less with having mixers banned.

Mixer fanatics do not want legal mixers with KYC.

Mixers with mandatory KYC make as much sense as a wooden stove and would probably be equally popular.

[LoyceV]

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

then contact the mixers to find crooks.

If government wants a mixer that alerts them on "crooks", they'll have to create their own honeypot mixer.

It is almost certainly leading the forum towards the introduction of KYC

I don't share this fear. KYC would leave only spammers with bought identities on Bitcointalk, all good users will abandon it.

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.

I guess Newbies will get banned, and users who have something to lose won't risk testing the boundaries of the new rules.

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.

Lol. What if they were promoting a honeypot mixer here, and now can't talk about it anymore?

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

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

From a regulator's perspective, I'd say this makes sense. If a mixer follows KYC procedures, they can either catch the criminals or criminals won't use it.

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.

Lol. I don't think "attracting criminals" is a goal for law enforcement.

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.

I don't get this: if you send your non taxable coins through a mixer, how do you prove it's non taxable? I like the blockchain evidence that proves those coins were old. Where I live, everything is taxable, but that's not the point here.

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

That's not a loophole: an URL is still an URL even if it's not clickable. So posting "abcd.mixer" won't be allowed.

[dkbit98]

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.

I was thinking exactly the same thing, why else would theymos even mention KYC in the first place with new rules, it's like preprograming to later accept this change easier.
However, it's not like I would do much better if I was in his shoes, there was obvious danger of someone seizing and shutting down bitcointalk if we continued business like usual.

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

Yeah but I think not for long.
They are already making big changes with fighting ad blockers and verification is surely one of their wet dreams, since they already have Gpay.

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

And not allowing member to talk about them like they used to.
I am sure members are going to adapt with time, at least for few more years, as long as overlords allow us to exist, own something and be happy.

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.

I thought the whole point is that bitcointalk forum is officially not supporting mixer ads anymore, and I can understand that, but I never saw mods being so zealous about real scams.

I don't share this fear. KYC would leave only spammers with bought identities on Bitcointalk, all good users will abandon it.

I can agree on that and I would do that, but question is how many good members we have in forum...
I think big majority would easily perform verification for few milli-bitcoins.

[Hueristic]

So Dash is banned right?

[joker_josue]

I think most people still don't understand what led to this decision.

Maybe putting things another way might help.
The Sinbad mixing service was shut down by authorities because the service was allegedly used to clean stolen bitcoins. But the owners of the service were not caught, and it appears they continue to operate the service on the darkweb.

Now you would say: Then Sinbad should be banned from advertising.
Yes, that could just be the rule. But, what would prevent the owners of Sinbad from opening the clone service and advertising on the forum again?

Note that the steps of Sinbad's owners are under the surveillance of the authorities.

This could cause serious problems for the forum, and for the users of the forum. Some, without knowing it, could see their lives ruined the day they decided to visit a country and at the airport they are arrested, because of a simple signature on the forum.

As it would be difficult for the administration to know which mixers were associated with the former owners of Sinbad (or other services that may be closed), it took the decision not to authorize anything related to the mixes.

Perhaps @theymos, in an emotional way, was too radical in his first approach to the subject, but he has already explained that people can continue to talk, as long as there is no clear promotion of these services.

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?

[royalfestus]

How can something not be illegal and the law enforcement is going after it? I dont understand something here

[OgNasty]

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

This forum was never a democracy.

satoshi wouldn't give a shit.

it's really sucks

Dude it is not a dictatorship.

I probably suffered the worst signature loose of all.

I had to refund months of a prepaid signature. paid to me in btc and the btc went up 10%

I lost thousands due to this decision.

If btc goes up more like 10,000 plus will be lost to me.

It is not about the earnings. what matters is the forum continues and we pivot as best we can.

theymos is doing a good job it is not easy to operate in the USA. 🇺🇸 laws are fucked up.


Here is a simple example you are 18 your girlfriend is 17 you drive over the george washington bridge while she is giving you a handjob. On one side of the bridge you are not a pedophile on the other side of the bridge you are a pedophile. Age of consent is 17 in NY and 18 in NJ.


so it seems off topic but it is not it illustrates how laws differ.

We have zero idea of what he was told. and we had a federal agency get tagged by moron dt members.

not clever on their part.

Directions to this bridge? Kidding…

I’m sorry to hear you took a hit from a prepaid campaign. Surely you’d think they’d be willing to work with you if you made the situation clear to them. I’ve been in similar situations though. I once had a customer not pay me for almost two years and then finally give me a lump sum in BTC at the peak of the market which by the time the funds were sold on an exchange took such a big hit that it basically all ended up going to taxes. Sometimes people just don’t think how their actions effect you.