Mixers to be banned

[theymos]

Previously, I was under the impression that Jambler was merely a software or platform provider, like Wordpress or AWS. But after reviewing it more closely, it meets the definition of a mixer as written. My mind was especially changed when I saw this diagram from their website:


The diagram clearly shows that Jambler is the actual mixer. They issue the "letters of guarantee", they send the BTC directly to the final customer, etc. The partners are just lightweight proxies in front of the true mixer, which is Jambler. Jambler "has a feature advertised for taking property, improving its privacy somehow, and then returning roughly the same type of property", and it meets the other two criteria, so it's a mixer.

(Maybe you could make the case that Jambler's actual customers are its partners instead of the final end-users, but even in that case Jambler is acting as a mixer for its partners. Jambler is the one doing the mixing. So it's still a mixer in either case.)

Since I had previously ruled that Jambler did not meet the definition of a mixer, and I've now changed my mind, there will be a short grace period: Jambler will be wordfiltered (and otherwise treated as a mixer) starting on April 22.

As with other banned mixers, please do not interpret this as a moral judgement. I'm not saying that Jambler is or is not bad.

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[mrust_mobile]

There goes another business into the warm arms of altcointalk.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Jambler "has a feature advertised for taking property, improving its privacy somehow, and then returning roughly the same type of property"

Strictly speaking, it doesn't. Jambler doesn't act as a mixer, in and of itself. For partners, yes, it takes property, and yes it might return roughly the same plus a profit, but it nowhere says that it improves their privacy. The point of being a partner is to earn profit.

I could go on, but I don't think it matters, because it seems that you've made your choice. You could slightly change the criteria in the OP and it'd be rightly considered a mixer. You can't beat the admin.

[AB de Royse777]

There goes another business into the warm arms of altcointalk.

It's fair now. The community was misguided to believe that they are not a mixer. Many members knew about it but it was not discussed publicly. Even long time ago I and another highly reputed manager talked about it but decided to let it go. I did not want to be insulted and be trolled in case theymos had a different thinking that he has no problem with mixer working in different condition. But today after reading the post, we decided to share it with theymos.

We still have a long way to go to realize the original affect of the mixer ban from Bitcointalk. Right now we already know when a mixer act specious, it takes longer time to learn about it. In the recent time it happened with Yo!Mix. I learned about it after a few weeks while I was the one who was managing their signature campaign before mixers were ban on the forum.

[icopress]

It's fair now [...] we decided to share it with theymos.

Your interpretation and motives are clear to me. But do not confuse a sense of justice with hidden envy or anger.

Btw, do you still tell your clients that you have 65 positive feedbacks?

[cryptosize]

inb4 XMR ban (built-in mixer)

[cryptofrka]

Nice to see that personal vendettas are ruining decentralization for us all.

We as a society really don't deserve anything anymore.

[hugeblack]

@theymos I think that if Jambler partners are the ones who receive deposits and withdrawals, bear full responsibility for clients’ funds, and Jambler is the one who provides liquidity and technical support, then it should be allowed. What do you think?

Jambler provides a privacy feature and there are not many privacy services that are advertised here with high-quality posters, so giving them another chance will be beneficial for all.

But today after reading the post, we decided to share it with theymos.

There was an ongoing discussion about that topic so I don't know why you shared it with admin. The discussion started from here^[1] and its goal was to improve the service, not attack it.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5491818.msg63925142#msg63925142

[ABCbits]

inb4 XMR ban (built-in mixer)

That would require different definition or criteria of "mixer".

Nice to see that personal vendettas are ruining decentralization for us all.

We as a society really don't deserve anything anymore.

Jambler isn't decentralized though. They don't use that term either on their homepage or FAQ.

[NotATether]

@theymos I think that if Jambler partners are the ones who receive deposits and withdrawals, bear full responsibility for clients’ funds, and Jambler is the one who provides liquidity and technical support, then it should be allowed. What do you think?

You can't expect all Jambler partners to update their websites just because Bitcointalk is banning Jambler.

[hugeblack]

You can't expect all Jambler partners to update their websites just because Bitcointalk is banning Jambler.

I can think of four reasons:

 - Mixtum & Mixermoney & WebMixer& jambler was paying about +15K per week, so the forum is important to them, especially after CM was banned.
 - ALTT is still small compared to BTT.
 - If any legal problems occur, then jambler will be safe as the actual mixing is done through partners.
 - From a technical standpoint, modifying the code is easy. Instead of calling ----> https://api.[banned mixer]/, they can copy the content of the code to partners back-end and call Liquidity lib code. Conversely, it will be an advantage as the mixing algorithm will be unique for each partners.

They don't necessarily announce that the upgrade is due to BTT but to make their system more "decentralized."

[holydarkness]

@theymos I think that if Jambler partners are the ones who receive deposits and withdrawals, bear full responsibility for clients’ funds, and Jambler is the one who provides liquidity and technical support, then it should be allowed. What do you think?

Jambler provides a privacy feature and there are not many privacy services that are advertised here with high-quality posters, so giving them another chance will be beneficial for all.

In addition to above, theymos, isn't the initial purpose of banning mixers to protect the forum from goverments persistent prolific attempt to shut down money laundering activity? Thus, it can be derived that mixers banning are due to their close relationship with ML and other criminal uses.

On this case, Jambler actually do the exact opposite of mixers in the sense of laundering money; receiving tainted money and sending them all clean and shiny. Jambler do a Blockchain check prior to accepting transaction. When the result come negative, they reject the transaction and return the fund to the originating address, ultimately fighting against money laundering.

[cryptosize]

@theymos I think that if Jambler partners are the ones who receive deposits and withdrawals, bear full responsibility for clients’ funds, and Jambler is the one who provides liquidity and technical support, then it should be allowed. What do you think?

Jambler provides a privacy feature and there are not many privacy services that are advertised here with high-quality posters, so giving them another chance will be beneficial for all.

In addition to above, theymos, isn't the initial purpose of banning mixers to protect the forum from goverments persistent prolific attempt to shut down money laundering activity? Thus, it can be derived that mixers banning are due to their close relationship with ML and other criminal uses.

On this case, Jambler actually do the exact opposite of mixers in the sense of laundering money; receiving tainted money and sending them all clean and shiny. Jambler do a Blockchain check prior to accepting transaction. When the result come negative, they reject the transaction and return the fund to the originating address, ultimately fighting against money laundering.

So Jambler uses AML/chain analysis and buys the concept of "tainted" BTC... interesting.

[BlackHatCoiner]

On this case, Jambler actually do the exact opposite of mixers in the sense of laundering money; receiving tainted money and sending them all clean and shiny.

Mixers do two things. Receive money (be it tainted or not) and send money, to break the link. Jambler's partners use the Jambler API to do that. You could argue that every other mixer receives "tainted" and sends "clean" coins, just as well.


Am I the only reading that they perform blockchain analysis to prevent investors from scamming Jambler?

/become-seller.php]This stage makes it possible to terminate attempts of unfair investors to use an investment admittance as a mixer in order to clear their money and gain profit at the same time.

Examining coins to check that the investor doesn't try to cheat the system, and examining coins to avoid receiving "tainted" coins are two different things.

[mindrust]

In addition to above, theymos, isn't the initial purpose of banning mixers to protect the forum from goverments persistent prolific attempt to shut down money laundering activity? Thus, it can be derived that mixers banning are due to their close relationship with ML and other criminal uses.
On this case, Jambler actually do the exact opposite of mixers in the sense of laundering money; receiving tainted money and sending them all clean and shiny. Jambler do a Blockchain check prior to accepting transaction. When the result come negative, they reject the transaction and return the fund to the originating address, ultimately fighting against money laundering.

...

Am I the only reading that they perform blockchain analysis to prevent investors from scamming Jambler?

/become-seller.php]This stage makes it possible to terminate attempts of unfair investors to use an investment admittance as a mixer in order to clear their money and gain profit at the same time.

Examining coins to check that the investor doesn't try to cheat the system, and examining coins to avoid receiving "tainted" coins are two different things.

F daym. Gimme my 10 merits back. I am scammed. 

*Just joking. I thought you were right for a moment till I read BlackHat's post and I guess he is righterr.

[FatFork]

This is so unfortunate. I suspect that non-KYC exchanges and other custodial services will be targeted next. This is not what Bitcoin is supposed to represent, but it's hard to fight the "system".
I can understand theymos' decision but I don't have to like it.

[LoyceV]

Am I the only reading that they perform blockchain analysis to prevent investors from scamming Jambler?

/become-seller.php]This stage makes it possible to terminate attempts of unfair investors to use an investment admittance as a mixer in order to clear their money and gain profit at the same time.

What if someone has "clean" (whatever that may mean) funds, and only wants to break the link for his privacy? He could then be an investor, and gain profit after getting his money back.
This whole check makes it sounds like they expect customers to mix "dirty" money, instead of just wanting privacy.

[holydarkness]

On this case, Jambler actually do the exact opposite of mixers in the sense of laundering money; receiving tainted money and sending them all clean and shiny.

Mixers do two things. Receive money (be it tainted or not) and send money, to break the link. Jambler's partners use the Jambler API to do that. You could argue that every other mixer receives "tainted" and sends "clean" coins, just as well.


Am I the only reading that they perform blockchain analysis to prevent investors from scamming Jambler?

/become-seller.php]This stage makes it possible to terminate attempts of unfair investors to use an investment admittance as a mixer in order to clear their money and gain profit at the same time.

Examining coins to check that the investor doesn't try to cheat the system, and examining coins to avoid receiving "tainted" coins are two different things.

Do I understand things wrongly? I thought, based from their explanation on that page I snipped, Jambler will refuse to "mix and clean" the incoming funds if their analysis [be it through Jambler API or other methods] came with a result that the fund is tainted, thus it is not "pro-ML". This is different from mixers who accept those funds and clean them, regardless the source of the fund and the "taint score".

And regardless of whose behalf is the analysis being performed [Jambler's or investors' or goverments or even the victim of stolen funds], the point is they perform the analysis and return the fund [refuse to transact] to the originating address if it is tainted. Thus, if the point of banning mixers is to protect the forum and its members from being accessory to ML and TF, then banning Jambler will not be necessary, given Jambler does not facilitate ML and TF.

[...]F daym. Gimme my 10 merits back. I am scammed.  [...]

LMAO, sorry, but merit transaction is not reversible, it can not be undone. You've been warned!

[BlackHatCoiner]

[...]

It nowhere says "money laundering" and "taint". AML services always tell you that they do blockchain analysis to prevent receiving "tainted" coins or to fight money laundering. It is quite obvious that you can launder bitcoin through the partners of Jambler, and perhaps it is their best selling point one could argue.

The closest wording to "taint" is "cryptocurrency of questionable origin", which I agree that it's vague, but it doesn't necessarily mean "tainted" with the accepted sense of the term.

[Synchronice]

Nice to see that personal vendettas are ruining decentralization for us all.

We as a society really don't deserve anything anymore.

That's on point and it's so pity at the same time.
I personally think that Jambler is not much different from actual mixers and I agree with theymos's decision but this is not the problem here, the problem is that people who tried to change jambler's status as banned did this not for the safety of the forum but for personal vendettas. This attitude kills community and this attitude hurts many people.

- If any legal problems occur, then jambler will be safe as the actual mixing is done through partners.

Actual mixing is done through partners but it's jambler's money after all (some of them belong to investors) but their business model offers some benefits and protection to them. If their partner gets in trouble, Jambler might stop providing that partner with its mixing service and this way they'll gain less attention and problems. Having partners is like having masks, if someone catches you in one mask, you change it with another one.

On this case, Jambler actually do the exact opposite of mixers in the sense of laundering money; receiving tainted money and sending them all clean and shiny. Jambler do a Blockchain check prior to accepting transaction. When the result come negative, they reject the transaction and return the fund to the originating address, ultimately fighting against money laundering.

So, does Jambler function like Wasabi wallet?

This is so unfortunate. I suspect that non-KYC exchanges and other custodial services will be targeted next. This is not what Bitcoin is supposed to represent, but it's hard to fight the "system".

If they become illegal or if government will tag them as money launderers and there will be freqeunt articles about money laundering through non-kyc exchanges or decentralized exchanges, then they'll be banned too.