Mixer restrictions

[apogio]

~snip~

Just to clarify, this post gives us the freedom to discuss openly about specific mixers, as long as it's obvious that they don't facilitate illegal activities and as long as we don't benefit financially from them.

This should be the case anyway, but now, a suspicious mind would say that all of the mixer websites have been acquired by governments and companies controlled by national authorities.

[LoyceV]

a suspicious mind would say that all of the mixer websites have been acquired by governments and companies controlled by national authorities.

Which governments, and are they competing or cooperating?

[BlackHatCoiner]

This should be the case anyway, but now, a suspicious mind would say that all of the mixer websites have been acquired by governments and companies controlled by national authorities.

My suspicious mind tells me that if I were a government, I wouldn't want Bitcointalk to ban mixers if they're my honeypots. If I were a government, I'd actually want people to prefer them over WabiSabi which is impossible for me take down or surveil. We can criticize theymos, but this restriction will lead more people to decentralized, self-custodial alternatives.

I also suspect that most anonymous bitcoin now come from coinjoins, not mixers. If governments suddenly go after coordinators and freedom of speech on privacy-related services, then I presume the rules would become even more strict, which would be a good time to leave Bitcointalk.

[apogio]

I also suspect that most anonymous bitcoin now come from coinjoins, not mixers. If governments suddenly go after coordinators and freedom of speech on privacy-related services, then I presume the rules would become even more strict, which would be a good time to leave Bitcointalk.

I agree with the first, I disagree with the second.

Leaving Bitcointalk is a personal choice and, in my opinion, it's not an act of vengeance. One could leave Bitcointalk because they don't get paid, another because they don't like the quality of posts, another because they disagree with the "management". I mean, I don't care if talking about mixers is banned, I'll find another thing to discuss about Of course it bothers me, if I can't freely talk about anything I want, but it's not a reason for me to leave the forum.

My honest take, is that Bitcointalk will fade, once campaigns stop existing. It's the only reason right now, why it still has some decent posters. Bitcointalk is for nerds like me, who don't care about getting paid (anymore) and post only for fun and personal interest. It's also a place for those who don't take things seriously and like using ultra old-style forums.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Leaving Bitcointalk is a personal choice and, in my opinion, it's not an act of vengeance.

It wouldn't be an act of vengeance to me. I simply would not find Bitcointalk the appropriate place to talk about bitcoin, if talking about privacy was restricted. Bitcoin is a public ledger, and without privacy, it cannot function effectively as a shield against the state. Resisting inflation is one good thing, but it is only half way through.

If you think about it, the reason why gold failed was because Roosevelt effectively illegalized the custody of gold. Most of the people at that time reported their gold reserve to the government through the banking custodians, and the government could confiscate the gold with an executive order. Bitcoin is superior in the sense that you can self-custody it, but if most bitcoin can only be bought through KYC-ed means, and people practice no privacy techniques, then how really better system is it from the gold standard?

[d5000]

I think there is a big difference between "talking about" and advertising a service. AFAIK talking about mixers was never prohibited, also not in the earlier version of the rules, but linking to the mixer URLs was, and the wordfilter anyway would have removed all links. And I have read several threads where seized services were mentioned and there was never any complaint about that. (However, I'm not that active in the "forum politics" boards where users report and accuse each others, so I may have missed something).

Regarding things like CoinJoins or Monero, who could you even advertise when it was restricted in a similar way than mixers? Only peripheral services like exchanges offering them imo. Or centralized commercial coordinators.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I think there is a big difference between "talking about" and advertising a service.

Sure, it was never prohibited to talk about anything. I was saying what I would do if I were a government. I would definitely not prohibit mixers without at least prohibiting coinjoin services as well, which is why I find the mixer restriction pretty meaningless, if not counterproductive, from a government's perspective again.

[LoyceV]

which is why I find the mixer restriction pretty meaningless, if not counterproductive, from a government's perspective again.

That sounds a lot like theymos' goal:

My goal is not to stop anyone from doing whatever they want. You're thinking as if I'm trying to help governments in achieving their goals, which I'm not. The rules are not designed to be effective at doing anything in the wider world. The point is to prevent bitcointalk.org from being viewed similarly to "that gas station where all the drug dealers hang out". Places like that end up under increased surveillance, and eventually the authorities usually find some excuse to shut them down.

[Zoomic]

I think there is a big difference between "talking about" and advertising a service.

Sure, it was never prohibited to talk about anything. I was saying what I would do if I were a government. I would definitely not prohibit mixers without at least prohibiting coinjoin services as well, which is why I find the mixer restriction pretty meaningless, if not counterproductive, from a government's perspective again.

At a time, I started asking myself some questions about this mixer issues.
1. Did any government even prohibit mixers?
2. Or they simply want mixers to work in their terms (kyc and submitting users data)?

My goal is not to stop anyone from doing whatever they want. You're thinking as if I'm trying to help governments in achieving their goals, which I'm not. The rules are not designed to be effective at doing anything in the wider world. The point is to prevent bitcointalk.org from being viewed similarly to "that gas station where all the drug dealers hang out". Places like that end up under increased surveillance, and eventually the authorities usually find some excuse to shut them down.

Theymos had a very genuine concern with the situation that surrounded Biden's administration. But with the present Trump, Bitcointalk will not be taking down for promoting mixers. I am too sure that for now....

[examplens]

I think there is a big difference between "talking about" and advertising a service. AFAIK talking about mixers was never prohibited, also not in the earlier version of the rules, but linking to the mixer URLs was, and the wordfilter anyway would have removed all links. And I have read several threads where seized services were mentioned and there was never any complaint about that. (However, I'm not that active in the "forum politics" boards where users report and accuse each others, so I may have missed something).

Wordfilter was a bad rule because it significantly hindered the discussion. I know this because several times I deleted or had to additionally edit the post in order for readers to readers understand the context.
So, for example, in the discussion where [banned service] became risky because there are complaints like "[banned service] stole my funds", it is quite confusing for someone who needs to read it. You will admit that the above means nothing to you, because you have no idea who it is, nor is it possible to post a link to [banned service] where you can see for yourself.
Of course, over time, I gave up on similar discussions, including complaints about why I can't write about it. Maybe that's why you didn't come across complaints about that.

[logfiles]

At a time, I started asking myself some questions about this mixer issues.
1. Did any government even prohibit mixers?

They have never Officially banned/prohibited all mixing services. Theymos even talks about it in the OP. What they hate, is a mixer getting used by the Lazarus Group or any other hackers to launder their stolen funds and probably finance terrorism.
So in most cases the mixer either gets sanctioned or seized.

2. Or they simply want mixers to work in their terms (kyc and submitting users data)?

Of course, they want mixers to have licenses to operate, enforce KYC and AML polices. It's all about wanting to control them

[Forsyth Jones]

This should be the case anyway, but now, a suspicious mind would say that all of the mixer websites have been acquired by governments and companies controlled by national authorities.

So, if I were the government and I were using mixers as honeypots and then tracking or deducing what users do with their funds afterward, I would prohibit the coinjoins coordinators, Samurai (the latter was definitely shut down and the devs arrested).

Theymos had a very genuine concern with the situation that surrounded Biden's administration. But with the present Trump, Bitcointalk will not be taking down for promoting mixers. I am too sure that for now....

Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen and theymos has already made its position clear: I misunderstood, I agree with you in part.

Well, at least for now, but there are other risks as well, such as another president less friendly to BTC and repressive towards privacy services being elected. I think anything is possible.

By the way, after observing the Trump administration for a while, I've decided that I will not change the rules to allow:
 - Paid links to mixers.
 - Mixers operating here, such as by having official accounts or having official announcements posted.

While the Trump administration is massively better than the Biden administration regarding persecution of privacy-protecting services, this seems partly to be due to general chaos at the agencies and a deprioritization of this kind of thing, rather than a real pro-freedom ideology; you can see in e.g. the Samourai and Paxful cases that they will go after privacy-protecting services when convenient. Moreover, right now is the best environment that we're ever going to get: I think that Trump may get progressively worse on these issues as he and his subordinates get annoyed by specific cases of money laundering, and after Trump, whether Democrat or Republican, it's almost certainly going to get a lot worse than now.

Even though things have improved enormously under the Trump administration, Trump's term is going to end, and as far as I know, he can't be re-elected. We don't know who Trump will nominate as his candidate to run in the next elections, although there are rumors it might be Marco Rubio. Despite his certain resemblance to Trump, I don't know his position on privacy services. Remember that there's a risk of the Democrats returning to power, and if that happens, the persecution will probably start again.

[hugeblack]

My suspicious mind tells me that if I were a government, I wouldn't want Bitcointalk to ban mixers if they're my honeypots. If I were a government, I'd actually want people to prefer them over WabiSabi which is impossible for me take down or surveil. We can criticize theymos, but this restriction will lead more people to decentralized, self-custodial alternatives.

Those alternatives are easier to detect. CoinJoin transactions are typically classified as "high risk" and are frozen (questioning their source) compared to mixed coins.

Regarding things like CoinJoins or Monero, who could you even advertise when it was restricted in a similar way than mixers? Only peripheral services like exchanges offering them imo. Or centralized commercial coordinators.

WabiSabi/Samourai is not a mixer (according to the forum's definition), yet its developers are being pursued. Ginger Wallet is another example of a service that isn't defined as a mixer.

The positive side is that wordfilters was a flawed policy and shouldn't be reinstated.

[Lucius]

~snip~
Even though things have improved enormously under the Trump administration, Trump's term is going to end, and as far as I know, he can't be re-elected. We don't know who Trump will nominate as his candidate to run in the next elections, although there are rumors it might be Marco Rubio. Despite his certain resemblance to Trump, I don't know his position on privacy services. Remember that there's a risk of the Democrats returning to power, and if that happens, the persecution will probably start again.

I don't have the impression that anything significant has changed since DT regained the presidency, unless you mean that he and his family are using cryptocurrencies and their political influence for personal enrichment? How much damage was caused by the tokens released by the president and first lady?

I don't know how much you follow politics in the US, but DT stated before the election that people would no longer have to vote, and he recently hinted that he has no plans to step down after his term ends. It's a matter of the US constitution, which prohibits more than two terms, but rumors are circulating that his team is working on an attempt to remove that obstacle. Besides, I don't know where you got MR from, when it's already a public fact that the only possible successor is the current vice president.

However, one should not expect that their policy towards cryptocurrencies will change, even less towards mixers who are a thorn in the side because it is difficult for them to track BTC transactions. No such agency has been working on this since at least 2013, and there is no doubt that they have perfected the tools they developed back then.

[BlackHatCoiner]

At a time, I started asking myself some questions about this mixer issues.
1. Did any government even prohibit mixers?
2. Or they simply want mixers to work in their terms (kyc and submitting users data)?

If you're not a licensed "money transmitting service", you're considered illegal in most countries. That reads as "yes, they prohibit mixing" to me. If you, as a bitcoin user, need to sacrifice your entire opsec, just to have your coins mixed, then it pretty much defeats the purpose, and makes it clear that bitcoin privacy without the state's permission to surveil you is prohibited.

Theymos had a very genuine concern with the situation that surrounded Biden's administration. But with the present Trump, Bitcointalk will not be taking down for promoting mixers. I am too sure that for now....

There is no sign that the Trump administration is anyhow more privacy friendly to the people.

Those alternatives are easier to detect.

Which is ultimately irrelevant. Yes, you can detect a coinjoin transaction easier than a random mixer's transaction. The real question is: can you trace coinjoined coins?

[TryNinja]

Which is ultimately irrelevant. Yes, you can detect a coinjoin transaction easier than a random mixer's transaction. The real question is: can you trace coinjoined coins?

I might be spreading missinformation here, but don't you have a public list of potential addresses when looking at a coinjoin transaction?

i.e If someone sees my coins came from a coinjoin tx, they know my address is one of the X addresses in there, meaning they could potentially brute force their way over the list until they find a suitable candidate that matches me?

Meanwhile a well done mixer just takes coins from a whole different galaxy that has no potential connection with my coins besides the timeframe?

[GeorgeJohn]

At a time, I started asking myself some questions about this mixer issues.
1. Did any government even prohibit mixers?
2. Or they simply want mixers to work in their terms (kyc and submitting users data)?

If you're not a licensed "money transmitting service", you're considered illegal in most countries.

Does it mean that all the mixers that is coming to promote their brands on bitcointalk is not licensed? Or Government wants to use the illegalities operations of mixer to attack bitcointalk forum.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I might be spreading missinformation here, but don't you have a public list of potential addresses when looking at a coinjoin transaction?

Let's assume you have a perfect mixer. By "perfect" I mean that the list of potential outputs is the entire UTXO set; a blockchain observer cannot derive a subset of these outputs as "more likely to be owned by you". By that metric, a perfect mixer gives you a better "anonymity set" than a coinjoin.

But, how relevant is it in reality? If your bitcoin was mixed in a coinjoin enough times to be indistinguishable from the bitcoin of a thousand other participants, how much more privacy would be left to gain? That was my question. Yes, a perfect mixer would give you a better theoretical "anonymity set", but practically speaking, can you trace either solution? A chain analysis firm would have to break the connection of all the other hundreds of coinjoin participants to de-anonymize you, and consider they're relying on mere guesswork in the first place.

And I just presumed the existence of a "perfect" mixer. Consider that the anonymity set is significantly lower for a variety of reasons, and that you also have to trust the mixer's intentions and to not mess things up by some mistake.

Does it mean that all the mixers that is coming to promote their brands on bitcointalk is not licensed? Or Government wants to use the illegalities operations of mixer to attack bitcointalk forum.

I don't believe there's a single mixer who's even got the license to mix coins.

[NotATether]

I don't believe there's a single mixer who's even got the license to mix coins.

Another thing to note here is that related to your "perfect mixer" concept, the ones that send you coins from exchanges are not even fully safe (for the investor - I use Jambler terminology).

As exchanges usually associate specific UTXOs with a KYC'ed customer, the person who sold the coins to the mixer could get into some very serious trouble if said mix leads to the coins ending up in the hands of Lazarus group and some government agency requests the exchanges for identifying information following a lead from chain analysis.

The user of the mixer does not face any of these worries, however must be assured that the website will not pull an exit scam, ditto coordinator users.

In short, the entire Bitcoin privacy industry depends on trust, and a few stakeholders playing according to game theory and "winning as much as possible" (i.e. scamming) will disrupt the entire model and lead to a loss of confidence in anonymity services.

[BlackHatCoiner]

In short, the entire Bitcoin privacy industry depends on trust, and a few stakeholders playing according to game theory and "winning as much as possible" (i.e. scamming) will disrupt the entire model and lead to a loss of confidence in anonymity services.

The "entire" industry? I wouldn't say so. Yes, there's trust involved in mixers, and perhaps some trust to the coordinator in WabiSabi (not all partitioning attacks have been mitigated in Wasabi's implementation), but it is greatly alleviated. Of course, there's always some degree of trust in Sybil attacking (n-1 inputs always belonging to some adversary), but this is natural in public ledgers like bitcoin's, and cannot be completely alleviated ever.

There's always some good reputation needed in privacy services, though, yeah.