Sanctioned Services and the service traceability to this forum, Any danger?

[Fivestar4everMVP]

I don't know if this has been discussed before, I hope its not exactly in the same perspective as this one, I will sure lock the thread if a previous thread/discussion is exactly same lines as this one.

I believe we all are aware that OFAC-(office of foreign asset control) have recently sanctioned Sinbad - a bitcoin mixing service that was being promoted/advertised on this forum by users through their signature ad spaces.
https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/Details.aspx?id=44437

Now, the escrow bitcoin address which held the fund used to pay Sinbad signature ad campaign participants has also been blacklisted by Binance, and they are also investigating the transactions carried out through this same address.



Now again, I did a little research on how possible it is for authorities to trace Sinbad services to this forum, I started by first searching the keyword..
"Sinbad" - and there was no mention of this forum all through, no result even showing sinbad as a mixer.

I decide to search the keyword..
"Sinbad bitcoin mixer" - and there was no mention of this forum in the search result until the 15th result which mentioned this thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5445243.0
And the 21st result which mentioned this thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5450517.0

I proceeded to doing the search with the escrow bitcoin address which was provided by @Royse777 in the Sinbad signature Ann thread, and the Sinbad signature Ann thread came up second in the Google search result, after blockexplorer.one.

Now, my concern is, wouldnt it make sense to remove the Sinbad escrow address from this forum? And also remove anything that could make it easy for authorities to trace transactions from that address to this forum, and it's users?

Is this forum not going to be in danger if authorities trace transactions with services they have sanctioned down to this forum?

Maybe this is nothing, either way, consider me being over curious and conscious  .

[digaran]

Authorities already know everything, lol you want to go around them. 😂

[_act_]

Is this forum not going to be in danger if authorities trace transactions with services they have sanctioned down to this forum?

Sinbad was not declared as illegal before, until recently. Everyone promoting the service have removed their signature immediately Sinbad was taken down.

Recently, theymos think this kind of thing can still happen in the future and said no one should advertise mixers again on this forum, starting January 1.

Mixers to be banned

No one on this forum is advertising a service that has been sanctioned or banned by authority.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Is this forum not going to be in danger if authorities trace transactions with services they have sanctioned down to this forum?

Sinbad was not declared as illegal before, until recently. Everyone promoting the service have removed their signature immediately Sinbad was taken down.

Of course, they don't declare them illegal until it gets declared illegal, chipmixer for example started in what year again? 2017 or 2018 I think, and operated till 2022 or early this year (sorry, I am not a record keeper) before it got declared illegal and seized, same thing have happened with Sinbad, and one after the other, all mixers will keep getting seized, and the more this forum keeps promoting them, they more dangerous it becomes for the continues existence of the forum.

Recently, theymos think this kind of thing can still happen in the future and said no one should advertise mixers again on this forum, starting January 1.

Mixers to be banned

Yeah, I saw that already, I was probably still typing this thread when theymos posted about mixers getting banned from this forum beginning from next year, a confirmation of what I initially thought or assumed.

[Bureau]

Binance is asking the details of the escrow wallet because the authorities are asking them. Why do you think that they don't know anything about the Signature Campaign. The know almost everything and in due course of investigation a lot more information would be revealed.

I don't think this investigation would harm the forum in any possible way. As of now the authorities have not termed mixers as illegal. The forum was only used to promote Sinbad mixer through the signature campaign. There is nothing wrong in advertising a product. Already Theymos has taken a precautionary step and banned all mixer from next year.

[hd49728]

Binance is asking the details of the escrow wallet because the authorities are asking them.

They can proactively do this without request from authorities because they are going to uphold their standards to keep their exchange more safely from regulations and sanctions.

They just were fined $4B because of failure in KYC, AML.

Why do you think that they don't know anything about the Signature Campaign. The know almost everything and in due course of investigation a lot more information would be revealed.

They even don't have to know about signature campaign. The Escrow address of signature campaign fund is mentioned from document about the Sinbad.io seizure so Binance do know about that address.

[Crypto Library]

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Now, my concern is, wouldnt it make sense to remove the Sinbad escrow address from this forum? And also remove anything that could make it easy for authorities to trace transactions from that address to this forum, and it's users?

Even if remove or edit their name or mentions and also wallet addresses from posts, even then it cannot be possible to stop the authorities from tracing because they are all archived. All we can do now is not mention anything related to them in any future posts. And I think that's why Theymos is going to introduce the new rule from January 1st.

Is this forum not going to be in danger if authorities trace transactions with services they have sanctioned down to this forum?

Maybe this is nothing, either way, consider me being over curious and conscious  .

I don't completely disagree with the question you raised here, but I also do agree in some part because you already provided a screenshot of a signature participant who was given a notice by Binance. These don't put a person completely in danger, but they are causing some temporary harassment. Moreover, suppose the law enforcement agencies come to your home with a search warrant or take you into their custody for questioning. In my opinion, these are also one type of harassment.
Moreover, if we talk about the forum, theymos already mentioned some things.

~~~~~
It wouldn't be illegal to continue allowing mixers here. That's why we're able to offer a 1-month grace period. But allowing them has become too risky/problematic, and it's only going to get worse. Imagine 5% of all active forum users being sanctioned due to being paid directly by mixers, or all participants in a big signature campaign being targets of a search warrant, or our service providers suddenly banning us due to being "associated" with mixers, etc. I think that the crypto community is near the start of a multi-year squeezing campaign against mixers; similar to the cannabis industry in the US, or Operation Choke Point, or what happened with Backpage, or the deplatforming of Parler. ~~~~~~~

[Pablo-wood]

Now, my concern is, wouldnt it make sense to remove the Sinbad escrow address from this forum? And also remove anything that could make it easy for authorities to trace transactions from that address to this forum, and it's users?

Is this forum not going to be in danger if authorities trace transactions with services they have sanctioned down to this forum?

Maybe this is nothing, either way, consider me being over curious and conscious  .

But why Sinbad ban pose danger to the forum. The forum is only a vehicle for signature adverts and more and once the spot any suspicious or malicious activity associated with such campaigns the halt their activities or discourage participants and forum users from promoting and using the services.

Don't forget the forum is decentralised and open sourced and as such all activities done on the forum has to be public for reference, transparency, sanctioning and addressing.

[DYING_S0UL]

~~~~~~~~
Now, my concern is, wouldnt it make sense to remove the Sinbad escrow address from this forum? And also remove anything that could make it easy for authorities to trace transactions from that address to this forum, and it's users?

Even if remove or edit their name or mentions and also wallet addresses from posts, even then it cannot be possible to stop the authorities from tracing because they are all archived. All we can do now is not mention anything related to them in any future posts. And I think that's why Theymos is going to introduce the new rule from January 1st.

Even if we did changed or edited everything, it still wouldn't matter. If a newspaper publishes an advertisement without knowing it's a scam, will the newspaper company be called criminal? I don't thing so. All the signature campaign participant started the campaign without knowing their bad sides. But now the accuse has been made, and the culprit has been caught, it is better to stop using or advertising their campaign. And as an additional plan to prevent any legal issue theymos already implemented the new rules. So, I guess nothing to worry about then.

[digaran]

Well if the problem is about getting dirty money, why not ban using Bitcoin as a payment method and give them the chance to pay in altcoins?

[Adbitco]

You do not need to go edit/delete your past posts. Links will be automatically wordfiltered-out as of Jan 1, or in a few cases mods will archive or delete posts, but you will not be banned for old mixer-related posts.

If may get what theymos said about mixers, all post that is related to mixers or mentioned about any mixers will be Deleted or archive by some mod at this point don't you think Roys777 address won't be trace anymore since we have only less than 27 days for all details to sweep off from this forum. Again the interaction with that address doesn't have anything to do with  campaigners rather it's directly associate to Sinbad, So at this point manager is free everyone who promotes it is as well has nothing to do with entire sinbad rather they ran an advert to promote this site.

[KingsDen]

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Now, my concern is, wouldnt it make sense to remove the Sinbad escrow address from this forum? And also remove anything that could make it easy for authorities to trace transactions from that address to this forum, and it's users?

Even if remove or edit their name or mentions and also wallet addresses from posts, even then it cannot be possible to stop the authorities from tracing because they are all archived. All we can do now is not mention anything related to them in any future posts. And I think that's why Theymos is going to introduce the new rule from January 1st.

Even if we did changed or edited everything, it still wouldn't matter. If a newspaper publishes an advertisement without knowing it's a scam, will the newspaper company be call criminal? I don't thing so. All the signature campaign started the campaign without knowing their bad sides. But now the accuse has been made, and the culprit has been caught, it is better to stop using or advertising their campaign. And as an additional plan to prevent any legal issue theymos already implemented the new rules. So, I guess nothing to worry about then.

I do not think that any authority is tracing any Sinbad to this forum. I mean that, seizing of the website and all the coins in it could be their priority.
I was even more scared during the seizure of Chipmixer whose offence was more severe than Sinbad. Even on the publication of chipmixer ban, bitcointalk was mentioned as a place of advertisement and nothing happened. In like manner, no authority is tracing Sinbad to the forum.

[digaran]

You do not need to go edit/delete your past posts. Links will be automatically wordfiltered-out as of Jan 1, or in a few cases mods will archive or delete posts, but you will not be banned for old mixer-related posts.

If may get what theymos said about mixers, all post that is related to mixers or mentioned about any mixers will be Deleted or archive by some mod at this point don't you think Roys777 address won't be trace anymore since we have only less than 27 days for all details to sweep off from this forum. Again the interaction with that address doesn't have anything to do with  campaigners rather it's directly associate to Sinbad, So at this point manager is free everyone who promotes it is as well has nothing to do with entire sinbad rather they ran an advert to promote this site.

Let me explain something, do you know what stealing is? When you take something from someone without asking for permission/ it's called theft, now whether this forum or the whole planet disappears, it doesn't matter, because God knows everything, and that's all it matters.
How old are these members and where do they live, not knowing these things?

[FinneysTrueVision]

Now, my concern is, wouldnt it make sense to remove the Sinbad escrow address from this forum? And also remove anything that could make it easy for authorities to trace transactions from that address to this forum, and it's users?

Is this forum not going to be in danger if authorities trace transactions with services they have sanctioned down to this forum?

Maybe this is nothing, either way, consider me being over curious and conscious  .

It's too late now. Blockchain analysis companies have had months to collect data.

From an Elliptic.co blog post in February:

Analysis of blockchain transactions shows that a Bitcoin wallet used to pay individuals who promoted Sinbad, itself received Bitcoin from the suspected Blender operator wallet.

These companies will harvest as much data as they can find from this forum and across the entire internet. It doesn't matter if you're on a blacklist or not, they already have whatever data has been openly available.

[Mpamaegbu]

Now, the escrow bitcoin address which held the fund used to pay Sinbad signature ad campaign participants has also been blacklisted by Binance, and they are also investigating the transactions carried out through this same address.

Definitely, that awareness will cause a great scare in the camp of ex-Sinbad promoters (both here and elsewhere). Anyway, let's not even debate if the authority will get all the recipient addresses or not, let's try to look at the time this is happening and the way the market isn't even bothered by such FUD. I'm sure if this happenstance had taken place during the bear season it would've plunged Bitcoin further.

Now, my concern is, wouldnt it make sense to remove the Sinbad escrow address from this forum? And also remove anything that could make it easy for authorities to trace transactions from that address to this forum, and it's users?

Your concern is valid but you should also know that the deal had been done and information on the net aren't snipped that way. I'm sure screenshots and grabs had already been taken before the seizure was made public. There's nothing that can be done to erase that.

Is this forum not going to be in danger if authorities trace transactions with services they have sanctioned down to this forum?

We don't know yet and I believe that's why theymos had to spontaneously step in to make that announcement banning mixer services here. I think authorities may want to check what steps were taken once the seizure was made, assuming the forum was ignorant of whatever ill Sinbad was accused of. They may want to judge from going forward and not backward.

[lovesmayfamilis]

I have long seen offers on other forums to sell “dirt,” that is, funds obtained in not entirely honest ways. I am sure that a lot of time has been spent investigating Sinbad, and now it is completely inappropriate to talk about hiding something. Investigative authorities are always interested in the "head," and they probably know who and where could be guilty of what, excluding simple advertising of mixers. The users advertising this, to sane people, look like people just making money. Moreover, in terms of the volume of the mixer itself, the earnings look meager. Considering that the one who publicly writes that he is selling “dirt” has been alive and well for many years, and they simply do not pay attention to him, will anyone delve into the posts of people simply communicating on the forum, sometimes on completely distant topics from mixers?
If this is really so important and is a crime, then very soon the world will turn into the novel “1984” by George Orwell.

[LoyceV]

From an Elliptic.co blog post in February:

This is a very interesting link. It shows Sinbad received bad money even before they started. It looks more and more like they weren't "a good site also used by bad people", but they were "a bad site that needed good people to hide their bad money"! If that's the case, they had it coming. But taking down this site won't change anything except for slowing them down. Long-term, they'll continue elsewhere.
As much as I like privacy, I don't like criminals. And especially criminals who abuse good people's need for privacy to hide their own crimes.

I have long seen offers on other forums to sell “dirt,” that is, funds obtained in not entirely honest ways.

I've seen those offers on Bitcointalk too: "old Bitcoins" for "new Bitcoins" at 10% discount. It's either a scam, or shady as hell.

[Alpha Marine]

Now, my concern is, wouldnt it make sense to remove the Sinbad escrow address from this forum? And also remove anything that could make it easy for authorities to trace transactions from that address to this forum, and it's users?

At this point, it's pointless to try to delete or remove anything relating to Sinbad simply because we're trying to outsmart the authorities. Don't you think it will look shady? Because believe it or not, the government already knows about this forum, they've seen everything already, they've seen the escrow and it has already been traced to this forum so what is the point in acting like Sinbad was never on the forum even though it was just in just an advertising campaign? Deleting everything related to Sinbad won't still make things difficult for the government, besides if they (sinbad) are truly criminals, should we be making it difficult for the authorities? Shouldn't we be cooperating with the authorities on how these criminals should be caught?

Is this forum not going to be in danger if authorities trace transactions with services they have sanctioned down to this forum?

Lol. Bold of you to assume it has not already been traced to this forum. We don't have anything to hide. This is not the first mixer on the forum that is having similar issues with the authorities.

Mixers would be out of the forum starting next year, I have my reservations about that decision but I can also try to see the bigger picture. Mixers bring in a lot of heat and the forum doesn't need that much heat.

[BenCodie]

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Now, my concern is, wouldnt it make sense to remove the Sinbad escrow address from this forum? And also remove anything that could make it easy for authorities to trace transactions from that address to this forum, and it's users?

Even if remove or edit their name or mentions and also wallet addresses from posts, even then it cannot be possible to stop the authorities from tracing because they are all archived. All we can do now is not mention anything related to them in any future posts. And I think that's why Theymos is going to introduce the new rule from January 1st.

Even if we did changed or edited everything, it still wouldn't matter. If a newspaper publishes an advertisement without knowing it's a scam, will the newspaper company be call criminal? I don't thing so. All the signature campaign started the campaign without knowing their bad sides. But now the accuse has been made, and the culprit has been caught, it is better to stop using or advertising their campaign. And as an additional plan to prevent any legal issue theymos already implemented the new rules. So, I guess nothing to worry about then.

I do not think that any authority is tracing any Sinbad to this forum. I mean that, seizing of the website and all the coins in it could be their priority.
I was even more scared during the seizure of Chipmixer whose offence was more severe than Sinbad. Even on the publication of chipmixer ban, bitcointalk was mentioned as a place of advertisement and nothing happened. In like manner, no authority is tracing Sinbad to the forum.

A lot of what you said here is potentially not factual after further clarification from recent posts.

Sinbad was a mixer that started by mixing illegitimate bitcoin, and achieved its goal by mixing the illegitimate bitcoin with legitimate bitcoin.

Chipmixer may have had the same origins, but it may not have too. That fact is still yet to be discovered. I believe that chipmixer ent down because it had too many bad people using it - LoyceV put it perfectly:

From an Elliptic.co blog post in February:

This is a very interesting link. It shows Sinbad received bad money even before they started. It looks more and more like they weren't "a good site also used by bad people", but they were "a bad site that needed good people to hide their bad money"! If that's the case, they had it coming. But taking down this site won't change anything except for slowing them down. Long-term, they'll continue elsewhere.
As much as I like privacy, I don't like criminals. And especially criminals who abuse good people's need for privacy to hide their own crimes.

It seems to me that ChioMixer was a genuine effort for Bitcoin privacy, while Sinbad was an operation made to mix the operators legitimate coins.

[LoyceV]

It seems to me that ChioMixer was a genuine effort for Bitcoin privacy, while Sinbad was an operation made to mix the operators legitimate coins.

It could be. If the bad guys were in charge of Sinbad, that explains why they were quickly trusted enough to send them millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. Pretty much anything can be used for good or evil, but starting a business for evil is very different than a legitimate business being abused.

It made me curious about Tor:

~  a small fraction of users globally (∼6.7%) likely use Tor for malicious purposes on an average day. However, this proportion clusters unevenly across countries, ~