Topic: [ANN] ChipMixer.com - Bitcoin mixer / Bitcoin tumbler - mixing reinvented - page 23. (Read 92878 times)

I have no official information to give you guys, but it most probably is a little bit of bad luck, indeed. There were ChipMixer downtimes before and they will most likely happen again - probably partly for scheduled maintenance, but also simply due to the challenges that come with running such an anonymous website, offering such anonymous services (attacks, hacking attempts, ...).

From what I can tell, it is likely there are so many users using ChipMixer at any point in time that whenever such a downtime happens, someone will be the 'unlucky' one who just deposited some funds or just wanted to redeem a voucher.

I see in the thread Signature Thread campaign there is a post from @DarkStar on July 24 (page 232)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1935179.4620

That post says "ChipMixer hasn't been online since last week".  Then a post a couple days later would indicate that ChipMixer did come back online and make payments.  Hopefully that is the case right now.

I do hear what @eaLiTy is saying about speculation.  At the same time... when a reputable business/service/anything is unable to service the community AND says nothing... it generates doubt.  That doubt is amplified when the service revolves around emerging technologies (crypto), touts anonymity and lives on a hidden network (TOR).  The simple nature of an exist scam is that you take the assets and leave without saying anything... so saying nothing just makes it worse.

I am a new ChipMixer user.  I spent 3-4 days testing with trivial amounts of BTC.  When I was satisfied that the service worked exactly as documented, I started to move much larger amount of BTC through.  I also made a donation for the use of the service.

If this is just DDOS downtime... that is some bad luck on my part. 

It is better not to speculate about shutting down, if that is the case they would inform the community regarding that. For the past week they were under heavy DDOS attack and hopefully that is the situation now as well. Wait for them to mitigate the situation and they will update the community on the situation.

Regarding the reputation, they are active from 2017.

@Lucius mentioned about the TOR DDOS attack and most probably that is the case.

why chipmixer representative didnt tell anything here? is chipmixer closing

Thanks for responding.  I guess time will tell if this is an exit scam or a honest downtime.

I can confirm the same error.
Clearnet website is opening just fine, but I was not able to open Chipmixer onion link, and I tried changing identity several times.
I checked official Tor status page and they are currently experiencing disruptions (Directory Authorities and DDOS), so this could be related with Chipmixer.
https://status.torproject.org/

This is why I see when I try to open Chipmixer website:

I am having the same issues restoring my ChipMix session.  I am pretty concerned that I have lost some BTC.  Has anyone been able to get to the official ChipMix Or Fly site?

It just says no connection but I can load up duckduckgo fine: https://duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmvfimaftt6twagswzczad.onion/

(this was just a test I don't stand by/trust that link as I searched it up on clearnet duckduckgo over tor)

same error??

I'm able to reproduce this on mobile so must be on chipmixer's end, hopefully it gets fixed soon.

why tor v3 link error? Onionsite Not Found

Very true.  It's unfortunate that this has been happening to the clear-net site because I'm afraid most people don't go to much trouble to protect their privacy, and have likely never used tor.  That may be less true about bitcoiners looking to mix their coins, but I believe the statement still accurately applies. 

The issue was only made worse for those who rely on their phones.  Until recently there was no official TorProject mobile app, so people had to rely on third party apps and plugins which carry their own risks.

Because of this:


Honestly, anyone dealing with something as sensitive as a mixer should already be using Tor for it.

Unfortunately, 'post-mortem', it's hard to do anything now. I'd assume your funds were stolen by Openchange.

In general, with any service, it's sensible advice to try it with smaller amounts first (that you're comfortable to lose in the worst case), before attempting a larger amount. This no guarantee for success though, since some services do increase e.g. KYC requirements with the amount of money in question.

Another piece of advice would be to use non-custodial services, such as Boltz for instant-exchanging, which use chain swaps instead of physically handing over control of your coins to a third party and then hoping they don't rip you off. This means in the case of Boltz, they basically can't get the currency you send, without sending you the exchange currency at the same time. They don't risk sending you the exchange currency without receiving your BTC either, though, so both sides are secured. Unfortunately, as far as I know Monero can't do that yet. This is also possible for going on-chain <=> Lightning, in that case it's called Submarine Swap.

For exchanging Monero and BTC in particular, I'd probably recommend Bisq. It has no notion of taint and it's purely P2P-based and decentralized, no servers, running purely on Tor.

Finally, if I really needed to use a centralized service, I'd use something more trusted, with known working customer support.
LoyceV already mentioned my blacklist topic and I immediately added Openchange.cash; unfortunately it's hard and I wouldn't attempt to create a 'whitelist', since it's impossible for someone to guarantee that a centralized service is trusted and reliable.

I don't presume to speak for ChipMixer, but I really don't know what they can do to help you.

This is a very troubling trend, and the only way we can fix it is by boycotting these draconian AML and anti-taint services.  Hit them where it hurts, in the pocket book.  They will either provide a service that people can use, or they'll go out of business.

This, unfortunately, happens more and more: Bitcoin's fungibility is under attack:
See [Blacklist] of unreliable, 'taint proclaiming' Bitcoin services / exchanges for n0nce's naming and shaming. Unfortunately, the list is far from complete. And growing.

Some support from Chipmixer and privacy advocates would be useful in my case. 

SCAM EXCHANGE: Openchange (Openchange.cash)

Using of Lightning Network together with Chipmixer is an interesting idea, I don't know how many people are really running their own nodes with LN wallets.
Good thing is that it can be used for smaller amounts and it will save on transaction fees when mempool is ful.

Most of the members here are aware of this change and we actually requested something like this, main use of onion version for Chipmixer, for security.
Problem is that we didn't think what would happen in case same thing happens on Tor that would affect all websites including Chipmixer.
My suggestion was to use some wallet software that can be downloaded, but I guess scammers could also create fake wallet.

I don't think it's planned for the time being. The switch happened a few weeks ago when there was an attack on the .com (clearnet) website and it stayed only-Tor ever since. Honestly it's going to be better for users and ChipMixer as well, in terms of privacy and legally too.

I think it might just be a more dynamic thing (that they'll review it whenever it seems useful to or if there are better protections for the domain - like anti ddos).

There have been a few mixers that have gone down this route though of only offering tor access (and chipmixer will probably know themselves which was lost used and I can imagine the onion version being used for higher amounts/by more people).