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Topic: Authorities Shut Down First Bitcoin Transaction Mixer (Read 639 times)

legendary
Activity: 2912
Merit: 6403
Blackjack.fun
you can get the magnet/hash directly from the bittorrent network. that way it's decentralised, as no trackers or websites are needed

Somebody has to create that torrent hash and publish it somewhere and you must find out what that file is via some sort of ratings that again will be centralized.

Even with IPFS, you still need a central point.
Take a look at torrent paradise, it runs on top of IPFS as a search engine, would you trust to download a file only relying on the name and number of peers and nothing else?
Edonkey and Kazza worked that way, and they were 99% fakes and 1% porn on those networks.

Of course, I can create a torrent, send you the hash via PM and nobody will be able to track it, but once Jon and Alice and Oliver and Thanos and Daffy and two million more want the torrent you must have a way to send all of those the hash, creating a  place where those can be stored> centralization.

Even if you do it via a telegram or whatsapp group, it's still has a central point.
jr. member
Activity: 300
Merit: 5
The tech is getting better that is why these mixers are able to be tracked back to the source. Security firms like ciphertrace are working with large enterprise level companies to work on AML specifically.
legendary
Activity: 3430
Merit: 3080
torrenting is not decentralized, you have to take the magnet link or the torrent hash from somewhere

you can get the magnet/hash directly from the bittorrent network. that way it's decentralised, as no trackers or websites are needed
hero member
Activity: 1400
Merit: 505
Apparently this is the first time law enforcement has taken an action against crypto mixers.
It's funny because I am familiar with Bestmixer was just looking at it last week actually lol
Unfortunately bestmixer is the first mixing service that came under fire from the authorities and some of the mixing services closed their service earlier fearing these sort of actions will come once the bitcoin market become more mainstream and i am not convinced with the way they took them down, they cannot pin point one thing that they did, all the authorities say is that they helped in money laundering, which is a broader term and it is very difficult to sort these type of issues and today bitblender has closed their service too after this incident, we now have chipmixer and will see how long they will last.
legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1483
Are mixers even necessary when you can transfer bitcoin to monero and then back to some other crypto?

How are you going to do that without an exchange? Maybe some day it'll be possible on chain or in wallet. It isn't at present.

If you try it P2P no monero owner is going to want your dirty coins.

right now, the best way is to use an exchanger like flyp.me, which doesn't require account registration or KYC. you can access through TOR/VPN, swap for XMR, tumble the XMR in multiple tx, then convert back to BTC.

it's hard to avoid centralized services at this point. Undecided
full member
Activity: 602
Merit: 105
It is odd they waited so much.

By the way, i can't be sure, if transaction mixers are good or bad for the crypto ecosystem.
legendary
Activity: 2590
Merit: 3015
Welt Am Draht
Are mixers even necessary when you can transfer bitcoin to monero and then back to some other crypto?

How are you going to do that without an exchange? Maybe some day it'll be possible on chain or in wallet. It isn't at present.

If you try it P2P no monero owner is going to want your dirty coins.
newbie
Activity: 5
Merit: 0
Are mixers even necessary when you can transfer bitcoin to monero and then back to some other crypto?
legendary
Activity: 2912
Merit: 6403
Blackjack.fun
Good thing they'd warned their clients to get their funds out of their mixing service before they're seized by the government.

What? Who warned of anything?  Grin Grin Grin
I'm starting to believe you have no clue what a mixer is.

~
What if they are already on chipmixer or any other decent mixer out there? Who can give us a guarantee that it is not already happening?

tldr; just stick to monero if you have something to hide.

Then I'm entitled to two years of extra funds for my pension Tongue and some tax returns.
As for hiding, there are two types of hiding.

Putting some curtains in the windows because I don't want the neighbor to see how I make sex with my wife, and putting curtains because I don't want my neighbor to see I have a meth lab in my bedroom.

I have nothing to hide from the authorities, I even paid taxes on bitcoin earnings for the last year a few weeks ago, but I don't want that anyone can track my coins and see that I gamble or I buy video chat tokens or I've tipped a stripper.
Disclaimer: Never actually done any of those!
hero member
Activity: 1148
Merit: 500
There's no way authorities legalize mixing transactions since it can be used for crimes especially for money laundering transactions. Good thing they'd warned their clients to get their funds out of their mixing service before they're seized by the government. The war just started. So if you're using mixing service, be aware that authorities can shut it down anytime. As everybody was saying. Use more secure and safer cryptocurrencies. Bad news for mixing services out there. It is inevitable
sr. member
Activity: 1400
Merit: 420
Closure of mixers is only a small part of actions taken by authorities against bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a phenomenon. I don't think they care about fraud or even money laundering too much, but rather they are trying to push people out of crypto to buy more themselves - it's likely to be the true reason of such closures.
Authorities only showed their power to a single entity and may follow more movement but they don't have a suspect in custody after this Bitcoin Mixer shut down so I think they've still failed and just simply seized a website which is so easy to create an another one and heighten its defense against them.

They do care about money laundering and cryptocurrency is best suited with it.
hero member
Activity: 2338
Merit: 953
Temporary forum vacation
I guess the good thing about this is now people like me even will one day be forced to learn how to use wallets like Wasabi. It took me almost a year just to get used to a proper Bitcoin client, and now to read something like this,,, makes me relieved I never used a mixer yet even though I considered a few times just for privacy.

How soon before they go after wallets that help privacy?
legendary
Activity: 2898
Merit: 1823
That's exactly what happened to bestmixer. The government owned the service for more than 10 months before they finally decided to seize the domain.

Is there any confirmation about this?
I find it weird for them to wait that long and at the same time it means they would have infiltrated it just two months after the launch. Not that it is impossible but I find it a bit hard to believe.



They started the investigation in June 2018, and have been collecting evidences since then. That's what I wanted to mean.

I know it is not the same thing as owning the company literally. (maybe they did, who knows) But the outcome is more or less the same.

What if they are already on chipmixer or any other decent mixer out there? Who can give us a guarantee that it is not already happening?

tldr; just stick to monero if you have something to hide.


Or use TOR + Wasabi wallet,

https://www.wasabiwallet.io/
https://www.torproject.org/

It would be much less risky because you don't surrender the custody of your Bitcoins. Plus centralized services keep logs in their servers, that could be used to analyze, and trace them back to you.

copper member
Activity: 2940
Merit: 4101
Top Crypto Casino
If you want to stay anonymous just don't use bitcoin. Even theymos says monero is superior to bitcoin when it comes to staying anonymous.

Mixers look fine on paper but there is no way you could know if the mixer was being owned by the government already by the time you decided to use them.

That's exactly what happened to bestmixer. The government owned the service for more than 10 months before they finally decided to seize the domain.

It could happen to any mixing service you are using. It is pointless and dangerous af.


ah yes, Theymos say something and everyone repeat, sometimes without understanding. Since Theymos posted something yesterday you're the 6 or 7th user repeating, quoting, licking, whatever. Now I'm saying there are better coins than monero.
Always the same argument with mixers, the famous honeypots

Quote
Is there any confirmation about this?
Not really, the fact is they were "monitoring" bestmixer for months.
legendary
Activity: 3276
Merit: 2442
That's exactly what happened to bestmixer. The government owned the service for more than 10 months before they finally decided to seize the domain.

Is there any confirmation about this?
I find it weird for them to wait that long and at the same time it means they would have infiltrated it just two months after the launch. Not that it is impossible but I find it a bit hard to believe.



They started the investigation in June 2018, and have been collecting evidences since then. That's what I wanted to mean.

I know it is not the same thing as owning the company literally. (maybe they did, who knows) But the outcome is more or less the same.

What if they are already on chipmixer or any other decent mixer out there? Who can give us a guarantee that it is not already happening?

tldr; just stick to monero if you have something to hide.
legendary
Activity: 2912
Merit: 6403
Blackjack.fun
That's exactly what happened to bestmixer. The government owned the service for more than 10 months before they finally decided to seize the domain.

Is there any confirmation about this?
I find it weird for them to wait that long and at the same time it means they would have infiltrated it just two months after the launch. Not that it is impossible but I find it a bit hard to believe.

Many people just want to break the link between known addresses and the next one they use in a comprehensive manner. If you have a publicly posted address on places like here anyone reading could trace your every subsequent transaction for the rest of your life without much effort. Why should anyone have to put up with that?

Would you tolerate that in your conventional financial life? Every time you bought a can of coke with your debit card the guy behind the counter would know your bank balance and where you'd spent it. There's a tricky balance to be found somewhere, but opening your legs and peeling back your flaps for everyone to have a look isn't going to cut it long term.

Exactly this.
I don't care about small sums or when I send some coins to wirex or local bitcoins from my second wallet cause nobody will be able to tell what I've done with that money, but I like to keep my main stash as hidden as possible, it's nobody business how much and when I spend and what I have left.
legendary
Activity: 3276
Merit: 2442
If you want to stay anonymous just don't use bitcoin. Even theymos says monero is superior to bitcoin when it comes to staying anonymous.

Mixers look fine on paper but there is no way you could know if the mixer was being owned by the government already by the time you decided to use them.

That's exactly what happened to bestmixer. The government owned the service for more than 10 months before they finally decided to seize the domain.

It could happen to any mixing service you are using. It is pointless and dangerous af.
legendary
Activity: 3542
Merit: 1965
Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
This might sound controversial, but I would like it if the authorities could search through all those data and find massive criminal operations and/or people who were responsible for major hacks on exchanges and if they could be brought to justice now.

It is unfortunate for the people who simply used the service to protect their financial privacy, but lessons needs to be learned and sometimes innocent people gets burnt in the process.  Roll Eyes

They opened a whole Pandora's box with this seizure.  Tongue
legendary
Activity: 3080
Merit: 1353
I don't think mixer companies realize that there are crypto forensic companies like ciphertrace that can still trace the mixed pathways.

LOL, they always knew that someone is watching over their shoulders every time they mixed some coins. You don't need companies like Ciphertrace to trace the footprints, you can read everything here, Breaking Mixing Services.

I still can't understand why they really operated servers under the jurisdiction of EU,  Grin. Are the people behind that mixing services really think that they are not within the reach or Europol? As far as McAfee's snitching, here is the official tweet from Europol,

https://twitter.com/Europol/status/1131217847789740033

Quote
The multi-million euro cryptocurrency laundering service http://Bestmixer.io , considered one of the three largest in the world, taken down by @FIOD with the support of @McAfee and in close cooperation @PoliceLux and #Europol
jr. member
Activity: 247
Merit: 1
I don't think mixer companies realize that there are crypto forensic companies like ciphertrace that can still trace the mixed pathways.
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