Topic: Best way to mix bitcoins (Read 736 times)

I’m afraid this is also true for a lot of mixers, although mostly due to negligence (see bestmixer), where all transaction records were recovered. In that case, you were probably better off not using any mixing tools.
So ideally, you should only use “provably-based privacy” (where privacy can be proven, and isn’t trusted to be the case.)

Too bad that that still isn’t the case with most mixers, and are we still relying on the trustworthiness of already existing mixers (Chipmixer, etc)

I see that with a lot of people. Why should I use a mixer? I have not had a problem using an exchange to "mix" coins.

People fail to understand that the records exchanges store are stored on their servers for ever. Just because you haven't had a problem using exchanges to "mix" coins, that doesn't mean you won't be facing any problems a year later, or perhaps even longer. Exchanges are honeypots and people have provided them all their personal information, so how easy do you want a government to find you. 

I'm glad you woke up.

A couple years ago, I tried to "mix" some bitcoins using 777Coin. They literally sent the output I deposited right back to me, minus a withdrawal fee. Fail!

In all honesty, some of the more primitive mixers aren't that much better. Anyone looking to mix their bitcoins effectively should research how any given mixer works and see how easy it is to analyze outputs received from them. Not all mixers are created equally!

I don't know anything with casinos but I suppose the wallets created there works the same as the web wallets. It won't help you to mix bitcoins properly.
It's one of the crappiest ways to do this.
Let's say you're using coinbase to mix your coins, it can be easy to find that your address is related to coinbase. At this point, you're fucked. Authorities will just need to contact coinbase to get any information about you (IP, etc) With your IP it takes actually less than 5 minutes to get your address.

That makes a great point, thank you.
I've had no idea why I should use mixers and what it does with my security anyway.
Now I feel like I've got to find and use one for sure.

If you wan't to mix your coins then just go with a legit mixer out there and don't settle for an online casino or a BTC wallet to mix your coins for you. If you think you are getting robbed because of the fees in mixing coins, thats because they are doing what they are suppose to do, mix your coins unlike BTC wallets that may require you to send documents when you set up an account.

I wouldn't call it mixing since you withdraw tainted coins with your info atteched to them.

I wouldn't want any exchange to know more about me than I allow them to know. Whenever I buy coins from an exchange for long term holding purposes I run them through a mixer, simply because I don't want to lead them to my cold wallet stash, because if they know, what ensures me that a government can't get access to that information? Better safe than sorry.

In the end, it all comes down to who you want to protect yourself against. If you get coins from your neighbor but don't want him to know what you end up doing with them, all he will be able to know is that you sent the coins to Coinbase. I personally prefer that no entity but the mixer to knows (and that they delete logs as they promise) what the destination address(es) is/are.

it's not that a mixer is more secure than coinbase. it's about your privacy. coinbase employs blockchain analysis on all your deposits and withdrawals, maintaining a cumulative record of all your blockchain activity in case regulators ever ask for it. then they mandate KYC so everything is positively linked to your identity.

maybe you're okay with that because your coins come from "normal, legal sources". personally, i would prefer that coinbase knows as little as possible about me or my bitcoin stash.

It might sound stupid but i do have done this stuff.As long you dont deal with big amounts to mixed up then theres no wrong on using any other service but well
it do really always accompanied with risk of those funds to be locked up once your account tend to be reviewed.Unless if we do just simply make use of tumblers or mixers then
you would get rid of these possible scenarios.

Of course there is no Coinbase mixer. Yes, I just use their wallets for mixing. I don't play at online casinos. My coins come from normal, legal sources - mainly from exchanges. I have passed KYC long time ago and never had problems with Coinbase.
I don't understand why mixer would be more secure than Coinbase?

What about the Lightning Network. I believe that could be a good alternative for trust-minimized mixing.

There is no mixer called Coinbase. Coinbase is an exchange. What some people tend to do (which is extremely stupid) is that they send coins to an exchange or online casino, then withdraw their coins because they know they get different coins back. Usually that's done either because they trust exchanges and online casinos more, and it's cheaper.

I think that's also one of the main reasons Coinbase stopped allowing people to use their 'wallet' functionality without KYC. People were actively abusing that bit of freedom.

he said he use coinbase to mix his coins and not as a wallet  ( if what i read is correct ) but i didnt know that there are also a mixer called coinbase because what i thought is coinbase is a wallet and now also available as an exchange  .

  coinbase was also strict like what you said so i dont think that they will come up with such mixing service  . that is true that some users complain about sending crypto to coinbase because it is been questioned most of the times  .  other wallets are also strict like this and wont accpet funds that mainly came from a gambling site .

If your bitcoins are from a questionable source, Coinbase is the last place you want to send them. They have mandatory KYC, and they also work with multiple blockchain analysis companies and law enforcement.

People usually mix bitcoins before sending to Coinbase to prevent them from flagging deposits as suspicious or breaching terms. For example, Coinbase may close your account if you deposit from a gambling site.

I see that everyone is talking about officially known mixers on the market, but I do not know if anyone has already mentioned a fairly simple way .. I just use Coinbase to mix my coins.
I don't know what level of effectiveness it is and how difficult it would be to find the source of the coins, but so far I'm fine with this.

I accept that. But without the community helping test open source projects out, or report bugs/issues, they won't go anywhere.

i already did that upthread.

sadly, just as with the DEX vs CEX question, the decentralized options are severely lacking. the above case is a real world example of why we need to be smarter about decentralized tumbling. wasabi needs to up their game and make their coinjoins less obvious. we need randomized or user-set ranges for anonymity sets, otherwise this shit will keep happening.

If the "something better" requires third party trust, I would suggest, be fair and inform newbies that they have a choice with a trust-minimized option. The choice is theirs.

wasabi wallet's obviousness has bitten at least one user. his withdrawals from binance singapore were suspended pending a KYC questionnaire after analysis revealed withdrawals to wasabi from his account. https://twitter.com/bittlecat/status/1207621591820951552

CZ responded and seems to be implying this is specific to the singapore operation. https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1207825158783696896


either way, i would use something better than wasabi wallet to mix your coins.

the bitcoin way of doing things is to create economic incentives to achieve desired behavior, then to let the free market run its course. i believe (and hope) that signature aggregation will provide those incentives. it ought to because transaction size will be drastically reduced vs conventional multi-sig. centralized mixers will then become even more uneconomical by comparison. that should drive more and more liquidity towards coinjoins, which will in turn make more private coinjoins (with smaller anonymity sets) possible.

Sorry, but I missed a part where liquidity connects with mixing part of coins/tokens
Could you please describe a process? thx a lot in advance

This is true, liquidity has been a problem with the more non-centralized way of doing things. Like BISQ, it's avoided, users prefer the centralized exchanges.

But what are we here for? What path should we take?

cutting out middlemen and tumbling at the protocol level is obviously ideal, but we are in a transitional state where coinjoin liquidity is very poor. not only can wasabi wallet's high minimum and large anonymity set leave users waiting around to get their coinjoin done, but it's very obvious that these users are participating in a coinjoin together. in a world of increasingly strict risk-based AML/KYC policies, that may be problematic.

the ideal for coinjoins = much smaller, cascaded anonymity sets where observers can't tell coinjoins are taking place at all. unfortunately, not enough liquidity exists yet for this to be viable on a large scale. i'm hoping that implementation of schnorr signature aggregation will help incentivize more coinjoin liquidity on the network, but it could take years for this to come to fruition.

This thread 2020 List Bitcoin Mixers Bitcoin Tumbler Websites will guide you to choose a bitcoin tumbler/mixing service.

And there are some reviews who made by users which can make easy for you to choose.

Third party trust are security holes. How do you know that the service didn't log anything that can be traced back to you? How do you know that it's not operated by bad actors?

I have recently mixed 10$ at https://bitcoinmixer.org/ as a part of the testing process and found that site to be a good one. The best thing about this site is that it is cheap to mix the coins there and the process is very very fast, if you choose the instant option. Based on my experience, i will recommend https://bitcoinmixer.org/ for mixing the bitcoins.

every method has drawbacks. chipmixer has superior liquidity and excellent tumbling procedure but you must trust them 1. not to keep logs and 2. to custody your funds while using it. in fact, the longer you hold their generated private keys (trusting them not to steal them), the better the privacy guarantees:


theymos made a guide about mixing earlier this year and swapping to monero was his #2 choice. it's probably the most expensive option if using instant exchangers.

one drawback of wasabi wallet is that it's blatantly obvious you are using a coinjoin because it enforces a 100-anonymity set. another is the ~0.1BTC minimum. it's definitely cheaper than swapping to monero though.

You might think people are recommending ChipMixer because they are getting paid for the signature campaigns but from my perspective, you should be using them as they're around for a long time and wouldn't run away with your money. I'm not quite sure how much of anonymity you'd get after using their service but that's something I'll leave someone else to answer. Converting to Monero and back to BTC isn't really mixing your coins the right way.

Not bad even if they do have that fee amount yet you wont be hassled into those things like creating accounts etc. First time on hearing Flyp.me
Just to ask if this service would accept deposits from contract address like from exchangers or other wallet platforms?
I do have horrible experience wayback with shapeshift for my deposit didnt push through.

that sounds about right. i've seen it fluctuate between 1-2% over binance.

i guess that's the price we pay for the privilege of not needing accounts, and not worrying about elliptic, cyphertrace, et al.

you also don't need to pay the typical exchange withdrawal fee (eg 0.0005 BTC at binance) which claws back a bit of the profits taken by instant exchangers like flyp.me.

^ Probably as of now I will consider that wallet belongs to the safer wallet but I will not hold my cryptocurrency assets there in the long run.
Try to visit this link to view more tumbling sites services offered, https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/2023-list-bitcoin-mixers-bitcoin-tumblers-websites-2827109. It looks like updated timely by the OP because I saw newly bitcoin mixer sites.


^ Yes you can, but you will also suffer the fees or probably compute it which better cheaper and less hassle.

I guess he wants to be as private as possible (for any reason he wants)
But also wise mixing can be quite profitable

it seems like a good service. do you know what kind of fee they are charging (or maybe adding on top of their prices silently)? i've checked a couple of their prices and it seems like it is higher by about 1.8% to 1.9% compared to prices on Binance for the same coins.

Because centralized mixing services are 3rd party security holes.

In JoinMarket, you can be a liquidity provider and earn Bitcoins in form of fees, https://joinmarket.me/

https://flyp.me/en/

i've used them before, no complaints. instant and no account registration.

i would avoid swapping to monero and directly back to bitcoin. to make it harder to trace, you should layer in a few monero transactions before exchanging for bitcoin again. that way, not even flyp.me will recognize your inputs.

i know that exodus use(d) shapeshift for their built-in exchange, and that shapeshift started requiring KYC. i'm not sure how that affected things.

What's the best way to get bitcoins to monero and then back to bitcoins? is Exodus safe? I don't have an Iphone so cakewallet wouldn't be an option.

I am thinking of using Monero to wasabi to chipmixer to new bitcoin wallet?

is this a good route to go for bitcoin anonymity?

Maybe not.

IMO it's difficult to know exactly what is enough. Maybe you don't leave any trace online but somebody places some keylogger on your device so that's it.

Yes. It's not proper mixing. All I'm interested in is making sure future transactions can't be traced back to my original wallet by any old creep having a look. I don't care if they know it's from an exchange and I don't care about the exchange itself knowing the original address.

If I were a paedo, drug dealer or thief then my approach would have to be totally different.

Would it be a over kill if you use wasabi and then monero and then back to your wallet for an extra precaution?


It may be mixed but then people can trace that the BTC comes from an exchange. It serves but that will still be an issue if the person is going to be traced deliberately when the BTC comes from a known exchange address.

There's no need to do the alt bit if you're using an exchange. Send Bitcoin. Withdraw Bitcoin. It's pretty much guaranteed to come from a totally unrelated wallet to the one you sent it to. If you buy an alt in the middle bit you're just wasting fees and moving around the exchange's internal ledger.

That's not much use if the BTC you want to mix is involved in something against the exchange's terms and conditions like gambling but fine for straightforward breaking the link between old and new addresses for future privacy. You still don't want to be doing anything against their terms if you plan on using them again though.

You can try https://www.smartmixer.io/ they are not something old as chipmixer but I checked their ANN and they were doing good until now,if your going to mix small amount then I will suggest you this site.

PS. Mixing coins cannot guarantee complete anonymity so make sure that your intention of mixing the coin is not something related to any illegal activities.

I dont know but this one sounds an advertisement about blender.io.  

When it comes to mixing service then ill handsdown with Chipmixer for this time.Wayback there are several no. of these tumblers but already closed its doors
that why i highly recommend Chipmixer when we do talk about mixing.

There are many ways to lose track of bitcoin transaction. You can use mixing services like you said Blend.io and also Chipmixer,
I have never experienced this as I know most of its users are probably for illegal transactions purpose.

I agree with your thoughts. Your purpose is to conceal the transaction, with any mixer it is useful to you.
Also, speaking of hackers, I really feel insecure about my transactions. But I don't think someone would blackmail or rob someone from faraway countries, right? Most hackers hack into security holes to steal money, they never go out to rob. I believe I'm right.

Converting to an alt and then back is an excellent way to mix bitcoins. Use an exchange, so that the sending wallet which sends out your bitcoins has a diferent address to the one you used to deposit the coins.

I found a topic created by Theymos where he suggests to use two mixing methods. Interestingly enough, mixers/tumblers are not in this small list.

[Guide] Decent mixing methods

You can check this thread:

2020 List Bitcoin Mixers Bitcoin Tumblers Websites.
CoinJoin: Bitcoin privacy for the real world.

I don't think OmegaStarScream is paranoid when saying it's not as safe as the first two... Afterall, if i'm mixing my coins, i'm not worried about an exchange analysing all of it's transactions, instead i'm worried about a foreign governement or a hacker singeling me out, searching for my transactions in particular.
When using an exchange, their internal records will show my ip(s), my browser fingerprint, timeframes when i was active and a link between deposit addresses, currency exchanges and withdrawal addresses. Imagine what a 3 letter agency could do with a dump of their database when they are trying to track me down. Even worse: imagine what a malicious hacker could do if he managed to get his hands on the exchange's database and tried to track me down for extortion or robbery.

Personally, i'm a big fan of mixing services. However, you do have to realise these services are anonymous themselfs. You have no guarantee the mixing service itself isn't a honeypot. Personally, i use mixing services to hide my transactions for malicious individuals and to protect my privacy, so i wouldn't care to much if one of the mixers i use turns out to be a governement honeypot. However, i guess some people might be in problems if their mixer turned out to be ran by a 3 letter agency.

I thought you were worried overly! At these sites, they process millions of transactions every day, which means they won't have enough time to check what you're doing with your money. However, if you follow this way, you will incur a cost of 2 times what you have to pay, it's too costly to make. So choose the first one.

Using coin mixing site is the best way to go as you don't want to risk your coins to save a few fees. But if you want to try something different, you can go with third and with exchanges, leave the coins for some time, do some exchanges to seem normal, that could be to and from stable coins or popular coins you want to hold and withdraw in batches.

OP, for a mix to avoid any 3rd party security holes, mix in Wasabi, then Samourai Wallet, then JoinMarket. Then send directly to a freshly generated public address.

But it will not stop there, you have to manage your UTXOs and mix regularly, especially if you're an active user.

Here are a few options:

1. ChipMixer (the most reputable mixer out there)
2. Wasabi wallet (a wallet with a built-in mixing functionality)
3. Deposit BTC into a centralized gambling site or exchange and then withdraw your funds.

In case of going with the 3rd option, you should know that these services will know so it's not as secure/safe as the first two options.

I have never used any mixing strategies or any mixing service provider for that matter as I am seeing no need on my part of adopting the same. Just curious: Why you think you should be doing some mixing or using a mixing site? Is it because you are hiding something, a very common assumption? Or you are just so concern about your privacy and that you are not allowing anyone including the governmental forces to see your Bitcoin trails? Please share...

I would like to know the best way to mix bitcoins. So far, I have read about converting to monero and then back to btc, I have read about using exodus wallet and then also seen the service of blender.io. I am not sure which service to use as it has been a very long time now since I have used a tumbling service, I would like to know which would be best to use.