Topic: Bitcoin mixing is NOT money laundering, per se - page 10. (Read 4155 times)

The Department of Justice of the United States announced that it plans to pay special attention to exchanges and mixers to counter money laundering. In general, it does not seem that there is anything in the field of cryptocurrencies that does not attract the attention of certain government structures.

I took my time to think deeply about the mixing, money laundry, and the crime that could be committed via it but I realize that there is nothing different from what has been committed with fiat. The government knows too much about us, companies know too much about and these people are using their positions to sell our data and track us, this is from the fact that anyone could send assassins and thieves to you when they know what you are worth, getting your privacy through mixer is not a crime.

Let the crime be left for our individual action, no government, organization, or persons can claim that they are 100% clean even when they pretend to be. That is how I see mixers too, it's what we use them for that can judge us, and nothing has that power and integrity to completely condemn it.

By law, it is never illegal, what is the headache?

I wouldn't say a must, you can always maintain an excellent level of privacy simply by being careful.  Let's say that using a mixer or coinjoin definitely helps

If you think that you can fool chain analysis companies and regulatory authorities by buying chewing gums, then I don't know what to say.

Except from the fact that the taint nonsense continues insusceptible to such moron techniques, due to it being absolutely arbitrary in the first place. If you want privacy in Bitcoin, mixing is inevitable. If you want to "not look suspicious", sacrificing your privacy is inevitable.

oh again the idiot wants to be ignorant

the regulations literally are telling you that they are more interested in mixer used funds..

the solution is to do what i said several posts ago.
think of a new system not advertised/promoted or niched as only offering mixing as a service. but instead something that acts like something else. but the side effect is it breaks the taint.

get it yet

here ill make it real clear
imagine this scenario.. it involves the same crunched up smelly dirty $100 bank note. going into a service. and the same $99 coming out in different denominations of different bank notes and coins.(same end result)

A. mixer.
B. buying chewing gum from a retailer

did you know that the $100 and $99change from scenario A is being then scrutinised for where the $100 came from and where the $99 ends up
where as B is just another random transaction that no business or regulator sniffs at twice. and just gets lost in thought amungst the monotony of all other random transactions

scenario B is not registered nor required to register, nor deemed illegal for not registering as a money transmitter business. it does not do KYC nor appear on any regulation policy to scrutinise its customers identity or purpose or source or destination of deposits/withdrawals. YET you get the same result as A of different taint/denominations out as what went in



stop advertising something that is listed by regulators to watch A
instead get the same end result you want, but via something else that looks feels like B but does the same end result as A. without being what regulations are highlighting.

I think it's a matter of semantics, laundering is concealing the origin, mixing is trying to hide the taint by mixing it with clean crypto. Mixing is also done in money laundering, Didn't Saul Goodman explaining it to Jesse a good example of that? The fact that you've added per se in your argument means that you have doubts.

Being passive, unresistant and completely scrutinized is also a red flag. For you as individual.

Simply not true. I can agree to an extent that governments don't want you to use such tools, but it's plain dumb to believe you're being more spied when using them than otherwise. I agree you're a probable suspect for some, but you're a suspect for a reason; you do gain privacy. If I was being monitored more effectively, I wouldn't be a suspect. I am, because they very much work.

try and read a regulation once in a while to realise what your getting into
they do actually treat currencies and protocols aswell as businesses

aswell as mixers(not only businesses that use mixers, but mixers themselves) as something to red flag but also AEC
anonymity enhanced currency

yes LN is a red flag monero is a red flag.

...
so lets summarise this entire topic
you can either ass kiss the mad hatter clan of idiots that just kiss ass whomever will sponsor them to advertise crap services.. who never do research.. but want to pretend mixers will hide you better  and there is nothing law can do to find you...

or
you can actually research for instance regulations and see that when regulations LITERALLY SPELL IT OUT FOR PEOPLE that if you use a mixer, tumbler, aec you will be red flagged and monitored, scrutinised more closely

so when regulations tell you that using a mixer gets you scrutinised more closely.. guess what.. mixers are not doing a good job to hide you. instead they are passing you a red flag to wave in the air to be spotted easier

Protocols themselves can't be classified as "money transmitting businesses". They're decentralized (non-custodial) by design. The law only applies to individuals running a mixing service all by themselves (centralized, custodial). I guess that's the reason why the US government has been hunting down centralized crypto mixers lately.

If mixer operators had a "money transmitting license" and followed KYC/AML rules, they would've nothing to fear. But that would greatly undermine a user's privacy/anonymity. Thus, decentralized (non-custodial) mixing would become the norm in the future. I'm fine with that as long as financial freedom and privacy is preserved. Just my opinion

Bitcoin mixing is not money laundering per se and Bitcoin mixing is money laundering per se, it's a two in one package and that's the truth, some people use mixers for their own privacy while others use a mixer to hide their criminal activities online.

Before you say something else, put yourself in a position as the leader of a country, you will not want any crime lord to do illegal funding behind your back to fund his crime empire, probably cause a chaos in your country.

Mixers are like the dark web in the open public that's why the government easily go after them, every mixers must stay hidden for their functionality and all mixer devs must go fully 101% anonymous.

Mixer is the best privacy tool and to stay this way the devs must respect the privacy too.

firstly mixing is a financial service. but it cannot register as a licenced money service because its a red flag service.
(catch 22 event)

...
mixing with no other users is not mixing.. because your coins are still yours so its all the same junk(you confuse mixing with tumbling.. and yet tumbling is also a red flag event with regulators).. heck even you know this when your sober.. .. thats the whole point of you wanting to recruit innocent people into mixing instead of just advertising tumblers. you NEED to recruit clean money people(innocents) so that you can get rid of your dirty coins onto such innocents to take their clean coins. because thats how it works.

if it was so simple for dirty money to be mixed with itself there would be no point in needing other people recruited and palmed off with the dirty money
..
also a few other hints about your so called privacy lack of knowledge
when you do wire transfer to some stranger(s). your bank knows who that money went to, so their bank could ask that person for more details about the purpose of that receipt and get your address they sent coins to.
becasue they as wire transfer recipients of alots of payments makes them a money service business. which if they are using a personal account instead of a licenced business can cause them to be pushed into court.. yep DEX is not a saviour just like localbitcoins was not for the popular providers .. learn from this

if all of your coins have information that links to you where you are, at the end points doing wire transfer in and out guess what.. they find you via the end points. then when those addresses are flagged as being mixed. your then highlighted and flagged. and further scrutiny is on you..
you are no longer a random gorilla in the mist, not thought about or seen. you are suddenly kingkong, seen as something that should get the authorities targetting

if you want to stay off authorities radar. dont be kingkong, dont popularise yourself or highlight yourself

..
as for the other points of your post.
again you make a statement then say the opposite after of the same post.
for instance

you just admitted chip mixer was braking the law [not just] for being an unregistered money transmitter service, [but also doing laundering.]
you then pretend to say you have never seen in any court mixing equated to some unlicensed money transmitting service product.. yet chip mixer (your own example you do know about) is in court for BOTH crimes

chip mixer got shut down because of laundering. the owner got slapped with a lawsuit due to financially gaining from it which is the test of being a payment facilitator/financial transmitter service (Money Service Business / Payment Facilitator)

if you want to set up a service. learn from these things. dont pretend they didnt happen(while foolishly mentioning them in the same breath)

just because you plead ignorant by not doing research or ignoring anything you have seen to pretend you did not see it. actually read stuff and learn from it.

regulations do mention that mixing is a red flag that will get you noticed.
ill say it 5 more times
regulations do mention that mixing is a red flag that will get you noticed.
regulations do mention that mixing is a red flag that will get you noticed.
regulations do mention that mixing is a red flag that will get you noticed.
regulations do mention that mixing is a red flag that will get you noticed.
regulations do mention that mixing is a red flag that will get you noticed.

let that thought rattle around in your head for a while


so one last time

when mixing is the bad word of regulation.. be smart.. invent something new that does not sound like the word mixer. offers a different feature as its advertised service. where the unspoken side effect is the taint of deposits is not the same as the taint of withdrawals..

get the hint yet?? or is your mixer advertising contract so strict that you cant escape just advertising mixers

and no i dont mean just rebrand the service "blender" or "shaker" or "stirrer" or "tumbler" and carry on as usual,
be smarter then that

---

screw it.. one more time. just for you becasue it takes a while for you to learn things

MIXERS. do appear in real world regulations(yep REAL legislation) that mixers are a red flag requiring more monitoring/scrutiny of users of such

if you dont want to be monitored scrutinised to a higher level than 99% of normal people. dont use something thats actually mentioned in regulations

i do hope you understand this simple hint.. or admit to it when your contract expires

I love the fact that you were so plain and just in your explanations and no matter how people try to picture, I think at some point, this is business and the sole purpose is to create a decentralized form of  holding money where one can confidently spend their money without been monitored or tailed and that is simply the work mixers are doing perfectly well since most of these centralized  exchanges has made bitcoin  transactions very porous  and easily traceable.

I also understand  that judging  from some perspective,  mixing might be seen as aiding some criminal activities maybe consciously or not and since I'm not sure if mixers have to bother over the source of the funds of their clients before mixing don't we think that in other to keep this mixers at a safer side, she they go ahead to seek the source of fund before mixing?

Since it's illegal in both Germany and US to run an unlicensed money transmitter service, and ChipMixer was running in just about both countries, it's pretty much certain that it did break the law.

I have nowhere stated that there are no laws that prohibit such activity. I have merely argued there is no law that prohibits mixing, which is true as far as I'm concerned. In no court have I ever seen mixing being equated to some unlicensed money transmitting service's product. You can practically mix coins yourself, with absolutely no other users, even though it's not recommended for your privacy. But it is, and can obfuscate in an extent. Coinjoining is neither money transmitting.

I do not really know if it is going to be that clear black/white situation at all. I understand that mixing could be a complicated issue but at the end of the day if it can be used for money laundering, then whatever else people use it for will not matter. However, we also have knives at home, we all have it, and we can kill someone with it if we want to right? Do we? I mean some do obviously but mostly we don't and knives are not banned, you can legally acquire guns too. So that means, just because some people may use it for bad purposes, it shouldn't be banned, or illegal.

There are so many things that would be bad for people to use it in a bad way, but we don't and that's why freedom to choose ourselves and only jail people who use it bad way should be punished, people who do not use it for illegal purposes should be left alone.

he says....
.. then debunks himself the same day with
so you admit chipmixer broke the law.. which you think there are no laws ..

again i need to reiterate this to you..

bitcoin 2009-2013 was private property. thus escaped financial laws and regulations as it was not deemed currency
bitcoin 2014-now is deemed currency thus financial laws do apply and regulating of financial services.. and i must emphasise this
DEX operators, mixer operators AND YES LN routers are all deemed as financial services.. so do check all the regulations and find out whats actually included and not included so you can learn the pitfalls and the loop holes

stop wasting pages trying to say what you hope things are. and instead actually look at the data and information easily accessible to determine how things are

learn and evolve. actually take the time you usually spend promoting things that get people noticed more. and instead do the smart thing
if you want to be chummy with developers of anonymous services. look at the laws and regulations and realise whats said and then learn the traps to avoid

again for instance
by blatantly calling it a mixer where regulations literally say MIXERS are a red flag of suspicion and require extra monitoring of users of such. learn from it

create new services not advertised or described as such.
another for instance. if a services sole function  is to be a mixer. then there is no get-out clause. its a mixer
but if there were a service that does several things. maybe legal gambling or random luck lotto where everyone wins(their funds back) where it also does other things but a unspoken side effect is the funds deposited are not the same taint as the funds withdrawn. then you have a more compelling option/service

think about it. stop playing dumb just to endlessly promote something that is actually written into regulations.
yes the word mixer is actually written in regulations as a red flag of suspicion

I'm not entirely sure if my sarcasm is too good, or my English is too bad, or both. In any case, I'm definitely not one of those narrow-minded fanatics who run around the section and spam about their jihad declared to spam. Although a mixed transaction in a public blockchain from some point of view also looks like spam. But you can expect me to be free of any kind of moral condemnation, no matter what purpose you use the mixer for. I am glad that sometimes we seem to understand each other quite well, although each of us is conducting a dialogue not in our native language.

We are talking about bitcoin mixers so I'm talking about bitcoin as well. If I'm saying that I'm not worried about that gov will anyway trace any my transactions in bitcoin blockchain, it's because they can do it anyway and bitcoin mixers won't prevent it. Right, it doesn't mean we should allow to trace our fair transactions, the presumption of innocence should work. But even if I don't give a special permission to gov to trace my transactions, bitcoin blockchain is transparent to anyone and everyone including gov. I keep it in mind. And it doesn't fear me that gov will see, main problem is that some bad actor can see. Gov should stay in boundaries of law and it shouldn't look if it wasn't allowed (even if it can), but a criminal is not bound by the law. So it's not about hiding anything from the gov, it's about hiding it from different bad actors.

Governments can't trace everything in a Blockchain, especially if the same is private by design. Up to this date, Monero transactions haven't been revealed by the government using available analytics software (as far as I know). You think that will change anytime soon? Developers will keep improving privacy/anonymity techniques to prevent governments from gaining advantage in the future. Just because "you don't have nothing to hide", doesn't mean you should allow governments to take control of every aspect of your life. Privacy/anonymity = freedom.

I see crypto mixers as a way to escape government surveillance in a good way. They're not meant to be used for illegal activites, though. But emerging technologies are a double-edged sword, so there's nothing we can do to prevent some people from using mixers in a bad way. Things are heating up for the crypto industry lately, so it should only be a matter of time before all centralized mixing services disappear for good. Just my thoughts

ChipMixer absolutely didn't comply with regulations. It wasn't a registered money transmitter service. No centralized mixer can comply with regulations due to its nature.

How so? You're the one who used the phrase "dirty illegal business" above.

I'm in no illusion that I have absolute anonymity. As I said, I just don't want from the merchants I interact with, online and offline, to let them know what I'm doing in this forum. And I'm pretty much accomplishing this since the day I joined a signature campaign, through the use of mixers. I'm really having a hard time comprehending your argument. Do you imply that unless we have absolute anonymity, we should have zero privacy?

As long as the transaction's source is hidden, the only distinction between bitcoin mixing and money laundering is whether or not this qualifies as money laundering. very essentially encircles the transaction's legal aspect. Whatever the case, it is difficult to define money laundering in this context because cryptocurrency by its very nature has an element of secrecy and the country of origin of the coins doesn't matter as much.