Topic: Bitcoin mixing is NOT money laundering, per se - page 15. (Read 3983 times)

Does it matter? By the people who want to watch me.

Why do people cover their bathroom windows when they wash themselves? They do that so people can't see them naked. Nobody cares what people are they going to be, but for the sake of the conversation let's say it's the government that I want to hide from.

Does it imply that I'm a criminal or a launderer?

I don't trust the government. I've seen people falsely accused and prosecuted and I want to stay as far away from my government as I can. I want to be as anonymous as I can, even if nobody ever decides to watch me. That's why we put good locks in our doors and have firewalls on our computers. We don't know if someone's coming for us, but we want to be ready.

Indeed, Bitcoin mixing is not money laundering per se, but why would anyone need to use a mixer? The most correct answer is to avoid getting tracked, by whom? Not all Bitcoin mixer users are money launderers but other motives behind using Bitcoin mixer is 80% illegal, criminal-minded, call it whatever you want, since the day I have started investing money in crypto I have never for once think of a mixer, I like the feature of a mixer but most users are into illegal things.

People who don't use mixers illegally are those who believe in privacy, which they believe is the only way to really evade the government and the watchers. Perhaps someday, a more secure mixer can be developed where people can stay off the radar of the government by using one.

For now, I don't see any reason to start using a Bitcoin mixer but I am a supporter, the ability that a mixer possess is more useful for criminals than a normal average Joe, that's my point.

Bitcoins blockchain is fully transparent so it is just a matter of if you have enough computing power and analysts to undertake an investigation. Governments definitely have. So they can trace even mixed transactions. So mixer can be useful if you don't want an exchange to know how many bitcoins do you have (or for some other same purposes of privacy, anonymity and personal safety), but if you want to use it for crime activity then gov will know it and multiple news about arrests of criminals used bitcoins prove it. Bitcoin, even mixed, is not a good option for criminals as its blockchain remembers everything forever: so any bad thing can be discovered and proved at any time even in decades.

There is a unique expression like this; Bitcoin's presence is a problem for banks.
Logically fiat is owned by the government with a more complicated system compared to the simpler bitcoin.
Although I don't understand very well, but the 2008 financial crisis could be the beginning of Bitcoin can be considered as one of the rivals that offers a per-to-per system that can dismantle the banking system where the central authority at that time the bank had a key role behind the financial crisis that occurred.

This article can be a comparison material and can be my knowledge why hit money laundering in bitcoin mixer.
investopedia, 2021

I agree, it's not. But it can be used as a money laundering tool and an effective one.
I think that if we want to see mass adoption of bitcoin, we should admit that some people can use bitcoin as ML and TF. We should somehow try to lower the possibility of these actions because, without that, the government will never fully adopt bitcoin and will be antagonizing it.

That's why I think that dislike of the mixing services is understandable.

I don't take the time to get involved with you anymore, but you're prohibited from derailing this thread further. You've had your chance to make a civilized dialogue about mixers in the past. Now you're just blabbering the same nonsense. Mixers are not used mainly for illicit stuff. Evidence supports otherwise. Chain analysis (if you took the time to actually do "tHe ReSEarCH", as you love), has noticed a less than 10% being sent there illegally. Hopefully, the same percentage of people who agree with your "moral standard" of what should the users be free to do.

Sure, no disagreement. You can't regulate everything, so criminals will always be attracted to beating around the bush.

I'll need a little bit more context. If you're asking if it's legal to conceal the origins of money, then it depends on the country and the manner you conceal it. You conceal the origins of your cash in your pocket everyday unconsciously, but that's obviously not illegal.

Mixing Bitcoins is legal if done the right way and in a country where it is permitted. Bitcoin laundering is an illegal and criminal activity in many countries.

That's why different countries have different laws regarding Bitcoin mixing and centralized mixing can be considered illegal in some countries. However, I completely agree that decentralized mixing is not illegal and can be a safer option for protecting user privacy.

So in conclusion any one who want to be safe from being watched should totally avoid using mixing service irrespective of which it is.

I also think holding crypto alone in a private wallet which the user have access to alone is enough to protect the holders identity, what's the point of mixing coin when one can just use different wallet for different purposes which am sure could be a little bit private and anonymous for someone else to locate the real owner of any exact wallet providing that you are not making use of a centralized exchange 

mixers and tumblers are mainly used by illicit sourced funds..  i understand criminals dont want to wash their dirty coins and get other criminals dirty coins as thats another pointless exercise. so they keep trying desperately to cry out that innocent people should join their crowd.. but thats purely criminal greed to push their dirty coin onto someone else, without caring how that causes consequences on innocent people

the funny part is they say "its fungible" as the lame excuse to pretend innocent people getting dirty coin wont get hit by authorities.. yet if it was "fungible" there would be no need for mixing and criminals wouldnt need to ask innocent people to swap funds with

and lastly. read regulators policy and also terms of service of exchanges to realise that services DO TREAT MIXED FUNDS DIFFERENTLY(anti-fungibility) and DO WATCH MIXED FUNDS(anti-privacy)

so in short mixing does not help fungibility nor privacy

i really do understand criminals hate circle jerking their dirty funds between each other, and they really want innocent funds added into the mix.. but that does not mean its morally, ethically, or considerate to such innocent people you shamelessly try advertising mixing services too

 and yes innocent people are caught up with having to explain themselves and reveal their private lives due to receiving your dirty funds.. which i know you dont care about. but it happens
 and yes innocent people are caught up with having been denied usage of legit services due to receiving your dirty funds.. which i know you dont care about. but it happens

if you lot had half a brain you could work out better methods, which would not harm innocent people.

I agree with you guys, Mixing is not money laundering, and Mixing is not a crime by itself.

But the problem here is the people who use these mixing services, 95% of them use it because we get those coins from an illicit source, and they need a way to wash those coins, that's why they use a service like that. And that's the main problem with the mixers.

And is important to remind you that using this kind of service isn't free, so, people pay to hide the source of their coins. So, science it has a cost then is something that people will not do just for fun.

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Defend mixers is like defending guns... Guns doesn't kill, what kills is the bullet

Even this definition of Bitcoin mixing by Wikipedia is a bit questionable. The connotation is still almost referring to money laundering, which isn't really true. Bitcoin mixing services in this definition simply doesn't appear as a neutral tool for privacy, which is wrong. It seems it is something that is not normally used by ordinary people.

If I were to define a Bitcoin mixing service, I'd simply say it's a tool by which Bitcoin funds are mixed with others to protect the user's privacy.

Who'll disagree Bitcoin mixing isn't money laundering per se. Bitcoin mixers aren't regulated so that's the reason they'll be used for predetermined money laundering by lawbreakers.

It's because it becomes abused and the illegal intention has grown more than the legal one due to a very well-known mixing service and the unique process of protecting your privacy.  Because this is the fact, Bitcoin mixing isn't inherently money laundering, it's simply a tool that can be used for both legitimate and illegitimate purposes, depending on the intentions of the users.

Chipmixer was a victim and abused for illegal activities because it can be used for illegal purposes, such as to hide the proceeds of criminal activity or to evade taxes, and even can clean dirty Bitcoin into a clean but not for a purpose of enhancing privacy.  It might be because of this matter the authorities take action to seize this kind of service because it's abused.

A few years ago (in 2019), I've presented a statistic on Bitcointalk about mixers and illicit money: Chainalysis research reveals: only a small percentage of mixed coins are illegal
Let's have a look here:


Source

So, according to Chainalysis, only a small percentage of mixed funds are from illicit origin. I'm sure, the numbers don't have changed much (it's data from 2019).

ChipMixer's problem is very simple in my opinion: After operating since 2017 (for 6 years) it was known by many scammers, so recently, a lot of hacked, stolen or extorted funds went to ChipMixer.
But such high numbers for illicit funds are obviously specific for ChipMixer because it was known by scammers after operating for such a long time (which we didn't know until it was taken down).
It might look completely different for average mixers (similar to what Chainalysis found out) and only a small percentage of mixed coins are illegal.  

OP is right with his explanation, where the problem lies is that, majority find it difficult to differentiate, like the government or authorities that consider everything done in secret to mean that a crime is being committed, which of the time, its not always so..

Bitcoin mixing is not a crime and not an illegal service, if it is, then it simply means that privacy in itself is also illegal and a crime..
The authorities have their secret business, which we know nothing about, yet they expect us to report every single step we take to them, isnt that man's inhumanity to man?
They should stop chasing shadows, and start chasing the real criminals, going after bitcoin mixing service is the same as chasing shadows.

Some other think about that this is scam and they need to get debunked because people need to understand that mixing service doesn't offer a investment plan to their user but rather a bitcoin mixing service. Its just this service has been used by many frauds that's the reason why they are been tagged as illegal operation by government.

Mixing service is not only used for illegal matter but also for legit transactions to but unfortunately the illegal matters are the only one government saw that's why they are not good with this service and shut then down for good.

Anyone thinking that Bitcoin mixing is money laundering is just an idiot. They call it money laundering because they don't know what it is really all about, because the site maybe doesn't open in their country, and because they haven't held enough bitcoin that requires them to mix and gives them more security for their wallet.

I was not aware of Bitcoin mixing until I joined this forum, and even after joining, with always seeing the ChipMixer signature, I was prompted to search what Bitcoin mixing was really all about.

its not a simple legal/illegal yes no. thing
its a suspect/risk % scale. with thresholds.


chip mixer was not shut down just for being a mixer. otherwise it would have been shut down years ago
it was shut down because regulators and businesses were WATCHING chip mixer because chip mixer is a risk of suspicious activity. and then in 2023 chip mixer GOT CAUGHT being directly involved with helping criminals.. much like the mixer that got caught last year. it was not that he was offering a mixing service it was that he directly helped and financially benefitted from processing criminal funds

regulators give guidance to VASP's and its the VASP that decides how much headache it wants to tolerate or avoid. and most VASPS just avoid accepting AEC to simply avoid questions/headaches later

The act of mixing Bitcoin has never been synonymous with money laundering. However, the centralized authorities with weak enforcement capabilities tend to falsely accuse it of being a form of money laundering. This is primarily because they are unable to regulate or track these transactions. Bitcoin mixers serve as a means to safeguard our privacy. Unfortunately, if someone were to utilize mixers for money laundering, there is very little that can be done about it. It's worth noting that money laundering is prevalent in traditional fiat currencies, yet there seems to be no viable way of putting a stop to it. Similarly, the crackdown on Bitcoin mixers is merely an excuse to hinder the use of Bitcoin.

Why can't they just assume that those person are a shy type? But seriously, not all who private themselves are doing something shady. Crypto has once gain a bad reputation but now that it was popular, the public already sees them as a regular currency. If they found someone who use the mixers for illegal activity, they should punish those users and not the mixers itself because they are only doing a business here and there is no way they open the business for the sole purpose of helping the criminals.

I remember the authorities have also removed privacy coins in the exchanges before for the same reason but luckily those coins are still surviving.