Topic: Bitcoin mixing is NOT money laundering, per se - page 16. (Read 4163 times)

fungibility is not as you think
all money is treated differently and always has been

if you get money in your account from an employer. that amount gets taxed as income tax
if you get money in your account from an investment. that amount gets taxed as cap gains
if you get money in your business account from customers. that amount gets taxed as corporation tax

if you want more than $500 from an ATM you have to talk to your bank
if you want more then$1000, $10000 expect reports to tax offices

doing a wire transfer of $30k using a business account gets treated differently than a minimum wage person doing a $30k wire transfer of his life savings

what most people dont realise is money is not fungible. its just when only handling small amounts like $100 in  you back pocket. your not really a big concern for authorities to watch compared to someone with over $10k in a suitcase crossing a border.

and yes different rules apply if your using cash, debit or credit. heck even mortgage amounts are put into escrow whilst paperwork is done.

money is treated differently and always has.. welcome to the real world

One of the basic properties of "good" money is the fungibility of individual coins. 

The value of one coin of one denomination must not differ from the value of another coin of the same denomination.  This is the basic property of money.  Cash, by definition, is fungible money.  Bitcoins just mined by miners are also fungible money (which is why they are often more valuable than bitcoins with a "history"). 

However, the transparency of the Bitcoin blockchain has played a bad joke on it....

Bitcoin has lost such a basic property of money as the fungibility of coins.  The first cryptocurrency was artificially divided into white, gray and black (criminal).  Mixers solve the problem of returning Bitcoin's coin fungibility property.  There is nothing wrong with that, in my opinion.  Crimes on the Internet are possible, but they must be investigated by the competent authorities. 

At the same time, the principle of the presumption of innocence must apply - a person cannot be found guilty until his guilt is established by a court decision.  In my opinion, this is the most correct legal approach.

Privacy doesn't mean money laundry, but privacy can be seen as an advantage for some persons to partake in some illegal activities. Bitcoin mixer gives the privacy needed for transfer of bitcoin from one wallet to another without a trace. The misappropriate use of it by some persons has brought the raise of eye brown to bitcoin mixing companies.

The government shouldn't use the action of chipmixer owner to judge other bitcoin mixing companies. The thing is that government s are worried about their incapability to track the transfer of bitcoin due to mixing.

they didnt shut down chip mixer just because it was a mixer

they ALONG TIME AGO had chip mixer on a watch list(including its customers).

and as soon as they linked it to a criminal activity this year. they acted on the information

chip mixer did do laundering this year so suffered the consequence this year

because mixing is a red flag of raised suspicion of possible utility of criminal activity, so regulators and their regulated services are delegated to watch a short list of suspicious activity and rate it based on the chance of criminal activity, to decide to level 1 just watch, 2 investigate, 3 bring charges

if you do not want to be a high percent rate risk.. if you dont want to be on a watch list.. avoid things that are given a high % rating of suspicion risk that would put you on a watch list

because if they watch something close enough. when something criminal does occur. boom. your are caught.

suspicion is not a yes/no question.. its a % rating.
fungibility is not a yes/no question.. its a % rating.

if you avoid the certain things that earn you % risk rating. you avoid the thresholds of being on a watchlist thus you keep your privacy

Privacy is #1 enemy of the governments in the modern world. That's the reason why we are approaching a 100% digital fiat cashless society (and then who knows a chip in your head?). They hate privacy and that's why they will keep stalking privacy services like Bitcoin mixers.

I agree with your opinion that the bitcoin mixing and mixer service has nothing to do with money laundering, but we can't be sure about the mixing as some evil use it for their wrong intentions. As far as I know, the recent incident with the chip mixer is not ordinary and after that incident, law enforcement agencies are directly targeting the mixing services. Bitcoin mixing was for privacy purposes but a question here is why anyone who is using it for his privacy concerns is getting targeted. I know the answer is in the question but it's quite weird that institutes that were created for the protection of civilians and their rights are stealing those rights for the civilians.

At the same time, I think this can be a move by these agencies to divert the attention from the main concern such as the economical problems and flawed policies, but I am very sure of one thing and that is they use their full power to somehow suppress the decentralization and freedom trend in crypto market.

read the actual regulations.
stop trying to define things based on your prefered confirmation bias

if you can learn how things are actually treated you can then learn what actually happens in the real world and how you can possibly think about methods to avoid being watched

EG
owning a gun does not make you a murderer. but regulators put gun owners on a watch list. by noting down gun serial numbers and owners identity.

that way if there was a murder and they found a gun and thus serial number they can then easily find the suspect

mixing/buying a gun is a red flag that something criminal could happen. and so they are on the watch for those particular people
if you dont own a gun you wont be on a gun watch list. .. OBVIOUSLY

if you dont use a mixer you wont be on a watchlist of possible laundering

with all that said
by being put on watch lists by using mixers.. defeats the whole point of using a mixer.. because using a mixer gets you watched closer

thus mixers are not privacy tools when the end result of using a mixer is being watched more closely

#common-sense

as for the whole "proven in court"
i laugh

if you are doing an activity where you think going to court to prove innocence is a positive. you are forgetting some major steps before judgement

the main one being before you even step into court. your privacy has already gone...
because they have found you, taken you to a police station, interrogated you and questioned your life history and done some background checks on you.. etc etc

thus privacy gone. even before you get to have your day in court.

so thinking 'just use mixers, everything is fine, if things go bad you can explain in court' .. you are too late. your privacy had disappeared along time ago

i facepalm people that tell innocent people to carry on doing red flag activities get put on watchlists and have to be questioned about it later.. all so that real criminals can run off with innocent peoples funds leaving the dirty funds with the innocent person to have to explain..
shameful

Well if you apply currency rules to Bitcoin this would actually be great news. Since for money laundering you need an illegal component that needs to be proven by law enforcement. Everybody is not guilty if not proven otherwise.
If Bitcoin mixing is however not currency mixing than it could be illegal from the start.

money has never had privacy rights. fiat money was the patent of governments. its their property so they have always had control on its usage.

its only now recently that people are finding/creating non government currency to a broader crowd than just a business/casino

and so the thought of now wanting privacy currency is a new thought process

however by trying to get "mainstream acceptance" by lobbying governments to deem private property assets as "currency" has allowed governments to set rules for crypto currency due to them recognising such as a currency


bitcoin was deemed private PROPERTY 2009-2014. much like pokemon trading cards, antiques, however now its in government jurisdiction of currency. the government are applying currency rules to the usage of cryptocurrency

so instead of trying to create your own definitions about what laws you want to apply or not. its far more realistic and real life affecting to know what actual laws and policies DO APPLY and then learning from them what to do and not do to then have a better idea of how to preserve your privacy

This is what I've been saying, the mere act of mixing is not crime, Mixers are not criminal dens that brood these scammers and scums of the planet where they can easily trick people and get away with it. There's a legitimate cause for the tool and that is to give the privacy back and make sure that coins aren't traceable, this fearmongering against Mixers brought about by the fall of Chipmixer is just horrible and a little concerning too, coz this is literally an attack to the people's right to privacy. Who's to say they're not going to crackdown on cryptocurrencies too, coz "they are anonymous and could be used by scammers hurr durr" jesus fuck. These legislators should do better.

In my opinion Bitcoin Mixing has nothing to do with money laundering, since bitcoins are fungible. Can somebody here see if there are already cases where there was an investigation opened against somebody who has run an Mixing service or somebody who used a mixer?

it doesnt matter what idiots that promote mixers think that mixers should be

its about what the regulators say and choose to call red flags to actually act upon

so read what those "watchers" are watching.. to learn what to avoid so that you are not being watched

HINT: if authorities are on the watchout for mixers... and then you are using a mixer, expect to be watched

EG
if cops are on the lookout for people in pink hoodies and your wearing a pink hoody. expect to be highlighted as someone to look into and question when seen
and if you learn that cops are on the watch out for someone in a pink hoody. you might want to choose to change your clothes


http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/recommendations/Virtual-Assets-Red-Flag-Indicators.pdf

in short.. use a mixer. expect to be watched closer.. use a anonymity enhanced currency expect to be watched closer

pretending using a mixer/aec hides you better is the opposite of what happens. it reveals you and highlights you better.. not hide

Not really. Concealing is not yet laundering.

Let's say you have money from a legal source but you don't want your spouse or family to know about it. You get a friend to lend you his account, send money there and get him to withdraw money at the ATM and give you cash. All legal, but the money has been mixed.
Making it harder to find the source of money, by moving it through different banks and multiple bank accounts is not a crime, as long as the money wasn't obtained illegally.

It does, as long as you don't use a centralized exchange or a service that sends money to your bank account.
Here's where it becomes interesting and you have to realize 2 things:

1. Mixing crypto is not illegal.
2. Fiat money belongs to the government.

When you exchange crypto to fiat, it's like accepting government's ToS. You agree to use THEIR money and you must obey all laws regarding it. As long as you get crypto, for instance by gambling in a casino, participating in a signature campaigns, giveaways, raffles, you can freely mix it. You cannot be sentenced for using a mixer!

What is illegal then and when can you be taken to court?
It becomes complicated the moment you exchange bitcoin to fiat money. When you do it, you sell your mixed coins that can technically (but don't have to) come from illegal sources, into fiat money, that is supposed to be clean and legal, and doesn't belong to you. This is the important part, a fiat owner is just a user, but the government is in control, unlike with bitcoin where you're the user and the owner. By exchanging (potentially) dirty laundered coins into fiat, in the eyes of the government you're tainting that fiat, THEIR fiat.

Many would assume that once a person is trying to be private then something is fishy, this has been the stigma placed on Crypto-currency that all of its users are either scammers or launderers.

Mixing is not a Crime until the person engaging in the Crypto-currency mixing is found guilty. Anyone can want to engage the services of a mixer for anonymous reasons and to protect their privacy.

Of course, the owners had to get out of this situation in the best way, but it turned out the way it happened.

Most likely, almost all the money was confiscated. Another point is why the mixer owners didn't prepare for such a scenario and didn't prepare defense in advance. This type of activity undoubtedly had to attract the attention of law enforcement agencies and, of course, first of all they took up the biggest service.

Laundering is just an excuse to sue a chipmixer and arrange a show execution. The precedent has been created and will now hunt for other platforms too.

In simple terms money laundering is a term giving to all illegal money activities by government.
Why coin mixing is method of hiding coins holders privacy.

Their is probably no relationship between Bitcoin Mixing or any Mixing service and that's of money laundering.

Calling Mixing service money laundering is just another way for government to damage the image of the Mixing service using the recent news of ChipMixer.

I really don't see any relationship in regard to the ongoing discussion.
Luckily this topic is self moderated.

That was definitely a bad incident with ChipMixer and it should have been handled in a better way by the owners actually. There were many justifications available for the same but unfortunately, the case was appealed strongly by juries. I think they should have clearly mentioned how crypto works and how money (fiat) works. Though there were many grounds such as, virtual currencies not being fiat they are just mixing up a bunch of encrypted data and giving away fresh encrypted and more protected data etc.

I am not sure if such grounds are valid in the court or not but with such a big mixer with that much money they should have hired the best lawyer in the US>

In many countries, it could have been based on protection against the data by adding more security such as mixing and creating anonymous fresh data sets. I don't think it was money laundering at all.

We Know So Many People’s Interested And Involved With Bitcoin And Crypto Currency Projects Because Just Trying To Build Up In Future Life With Crypto Currency Related Project So Bitcoin Is Not Money Laundering Issue.

Is some way this could be defined to be some kind of money laundering as you conceal the origin of the transaction, the only thing that separates bitcoin mixing and money laundering... pretty much borders around the legal side of the transaction.

But whatever the case, crypto by nature does have the anonymity aspect to it and the origin of the coins matter less and makes it difficult to define money laundering in this context.

There's a lot of contradictory statements coming from governments when it comes to mixing.
They claimed that chipmixer helped to launder "money" but most governments don't count bitcoin or any other cryptocurrencies as money. Their laws don't protect bitcoin theft the way it protects money.

A good example of this is insider trading happening with bitcoin all around the world, recently Binance was accused of doing it. If something like this was done with fiat money or stocks you'd see the agencies coming for you very fast, but since it's crypto they barely care. The only reason they're going after CZ is to make it harder for Americans to buy bitcoin when the banks are in trouble. They think that scaring people away from bitcoin will be beneficial for dying banks and should prevent a bank run.

If bitcoin is not money and you can trade it like you trade gift cards or game tokens, why were people put in jail for money transmitting without a license?

How come some politicians treat it as gift cards or game tokens and others want you to apply for licenses and forbid you to make it hard to trace?

IMO mixers have the right to exist and be used by citizens of a country, especially as long as bitcoin isn't a recognized and accepted currency in that country. If it becomes fully regulated they can make it clear whether it is money and if that money is allowed to be made untraceable by people who want to use it for open, legal, payments in the country.
You either regulate and accept it, or you don't accept it and we do what we want with it just as we play around with game currencies and casino chips.