[1] Firstly, if you're looking to consolidate many small inputs, you could send everything to the mixer 1 input at a time. This way you won't link them when sending.
When you mentioned "small inputs", I assumed the amounts are too small for most mixers.
I know only one mixer that gives up to 20 deposit addresses to use, which could also work for small amounts.
An option here might be to try to find a service which will accept such small inputs in exchange for either a Lightning payment or a Monero payment without too much in the way of fees
To quote myself:
The cheapest exchange I know to convert on-chain Bitcoin to Bitcoin LN is CoinPlaza.it. They charge 0.1% for this transaction, without further fees. But they charge much more from LN to on-chain.
They require an account though, although without KYC for small amounts (<€500/month). FixedFloat.com would do the same without account, although I'm not sure if they'll demand KYC for higher transactions. Depending on your needs it can pay off to check rates at different instant exchangers.
I don't trust most instant exchangers at all, but especially for the small amounts we're talking about here, I don't mind risking it. BestChange lists a few exchangers with low minimum. If you use different coins (or LN) on different exchangers (through Tor) with random email addresses (when needed), it will be quite difficult to link your transactions. Obviously, you shouldn't reuse addresses and use self-hosted wallets.
So if, for example, I have 0.012 BTC in a voucher on ChipMixer, than after a couple of small change deposits I can withdraw a 0.016 chip, which prevents them being linked from people looking at individual sizes as you suggest.
I tried to bring this idea up but wasn't sure how to correctly phrase it. Sending multiple outputs to a single CM mix, individually, will keep them completely unlinked, right?
Assuming you mean sending multiple transactions to
different ChipMixer sessions, getting Vouchers and Redeeming them into a single CM session is unlinked. But since each session has only one deposit address, you shouldn't send multiple deposits to that address (obviously).
These platforms like
https://fixedfloat.com/; they require no registration at all. I don't know if you can deposit multiple times there, though.
You shouldn't deposit multiple times to the same address, but you can easily create a new exchange each time you have change to send somewhere. Even better if you use different services.
as far as I know it has never happened yet. A few months back, when 1x 0.001BTC chip was over 50 bucks (or now at roughly 30), they didn't make them smaller either; and as o_e_l_e_o said it was the same size when Bitcoin was $1,500 a pop.
CM raised the minimum chip size to 4 m
BTC I think around the end of 2017, when Bitcoin transaction fees were high enough to waste most of a 1 m
BTC chip on fees. I've never seen chips under 1 m
BTC.
It seems neat idea, but i wonder if there's privacy implication if you keep doing it for long time? I know Bitrefill give new address for each purchase, but i don't remember whether they also give new address for each deposit.
As long as they don't ask KYC, you can just create a new account once in a while. Or even each time. Or don't use an account at all, all you need is a throw-away email address.
Probably worth pointing out that using more than one account is against their terms and you risk getting hit with KYC demands, which obviously defeats the whole purpose here:
Any Customer using more than one Bitrefill account, or any other expedient, in order to circumvent the limits below, is in breach of these Terms and can have its account, or accounts, suspended until customer due diligence is successfully completed.
The way I read it, it doesn't say you can't have more than one account, but you can't use it to get around the limits. Even without account, you can spend $1000 per month. And since we're talking about small change here, that "ought to be enough for anyone"
(not plagiarism, just a famous quote from someone who may or may not have said it).
Hypothetical: what if someone creates a Change Consolidation Lottery? It would work like this: you go to the website, get a deposit address, send your change/dust, and the service collects it. When enough inputs are piled up, a (provably fair) lottery is drawn. Higher deposits are more likely to win of course. The winner receives the total pool (minus transaction and service fees) back to the address their deposit came from.
If enough people use it, it will be difficult to link transactions.