Topic: How wide reaching can the consequences of Chipmixer money laundering be? (Read 1475 times)

This is scary when i hear that the government officials can come up with an order to close the forum just because people are advertising mixers here. But then will they ban social media, facebook, twitter also if they see mixers being advertised their too?

If they really need to do the crackdown, the US government needs to ban the mixers and not the entities which are advertising it. By the way, they can only ban the mixers operating in or from the US. They can't ban the mixers worldwide just like they are unable to ban the cryptocurrencies.  

No harm in seeking clarification because I was unable to read between the lines 

I understand your opinion, thank you Halab for elaborating.

I think the general consensus here has to be that promoting mixers does not by default mean anything wrong is happening. Most people require some degree of privacy to to attempt to anonymise their BTC (such as signature campaign participants or lenders), however but some of the service providers could face having some of their services misused for criminal activity including money laundering.

The fact that all mixers are promising to provide an anonymous service means it could be targeted by criminals for nefarious purposes. Having said that, if any law enforcement agency stated they deemed mixers to be illegal it would change the equation very fast because the forum would ban their campaigns and probably their forum representative accounts too. On top of that forum members would not be wearing their brands in avatars or signatures.

Let's make a comparison with drug traffic.
There is a whole network with many people involved at different levels.
At the top, there is the big boss.
There are those who make the drugs.
There are those who handle the logistic.
There are those who sell the drugs.
There are those who watch to warn drug dealers when the cops are coming.
There are also the nannies (sorry I don't know the english word for people who stash drugs at home to make little money).
And there are those who buy drugs (whether they are heavy drug addicts or occasional users).

When the justice wants to dismantle a drug business, they go after the head, the important people and the important elements of the network. They will not arrest all the consumers. But if the justice wants to be zealous, the nannies or the watchers can be sentenced (to minor sanctions).

There with mixers, we don't know with which violence the arm of the justice will strike. Because it will strike one day.
As with drugs, those who have used a mixer for a small amount of money or who have displayed a signature here should not be worried (*). But, again, if the justice wants to be zealous, Bitcointalk as an entity can be considered as part of the network and the forum can be closed. This is the kind of thing, I think, Theymos wants to protect against.  

(*) Not a legal advice

I already wrote to you that you should be able to read between the lines so that some things would be clearer to you. The fact is that the administration decided to take that step for two reasons - the first is to protect themselves as individuals, and the second is to protect the forum from possible closure.

Each individual has always been responsible for his actions on the forum, and it will be so in the future, with the difference that now the forum administration completely separates itself from anyone who promotes mixers. In the event that someone decides to deal uncompromisingly with the mixers and those who advertise them, each individual will pay an individual price, and the forum will not be held responsible.

That's just my thinking though, I don't have any confidential information nor do I know what will happen in the future.

That is one thing that has been noticed, at this time mixers have not been blanket banned but it will become a very interesting topic of discussion if matters ever head in that direction.

I am confused, you stated the was up to that point very little risk for regular users at the same time as you said there were protective measures for theymos and staff (and the forum by default). Can you elaborate on the differentiation you stated between them?

Join the club 

I think there is no measure of protection for anyone, protect who and for what? as has been said, here the community performed only the task of advertising. I think it's more an ethical issue and shared by all the staff, as if to say "we don't want bitcoins deriving from illicit activities"

I have never participated in CM signature campaign, but I personally believe a scenario where members of this forum are targeted by intelligence agencies to be very unlikely.

In my opinion, the community rather performed a job of advertising and that itself is not illegal.
Even if they were to be targeted, why now? Why would those agencies wait to this day (after so many years) to do anything about the funds being paid for advertisement? Much of it is likely spent anyways.

I think future efforts will get directed towards the next services which would gain high volumes like those handled by CM, instead tracking down members of this community.

That is just my opinion, of course. I do not know anything about law in this matter.

No, not really. Mixers are in a grey area that is likely to get darker and darker. If the US government decides to ban mixers, the debate will be very short and you will have to learn how to post in the Gambling section
This is just a protective measure for Theymos, for Bitcointalk and (by consequence) for the Staff. For regular users there is (so far) very little risk, but if you have any doubt, go see a lawyer.
Don't overthink my words, I don't see the future, I don't have any secret information and I don't know anything about laws.

That was an interesting statement about staff being told to stop advertising mixers but does anybody know if any discussions took place to consider banning mixer signatures from the forum?

The authorities in Germany and the US have clearly stated their opinion, and everything is written in a document that has been made public. Aside from what we here on the forum think about mixers in the context of privacy, some very powerful people think completely differently and consider such a way of privacy illegal. Therefore, everyone who has promoted CM over the years, and everyone who promotes any mixer today, is doing exactly the same thing - there is no difference or logical justification that one is different from the other.



Well, considering that the investigation was conducted for years, it is not realistic to expect that we will find out everything so quickly. At this moment, no one from the forum's administration has announced whether they received a request to hand over all the information that is of interest to the investigators, and even if it happened, there is no obligation for the admins to say it publicly.


The answer was provided by another member, and I leave it to everyone to interpret it in their own way.

All staff members refuse or have withdrawn from participation in the advertising mixing service. there is no official announcement about it, but there is a much clearer indication to read between the lines. written by a member who has a great reputation here

Precisely. If any business was declared as a money launder or other criminal activity alleged against them, I would apply the only available logic and would stop participating in their signature campaigns. And add to that if allegations were made by forum members that they were scammed by any business I display in my avatar or signature then I will remove it and probably open (or at least participate) in a scam accusation thread.

I personally would not be worried about possibly being asked to hand over the received fees for the signature campaign but others might be. If asked by law enforcement agencies I would simply give it as I would not want to be viewed as a criminal or fugitive.

Having said, if law enforcement agencies made it clear they will ask Chipmixer signature campaign participants to send/surrender all funds they received from the Chipmixer signature campaign, I would immediately remove any mixer from my avatar and/or signature and never get involved with mixer campaigns again and that would only be because a precedent would have been set by the law enforcement agencies. As of yet, that has not happened.

I am missing something.

Can you quote that message please?

Interesting thinking, although there is no logic at all in what you wrote. The only difference between what you are currently promoting (and it is a mixer) and the CM that has been seized is that the former has not yet been officially placed in the same category, or in other words it has not been officially declared a money laundering service.

You cannot know who is using the mixer that you are currently promoting, but in case you find out that some criminals used it for their dirty business, will you then be worried that you will have to return all the earnings and that guys from some three agency letters will knock on your door?

In addition, thanks to one of the members, we know the official position of the forum administration regarding mixers, which is a very clear message for those who know how to read between the lines.

No I am not concerned because as with others I can make a distinction between promoting a service that provides privacy and one that could be misused if determined people (criminals) wanted to take advantage of, versus an out-and-out criminal enterprise.

If I get even the slightest bit of indication that either a scam or criminal enterprise is being promoted in my avatar or signature, I will remove them immediately. I had a very good deal with my long term signature partner and I am grateful for the opportunity to promote them but I moved on to whirlwind.money for now and will see how matters progress.

Yes, since most here share the view mixers are not banned therefore can be promoted then why not promote them however the issue goes further when it comes to privacy.

Mixers by default are supposed to be privacy based, that is their selling point. The notion of having regulated mixers would almost ensure they would not be shutdown by law enforcement agencies but it would defeat the idea because it would compromise client anonymity via AML/KYC. As that will not be happening any time soon (or ever), all mixers are basically open to allegations of money laundering and can be shutdown by various law enforcement agencies as and when they deem they have sufficient evidence to prosecute.

In my opinion, unless some form of evolution in mixing takes place where access of functionality is limited to criminals (or alleged criminals) or those with nefarious intentions then sooner or later all mixers will be shutdown either voluntarily or by law enforcement agencies.

I guess you must not be too worried about the consequences at this point, right? Seeing as you are one of those participating in the highest paying campaign atm, which is also a mixer.

As far as I can see most of the responses are along the same lines as well. I believe the same. It's one thing if there was a regulation or law banning mixers. If there were, I think there could be consequences for knowingly advertising an illegal service . But I understand that there is no such regulation, what there is is suspicion by the authorities that they are used for money laundering and lack of cooperation in response to requests. So, it's a different story.

If I remember correctly, then the URL "chipmixer[dot]one" was at the top when I did a basic search with the term "Chipmixer", It was definitely at the top.


I think it took a few hours or days to correct the google indexing, which led to the "chipmixer[dot]one" domain going down below 6-7 search results.
And now I can't even see the result on the first page of google.


I'm getting Wikipedia results and then article-writing websites' articles about chipmixer, such as theverge and coindesk

This link https://chipmixer.one/ is not functional and doesn't have a place in google ranking. I doubt they would be able to scam anyone even if they succeed in creating something like chipmixer. This is because the chipmixer ban and US seizure and money laundry activities are the key words you'll see when you type in chipmixer. Unless the person doesn't read.
Besides when I typed chipmixer in the google, these are the suggestions I got;
Chipmixer bitcointalk;
Chipmixer review;
Chipmixer reddit;
Chipmixer services;
Etc.

Its a fake one of course. It's not the first one though and probably not the last attempt as scammers are trying to trick those unaware that the real ChipMixer website is down. Unfortunately, some will fall for this.

After a search on google of "Chipmixer" I found there's another website that's up and running "https://chipmixer.one/"
I don't know if it's from the person who created the official chipmixer or if it's a clone.


Indeed Russia seems a good option, he can also flee to Switzerland but I'm unsure of the international laws and regulations of the country.

---

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChipMixer
"ChipMixer was a cryptocurrency laundering service operated out of Vietnam from servers run in Germany. The service was allegedly used to launder more than three billion dollars over a period of six years."