Topic: I think it's possible to keep going without banning mixers - page 2. (Read 387 times)

What theymos did was for the common good of all, and if you read people's posts very well, you would realize that many expected this before it happened. Also, I don't seem to see so much wisdom in the analogy you link between m!xers and casinos, they are just two different business models. One is riskier than the other and one is a threat to the world than the other. If the government clamps down on a particular casino, the case will be different, especially when the casino is duly registered. This is not the first time that businesses have paid fines for money laundry and the bosses involved going to jail without affecting their business's operations.

The recent case of Binance is an example, have governments dealt with their promoters? That's impossible, it's a different business model, not such that is advertising anonymity. They will deal decisively with the management if found wanting and will get to come up with an ideal punishment. This is because they would of course know the people behind the casino to deal with them. Do they know the people behind m!xers? Common!!! There are some high-level illegality that m!xers are involved in, I don't think it's wise for the forum administration to still allow them.

Most of you look at the money, not the integrity and the humanitarian side, but the forum and its management look beyond that. A good name is worth a lot more than gold and silver, let's keep it that way here.

When one mixer is sanctioned by government agencies, bad actors that utilize such services will simply move on to the next available mixer and that's a recurring pattern. The fact that they're yet to be sanctioned by government doesn't mean that they won't be. Theymos mentioned that the forum has been yet been contacted but it's better to be safe that sorry.

In the end, I'm not a fan of censorship but it's a sad reality that there's so much we'd like to change but are unable to do so.

Theymos wants to ban them on this forum because bitcointalk.org was mentioned in justive.gov pdf files and Sinbad.io's bitcointalk signature campaign address was also blacklisted by OFAC and they themselves registered on this forum and wrote a warning post. These are the real reasons!

Then there would be no USA based coinbase and USA based bitcoin mining pool called Foundry USA. Both of these companies are one of the biggest companies in bitcoin industry. I think there is a difference between regular sentence government doesn't like bitcoin and money was laundered through Sinbad.io. Governments don't ban bitcoin, even blackrock got involved into it.

I don't care as much about mixer campaigns as their availability and discussion on this forum. This forum has a good trust system, it's easier to pick right mixer on this forum and solve any issue with the help of forum members. Without this forum, it will be super hard to find a good mixer or solve any issue. Any mixer will be able to scam you and there will be nowhere to report them, they'll not have to worry about their trust either.

Me? Risking forum for a few bucks from sig campaign? You are wrong, thanks god I am from western world. Point of this thread is not really to run signature campaign, it doesn't matter for me if he lets mixers to run signature campaigns or any other kind of promotion. My point is that we shouldn't block mixers from creating ANN thread and from discussion in their threads because it helps people to choose good, trustworthy mixer and since it's not illegal, there is nothing wrong with it. The problem in this case was that theymos didn't ban certain mixers that were laundering money. If new casinos create ANN threads tomorrow and start laundering money and get seized and Interpol metions bitcointalk again in their PDF, casinos will be blocked on this forum, right? So, you know, the problem will easily be solved if we block companies and services on this forum that do something illegal. It's easier to know they do something illegal once they get media's attention. Then, simply ban them on this forum and there won't be any mention of bitcointalk in justice.gov PDF documents.

He will ban the casino signature campaigns too if it comes to that. I don't think that would be a hard decision for him to make. As far as I know, he hasn't ruled out completely abolishing signature campaigns in the future, so keep that at the back of your mind. 

At the end of the day, It's just a forum, a private forum. The owner or administrator can do whatever he wants with it.

It's all about the North Korean hackers Lazarus Group.

If you know the history of this group, you will understand why The USA are hunting them. And to be honest if I'm the POTUS I would do the same since the main job is to protect the country (and so the citizens)

They don't really care about mixers, but since LG uses such services, everything is good to try to stop the bad guys.
Replace "Mixer" with "Bank", they will hunt the bank too. Surely not the same way, they won't seize the bank, instead, they will issue a fine to the bank (as they usually do)

Others mixers have never been mentioned by any media, yes, but in a justice court imagine saying yourself "Media didn't say so I didn't know"

Better safe than sorry right? Why would you want to risk the forum for a few bucks in a signature campaign? Legal or not, why take the risk? Not sure where there is any reason to think twice about it honestly.

Yea some are going to feel like we are being censored or whatnot, but I would rather this place exist vs risking that at some point it might not if we let advertising of mixers happen. Just my 2 cents.

You can still mention them and discuss them alright, you will not be allowed to promote for them, they are not completely banned, that's why I stopped attacking theymos. 😉 either way I personally am OK with both scenarios, so count my 1 vote for both sides.

I don't know if Theymos is privy to any info the rest of us aren't, but I think he's being proactive and sees the writing on the wall as far as mixers go.  Obviously the US alphabet agencies have them under the microscope, and Theymos wants to protect the forum, so....

I do find it unfortunate things went this way, but what happens when you try to fight the government?  You lose 99.999% of the time, and why even try to do something that would instigate a battle with the SEC and who knows what other agencies?  We'll survive without mixer campaigns or even threads about mixers; the forum did just fine before they came along, right?

You know what? I'm also against banning any Bitcoin services, but the admin has made up his mind already, however he is a reasonable person and would listen to reason. So you'd need the majority to come up and agree with reasonable debate as to why it's not necessary to ban them. But I do agree that what you said is a good solution. But remember this: governments and medias also believe Bitcoin is used for the wrong reason, should we ban Bitcoin too?

But as long as your solution could be effective to protect this forum, I'd say it's a good one.

US has sacrificed and shutdown some mixing services:


Not that US shut down all mixing services to stop operation in the country.

Not that there is a law that directly ban mixers. If there is a law that mixers are banned, we all will not have anything to say. But without any clear regulations and law against mixers, theymos want to ban them on this forum.

Mixer campaigns makes this forum lively and give joy to some people but without clear regulatory laws for them, we are taking them away from this forum.

Without any law that will shut down mixers in US, I do not see any reason theymos should ban them on this forum.

This has been a hot topic recently but I think it's not necessary to ban mixers because their existence is not actually the problem today. Mixers are legal, they aren't illegal, so, it's no problem for this forum to allow mixers to create ANN thread and have discussion or even promote themselves via forum ads or signature campaign. Google allows you to search bitcoin mixers, right? There are even articles on Yahoo where bitcoin mixers are listed too.

To my mind, the problem is that forum doesn't ban mixers until they are officially seized. For example, it was known that Sanctioned mixer Blender.io relaunched as Sinbad.io. There are many proofs in this article against Sinbad.io, i.e. how many millions of dollars were laundered through Blender at first and then through Sinbad. The moment this article was published, forum administrators should have banned Sinbad and closed its ANN, promotion and other related threads. Media and government attention together are enough proof to consider service as illegal to promote on this forum to get rid of further headache.

Before Sinbad, Chipmixer was seized and forum could get away without getting named in justice.gov files if administrators banned it in 2019 because there were evidences that Chipmixer was used for money laundering: Binance Hackers Bombard Chipmixer to Launder at Least 4,836 BTC.

Yes, believe it or not, the problem starts when you ignore what is publishes about certain mixers. There were mixers earlier, like, [banned mixer] (since 2018) and [banned mixer] (since 2016). I did a research and these mixers have never been mentioned by any media, these mixers haven't been seized and this forum didn't get any problem from these mixers. Are they honeypot? I don't know but at the moment it looks like it's perfectly safe to discuss about them and to it's not harmful from them to promote themselves here. They haven't officially caught any attention from governments.

The reason why this attitude is better for this forum is that what would theymos do if tomorrow there comes a casino with ANN thread, runs signature campaign and helps people to launder money? Imagine you read articles that Lazarus laundered money through CasinoX, then another article comes up with title: Russian hackers launder money through CasinoX. If theymos won't ban this CasinoX immediately and wait for its seize, then this forum will be included in another PDF uploaded by justice.gov. Will theymos block discussion about crypto casinos? Will he ban casino signature campaigns? Doesn't make sense, right?

I know and understand that it's some kind of censorship but it's better than absolutely banning particular categories. I think that it's not necessary for theymos to ban discussion and promotion of mixers. If forum administration and moderation will react when there is an article about particular mixer or casino or another scam crypto project and ban ANN/promotional threads of these particular projects, they won't be included in justice.gov's pdfs and won't be mentioned anywhere. I think this is a safe and better option.