Bitcointalk.org aims to allow about as much freedom as is reasonably possible. But this is not a darknet forum, and with mixers looking "grayer and grayer", it's no longer reasonably possible to allow linking to mixers. Even though "a cryptocurrency mixing service is not necessarily illegal," a clear pattern has emerged where mixers pop up, last for a little while, and then get taken down by law enforcement once they get too big. Allowing mixers to be posted on bitcointalk.org before they seemingly-inevitably get declared illegal and seized is not sustainable. Therefore, promoting mixers will no longer be allowed, similarly to how darknet sites are already disallowed.
To avoid disruption, there will be a grace period: Nothing will change until Jan 1, 2024.
Starting Jan 1, 2024:
- Forum accounts that are obviously run by mixers are not allowed. *
- Mixer announcement threads are not allowed. †
- Promoting mixers in signatures, avatars, and profile-bios are not allowed.
- It's not allowed for mixers to do giveaways, sponsorships, bounties, paid posts, or paid ads in posts. If a thread is for paying people to do something for a mixer, then that's also not allowed. †
- Mixer URLs will be automatically wordfiltered out, but you can still discuss mixers otherwise. Using link-shorteners or other obfuscation techniques in order to post URLs which would otherwise be wordfiltered is not allowed.
* Existing accounts will be banned from posting, but will be allowed to continue sending/receiving PMs for at least a few months so they can settle any business.
† Existing threads will be locked and archived.
You do not need to go edit/delete your past posts. Links will be automatically wordfiltered-out as of Jan 1, and nobody should be banned for old mixer-related posts. You should remove any mixer signatures/avatars/etc. soon after Jan 1, though.
Definition of a mixer
For clarity, here is a detailed definition of what we mean by a "mixer". Most people know intuitively what a mixer is and don't have to read this.
Something is considered a mixer if it meets all of these requirements:
1. It has a feature advertised for taking property, improving its privacy somehow, and then returning roughly the same type of property.
a. Even though you can sometimes use non-mixers to mix coins by depositing and then withdrawing, this doesn't make it a mixer because this is an incidental use of the service; the service isn't advertised as privacy-enhancing.
b. If a site is not primarily a mixer but has a mixer function, such as a mixer function on a gambling website, then the whole site is considered a mixer.
c. If the site takes coins, gives you a possibly-transferrable IOU, and will convert this IOU back into mixed coins much later, then the temporary conversion into a different type of property does not prevent it from being considered a mixer.
d. If the site internally converts your deposit into other things as part of its mixing, but ultimately the point of the product is to get your original type of property back, then that's a mixer, not an exchanger.
2. It is possible for the mixer to steal property passing through it. Assume that the sender does everything as correctly as possible. Also assume that no miners/verifiers on the base-layer cryptocurrency are evil. But assume that every other actor involved is evil (everyone able to vote in a DAO, every coordination server, every counterparty, every member of a multisig, etc.). Ignore short-term software bugs which are expected to be quickly fixed.
3. The service does not collect KYC-type info from all users. (This is not an endorsement of KYC generally, or a condemnation of non-KYC services generally. Non-KYC services of other types are still allowed, and in many cases they are a good idea.)
Examples of things that are not banned mixers include exchangers (unless they have a mixing function), CoinJoin-supporting non-custodial wallets, and Monero.
