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Topic: Participating in Mixer Signature Campaign (Read 890 times)

legendary
Activity: 3290
Merit: 16489
Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021
April 22, 2023, 05:38:06 AM
#62
If one need to do the KYC , then what is the purpose to the mixing of the coins.
One bad day, government will get all the KYC data from the mixers and then check who were involved in mixing the coins  Wink
Whether or not that matters depends on who you're hiding from.
legendary
Activity: 2954
Merit: 1159
If you're in mixer signature campaign, now you don't have to do anything. There is no need to show initiative. Mixer campaigns is allowed on Bitcointalk as long as theymos won't decide different. If one day he will decide to ban mixer campaigns, then you wouldn't have to make decision to leave campaign - all mixer campaigns simply would end then.
What theymos told to staff members is different story. Bitcointalk staff isn't same thing as regular members - they can be considered as employees of Bitcointalk. Emplyees of Bitcointalk advertising ''money laundering'' related stuff - it can bring problems for Bitcointalk. While regualr members can continue advertising basically everything, not just mixers, but also all kind of scams.

True, there is no need to panic right now. There will be an announcement if this forum would be banning the mixing campaigns so no need to speculate things too much.
I doubt, theymos will never ban these mixing campaigns. Also if you note that ever since the chip mixer campaign has ended, many new mixers have started advertising here.


Because it is not registered with a legal entity,
As for mixer services, basically it is impossible to get legality because serving "privacy" is not liked by the government. Then, any unregistered service will be inferred to be illegal and to contain "malicious" activity as is generally suspected.

and being registered means it's going to become centralized and there isn't going to be any privacy again; I don't know though, KYC may even be required before one can be allowed to mix,  Grin Grin

If one need to do the KYC , then what is the purpose to the mixing of the coins.
One bad day, government will get all the KYC data from the mixers and then check who were involved in mixing the coins  Wink
hero member
Activity: 2338
Merit: 757
In my opinion, this Forum is an intermediary, marketing, web which is basically just advertisers, not actors/campaign owners, logically, if you look at the quote above, it can be concluded, if there are problems at a later date with the campaign, the forum is not involved hands off, it is the company that bears the risk, the bottom line: no one knows what will happen in the future to the companies that advertise themselves in this forum, whether later there is embezzlement, fraud, fakes and so on, the forum is not responsible for that.
The proof:
It can be seen from several gambling campaigns that act as fraud, they are still here, even though law enforcement agencies have made outside efforts against the company.
The difference is that the authorities can track the activity of any of the gambling platforms, since most of them have licenses, and it is enough to activate one of the condemnation decisions to stop their activities. Mixer platforms do not operate any of them under legal cover. On this basis, any targeting of one of the hackers was after it was proven that it was used to hide the hack.
To some extent, I agree with the idea that promoting these platforms does not constitute a crime, because you are not responsible for the purposes of those who will use them.

Nevertheless, staff were asked to stop advertising mixing services. We are promoting mixing services. Will it be an issue for bitcointalk forum in general? What about the people advertising the mixer? Would it be better to quit advertising mixer services? I was thinking about this ever since I have seen OmegaStarScream's quoted post. Is it time to think about this?
I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I understand the forum itself is protected under section 230[2] that protects "interactive computer services" from any liability as a publisher for what the users post.
As for users advertising mixers or any other service really, they can do whatever they want as long as it's not promoting something illegal (e.g. drugs, etc...)
An important point is that the Bitcointalk forum is the only platform (as far as I know) where mixrs promote their services. I mean, once a decree is issued condemning the promoters of those services, it will be easy to track them down. I am not saying that this will happen, but it is likely to happen and it can be thought about.
sr. member
Activity: 2044
Merit: 329
Totally agree!

Btw what makes mixers illegal if i may ask, them promoting  anonymity and privacy or because  owners dont put a face to their businesses ??

Doesnt bitcoin fall in this category too as its illegal in some counties...

And where does this  leave coins such as Monero ?

each country has its own law and reportedly from what I read in several reports, because the mixer's job is to disguise bitcoin transactions so it violates banking compliance and money laundering laws, but the question is whether everyone who uses mixers is a criminal. Of course not and that is a matter that will continue to be debated.
regarding monero, compared to bitcoin, monero transactions are very private (although tracking can still be done) while bitcoin is pseudonymous.

I do the same as OmegaStarScream I only accept non gambling ads but sometimes when I do really need money, I pick one.

and as you can see that Mixer ads is very tempting and the salary is good. I just hope the mixer campaign last long Cheesy

why do you feel like what you're doing is wrong, as long as you don't do things that harm other people then there's nothing wrong with that, I personally respect the staff's decision. Grin
hero member
Activity: 1414
Merit: 802
Top Crypto Casino
The mixing business is here to stay the authorities cannot make it disappear, there is a dark web where they can freely promote and on advertising here on Bitcointalk so much depends on when authorities start looking on platforms where they are being advertised, and how the forum admin accept these platforms to have a space here in Bitcointalk.
Chipmixer started it all and all the other mixing platforms existing now are just following the thread Chipmixer laid out.
Authorities only get interested to find out and targeting a mixer when there's an incident of hackers sending hacked funds to mix on any mixer platform to avoid getting detected. Say a hack happen on an exchange and the hacker reported to used that specific mixer. This happen to all those mixers who got shutdown. As long there's no analysis of mixirs getting used by hackers then i'd say they are say.
sr. member
Activity: 2002
Merit: 269
I just hope the mixer campaign last long Cheesy

The mixing business is here to stay the authorities cannot make it disappear, there is a dark web where they can freely promote and on advertising here on Bitcointalk so much depends on when authorities start looking on platforms where they are being advertised, and how the forum admin accept these platforms to have a space here in Bitcointalk.
Chipmixer started it all and all the other mixing platforms existing now are just following the thread Chipmixer laid out.
legendary
Activity: 2086
Merit: 1759
theymos asked this for obvious reasons. What I'm curious about is whether any law enforcement was there behind the decision.
As far as I know, campaigns have broad meanings (many), they are basic guidelines, you can mention support, implementation, activities, propaganda, movements and so on, that's all regardless of whether the campaign acts as fraud, fake, legal or illegal.

I quoted one of the laws that apply to my country, maybe international.
Quote
Any person with the intent to advertise a company online to unlawfully benefit himself or others by using a false name or false prestige: by means of deception, or a series of lies, to incite another person to hand over something to him, or to give a debt or write off a receivable, is threatened, for fraud, with imprisonment.

Note: the above quote points to individuals/companies, marketing or freelance advertising that are not legal for them.

In my opinion, this Forum is an intermediary, marketing, web which is basically just advertisers, not actors/campaign owners, logically, if you look at the quote above, it can be concluded, if there are problems at a later date with the campaign, the forum is not involved hands off, it is the company that bears the risk, the bottom line: no one knows what will happen in the future to the companies that advertise themselves in this forum, whether later there is embezzlement, fraud, fakes and so on, the forum is not responsible for that.
The proof:
It can be seen from several gambling campaigns that act as fraud, they are still here, even though law enforcement agencies have made outside efforts against the company.

My understanding, if one of the campaigns or companies that advertise on the forum, the forum has no right to close down the company, if so who has the right, namely: relevant international/electronic authorities, informatics law authorities can act to block fraudulent/fake websites, based on the evidence that has been gathered.
copper member
Activity: 1988
Merit: 905
Part of AOBT - English Translator to Indonesia
I do the same as OmegaStarScream I only accept non gambling ads but sometimes when I do really need money, I pick one.

and as you can see that Mixer ads is very tempting and the salary is good. I just hope the mixer campaign last long Cheesy
hero member
Activity: 854
Merit: 737
Is it time to think about this?
Actually, we are participants in the mixer campaign main goal is not to legalize and endorse money laundering, terrorism or any kind of crime, the main purpose is privacy, which is often overlooked by many people or the government. And actually, not only that (mixer) even gambling, exchange or new token have the risk to be scams or use for other crimes if not the right hand.

So with this case, we have to be aware in the post, do it wisely in order to get considered good. Don't make people think we are here as endorsing for crime services.
copper member
Activity: 2828
Merit: 4065
Top Crypto Casino
Yes, legit users might use a mixer for 10 million dollars worth of transactions, but criminals will use mixers for billions of dollars in bad transactions. The bad outweighs the good IMO.



- 23% in 2022 and 12% in 2021 of the funds sent to mixers come from a crimial activity
It's the total opposite

- And with the 23%, half of the amount was coming from Hydramarket and 30% from Lazarus group.

- 10% of funds sent from illicit addresses are sent to mixers. So 90% do not send to a mixer.

https://twitter.com/chainalysis/status/1547570192011522050
legendary
Activity: 3556
Merit: 4191
After 2 months, it continued (with slightly less spam).
Less spam because most active spammers were banned and the campaign was managed by yahoo62278 after all. He blacklisted many spammers from that campaign and rejected to pay for spam posts.

List of banned participants in the Cryptotalk Campaign. It started with Yobit, then changed to Cryptotalk.
I had a lot of help in that campaign from regular forum users. I would get pms daily reporting users spamming sections and it led to many bans. Even though the campaign was about cryptotalk, once it turned into advertising yobit, the campaign ended. I was not comfortable with the change.

As far as mixers go, I'm too ignorant to have a real opinion. I've never been interesting in using them. I am sure they have good and bad things about them, but I would rather not risk it. Governments, especially the US Government, have a habit of making things their business. Yes, legit users might use a mixer for 10 million dollars worth of transactions, but criminals will use mixers for billions of dollars in bad transactions. The bad outweighs the good IMO.

hero member
Activity: 2296
Merit: 755
Bitcoin = Financial freedom
^ yeah I saw both the extremes of availability of signature campaigns on bitcointalk and also its evolution, there was a time its available for everyone then in 2017 people found they can make money stumbled on bitcointalk with tons of accounts to make money via bounties and campaigns then in 2018 merit system was introduced to dodge that and it worked well compared to activity requirements alone for ranking up.

Well as an user we also need to be picky when choosing what we choose to wear, I am never going to put anything related to investment scam because from my experience everything went as scam over the period, then now gambling its legal in my region and I do gamble as well occasionally so I took the chance and making use of what bitcointalk gave us which is something called signature, we can even advertise our own service(s).
legendary
Activity: 3696
Merit: 10155
Self-Custody is a right. Say no to"Non-custodial"
You can check for yourself: all Mods have their Bitcoin address in their profile, then find the monthly transaction that pays several Mods.
I took a random sample and it looks like 5-8 make less than $600 a month (a good average you can get from signature campaigns)
However, some addresses get more than $250 a week, which is an average that all signature campaigns cannot. Honestly, I was surprised that it could be considered a part-time job and not just a bonus.

I doubt that it would be just a monetary calculation for a mod to give up his/her mod position in the event that theymos is telling him/her not to participate in certain signature campaigns that may well be the highest payers, such as mixing campaigns.. but of course, there may end up being other reasons that could come into the calculation, and the monetary portion might end up being the part that ends up causing a decision to give up upon being a mod..

It is just a precautionary measure from the administration side of bitcointalk since the most reputed mixing service is under seize now so they don't want any legal issues for the staffs but as a user it's your own decision whether you want to participate or stop due to the risk behind advertising mixing service. However I don't feel there is much threat for signature campaign participants even if the mixing service face legal actions so just choose it in your own.

I tend to agree with this idea that on an individual level we are not very likely to end up being accountable for which signatures that we might choose to wear, even though personally, we might have some issues in regards to our preferences and/or our willingness to wear certain kinds of signatures, and surely any of us might want to calculate getting involved in any kind of signature campaign (or even other matters of following a project or volunteering to help) in which either the ongoing continuance of such project might become questionable and even if they are changing their payment terms a lot of the times, merely because of some of the regulatory uncertainties that they might face or even enforcement actions...

Sometimes it could just be a hassle to have to bounce from one signature campaign to the next to the next or even to get sucked into having to follow what is happening with any signature campaign (that might have some drama too) that any of us might choose to wear - which surely was part of the reason that I stopped (in early 2018) getting involved with my own personal participation in signature campaigns.. For me, at that time, it was just too much bouncing around in regards to my own tolerance/(willingness to go along) for such..and I am not even completely disagreeable to the idea of wearing a signature (because I can), but there can be some quasi-conscious burden with any of those kinds of things too.. just in terms of sometimes other members might judge you based on the signature that you wear... which might serve a kind of "cost of doing business".
hero member
Activity: 2296
Merit: 755
Bitcoin = Financial freedom
It is just a precautionary measure from the administration side of bitcointalk since the most reputed mixing service is under seize now so they don't want any legal issues for the staffs but as a user it's your own decision whether you want to participate or stop due to the risk behind advertising mixing service. However I don't feel there is much threat for signature campaign participants even if the mixing service face legal actions so just choose it in your own.
legendary
Activity: 2492
Merit: 3612
Buy/Sell crypto at BestChange
You can check for yourself: all Mods have their Bitcoin address in their profile, then find the monthly transaction that pays several Mods.
I took a random sample and it looks like 5-8 make less than $600 a month (a good average you can get from signature campaigns)
However, some addresses get more than $250 a week, which is an average that all signature campaigns cannot. Honestly, I was surprised that it could be considered a part-time job and not just a bonus.
legendary
Activity: 3290
Merit: 16489
Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021
Are you sure about that? I recently checked some of the Mod-payments, and they were higher than I expected. Of course, this is different for each Mod, but so are signature payments.
Can you estimate the average or at least the limits of those payments? even if the numbers are not accurate.

Several years ago, I remember this was brought up, and the average was about $60 per week ~240/month (depending on board) but for most it is less than $100 per month.
You can check for yourself: all Mods have their Bitcoin address in their profile, then find the monthly transaction that pays several Mods.
legendary
Activity: 2492
Merit: 3612
Buy/Sell crypto at BestChange
Are you sure about that? I recently checked some of the Mod-payments, and they were higher than I expected. Of course, this is different for each Mod, but so are signature payments.
Can you estimate the average or at least the limits of those payments? even if the numbers are not accurate.

Several years ago, I remember this was brought up, and the average was about $60 per week ~240/month (depending on board) but for most it is less than $100 per month.

legendary
Activity: 2604
Merit: 1102
If you are taking adequate privacy practices, then you should not really have anything to worry about. If you are browsing BitcoinTalk on plain IP, you can be sure that it would cause you some issues for talking about mixing services let alone being paid by one to indirectly advertise one from posting. Even using a VPN on an OS like Windows would be considered not enough to be considered private.

What issues do you have in mind?
I agree with all the steps that we should take to be more anonymous on this forum, but I see nothing bad in advertising anything in your signature, be it a casino, a mixer, a torrent site, whatever.
It's just a link that you have in your profile. If having something like that had any legal repercussions, people would get banned and prosecuted for having pictures they don't have legal rights to in avatars and having a TOR marketplace in your profile picture would be a criminal offense.

AFAIK in the EU we don't have specific laws regarding mixers and a mixer does not fall into money laundering service category, because although it's possible to use dirty money to buy bitcoin, run it through a mixer and convert it back to fiat, you still have to buy bitcoin somehow. This means that if you have drug money, you have to register at an exchange, wire it there somehow (using a bank account?) and then wire it back to an account.

When they make a law that says mixers are banned, running, or using a mixer is against the law, and so on, I'll have to stay away from them.
legendary
Activity: 3696
Merit: 10155
Self-Custody is a right. Say no to"Non-custodial"
If you're in mixer signature campaign, now you don't have anything. There is no need to show initiative. Mixer campaigns is allowed on Bitcointalk as long as theymos won't decide different. If one day he will decide to ban mixer campaigns, then you wouldn't have to make decision to leave campaign - all mixer campaigns simply would end then.
What theymos told to staff members is different story. Bitcointalk staff isn't same thing as regular members - they can be considered as employees of Bitcointalk. Emplyees of Bitcointalk advertising ''money laundering'' related stuff - it can bring problems for Bitcointalk. While regualr members can continue advertising basically everything, not just mixers, but also all kind of scams.
I don't think theymos will stop Mixing companies to advertise their products in the forum, and the only time theymos can do that is when a president strongly confirmed that the mixing is a scam  or money laundering company them at that time he might make a pronouncement to stop his members which he has done not to participate but to stop the company in the forum is what I can't not tell because All the allegations level against 1Xbit both the forum and outside the forum yet 1Xbit is still running well in forum therefore, the mixing company might still run in the forum but limited members will like to promote such a company.

And not Mixers companies are bad or have a fraudulent activities, some of them are genuine, so we can't use what happened in one to generalize others.

I think that you are framing this matter wrongly in a couple of ways Mate2237.

as far as I understand, theymos is an owner not a president of a company... so there is less requirement that theymos has to get anyone to agree with him.. a president of a company would have more need to appease shareholders and "the board" for example...

Another thing, there is no need to determine that something might be fraudulent or a potential scam in order to attempt to distance yourself from liability as an owner,.. and specifically we have to see the owner within the context of a service that allows for the sharing of information on the web.  The removal of representatives, or agents or even employees (though they are most likely not employees) is largely just to create more of an arms length between what he (theymos is doing - or through his agents) and what users of the service (the forum) are doing.. yes, even mods are users of the forum service, so there might not even be any need for theymos from stopping what they are doing, but if he is trying to keep some distance between himself and what members are doing, then sometimes it may well be more prudent to recommend, suggest, order the mods not to engage in such conduct of wearing certain kinds of signatures (in this case the mixing services).. so may well just be a precautionary measure that may or may not be too much.. but surely discretionary..... but may well be prudent.. and surely I doubt that any law enforcement agent told him to do it or gave a warning, but you also never know that sometimes there could be discussions with government officials that are "off the books" and surely consultants and attorneys might have some ideas regarding some of the internal deliberations of some of the enforcement agencies, too.
legendary
Activity: 1638
Merit: 1036
6.25 ---> 3.125
If you are taking adequate privacy practices, then you should not really have anything to worry about. If you are browsing BitcoinTalk on plain IP, you can be sure that it would cause you some issues for talking about mixing services let alone being paid by one to indirectly advertise one from posting. Even using a VPN on an OS like Windows would be considered not enough to be considered private.

At the very least:
- Use Linux and a VPN as a minimum.
- Access BitcoinTalk by Tor over VPN or another custom solution that is more than just a singular connection to a VPN.
- Avoid Javascript where possible.
- Keep your personal information completely separate from your campaign earnings and your BitcoinTalk account.
- Prioritize decentralized exchanges, kyc free swap utilities, non custodial wallets and P2P marketplaces over centralized exchanges wherever possible.

These practices shouldn't just be for BitcoinTalk and your signature campaign. They should be employed in your day to day usage. The more you learn about cybersecurity and privacy, the more peace of mind you can gain. Anyone who believes that cybersecurity and privacy should be a board on the forum, support this request.
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