I have already received the funds, so I'm going to start with the basics of the site, and once the mixing process gets finished, I'll add that to this post.
First impresionThe site has a fresh, intuitive and user friendly interface, pretty easy to navigate and with some FAQs.
The mixerWhen you click on "Mix BTC", you get another intuitive page. You can add up to 5 different addresses, you can use the slidebars to change the % of the coins going to each wallet and the time delay. You can also set the service fee, which the site suggest to leave on irregular amounts to help decrease traceability, and the "Cryptocode".
Once everything is set up, you get to the next step, a dashboard-kind page where you can download the letter of guarantee, see the address you have to send the coins to, the order ID, the MixerCode, and a space where your incoming transaction will be displayed along with the outgoing ones.
Things I noticed so far- There is no kind of "warning" message about the "feePerAddress" on the mixing page itself. A user that jumps straight into mixing without reading the FAQ might get surprised if s/he receives less coins than the ones s/he is expecting to receive back. It's not really a big deal, but small details make the difference
- When you are setting up the mixing you can choose to enter a Cryptocode, which later on is called MixerCode. Changing the name of the things from one step to the next is not something I'd do
- As some other users have pointed out, logs are said to be deleted 24 hours after the mixing. Nevertheless, you can enter the MixerCode that you get on the first mixing you do to prevent your previous coins from coming back to you.
That means that some kind of log is kept. It may not keep the personal information, but saying all logs are deleted and then keeping some is rather deceiving. Following with this, if every time you use a MixerCode on a new transaction, you get a new code (this would be the 2nd code, on the 3rd mixing), said code will contain the information on the last mixing, but also the information of the first one; in the end, you are creating a chain that makes traceability much easier. So this thing you say on the FAQ, is definately not true
When mixing coins for the first time, you will receive a "MyCryptoCode" - a randomly generated unique string which will allow you to get coins only from pools that have no connection to your other transactions. Make sure to enter it before every mix to ensure the highest level of anonymity.
- I was curious enough to check the address you sent the testing coins from, I've been able to get the addresses of so far 5 tester. It's not really realted to the review itself, but may leave the door open to some privacy concerns about a mixing not mixing their coins.... (or maybe it's just me being paranoid)
- The slidebars for time delay and percentage are okay, but some users may want to input the values in a more accurate way (with a keyboard/keypad, for example)
What did I do while the coins got mixed?Well, I've received some test coins, I've sent them and now I have to wait to get them back... during that time, I've decided to check the whole rest of the site, even if it is not related to the mixing process itself. I first went to check the help center, should I have a situation that requires help.
The help center is something rather basic. You can read the same 10 questions that the landing page has, some links to articles of the blog of the site and of course, a link to the contact form.
Next thing I checked, the blog. The site is rather new, so I wasn't expecting much content, and that's exactly what I found. 4 very generic articles about why people should mix bitcoins/privacy. Some typos and grammar mistakes, which again are no big deal, but small details count. There's a tutorial on how to use the service in one of the articles, a place where rather few people would search for it, and a strange asterisc with no further explanation about it
We utilize state-of-the-art Advanced Mixing Algorithms for your funds*
Apart from that, apart from being generic, the 4 articles talk about pretty much the same. It did strike me that there is no single reference to manual mixing of the coins; considering it's a blog article talking about what bitcoin mixing is.
There are a couple other disturbing points on the blog, but this one in which you actively state that you are helping people evade the law is the most disturbing one...
Crypto Trading in Countries With Legality Issues
Vladislav is an active Russian crypto trader. Although his country is looking to implement blockchain technology into applications across various industries, cryptocurrencies are completely banned in Russia. However, he remained strongly affirm to the prospect of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and thereby utilised privacy tools (such as VPNs) to continue trading cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, MyCryptoMixer has helped him greatly in allowing him to trade while keeping his activity anonymous from the government.
When Vladislav cashes out his Bitcoin profits to a decentralised P2P trading platform, he ensures that his activity will not be easily tracked through multiple buyers around the world. MyCryptoMixer allows him to send to multiple wallets from his wallet, while preventing anyone from tracing the bitcoins back to his wallet.
Saying that someone uses and benefits from your service on a monthly basis, when the feature you are refering to is currently not available can be catalogued as lying, which is not the gratest idea on a new site....
Employee’s Salary Disbursement
Noraini is currently working as a HR manager in a blockchain consultancy firm where the salaries are disbursed in Ethereum (ETH). On the 25th of every month, she is responsible for assessing the company’s cryptocurrency wallet to distribute the salaries to her respective co-workers’ wallets. Familiar with the crypto space, she remained vigilant and to protect her company interest by not disclosing the company’s crypto balance. She uses MyCryptoMixer on a monthly basis to release her co-worker’s salaries while preventing anyone from viewing the company’s wallet balance through Etherscan, since the mixer obfuscates the source wallet address.
Apart from that, I checked the PGP public key, but there's not much that can be done only watching it
Some more notesReading the following on the Letter of Guarantee some questions arose
when you are facing problems with your mixing order. The Letter of Guarantee is only available during the active mixing operation
I understand you can make some mistakes that should be corrected before the mixing ends; I can think of people putting a wrong output address.... and not many more things (which I'm sure there are).
But the real question here is: if the letter of guarantee is only valid during mixing, and after mixing "all" logs are destroyed, what would happen in the event of someone not receiving the coins because of a mistake on the sites end? Or any similar incident that could not be foreseen until after the mixing takes place.
Opinion so farThere is room for improvement; it looks like a promising mixing service, but pretty much like any new mixing service you may find. Tomorrow, when I receive the coins I've sent, I'll end this post.
It will also be good to read the review of the more tech savy users.
Edit 1, first payment received: I sent the coins at 03:37AM and received them back at 09:22. I had set a delay of 337 minutes, so the coins arrived a bit after what I expected, not a big deal.
The mixng dashboard updated once it received the amount to be mixed, and as I had set 2 outputs, it did the math and it clearly shows how much coins wach address is receiving. It took me some time to figure out how this was calculated, because I was expecting lower amounts due to the 0.25m
BTC fee, but I think I got it right
(Amount you send * Service fee - Address Fee) * %you chose on each address
I did some trials and amounts did vary depending on whether the flat fee was applied after or before the service fee.
Will update once I get the second one
Second transaction received right on time