FWIW I would use Bitcoin mixers in the interest of privacy on a regular basis. People vastly overestimate the "anonymity" of bitcoin; it is, in fact, riskier than other transmission methods because the transaction is irrevocably and publicly logged on the blockchain forever.

It would probably not be hard for an interested party to piece together a good deal of an individual's transaction history given a couple of known btc addresses, especially if they don't follow the practice of generating a new address for every transaction (e.g., they, or one of their transaction partners, is a site that says "Send btc to this address to donate/buy/whatever").

And that's without law enforcement powers. Imagine what would happen if the fuzz link an address a few levels up the chain to a drug transaction. How long can bitcoin remain "dirty" and subject to confiscation as proceeds from illegal conduct? I don't really want to be a test case for that.

When I use a credit card, I know that my bank and the vendor have those records, but I also know that a random person is very unlikely to be able to get to them. In that sense, bitcoin is much less private than your ordinary centralized transaction methods; at least in that case, you have some idea who is able to review your records.

Thus, it is a good idea to "mix" coins, IMO. Third-party mixers are useful because the blockchain also contains metadata about each transaction, including the IP address of the node that relayed the tx, timestamps, etc. and it takes a lot of manual effort to get enough steps away that it's not obviously just sending money back and forth to yourself (less some network tx fees each time). It's hard to self-mix well.

I'd like mining pools to offer sale of coinbase bitcoins for people who truly value their privacy. I would buy a 12.5 BTC coinbase transaction for maybe up to 13 BTC. That makes the pool's effective block reward 13 rather than 12.5 BTC. More reward means more users so the pool would get bigger, mine blocks more frequently, more profit from coinbase sales. I honestly don't see a downside.

NB. When I say 'coinbase' I mean coin generation from mining reward. Not the company. (I hate that they deliberately chose a name to confuse new users)

I can see that being of interest to a significant number of people - might the mining pools be wary of being associated with the same 'bad things' as mixing services though?

It's good to be made aware of the term, I've surely seen it mentioned before and read it as the company.

> Imagine what would happen if the fuzz link an address a few levels up the chain to a drug transaction. How long can bitcoin remain "dirty" and subject to confiscation as proceeds from illegal conduct? I don't really want to be a test case for that.

How does deliberately mixing your coins with the proceeds of illegal conduct help that situation at all? I don't think the government will consider mixing to be a magical crime eraser. Mixers will be the test case.

Money laundering is just a "make my life easier" card for prosecutors. By itself, it is not harmful at all. Maybe tax evasion is harmful, but don't conflate the two. It's disgusting that we've let people get away with promoting this idea of hiding your money, seeking privacy, is somehow wrong.

This was on HN a while ago: https://www.americanbanker.com/opinion/money-laundering-is-f...

As far as this being the "point" of cryptocurrency, it's rather silly to suggest the point is to massively increase traceability in transactions. Maybe that's just a limitation of Bitcoin.

>As far as this being the "point" of cryptocurrency, it's rather silly to suggest the point is to massively increase traceability in transactions. Maybe that's just a limitation of Bitcoin.

But isn't a verifiable ledger of public transactions a valuable thing in and of itself? I believe the original intent of Bitcoin was to also help facilitate things like land deed transfers. A blockchain could easily replace all the of the "legals" sections in newspapers.

There is no point to cryptocurrency beyond the mechanics of the technology that powers it, and the constraints imposed by it. To ascribe some nobler point or ideal—which is impossible to coerce through the technology alone—is to naively expect something from cryptocurrency that you will never get.

If you want a currency technology and platform that constrains activities to morally benevolent activities, it must either be heavily regulated (traditional systems) or designed and implemented as such (no such system yet exists).

The act of using a mixer alone is not money laundering.

Nor is using a laundry machine, but it may be suspicious when using it with a large number of bills.

Wow, talk about moving the goal posts. We have gone from "it is criminality" to "may be suspicious" in just two posts.

> it has been illegal since money has existed for very good reasons.

Neither of these claims are true.

"Money laundering" as it is understood today only emerged in the 1980s during the war on drugs.

It's a crime because it's easier to prove and prosecute than any actual crime that might be facilitated by anonymizing money, like tax evasion. I'm not sure if that's a good reason, although it is a practical one. It's kind of like making encryption illegal because people might use it to break copyright law. The use of encryption isn't the actual crime, but it's easier to prosecute.

>"Money laundering" as it is understood today only emerged in the 1980s during the war on drugs.

Nonsense. From wiki: "The term "money laundering" is said to have originated with the Italian mafia and such criminals as Al Capone who allegedly purchased 'Laundromats' to commingle (or mix) their illegal profits from prostitution and bootlegged liquor sales with legitimate business sales"

But furthermore I don't think it needs to be argued that people have been hiding money from governments since there has been money and governments. It will always be an implicitly illegal act regardless of the existence of specific statute because you are in the end avoiding taxation.

You don't launder to avoid taxation, you launder to provide a plausible legitimate excuse for your criminal income, usually paying taxes in the process.

It's usually highly illegal because it involves falsifying records, including those filed with tax authorities (and because the purpose of that falsification is to conceal another crime.)

I'm not following. Are you saying that laundromats have existed as long as money has? And what does "implicitly illegal" mean? Are you from a country normally described as free?

In many peoples' reasoned opinions, the "illegality" of prostitution and alcohol sales is up for debate (laws not withstanding). Heck, even past American presidents skirted the laws for the latter -- and probably didn't pay taxes on booze sales either.

EDIT: My point (to the downvoters) is that not all "illegal" activities are immoral, and that reasoned people could legitimately consider willfully defying & hiding their defiance as an act of freedom. Case in point: Tea in 1773.