Re:Bitcoin’s Wild Ride Shows the Truth: It Is Probably Worth...
by t0mbstone on Tuesday September 19, 2017 @01:49PM
(#15286943)
Imagine this scenario:
1. User A holds a publicly visible wallet with 1000 bitcoins in it.
2. User B publicly gives User A 10 bitcoins.
3. User A now holds a publicly visible wallet with 1,010 bitcoins in it.
4. Over the course of a month, User A distributes all 1,010 bitcoins across a thousand new publicly visible wallets, in seemingly random amounts. These wallets are publicly visible, and the transactions are publicly visible.
5. Nobody knows who holds the keys to any of those wallets. Presumably, at least 10 bitcoins worth of money belonging to User B is held in some combination of those wallets, but figuring out which ones belong to User A vs User B suddenly becomes very complicated.
6. This becomes even more complicated if there are more than two users in the scenario. What if there are actually a thousand users that the money is being mixed between?
This is the premise of bitcoin mixer services. It is at least somewhat possible to "anonymize" and "launder" public bitcoin transactions on the public ledger via this method. This is especially true if someone uses multiple mixer services to launder the same money split across a bunch of wallets.
Or at least that's my understanding? I've never actually done it.
1. User A holds a publicly visible wallet with 1000 bitcoins in it.
2. User B publicly gives User A 10 bitcoins.
3. User A now holds a publicly visible wallet with 1,010 bitcoins in it.
4. Over the course of a month, User A distributes all 1,010 bitcoins across a thousand new publicly visible wallets, in seemingly random amounts. These wallets are publicly visible, and the transactions are publicly visible.
5. Nobody knows who holds the keys to any of those wallets. Presumably, at least 10 bitcoins worth of money belonging to User B is held in some combination of those wallets, but figuring out which ones belong to User A vs User B suddenly becomes very complicated.
6. This becomes even more complicated if there are more than two users in the scenario. What if there are actually a thousand users that the money is being mixed between?
This is the premise of bitcoin mixer services. It is at least somewhat possible to "anonymize" and "launder" public bitcoin transactions on the public ledger via this method. This is especially true if someone uses multiple mixer services to launder the same money split across a bunch of wallets.
Or at least that's my understanding? I've never actually done it.