Second chance for mixers?

[fillippone]

I guess that a clear separation between the users of such protocols and the providers of such protocols, especially when presented in a "decentralised" way, is a more than welcome change of attitude from the regulators.
There must be a separation of responsibilities.
It's not perfect, but at least it's a start.

[takuma sato]

Governments are winning the anti-mixer narrative unfortunately. They do not understand that is a matter of safety to mix your coins before using them. For example if you receive payments in here for signature campaigns, and you use these funds to pay for people without shuffling them, then they could find your profile and target you, so for safety measures, it would be only fair to use a mixing service, but only because some bad people use a mixer, now everyone that uses a mixer is bad and cannot KYC those coins. Even people that promoted mixers in signature campaigns, im not sure if those funds would be safe to send to an exchange to cash it out. And someone may have made a ton of money since these funds from years ago may have done a 10x or more, so if you wanted to buy a house with those funds, you may have a problem because they come from signature campaigns that promoted a mixer. In theory this wouldn't a problem, but you never know since they tried to put the Tornadocash developer in jail, so it's something to consider. You never know how they would react, after what I've seen I wouldn't expect them to be reasonable.

[JayJuanGee]

I'm leaving this here.
https://www.justice.gov/dag/media/1395781/dl?inline

That is an extremely good development! I've also been pleased to see several other actions like that, such as removing Tornado Cash from the sanctions list. However, President Trump has only been in office for a few months, and the actual effects of these stated policy positions won't be clear for a while. The Biden administration also said that mixers aren't necessarily illegal, and that they weren't anti-crypto. Actions and time will speak louder than words. So I probably won't consider reversing the mixer ban until Trump has been in office for a full year, and we have a fuller picture of how his administration actually operates in these areas.

Not a bad stances on this, don’t know what the stakes really was but, when it’s come to government and its policies, it’s always up to time to define the context of its policy formation and how it could be applied. Taking it head straight could always end badly as, they are the government, they always have a way to twist these policies and to put you in bad position to benefit the government of the day.

I don't really disagree with any of theymos's observations in regards to both the positive developments, and also the uncertainties in respect to how the specifics of enforcement might play out.  Even though theymos expressed this as something that likely is going to need a year or more to show meaningful evidence, I think that he is being too strict and overly cautious, since he even seems to admit that the situation is somewhat fluid, and surely if he seeks counsel (legal advice), there surely would be legal opinions that would argue that the mere executive announcements provide a sufficient enough cover in order to potentially ease up on some of the earlier restrictions and even to potentially revisit the matter on a quarterly basis, rather than presuming that there is any kind of actual legal need for a whole year to have to play out before revisiting the topic.

Surely, the rights of regular people are being taken away when there is excessive government crack down and even a variety of chilling effects that play out from actions that governments (various agencies) choose to take from time to time when selectively going after certain entities, and surely the Tornado cash and Samarai arrests were additional chilling actions that went beyond the Sinbad and Chipmixer situations, where there were more difficulties identifying (and bringing into custody) individual actors.

I guess my main point is that aspects of theymos's chosen framework seems a bit overly conservative, and it may be good for him, the forum and forum members if he might be able to potentially seek the opinion of more than one legal counsel, to the extent that legal counsel might be influencing his level of chosen conservativism in regards to timelines to potentially revisit these kinds of matters and potentially if there might be some lightening actions that already could be taken based on our obviously having a less hostile environment in regards to mixers and various related third-party (internet communication services) liability topics.

[igebotz]

Trump is not going back!
He will be extremely bitcoin friendly throughout his administration.

Action speaks louder than voice; Sinbad and Chipmixer are still on the sanctioned list - until these mixers are removed from the sanctioned list I won't believe anything. We wouldn't want a situation where the forum would be caught up in the middle of US political propaganda and power tissues..

I can't say much about Sinbad because I was skeptical about their seizure, instead I thought it was an exit scam and didn't study process of their seizure. But for chipmixer, I studied the whole document released by FBI. Their case was more of re-occuring criminal issues, seemed they had alot of evidences and had extended investigations before striking. Even if US will be very much mixer friendly, I don't think chipmixer case would be dropped.

I honestly did not read much more about the chipmixer seizure, but end-user actions have always been a problem for most mixers.

https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/Details.aspx?id=44437 I look up the sanctioned list and couldn't find Chipmixer.

[hugeblack]

I guess my main point is that aspects of theymos's chosen framework seems a bit overly conservative, and it may be good for him, the forum and forum members if he might be able to potentially seek the opinion of more than one legal counsel, to the extent that legal counsel might be influencing his level of chosen conservativism in regards to timelines to potentially revisit these kinds of matters and potentially if there might be some lightening actions that already could be taken based on our obviously having a less hostile environment in regards to mixers and various related third-party (internet communication services) liability topics.

It's not just about mixers, but a quote like

by some law enforcement agencies with the goal of adding us to the OFAC sanctions list

was enough to raise theymos concerns.
Therefore, I believe that obtaining legal advice may be helpful in such cases.

[nutildah]

Are there any thoughts on moving outside the US or to a state that respects end-user privacy?

I am not certain about this but I believe theymos hasn't been the recipient of a whole lot of user data requests -- only from time to time and for the most egregious of offenses. At one point he stated he'd rather not have to do this or re-establish Bitcointalk in a different country.

Given the recent updates regarding staff, I wouldn't be surprised when Bitcoin Core discussions banned (if government policies change).

It sounds like the government is going the opposite direction, at least for now. AND With the increasing institutional adoption of Bitcoin, there's no way this is going to happen.

[joker_josue]

Isn't the argument here that those mixers were ran by criminals?

It's not the same if some service is used or ran by criminals, but those ''evil'' North Korean hackers are perfect excuse for everything 

Exactly. I completely agree. Now any hack is the fault of this North Korean group. As if there were no more hackers in the world. Well, but while all these events occur, the same culprits always fall on the shoulders of the same people. The real bandits can run away.

[JollyGood]

Was there a post by theymos stating he has actually taken any legal advice on any matter related to the forum? Maybe he has but I cannot recall reading any post where theymos made that claim. As for his reservations about allowing mixers in the forum, I doubt he will change his opinion regardless of any legal advice he could receive (though it might be beneficial for him to at least have those discussions).

I guess my main point is that aspects of theymos's chosen framework seems a bit overly conservative, and it may be good for him, the forum and forum members if he might be able to potentially seek the opinion of more than one legal counsel, to the extent that legal counsel might be influencing his level of chosen conservativism in regards to timelines to potentially revisit these kinds of matters and potentially if there might be some lightening actions that already could be taken based on our obviously having a less hostile environment in regards to mixers and various related third-party (internet communication services) liability topics.

[examplens]

Exactly. I completely agree. Now any hack is the fault of this North Korean group. As if there were no more hackers in the world. Well, but while all these events occur, the same culprits always fall on the shoulders of the same people. The real bandits can run away.

Accusing Lazarus (who is behind North Korea) is an ideal excuse because such a thing is impossible to prove. At least Lazarus and NK are not interested in any kind of denial. Win-win for all incompetents dealing with cyber security.

[Lucius]

@examplens, I've written many times that someone would have to be really crazy to believe that all the major hacking in the world in the last few years should be attributed to just one group from just one country. I'm not saying that they don't deal with it, but that would mean that in a country where the internet practically doesn't exist, there are the best hackers in the world.

I say they are even less to blame for what they achieve, because instead of offering rewards after hacking, some CEOs should invest a little more in the security of their platforms so they wouldn't get hacked in fairly trivial ways.

[Beparanf]

The ban has been lifted

You should stop spreading false information because the consequence of violating the mixer restrictions is serious.

Here’s the latest statement of @theymos regarding this issue.

I'm leaving this here.

https://www.justice.gov/dag/media/1395781/dl?inline

That is an extremely good development! I've also been pleased to see several other actions like that, such as removing Tornado Cash from the sanctions list. However, President Trump has only been in office for a few months, and the actual effects of these stated policy positions won't be clear for a while. The Biden administration also said that mixers aren't necessarily illegal, and that they weren't anti-crypto. Actions and time will speak louder than words. So I probably won't consider reversing the mixer ban until Trump has been in office for a full year, and we have a fuller picture of how his administration actually operates in these areas.

This is a good sign because we are just waiting for more time to take effect the new policy before the ban was removed.

[NotATether]

I honestly did not read much more about the chipmixer seizure, but end-user actions have always been a problem for most mixers.

https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/Details.aspx?id=44437 I look up the sanctioned list and couldn't find Chipmixer.

Chipmixer is not on any sanctions list.

I still spend some of my campaign BTC from time to time without issues.

[igebotz]

I honestly did not read much more about the chipmixer seizure, but end-user actions have always been a problem for most mixers.

https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/Details.aspx?id=44437 I look up the sanctioned list and couldn't find Chipmixer.

Chipmixer is not on any sanctions list.

I still spend some of my campaign BTC from time to time without issues.

I thought every sized mixers were added to the sanctioned list.

Y'all get paid for legitimate service rendered and no one is going to get persecuted, the best they can do is blacklist recipient addresses that's all.

[JayJuanGee]

Was there a post by theymos stating he has actually taken any legal advice on any matter related to the forum?

It would be reasonable to presume that theymos has sought legal advice of one form or another, whether he admits it or not... yet if he specifically denies the seeking of legal advice or specifically studying up on the various topics (sometimes one of the most dangerous folks can be a layman who thinks that he knows the various legal nuances of matters, especially if they get fairly complicated in the context of running a world-wide forum on a topic that is not exactly uncontroversial).  I would think that if he is not seeking counsel and/or doing a decent amount of his own due diligence, then he would likely be acting reckless and perhaps in breach of various duties that he arguably might have (including fiduciary duties and other kinds of duties that might apply), unless his denial of consulting and/or researching into matters were to be to just to throw us off.    Don't get me wrong.  I certain level of value can come from not discussing certain kinds of matters.

I have proclaimed that theymos has a very wide range of discretion, including the kinds of discretion that comes from ownership rights, yet the law is not always 100% clear in regards to the various boundaries, and the law is also not a static kind of a guidance, and surely there can be value in avoiding litigation, which has been discussed in various threads (even by theymos) from time to time...including various questions about compliance or non-compliance can come up whenever various kinds of authorities are requesting forum information (which has also been discussed or at least mentioned from time to time), and surely any forum administrator receiving such notices is going to have to try to figure out the various cooperation options that are available and the potential consequences, including jurisdictional variance, which are are likely not commonsensical in many of the cases.

From my thinking ("according to me," as some of our non-native-english speakers like to say.. hahahahaha), it would likely be irresponsible to either try to act upon common sense ideas or to presume knowledge of how to deal with potentially complicated and ambiguous kinds of topics, even if there had been a lot of layman's level research going on, and maybe even theymos had gone to law school, which may or may not help since even folks who specialize in law, may have to seek counsel from some other attorney (attorneys) who specializes in the kind of law that is currently at issue, and some attorneys are going to be more informed about the nuances of the law as it evolves, including a keeping up of the evolving areas of law as compared with other attorneys.

And sometimes, when courses of action are chosen, there can be purposeful choices to stay more within the straight-forward readings of what can and cannot be done, and other folks purposefully might choose to act within more risky kinds of bounds, and surely, I have no problem with the idea of acting somewhat conservatively, yet sometimes folks can go overboard in their level of conservativism, including in times like this where there has been some additional legal cover that has been given by various administrative pronouncements that are at least stating that they are going to be less hostile in a variety of ways.... Yeah, I understand that maybe there are 4-5 issues, for example and if the executive had clarified 2-3 of those issues, they might not have had clarified all of them, so there might be some waiting involved about some of the other areas, including erroring on the side of caution (which yeah, I have already given my own superficial assessment that too much conservativism might be going on).

Maybe he has but I cannot recall reading any post where theymos made that claim.

You don't need to read such specifics in any such post in order to presume both that some levels of legal counsel and/or legal researchhas been happening and/or that it would be a good thing to seek legal advice of some sort or another... including that theymos likely has few obligations to specifically describe the extent to which he has sought and/or is relying on legal advice, and sometimes attorneys will also advise against disclosing legal relations and/or the extent to which legal advice is relied upon, even though surely it can be helpful to have various legal memos in the file that might relate to the legal advice that was sought and what kinds of legal advice was given at various points in time.

As for his reservations about allowing mixers in the forum, I doubt he will change his opinion regardless of any legal advice he could receive (though it might be beneficial for him to at least have those discussions).

Of course it would be beneficial to have those kinds of discussions if they have not already been had, and surely there could be resources that could be consulted without consulting with any actual human (lawyer, lawfirm or variety of law firms or otherwise), yet I would think some level of due diligence would both be beneficial and it probably has already taken place at various times during the forum's history, including that there may well would have had been times in which those legal consultations were taking place in the earliest times of the forum... so there may well not need to be recent consultations in order for there to have had been various kinds of ongoing learning that might be based on the combination of earlier consultations and further learning along the way.

And, of course, as I already mentioned, the law is not exactly black and white as might frequently be presumed by folks, even though surely there are areas of the law that are more settled than others, and I doubt that any of us would presume internet related laws to be settled and/or communications about controversial and paradigm shifting technologies (whether bitcoin and/or shitcoins) to be settled either... By the way, surely one of the areas of the law that can become more problematic is when there are financial components involved, whether the forum is financially benefitting and/or members are financially benefitting.  It would be nuts to presume that there have not been any legal consultations in regards to how to try to avoid litigation when the forum allows for various kinds of these activities.

I guess my main point is that aspects of theymos's chosen framework seems a bit overly conservative, and it may be good for him, the forum and forum members if he might be able to potentially seek the opinion of more than one legal counsel, to the extent that legal counsel might be influencing his level of chosen conservativism in regards to timelines to potentially revisit these kinds of matters and potentially if there might be some lightening actions that already could be taken based on our obviously having a less hostile environment in regards to mixers and various related third-party (internet communication services) liability topics.

[JollyGood]

Even though theymos might not have stated various things in public (including possible legal advice), you are right it would be prudent to make presumptions that he has. It seems as though the original decision to ban mixers was a unilateral move designed to deflect any potential attention away from the forum. As for anything subsequent, that is another thing.

Was there a post by theymos stating he has actually taken any legal advice on any matter related to the forum?

It would be reasonable to presume that theymos has sought legal advice of one form or another, whether he admits it or not... ~

[Etranger]

I guess my main point is that aspects of theymos's chosen framework seems a bit overly conservative, and it may be good for him, the forum and forum members if he might be able to potentially seek the opinion of more than one legal counsel, to the extent that legal counsel might be influencing his level of chosen conservativism in regards to timelines to potentially revisit these kinds of matters and potentially if there might be some lightening actions that already could be taken based on our obviously having a less hostile environment in regards to mixers and various related third-party (internet communication services) liability topics.

That's a very sound and rationally grounded point. Indeed, delayed timelines for decision-making often seem not just overly long, but also unclear in terms of what they're actually based on. I believe a good lawyer could get into the details enough to recommend a softer approach — assuming, of course, that the admin is genuinely interested in bringing mixer-affiliated signatures back to the forum. Though I don’t really understand why one wouldn’t be interested in that: mixers significantly shaped the overall atmosphere, and the forum was much more active back when their era was in full blossom.

[dkbit98]

Exactly. I completely agree. Now any hack is the fault of this North Korean group. As if there were no more hackers in the world. Well, but while all these events occur, the same culprits always fall on the shoulders of the same people. The real bandits can run away.

If we believe everything coming from the news, than someone would think that evil North Koreans already have super quantum computers, and they have no other way of earning money...
I never once heard that US and other government hackers ever hacked, and they are government paid officials paid to hack.

Chipmixer is not on any sanctions list.

They don't exist anymore, so that is not important, and any coins can be magically ''cleaned'' by government

[fillippone]

They don't exist anymore, so that is not important, and any coins can be magically ''cleaned'' by government

They don’t exist anymore, yet you can incur in some problems if you send coins from CM directly to CEX’s. Or at least this is something I have some experience about.
Sanctions did survive the organization itself!

[examplens]

They don't exist anymore, so that is not important, and any coins can be magically ''cleaned'' by government

They don’t exist anymore, yet you can incur in some problems if you send coins from CM directly to CEX’s. Or at least this is something I have some experience about.
Sanctions did survive the organization itself!

Is it known what happened to the Chipmixer owner? As far as I remember, he was also arrested, but is there any update on his case?
He might also seek some form of pardon or a reduced sentence, possibly by referencing the Tornado Cash case as precedent.

[JollyGood]

I was thinking about the same thing. I have no recollection reading about him being sentenced though his arrest made public. If mixers are not going to be pursued by the authorities of the current US administration then where do Chipmixer, Sinbad, Blender and others that were accused of laundering (as well as their owner/operators) stand?

Is it known what happened to the Chipmixer owner? As far as I remember, he was also arrested, but is there any update on his case?
He might also seek some form of pardon or a reduced sentence, possibly by referencing the Tornado Cash case as precedent.