Re: [ANN] ChipMixer - mixing reinvented

I have mixed some coins just now, and I too received a voucher code instead of (a) private key(s). Is it because the reserve ran dry? Step 2 mentions that all chips are withdrawn.

So far, every time that you get a voucher instead of the private keys to your chips has been because of lack of chips. I assume that for some reason there is very high demand right now, as it is not usually this way. The only time this wasn't the case was back when the fork to Bitcoin Cash happened, which forced ChipMixer (and many other services) to close and wait for security purposes. You can always email them about it to be sure and try to save your session in case it takes longer than it usually does to top up the chips.

Maybe the high demand can be explained by the recent price drop/JC morgan interview/china's ICO ban => people getting scared, wanting to hide the fact that they own BTC, or maybe wanting to mix their BTC before withdrawing?

My educated guess would be the latter. There are probably quite a lot of people that either want to lock in their profits or hedge against currency risk, just in case that the bull market is over.

I believe it is the shutting down of bitmixer, the effect of it to the market will be felt not right after the shutdown but rather a week or more since regular client of that service would be hesitant to use other services. It takes time and a few little transaction for this big client to incline their trust to chipmixer and it does happen this past days. Though I am considering the fact about the current FUD to Bitcoin and people wanted to play in safe zone by removing the trace of them holding an amount of Bitcoin is another reason.