I applaud Chipmixer for their interest in taking the next step in mixing reinventedand for living up to expectations for their candor. Compare:
We have yet to see any proof Chipmixer isn't a honeypot per se either (Though- it'd be pretty much impossible to prove or disprove anyway-).
This is the biggest thing here, there's really no way to confirm this and even people that promote ChipMixer for money will say so.
I wouldn't be surprised if the people at ChipMixer came out and said that too -- because it's trueWell, sure, but i think that the point is that that's impossible. Let's suppose an auditor checks Chipmixer's infrastructure- and then gives "the green light"; Chipmixer could, if they wanted to, simply change some of the source code. Any of the current mixers could.
This is true unless we implement off-chain cryptography ie. blinded bearer certs. If we do - you can prove unlinkability without checking our code.
Thus is the problem and the solution summed in one line. After all, mixing is their business.
Or they may be scared of being linked with "money laundering". There are still some people that using https or VPN is "hacking".
It is the reason why I created this thread! Mixers are the most evil in crypto is exactly as ignorant and foolish as believing that using https or VPN is hacking.
Earlier, I said something which may have seemed odd. I believe I should elaborate, so as to help others develop better Chipmixer usage strategies:
I myself have sometimes used their services (with coins already anonymized by other means that do not require trust),
Now, whyever would I do that?
It is my strategy to apply three properties of Chipmixer which I think are probably underappreciated by most users (though well-understood by some of those wearing Chipmixer ads here):
- Time travel. Depending on how soon after deposit you withdraw, your mixer outputs may appear on the blockchain before your mixer inputs, at unpredictable times. This must really drive Chainalysis et al. crazy. I dont see how this could be done without a centralized service.
(By the way, I have noticed that larger chips tend to give UTXOs much older than smaller chips. I presume this is probably due to higher demand for small chips.) - Easy merging/splitting with vouchers. It works best with time travel. Drip small coins into multiple sessions over the course of a week, withdraw as vouchers, merge the vouchers, and then get a coin of 1.024 BTC that is a month old (or older!) on the blockchain. Or deposit a big coin, and do the inverse to pay your bills. If this is done thoughtfully, your inputs and outputs will wind up scattered across the blockchain in ways that are not easy to link by timing and subset sum analysis. (Discretely-sized chips also help against the latter; it is a privacy feature.)
- A big, non-specialist anonymity set. This is the usual problem with advanced anonymization technologies: It is useless to use a theoretically superior technology with only 10 users worldwide. Use of a technology (or technique) may also reveal expertise: Membership in a set that is not only small, but which also likely shares some other identifying characteristics.
Chipmixer is easy to use, and very popular. I infer their anonymity set must be terrific. So, I occasionally use Chipmixer to upgrade from a smaller anonymity set. If they are secretly spying on me, the worst they could do is to trace me back to that smaller set.
For obvious reasons, I do not want to reveal exactly what I do with Chipmixer; and I can only do it occasionally, as rare patterns of behaviour that others may also rarely do by coincidence. I hope to hereby inspire a discussion of Chipmixer usage strategies that will get more people doing the same things. It will benefit all of our privacy.
P.S., speaking of anonymity sets, I had another thought on Segwit.
Maybe I should tone down my criticism of Chipmixer for this, and start more actively pushing users to upgrade so they can use Segwit. Sadly, I still see far too many people using 1xxx addressesand thus I infer, non-Segwit wallets (in many cases, stupid exchange wallets). Chipmixer may damage their anonymity set if they exclude users who have not upgraded. Whereas per the above, the anonymity set is all-important for such a service. I think they seem sufficiently clueful to do Segwitif they could, when they can without hurting the service in other ways. Unlike some other parties who have spent the past two-plus years deliberately dragging their feet on this, Chipmixer may have a valid reason to wait.
Any thoughts on how this problem could be solved?