Hi folks, I was looking around into Mixers/Tumblers the other day and stumbled upon some very good research like the zk-SNARKs and TumbleBit. Two technologies that 'obfuscate' transactions, making blockchain analysis a guess fest.
My interest in the mixer is in Bitcoin forks and nothing fancy like Ethereum (which has zero-trust mixers based on zk-SNARKs like Tornado cash AFAIK) but when looking into existing online mixers they all appear to be 'send me coins and I promise I will send them back' kind of vibe.
Aren't there any zero-trust mixers for Bitcoin or Bitcoin forks? or have I been looking in the wrong direction?
Also, could multi-sig transactions with two or more participants (using a pre-defined amount of assets, ideally inputs are dividable by each other, eg, a multitude of 0.001) be used to obscure transaction histories?
For bitcoin mixing services, the biggest capital is their reputation on the network, which is earned over the years. Therefore, popular mixers are unlikely to steal small amounts of bitcoins. However, we must not forget that all mixers are completely anonymous - this is the basis of their existence. After all, any owner of the mixer, if he is deanonymized, will be instantly arrested and charged with money laundering, terrorist financing, etc., which will provide him with more than a comfortable term in any country. And this means that by sending bitcoins to the mixer, you completely trust it - the only guarantee to get your bitcoins back is the obligations of the owner of the service. That is, you act solely at your own peril and risk, and this must be remembered.