Be careful on using a mixer then sending coins to a centralized exchange or a gambling site where you have KYC.
Wrong message.
What we should be saying is "Be careful using centralized exchanges", or better yet "Never complete KYC anywhere." Mixing is not the problem. Coinjoins are not the problem. If anything, knowing how draconian the government is being with trying to surveil you and your coins, you should be mixing and coinjoining
more, not less. Stay private, and stop using services which sell out your privacy at the drop of a hat and work in cahoots with your government to surveil, monitor, and control you.
You are either free, or you comply. You can't be both.
But mixers also create avenues for bad actors, 100% of the people who use mixers can't be using them for good.
So does the internet. Shall we ban that too?
As the figures I've outlined above show, even by FinCEN's own research, the amount of illicit money being moved through mixers is absolutely minuscule. Like, we are talking less in the last decade than fiat banks launder in a few days.
It is true that Bitcoin mixing is not money laundering, but it can be a tool or instrument to use in money laundering. There will be no money laundering activity if no one thinks to use the Bitcoin mixer for his bad intentions or purpose here. So what others said is correct: it depends on the intention of the bitcoin holders.
Even though there was no Bitcoin back then, there was money laundering happening in different countries. Even though there was no internet back then, there was money laundering happening already, right? The others even go through the black market, as far as I know. So, it means that other money launderers saw that they could use or abuse the Bitcoin mixer for money laundering activity. Though, this is not the main purpose of Bitcoin Mixing.