Re: Will blockchain survive the crackdown on mixers and anonymization?
Privacy and anonymity weren't the "first thing Bitcoin was originally designed to accomplish". Bitcoin was supposed to be peer-to-peer electronic cash, which can be used without the need of banks and third parties. Just read the whitepaper again. Does it mention anything about privacy and anonymity?
The BTC blockchain was never designed to be anonymous and private. Actually, the BTC blockchain is pretty transparent and transparency is a good thing, because it creates trust.
BTC mixers weren't a thing when the BTC blockchain was created. Why would the BTC blockchain be dependent on the existence of centralized third party services like BTC mixers?
The BTC blockchain was never designed to be anonymous and private. Actually, the BTC blockchain is pretty transparent and transparency is a good thing, because it creates trust.
BTC mixers weren't a thing when the BTC blockchain was created. Why would the BTC blockchain be dependent on the existence of centralized third party services like BTC mixers?
Mixers aren't mentioned in the whitepaper. But the fact that Bitcoin was created by a cypherpunk with libertarian ideals, says it all. In the early days, many believed BTC to be truly-anonymous. It's just that the rise of centralized exchanges and surveillance/analytics tools defeated Bitcoin's original purpose. Mixers were created as a solution to this problem. But they're still far from perfect. Centralized mixers may've been taken down by mainstream governments, but that won't stop developers from making non-custodial (decentralized) ones.
The failures of mixers won't affect the core Bitcoin blockchain because they aren't directly part of the network. Just like L2 scaling solutions (eg: Lightning Network). Rest assured that Bitcoin will continue to carry on as usual because of the way it was designed (decentralized and censorship-resistant). As long as it stays that way, we should have nothing to worry about.
