Mixing funds through the traditional route is safer? Not really and is the reason theymos is likely against even a remote connection with them.
well I never said mixing funds through traditional route but laundering funds through traditional route.
I meant is safer in the sense that paper money is harder to track
Unlike digital that usually leaves some footprints of properly scrutinized.
Mixing and laundering funds "the traditional route" is the same thing. People who have paper cash want to clean it and make it useful by hiding the source, their ultimate goal is getting it into a bank account which is digital. Swapping a paper note for another paper note doesn't achieve much, it is not what 99% of people are looking for when laundering money outside of crypto. These are the semantic arguments that people use to defend mixers, going around in circles, but it's obvious to anyone what the majority of people are using them to do - usually hiding stolen funds.
Same old argument as claiming people that use proxys or Tors is to sell drugs on the darknet. The truth is, using a mixer is only common sense if you want to pay with BTC, otherwise the sender can know simply too much about you and you could be put in danger. Example, you receive payments for the participation in a signature campaign advertising a website. You use these funds to pay for a product or service. The owner now knows who you are, and knows your address. They can proceed to google the address, and now they know your nickname here, your posting history, your views on various topics, and most importantly, every single address you've ever used here to obtain payments. You have now become a potential target. To avoid this, you must regain your privacy, which means mixing the coins. You can call it coinjoin, mix service, sending them around, it's all the same concept. Criminalizing this activity is plain insanity. We have to normalize the usage of mixing coins, and the Tornado Cash case was a step in the right direction.