It is a shame that the administration and influential members of this forum did not stand by the pillars of decentralization and privacy, otherwise innovation might be happening for decentralized mixers.
How can innovation of a decentralized mixers be happening in a forum that banned mixers when they needed refuge most?
--snip--
Definition of mixer stated by admin would exclude non-custodial mixer, coinjoin and similar stuff. See
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5476162.0.
This is right. A decentralized/non-custodial mixer would be allowed. They're not the same as centralized/custodial mixers.
I speculate that the reason why the forum didn't pivot to innovate on decentralized mixers after the mixer ban (and still don't today) is because there were probably nefarious reasons for centralized mixers being here to begin with.
Not only that, though there is precedent for decentralized mixers to be classified as privacy protocols, thanks to the Tornado Cash saga.
It is a shame that the administration and influential members of this forum did not stand by the pillars of decentralization and privacy, otherwise innovation might be happening for decentralized mixers.
This forum is centralized, and the forum administration did not want to risk being a victim of the witch hunt that took place a year+ ago. At that time, there were no indications of flexibility and tolerance for privacy services.
Although I was against such a decision from the beginning, I completely understand the reasons and cannot blame the administrator for it.
Things are still changing, who knows, maybe over time we will see some changes in the right direction.
There's no reason why discussing privacy and cybersecurity amongst members in a sensible way would make the forum a target. Sure, I can understand being concerned about continuing to speak of "mixers" when regulations are unclear, though as of today it's clear that even TornadoCash is a "privacy protocol". So just like banning mixers to adapt to regulation, it can't adapt for when regulations are relaxed too?
I doubt we'll see much over time. It seems like the forum administration is helping certain people milk it for all the profit that can be made and that bitcointalk's clock is limited, rather than there being a focus on doing things that will help it thrive.
Satoshi would not be proud of where this forum is today, I am certain of that.