One of the attractive points of bitcoin transactions in the early days was anonymity. Users thought sending and receiving coins without exposing their names or physical addresses masks their transactions.
But that’s not how it works. These transactions are not anonymous as users think. Instead, they are traceable since the wallet addresses are on the blockchain- a public ledger. Anybody can trace the movement of funds from one address to the other. The only thing that stayed hidden was the real-world identities of the parties.
Unfortunately, it is no longer easy to transact in crypto without uncovering your real-world identity. The only way to mask your transactions and remain anonymous is by using Bitcoin mixers or tumblers. Keep reading to understand these services, how they mask your identities and transactions, and the types available.
What Are Bitcoin Mixers and Why Use Them?
Bitcoin mixers are services or (software) that collate many bitcoin transactions and mix them before sending them out to the target destination. The idea is to hide the senders’ identity or how much each of them sent.
After mixing and sending these BTCs, it becomes impossible for anyone to trace them back to the original senders and receivers. Any attempt to track these transactions will only disclose the mixer’s address as the transaction recipient or sender.
Why use Bitcoin mixers
- Anonymity
The first reason to use mixers or tumblers is to remain anonymous. With rules such as KYCs (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti Money Laundering, Government agencies can easily trace bitcoin transactions to real world-identities. Many crypto exchanges demand users’ personal information and proof before utilizing their services. So, with users’ actual data linked to their addresses, all their transactions will be linked to them.
- Alternative to Privacy coins
Due to the need to remain private in crypto transactions, developers created privacy coins to protect users. But now, many countries are also clamping down on using privacy coins. For instance, regulators in many countries, such as Japan, and European Union, have taken steps to ban privacy-enhancing cryptos.
Recently, Dubai rolled out its crypto-regulation, defining anonymity-enhancing crypto as troublesome since they’re untraceable and could facilitate illicit activities. As such, it banned privacy coins such as Monero and others on its shores.
So, if you’re in a country prohibiting privacy coins, bitcoin mixers will become the best alternative.
Types of Bitcoin Mixers Available
There are two main types of bitcoin mixers, centralized and decentralized.
- Centralized Mixers
These are private services or software that mix their users’ BTCs. One such centralized mixer is Blender.io. The service receives many BTCs from different clients in its address, mixes them, and sends new coins to their respective receiver’s addresses. But note that users must pay a fee and fill out a form bearing the receiver’s address and other details.
The downside to using a centralized mixer is that one entity runs it, creating a single failure point. Any network shutdown or hack attack leads to the loss of assets. Moreover, the mixer can steal assets or save users’ data and share it with third parties.
- Decentralized mixers
Decentralized mixers are borderless and permissionless, given that they’re peer-to-peer protocols. Some of the popular ones include CoinJoin, Samourai Wallet, etc. In this software, the mixing process is automatic, requiring multiple participants to send their BTCs to a single address.
One good thing about using a decentralized mixer is the lower service fee and automatic mixing. But the downside is that users’ transactions can be traced back to them through elimination if there are few participants.
Mixer.Money, Bringing True Anonymity to your Crypto Transactions
Mixer. Money offers users the flexibility of choosing the preferred degree of anonymity for their crypto assets. Conventional tumblers usually mix crypto assets from multiple users to obfuscate transaction records. While being effective, the involvement of a limited number of users at any time on a conventional mixer increases the probability of assets or transactions being traced to a small pool of wallets. To prevent such a scenario, Mixer.Money incorporates the “Complete Anonymity” feature based on Jambler-powered bitcoin.mixer 2.0 algorithm.
To deliver complete anonymity, Mixer.Money sources crypto assets from a huge network of independent traders with accounts on crypto exchanges. The output transactions from such exchanges received by these traders are acquired by Mixer.Money, scoring them for reliability before adding to its reserves. The scoring mechanism also helps the platform identify any tainted assets and reject them outright. Those assets passing the scoring mechanism are then held in transit wallets, to be randomized and delivered to Complete Anonymity mode users. Meanwhile, the assets deposited by Complete Anonymity mode users will be mixed and delivered to those opting for standard mixing mode, with the remaining transmitted across the network of crypto exchanges.
By ensuring delivery of randomized crypto assets originating from reliable sources, Mixer.Money assures complete anonymity of transactions.
Learn more about Mixer.Money at – https://mixer.money/en/
