Many new people to Bitcoin don’t realize that Bitcoin is NOT 100% anonymous. To use economics jargon, Bitcoin lacks fungibility. Bitcoin is “pseudo-anonymous”. If someone knows your bitcoin address that person can trace the entire history of any coins that belong to that address. The way bitcoin transactions work causes them to be chained together in a permanent public record. They are traceable along the blockchain from one bitcoin address to another. In this sense it lacks one of the crucial features of cash – which once again is our economics term, fungibility. Lookup that word in the dictionary so you can impress your friends at parties – or get kicked from them!
So you next may be wondering how do you regain privacy and ensure nobody can spy on your bitcoin wealth. One solution that I am going to introduce you to today is called “bitcoin mixing” but it’s also know by many other terms such as: coin mixing, bitcoin laundry, bitcoin tumbler, bitcoin blending, etc. Yes, you read that correctly, what you’re trying to do is “launder” your coins so nobody can trace their origins. Until Bitcoin introduces privacy features (which is on the roadmap as far as I’m aware) these types of coin mixing services are going to be necessary if you want to keep your crypto financial history truly private.
A bitcoin mixing service works by pure magic and fairy dust. Nah, I’m kidding. One good way to picture what is going is to imagine collection bags that go around churches, where you put a bill in your closed fist and stick your hand in the bag, so no one knows how much you put in or took out. Now Imagine that we come up with a (cryptographic) protocol where I donate some amount to the local church’s collection bag, so do others (however much they desire), and after the bag has made it through the congregation, I stick my hand in again and take out exactly as much as I put in during the first round from the same collection bag. In essence, we swap our bills so as to throw off anyone who may have recorded the serial numbers and is watching the coins. That’s, roughly speaking, what happens in tumblers.
Now that we know how it will work, let’s go blend, mix, chop, dice, tumble and launder some coins! First we need to find a _trustworthy_ service. This is no joke because you have to send your precious bitcoins over to a third party. I did some research and my google-fu pointed me towards a site called Bestmixer. They’ve been around since 2018 and it seems they are highly recommended and trusted in the bitcoin community. You can use their services over the web or via the Tor network for completely privacy. I would suggest doing it over Tor. I would also suggest doing your mixing in small batches.
At the moment Bestmixer supports the following cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, with BitcoinSV and Ethereum coming soon.
Service fees can vary from 3% all the way to 15% depending on what mixing pool you choose. Which one you choose depends entirely upon what you’re trying to accomplish. Perhaps this quote form the FAQ section will help clear things up:
First of all, it should be emphasized that all coins mixed by BestMixer.io, regardless of the pool chosen, are equally efficient when analyzed using our Coin Anonymization Event utility. The difference between the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma pools is in the initial history of coins accepted into them.
‘Alpha Pool’ is our traditional pool operating under the client-to-client scheme whereby reserves for payments to new clients are formed using coins coming from other clients who have chosen the Alpha Pool.
‘Beta Pool’ reserves are formed using coins from large Alpa Pool transactions, our private reserves, and investors’ coins. Owing to this, the Beta Pool has bigger reserves than the Alpha Pool and is typically used for high-value transactions.
‘Gamma Pool’ reserves are strictly composed of our private reserve and investor coins. Reserves of this advanced pool have no connection to the Alpha Pool reserves and therefore have a guaranteed, clean origin.
To mix your bitcoins via the web click here
To mix your bitcoins via the Tor network click here
Let me know your experience and if you come across any other non scam mixing service please do leave a commend and let me know.
Now go blend them coins into a delicious and private bitcoin smoothie!
