Two-stage Bitcoin mixing
"Mixing" is a term often used with Bitcoin, regarding the trading of coins for the sake of disconnecting your identity from one end of the trail. It can help anonymize your cryptocurrency exchange by working with new coins that have a different history, while yours move on to have new lives of their own. Of course, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Ethereum also have mixers. Some also call this "tumbling" or better this way:
.Bitcoin mixing or bitcoin tumblingis the procedure of using a third-party platform to break down the connection between the Bitcoin sender’s and receiver’s address by blending up several cryptocurrencies together in one place, thereby, ensuring anonymity.
If an individual knows even one of your account addresses, it becomes easy for him to trace down many intricate details about your transaction history like your crypto exchange unit, your trades & even your worth. You can be hacked within minutes without even realizing it.
This is where Bitcoin mixers come in to rescue you from your fears. Bitcoin mixers are solutions that help you rearrange your bitcoins by mixing them up while subdividing them further into distinct addresses, enabling users to guard their identity.
How do Bitcoin Mixing works?
A Bitcoin mixer service works by running your coins through a mixer process. Once you submit the Bitcoins you want to be tumbled, the mixer service shuffles your Bitcoins with someone else’s cryptocurrency to release a fresh batch of random Bitcoins gained from a random address to you. The bitcoin mixer service solely requires your bitcoins, and that’s all. You are under no obligation to fill in any of your personal details.
Bitcoin mixer services often charge a random commission of 2-5% from their users, making it almost impossible to track down both the transactions. With mixing service’s assistance, you will be able to protect your privacy 100% with mixed up cryptocurrencies and mixed up addresses. The Bitcoin mixer service doesn’t store any logs, which is why a hacker can never figure out anything about your transactions even if your security is compromised.
Is Bitcoin Mixing safe?
There’s no doubt that the cryptocurrency network is considered to be one of the most secure systems because of its blockchain technology and peer-to-peer network. But at the same time, keep in mind, that while cryptocurrency does keep your identity anonymous because of it being a decentralized body, it does not hide your transactions from anyone because of its transparent public ledger.
Many times users claim privacy for their crypto transactions because of their own bunch of reasons, which is why Bitcoin mixer is the perfect place to gain 100% anonymity and confidentiality of your crypto transactions.
Crypto mixer services are safe to use if you want to protect your crypto assets by hiding your personal identity. Bitcoin mixer service assures to maintain your financial privacy, unlike various sites that claim to understand your privacy but often save your credentials in their database. Such information can be used for unethical and malicious activities by hackers or untrusted employee-base.
At Bitcoin Mixer, you don’t have to be tense about any such activities as it runs on a fully automated system with no human assistance. The service does not store or record any personal details like log info, emails, etc. from its users. Moreover, it eliminates all the user-related information once it mixes up the Bitcoins, making it entirely safe for use.
FAQs- Frequently Asked Questions about Bitcoin Mixing
1. Is Bitcoin Mixing Illegal?
No, Bitcoin mixing is not illegal unless you’re mixing large amounts of crypto money, which might be unlawful being a violation of anti-structuring laws.
2. What is a dark wallet?
A dark wallet is a digital wallet that assists in the anonymization of data by jumbling up of bitcoin transactions carried out on an online market space, typically on a Bitcoin tumbler service.
3. Is Bitcoin mixing safe?
Bitcoin mixing is considered to be safe because it muddles up all the transaction addresses that are available on a public ledger for everyone to see. Bitcoin mixing services usually don’t store any personal information of a user, thereby, making it a safe platform.
In reality, there are three possible vulnerabilities with mixer use in general.
- The mixer may not mix well enough.
- The mixer may be compromised.
- The mixer may be a honeypot, ran by the IRS, FBI, etc.
The mixer will always know, or at least be able to know, the address coins were sent from and the amount, and the destination. Thus even if from a blockchain analysis perspective the mix is "perfect", if the mixer is a bad actor they can disclose who really funded a particular wallet.
For a while, I have thought the solution to this was quite easy. Surprisingly, haven't seen anyone else doing this. Just use two mixers.
In a nutshell:
Mixers want one piece of data: an address to send coins to. They'll reply with an input address, minimum/maximum limits, delay information, etc.
- Create mix A with the final stage mixer. This mix will have the output address of your target wallet.
- Create mix B with your "entry" mixer. This mix will have mix A's input address as its output address.
- Send coins to mix B's input address.
Pretty simple. I finally wrote two different Python libraries for two different mixers and a third CLI/library that chains the two together in a simple way.