Cryptocurrency Mixer: What is it?

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By using a mixer, users can create a new transaction history for their coins, making it difficult to track them back to their original source. While there are many legitimate reasons to use a mixer, such as privacy and security, they have also been used by criminals to hide the proceeds of illegal activities. In this crypto article, we’ll take a closer look at cryptocurrency mixers.

Developments like crypto mixers or tumblers, which are used to disguise cryptocurrency transactions, have been a source of concern for government agencies charged with financial security.

People use crypto mixers to keep their identity private during cryptocurrency transactions by mixing their funds with other, larger sums of money. These services usually only require a Know Your Customer (KYC) check and do not need identifying information beyond that.

Consequently, there is a significant amount of risk associated with using crypto mixers to launder money or hide income. Mixers and online gambling sites have the most severe money laundering problems, as they process the vast majority of dirty currencies. For example, Mixers have processed approximately 25%  of all illicit Bitcoin (BTC) annually while the percentage laundered

through exchanges and gambling has stayed relatively stable (66%-72%).

There are two types of Bitcoin mixers: centralized and decentralized. Companies that receive Bitcoin and send back different BTC for a fee are known as centralized mixers, providing a simple solution for tumbling Bitcoin.

Crypto mixers are programs that take a certain quantity of cryptocurrency and mash it up in private pools before transferring it to its designated receivers. For example, if you were to look at the history of all BTC transactions via a Bitcoin explorer, you would see that person A transferred Bitcoin to a mixer and person B received BTC from a mixer. This way, no one knows who sent the BTC or where it came from. As such, crypto mixing can be used as means to launder dirty Bitcoin.

Coin mixers function by taking your cryptocurrency and mixing it with a large pile of another cryptocurrency before returning you smaller units of crypto to an address of your choice, with the total amount you put in minus 1-3%. The coin mixing firm usually collects 1-3% profit, which is how they earn a living.

Coin mixing is comparable to money laundering in that it is criminal conduct. Just because someone engages in coin mixing, however, does not indicate they are committing a crime. Instead, it simply means that they want to increase the privacy of their cryptocurrency transactions.

Brian Benczkowski, a former United States Assistant Attorney General says that trying to disguise crypto transactions is against the law. For example, Bitcoin’s key functionality is privacy instead of anonymity- which means your identity isn’t always exposed-, however your transactions can still be watched in order to investigate any crime.

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