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This assumes that the operators of the tumblers are to be trusted and aren’t state actors themselves. It would be a pretty smart move for the Feds to run one or

This assumes that the operators of the tumblers are to be trusted and aren’t state actors themselves. It would be a pretty smart move for the Feds to run one or more of those operations.

bredren 7y ago
Coinjoin is an ongoing attempt to remove centralization from tumblers: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/CoinJoin https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/CoinJoin
- vkou 7y ago
  It will take a stroke of a pen for the US Government to require that exchanges do not accept any coins that have gone through a known tumbler after <certain date> Imagine a money laundering operation, where every laundered physical dollar gets a physical stamp of 'THIS CAME THROUGH A MONEY LAUNDERING OPERATION'. That's the current state of BitCoin tumblers.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    That really just starts the true cat and mouse game of trying to hide tumblers as legitimate flows. edit: To expand it's harder than tracking normal money laundering too because the "businesses" (ie wallets) can be generated by the thousands per second.
  - nybble41 7y ago
    > It will take a stroke of a pen for the US Government to require that exchanges do not accept any coins that have gone through a known tumbler after <certain date> Assuming they can actually identify it as having gone through a tumbler, sure, but it's not like tumblers advertise the addresses they use. Especially not distributed systems like CoinJoin. These are just ordinary transactions that happen to include inputs and outputs from multiple, unrelated sources. Following long-established best practices, any given address will only be used once. They could ban exchanges from accepting coins that do not come directly from another authorized, compliant exchange, but that would be tantamount to banning cryptocurrencies altogether. It wouldn't stop them of course, just drive them underground.
botwriter 7y ago
This! I'm sure state actors are running exchanges or they are at least compromised.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  Run it through multiple then, doubt they're all talking to each other.

This assumes that the operators of the tumblers are to be trusted and aren’t state actors themselves. It would be a pretty smart move for the Feds to run one or more of those operations.

bredren 7y ago

Coinjoin is an ongoing attempt to remove centralization from tumblers: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/CoinJoin https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/CoinJoin

vkou 7y ago
It will take a stroke of a pen for the US Government to require that exchanges do not accept any coins that have gone through a known tumbler after <certain date> Imagine a money laundering operation, where every laundered physical dollar gets a physical stamp of 'THIS CAME THROUGH A MONEY LAUNDERING OPERATION'. That's the current state of BitCoin tumblers.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  That really just starts the true cat and mouse game of trying to hide tumblers as legitimate flows. edit: To expand it's harder than tracking normal money laundering too because the "businesses" (ie wallets) can be generated by the thousands per second.
- nybble41 7y ago
  > It will take a stroke of a pen for the US Government to require that exchanges do not accept any coins that have gone through a known tumbler after <certain date> Assuming they can actually identify it as having gone through a tumbler, sure, but it's not like tumblers advertise the addresses they use. Especially not distributed systems like CoinJoin. These are just ordinary transactions that happen to include inputs and outputs from multiple, unrelated sources. Following long-established best practices, any given address will only be used once. They could ban exchanges from accepting coins that do not come directly from another authorized, compliant exchange, but that would be tantamount to banning cryptocurrencies altogether. It wouldn't stop them of course, just drive them underground.

botwriter 7y ago

This! I'm sure state actors are running exchanges or they are at least compromised.

rtkwe 7y ago
Run it through multiple then, doubt they're all talking to each other.