<story><title>Largest Bitcoin mixer, Bitmixer.io, closes down</title><url>https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2042470.0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tptacek</author><text>You can&amp;#x27;t even sell &lt;i&gt;gift certificates&lt;/i&gt; on the Internet without having built a business that will probably have criminals as a plurality constituency. The idea that a Bitcoin mixer was most used for legitimate purposes is pretty hard to swallow.&lt;p&gt;As a positive claim, rather than a normative one, it has to be possible to observe that services like this have their great practical impact on criminals. Making such a positive claim can&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;hurt the cause of privacy&amp;quot;. If the cause of privacy wants to be taken seriously, it will need to grow up and stop demanding that people accept false sets of facts.</text></item><item><author>Jabanga</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s really harmful to the cause of privacy when people equate enablement of privacy with criminality, as you&amp;#x27;re doing.</text></item><item><author>omarforgotpwd</author><text>He probably made so much money that he said &amp;quot;Hey, why risk it by continuing to run this business when I may someday face jail time. I know I am aiding criminals&amp;quot;. Smart move to shut it down on your terms and look like a good guy rather than to continue profiting from criminal activity. Whatever your on opinion the various issues at play here there is absolutely no doubt that running this sort of service is extremely risky from a legal &amp;#x2F; political standpoint.&lt;p&gt;I wonder if the shutdowns last week played any his decision? Maybe he saw a large drop in volumes after the darknet markets were shut down and realized those use cases were much larger than he imagined.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>belorn</author><text>At least it doesn&amp;#x27;t have as bad ratio of criminal vs legal use as email services. A email address normally receive several scams, spam, and hacking attempts for each legit email, and its only thanks to client side filters that the illegitimate use case of email  don&amp;#x27;t overwhelm the legitimate.&lt;p&gt;Would you say that the industry that use bitcoin mixers is bigger and involve more illicit money than the spam&amp;#x2F;scam&amp;#x2F;malware industry that use email?</text></comment>
<story><title>Largest Bitcoin mixer, Bitmixer.io, closes down</title><url>https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2042470.0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tptacek</author><text>You can&amp;#x27;t even sell &lt;i&gt;gift certificates&lt;/i&gt; on the Internet without having built a business that will probably have criminals as a plurality constituency. The idea that a Bitcoin mixer was most used for legitimate purposes is pretty hard to swallow.&lt;p&gt;As a positive claim, rather than a normative one, it has to be possible to observe that services like this have their great practical impact on criminals. Making such a positive claim can&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;hurt the cause of privacy&amp;quot;. If the cause of privacy wants to be taken seriously, it will need to grow up and stop demanding that people accept false sets of facts.</text></item><item><author>Jabanga</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s really harmful to the cause of privacy when people equate enablement of privacy with criminality, as you&amp;#x27;re doing.</text></item><item><author>omarforgotpwd</author><text>He probably made so much money that he said &amp;quot;Hey, why risk it by continuing to run this business when I may someday face jail time. I know I am aiding criminals&amp;quot;. Smart move to shut it down on your terms and look like a good guy rather than to continue profiting from criminal activity. Whatever your on opinion the various issues at play here there is absolutely no doubt that running this sort of service is extremely risky from a legal &amp;#x2F; political standpoint.&lt;p&gt;I wonder if the shutdowns last week played any his decision? Maybe he saw a large drop in volumes after the darknet markets were shut down and realized those use cases were much larger than he imagined.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ikeboy</author><text>&amp;gt;You can&amp;#x27;t even sell gift certificates on the Internet without having built a business that will probably have criminals as a plurality constituency.&lt;p&gt;This is not correct, in my experience - largest constituency for many gift cards is merchandise resellers. I myself have purchased in the mid 5 figure range of gift cards and I&amp;#x27;ve met people who&amp;#x27;ve spent in the 7 figure range.</text></comment>