What mixers still operate after the Tornado Cash shutdown?

There are still a dozen more protocols that operate on the same algorithm and have not yet incurred the wrath of law enforcement agencies.

A crypto mixer is a service that blends the assets of a large number of users to obfuscate the origins of the funds. Regulators accuse crypto mixer owners of using their protocols to launder money, which is then used to sponsor terrorism and buy weapons. 

These accusations have a basis. Nevertheless, according to law enforcement agencies, only 23% of the funds sent to mixers is of illegal origin. Basically, this is the money of users from countries that are under sanctions: North Korea, Iran, and Russia. Most of it belongs to crypto holders who want to keep their crypto incomes confidential. Simply put, these are the funds of traders who avoid paying taxes. That fact itself also does not please the regulators, but it has nothing to do with drugs, weapons, and financing of terrorism. 

The bitcoin mixers work by mixing crypto and creating a disconnect between the assets the user deposits and the assets the user withdraws. The service obfuscates a giant pile of cryptocurrencies and transactions randomly. 

For example, you can deposit 1 BTC and withdraw it in part to 2-10 different addresses at different time intervals already “clean”. Money is withdrawn from a random liquidity pool, and it is almost impossible for blockchain observers to track their origins. 

Each user can withdraw the entire amount deposited, minus the service fee. 

Using a mixer cannot be called an unethical act. Given how easy it is to track the transactions of BTC or ETH, there are legitimate reasons anyone might want to maintain confidentiality. The level of transparency of a blockchain is much higher than in any of the banks, where there is such a thing as “bank secrecy”.

All mixers run on the Tor web browser and all have one weakness: large transactions make them ineffective. Since users are receiving a “mix” of assets, if one user contributes much more than others, much of their final balance will consist of the funds they originally put in, making it possible to track the funds back to the sender. Thus, mixers function best when they have a large number of users, all of whom are mixing comparable amounts of crypto. 

Advantages of the mixer:

● no registration;

● users can connect up to 10 wallets;

● users receive funds after one confirmation;

● users can select a time interval to make tracking more difficult;

● built-in bitcoin lottery;

● transaction logs are deleted automatically.

Disadvantages:

● minimum withdrawal threshold 0.035 BTC

● high commission 0.3% + 0.0001 BTC

Advantages:

● no registration;

● fast mixing process;

● users can postpone the withdrawal for up to 24 hours;

● the minimum transaction limit is 0.002 BTC;

● low commission 0.00002 BTC.

Disadvantages:

● logs are deleted manually;

● no letter of guarantee;

● there have been complaints about delayed payments after mixing.

Advantages:

● no registration;

● hidden pools for complete anonymity;

● users can send money to any CEX;

● the minimum transaction limit is 0.003 BTC;

● a large number of users.

Disadvantages:

● high commission for mixing services 5% + 0.0007 BTC;

● delayed payment no more than 6 hours.

● maximum deposit of 50 BTC.

Advantages:

● no registration;

● users can swap coins (BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH);

● large delay interval (up to 36 hours);

Disadvantages:

● the level of anonymity depends on the size of the commission;

● the minimum transaction limit is 0.01 BTC.

Please note that when you go to the addresses of some crypto mixers, a MetaMask warning appears that this resource is most likely phishing or hacked.

After the sanctions were imposed on Tornado Cash, such warnings appeared on almost all Tor resources, so they were not always legitimate. This does not mean that you can blindly trust any crypto mixer that promises you to clean your BTC until it sparkles.