[mirimir]

> To answer your question more precisely, Bitcoin has most definitely been a success story for sites like sci-hub, Wikileak and generally speaking, people who try to speak truth to power.

Also for VPN providers, and their customers. And generally for people who want to buy stuff and lease online services ~anonymously. If one mixes well enough, that is.

[Nursie]

And avoids using a mixer that decides to screw you over, and avoids using a mixer that gets taken down because hey - guess what? That's basically money laundering and the jail time for that sort of thing can be pretty hefty.

[wbobeirne]

> avoids using a mixer that decides to screw you over

Most mixers use CoinJoin, which gives you trustless assurances that you won't lose your money. The worst thing you'll lose is your time.

[teddyh]

A mixer is not “money laundering”. As I understand it, “money laundering” is when you conceal from somebody, usually the tax authorities, the reason you have the money. If someone has no income to speak of, and still has a lot of cash, that’s suspicious. A “mixer” in this case would be analogous to exchanging the physical bills for bills with different serial numbers. But this does not alleviate suspicion, the problem of the money being unexplained remains. So they can “launder” the money; i.e. pretend that they have a hair salon business or something similar, and then declare that a lot of people are coming to their salon and spending money, even though there aren’t. But this now provides an explanation for the amount of money they have; the money is now “laundered”, even though it’s the same physical cash as before.

[mirimir]

That's true. You never mix any more than you're willing to lose. And sure, it's money laundering. But money laundering in defense of freedom from oppression is OK, as I see it.

[Nursie]

So long as you're ok with your coins getting mixed with (and thus providing cover for) the more criminal stuff, I guess.

[mirimir]

I'm OK with that. And it's impossible to avoid, if you're using systems with any chance of protecting your privacy. Also, criminals tend to attract lots of attention, and they're often careless, so they act as canaries.

There is the concern that you'll end up with Bitcoin that's been tainted in one way or another. However, at least some mixing services get coin from miners, so it's clean. And you can check for that in the blockchain.

That's mostly a concern when you're mixing Bitcoin before converting it to meatspace fiat. If you're anonymizing Bitcoin purchased with meatspace fiat, it doesn't matter so much if some is tainted. Or at least, it won't unless tainted coin gets blacklisted.

[nfin]

Admittedly (!) exaggerated, but are you not also providing cover for criminals by doing not essential things (like playing tennis), because criminals would be catched easily if no law abiding citizen would do that kind of things, right?

Just a thought

[DEADBEEFC0FFEE]

It's not that easy to be anonymous with Bitcoin. Eventually you have to pay for Bitcoin, and that going to involve cash or trust, neither is simple.

[mirimir]

Mirimir earns his Bitcoin, so there's no cash involved.

But no matter how you get the Bitcoin, you can get whatever degree of anonymity you want, by mixing it many times. You mix via Tor and nested VPN chains, with a different Whonix VM and mixing service for each mix.

[lallysingh]

Bounce through monero first.

[RandomBacon]

Might as well just stay in Monero. If you have to pay someplace that doesn't use Monero, just use XMR.to to pay (converts Monero to Bitcoin).

[bitcointruther]

you can buy bitcoin KYC free on bisq.network (but there is a premium). Very low risk of loss of funds. You can even use zelle which is supported by most banks.

From there, send your coins through a samouari whirlpool https://samouraiwallet.com/whirlpool

Then send them wherever you like.

There is still some counterparty risk (what if you're buying coins from the CIA, or whatever), but it's almost minimal.

Buying coins from a Bitcoin ATM is even easier, if there's one near you.

[mirimir]

Bitcoin ATMs probably have surveillance cameras.

[bitxbitxbitcoin]

Bitcoin ATMs definitely have surveillance cameras - if they don't, the area surrounding their location do. As far as I know there are only a handful of older Bitcoin ATM brands that don't have a camera and even the brand I'm thinking of Lamassu has added cameras in their later models.[1]

[1] https://lamassu.is/faq

[Nursie]

> Buying coins from a Bitcoin ATM is even easier, if there's one near you.

Enjoy those massive fees!