[newacct583]

> Lots of things could be 'indicative of possible criminal conduct'.

Deliberately hiding the origin of funds is itself criminal conduct, though. It's true that AML statutes tend to be hyperspecific, because it's a difficult area to regulate. So areas like crytocurrency mixing are gray and uncertain even among law enforcement lawyers. It's not true, however, that there is an inherent right to unrestricted private transfer of money.

Bascially, the statement you're reading is not saying "Mixing is probably illegal because the money must have been illegal to begin with". It's saying that "Mixing is probably money laundering on its face, no matter where the money came from."

At some point governments are going to need to step in and clarify this with laws. But don't fool yourself: Crypto mixers are going to end up being subject to effectively the same reporting requirements that banks are. What you want (perfect financial privacy) you can't have, sorry. That ship sailed decades ago.

[rstuart4133]

> But don't fool yourself: Crypto mixers are going to end up being subject to effectively the same reporting requirements that banks are.

I'm sort of amazed they didn't outlaw mixers ages ago, however

> What you want (perfect financial privacy) you can't have, sorry. That ship sailed decades ago.

Perhaps that's true in principle, just as it's true to say obtaining (insert illicit drug of choice here) in perfect safety from the law enforcement agencies is not possible. The USA can only shut down USA mixers. The only way to deal with mixers operating outside of USA law is to prosecute the USA citizen sending his money to a mixer. That is orders of magnitude harder because they can't know if a newly minted bitcoin address is owned by a mixer, or belongs to a USA citizen.

It may not be perfect, but given one of bitcoin's niche's is a payment system for illegal activities that are already very much imperfect, the protection offers is undoubtedly good enough.

[jdmichal]

EDIT: I'm wrong please disregard.

You can have it. You just need to do everything in cash and not use the banking system. Of course, there's a lot of advantages to the banking system... But you can still use things like safety deposit boxes for storage, gold to help protect against inflation, etc.

[newacct583]

AML reporting requirements cover cash transfers too, though. Yes, there are more holes in the protocols because of the messiness of the medium (broadly it's the same thing crypto regulation would face), but in general MANY people who would have to touch that cash you're hoarding are required to report large transfers.

Money laundering is a crime, all by itself. It doesn't matter where the money comes from or what form it takes. The spirit behind AML legislation, long established, is that the government has the right to see where money is held and to whom it is transferred.

Minutiae about mechanism might appeal to software nerds, but it doesn't address the underlying issue. This fight was fought, and lost, more than half a century ago.

[PeterisP]

You can't do everything in cash anonymously, at least not legally, because large cash transactions are subject to similar laws and require the business receiving the cash to identify you and report the transaction - e.g. Form 8300 in USA.

[jdmichal]

Huh. I'm quite familiar with the banking side of AML having worked at one. But I was completely unaware of this.

[CryptoPunk]

>>Deliberately hiding the origin of funds is itself criminal conduct, though.

No, money laundering is deliberately hiding the origins of the proceeds of crime. Making an effort to maintain financial privacy is not in itself illegal.

>>It's saying that "Mixing is probably money laundering on its face, no matter where the money came from."

No, money laundering is by definition hiding the origins of illegally obtained money. If the money is not the proceeds of criminal enterprise, then hiding its origins is not, by definition, money laundering.

Exercising privacy-protection with respect to legally obtained money may be illegal, or with new laws be made illegal, but it does not and will not ever fall under the definition of money laundering, as that is not the definition of money laundering.