To mix or not to mix.

I feel like there's a big hole in my OPSEC, and that's where i buy my coins. I buy them off bittylicious who have my personal details, send the money to an electrum wallet then send it to the markets.
Should i tumble or maybe first send them to a web wallet then to my electrum wallet then to the market? Opinions?


Comments


[6 Points] None:

Small fish is an over statement. Your a minnow. The paranoia that comes with this stuff is unreal.


[3 Points] None:

I laughed at the fact there's a company called bittylicious, lol really?


[2 Points] money1212313:

Bro buy bitcoins of people on forums (currency exchangers)

Then rinse it through sites like satoshi mines a few times

Job done


[2 Points] gramsadmin:

Preface

I own Helix and Helix light bitcoin cleaner(tumbler)
If you buy or sell your bitcoins anonymously such as as on a anonymous localbitcoin account or with someone in person, There is no reason you would need to tumble because the bitcoins are never linked to you.

Taint analysis

Bitcoin tumbling breaks the bitcoin taint analysis. What is Taint analysis? It the record of which wallets have sent bitcoins to and from each other. So if a user send coins from wallet A to wallet B to wallet C to wallet D. Then you look at the taint analysis of wallet D, it will show that Wallet D is linked to Wallet A by some percent. The higher the percent the more closely the wallets are link and the more likely the owner of wallet A sent or received coins from wallet D. If wallet A happens to be a coinbase account link to a real identity and wallet D is a darknet market wallet, a tumbler in between those will make it so that wallet A doesn't even show up in the taint analysis of wallet D. This means there is no way they are linked.

How do you check the taint?

In this example a user buys bitcoins on coinbase send to a tumbler and tells the tumbler to send to a market address
Coinbase(wallet A) -> Tumbler (wallet B) -> Market (wallet C)

You can also get to the taint page with this blockchain.info/taint/{the bitcoins address to check}

Do you have to tumble your coins?

Short answer is YES
I run a tumbler so I am a little biased, but It depends on how much you are sending to or from a market and how much you care about opsec. Here are a few reasons why you should tumble

It is better to be safe than sorry no matter which tumbler or tumbling method you use.
Again I am biased because I own a tumbler

How can they tell which wallets are linked to markets?

Most markets use "Hot Wallets", they put all their fees in these wallets. LE just needs to check the taints on these wallets to find all the addresses a market uses. There is even a site that does it already walletexplorer dot com If you go there you can see all the market addresses they are tracking.

Can't they just find the tumblers the same way?

Yes most tumblers they can. Helix is different and doesn't use a hot wallet. In fact helix never uses a wallet more than once. So even if they did tag a helix wallet it would never be used again so it wouldn't matter. You can check walletexplorer dot com and see helix and grams is not being tracked.

Can't tumblers be found by looking for multiple transactions every minute?

This is an old method of tumbling which most tumblers don't use anymore. I can't speak for all of them but Helix has 2 pools of bitcoins, Dirt and Clean. Users send their bitcoins to the dirty pool and receive bitcoins from the clean pool so there is very few transactions. Coins are never sent from the dirty pool to the clean pool so the clean bitcoins have no link or 0% taint to the dirty ones.

Is there free methods of tumbling?

Yes there are ways to tumble your bitcoins for free or almost free. One method is creating anonymous account on crypto exchanges and buying another crypto currency(litecoin) and then selling the litecoins for new clean bitcoins. Doing it this way you will save the 2.5% but use a lot more of your time and might lose money if the price fluctuates during the process.

Using a tumbler to tumble your coins is like paying a mechanic to change your oil. You can change your oil yourself and save some money but you will have to get dirty and it will take a lot of your time. If you use a mechanic you pay more than doing it yourself, but you know it gets done right and quickly without you having to spend any of your time. You could not change your oil at all (like not tumbling) and might be fine but who wants to risk that.


[1 Points] The_Grid_Is_Up:

Bittylicious charges a huge markup


[1 Points] footlockervip:

i don;t see the big deal in payinh 1-3% to tumble. it won't make you go broke. do it and you don;t have to even ask this question?


[1 Points] Hank_The_Chicken:

I don't see the point in buyers tumbling for the 1-4% fee.

If anything I'd use a dice or gaming site. Deposit to the site, wait 30-45 minutes and withdraw to a unique wallet in your control and then to a market.


[1 Points] joinfish:

/r/joinmarket -- decentralized & open source & P2P mixing algorithm.
Your private keys never leave your computer.
And no owner of a central service knows which are your input and output addresses (only you know).
Code & details: https://github.com/chris-belcher/joinmarket/wiki
Command line only for now.