O Bitcointalkforum created by Satoshi Nakamotoannounced this Friday (1st) that it will ban advertisements for mixers on its website from January 1, 2024. Currently, the platform hosts several mixer subscription campaigns, where users receive bitcoins to promote such services.
The decision comes just days after international agencies closed yet another mixer, Sinbad. The main allegations concern facilitating money laundering for the Lazarus group. Sinbad’s website was taken offline last Wednesday (29).
“Today, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Sinbad.io (Sinbad), a virtual currency mixer that serves as a key money laundering tool of the Lazarus Group, a state-sponsored cyber hacking group. (DPRK).”
According to the US Treasury announcement, the Lazarus group was responsible for the Horizon Bridge hack and also the Axie Infinity hack.
Sinbad was used to that too “concealing transactions related to malicious activities such as sanctions evasion, drug trafficking, purchasing child sexual abuse materials, and additional illegal sales on darknet marketplaces”.
Bitcointalk censors mixers
Bitcointalk admin Theymos just closed the Sinbad thread initially and also removed all mixer links. He emphasized this, referring to the Dutch police “a cryptocurrency mixing service is not necessarily illegal”but that a censored mixer was different.
This Friday morning Theymos announced that it will ban all advertisements for mixers on the forum. The decision will take effect on January 1, 2024.
“Bitcointalk.org strives to enable as much freedom as reasonably possible. But this isn’t a darknet forum, and with mixers ‘looking increasingly gray’, it’s no longer reasonably possible to allow links to mixers.
“While “a cryptocurrency mixer service is not necessarily illegal,” a clear pattern has emerged in which mixers appear, last a while, and then are removed by authorities when they become too big.”the statement continued. “Allowing mixers to be published on bitcointalk.org before they are apparently declared illegal and seized is not sustainable. Therefore, links to mixers will no longer be allowed, just as links to darknet sites will no longer be allowed.”
Before Sinbad, the US government, together with authorities from other countries, also closed ChipMixer, also very well known on Bitcointalk.
The first sanction against these services took place in 2022, when the US closed the Blender mixer, which was also accused of serving as a tool for the Lazarus group.
Ultimately, criminals and government agencies are involved in a cat-and-mouse game. As hackers continue to drain millions through various attacks, governments are trying to close the gap so that these cryptocurrencies are not accepted in the market.
Source: Live Coins
Barry Siefert is an accomplished journalist and author at The Nation View. He is known for his expertise in the field of cryptocurrency, and has written extensively on the topic. With a background in finance and economics, Barry has a deep understanding of the underlying technology and market forces that drive the crypto industry.
