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'''Cryptocurrency tumbler''' or '''cryptocurrency mixing service''' is a service offered to mix potentially [[Personally identifiable information|identifiable]] or 'tainted' [[cryptocurrency]] funds with others, so as to obscure the trail back to the fund's original source. Tumblers have arisen to improve the [[anonymity]] of cryptocurrencies, usually [[bitcoin]] (hence '''Bitcoin mixer'''), since the currencies provide a public ledger of all transactions. Currently (2015) there is only one service which offers tumbling of multiple cryptocurrencies, PrivCoin.

== Background ==
In traditional financial systems, the equivalent would be moving funds through banks located in countries with strict bank-secrecy laws, such the [[Cayman Islands]], the [[Bahamas]], or [[Panama]]. Tumblers take a percentage [[transaction fee]] of the total coins mixed to turn a profit, typically 1-3%. however, a report from the [[Combating Terrorism Center|CTC]] suggests such use in terrorism-related activities is 'relatively limited'. There has been at least one incident where an [[Digital currency exchanger|exchange]] has blacklisted "tainted" deposits descending from stolen bitcoins. The existence of tumblers has made the anonymous use of [[darknet market]]s easier and the job of law enforcement harder.

== Peer-to-peer tumblers ==
Peer-to-peer tumblers appeared in an attempt to fix the disadvantages of the centralized model of tumbling. These services act as a place of meeting for bitcoin users, instead of taking bitcoins for mixing. Users arrange mixing by themselves. This model solves the problem of stealing, as there is no middleman. Such protocols as [[CoinJoin|Coin Join]], SharedCoin and CoinSwap allow few bitcoin-users to gather in order to form one bitcoin exchange transaction in several steps. When it is completely formed, the exchange of bitcoins between the participants begins. Apart from mixing server, none of the participants can know the connection between the incoming and outgoing addresses of coins. This operation can be carried out several times with different recipients to complicate transaction analysis.

== Alternatives ==
Newer and proposed coin implementations such as [[Cloakcoin]], [[Dash (cryptocurrency)|Dash]], [[PIVX]], [[Hatch]] and [[Zcoin (cryptocurrency)|Zcoin]] have built in mixing services as a part of their [[Blockchain (database)|blockchain]] network.

The [[Zcoin (cryptocurrency)|Zcoin]] cryptocurrency provides anonymity by using Zerocoin, a type of Zero Knowledge proof method with anonymity sets in the region of thousands, as opposed to the low hundreds for a tumbler. The Zerocoin anonymizing function is built on Bitcoin Core code as an additional layer which allows selective anonymization when required.

The [[Dark Wallet]] client software for bitcoin was built to natively mix transactions between users to achieve the same effect without relying on a centralized service.

The [[Monero (cryptocurrency)|Monero]] cryptocurrency provides anonymity without tumbling services due to its privacy centric design, utilizing [[Ring signature|ring signatures]] to keep the entire blockchain secure and untraceable.

Straits released its Alpha version of its Breeze [[cryptocurrency wallet]] in June 2017. The final version is intended to have a TumbleBit feature enabled allowing Stratis (STRAT) and Bitcoin (BTC) to be tumbled anonymously and untraceably.

== See also ==
* [[Money laundering]]

==Source==

[http://wikipedia.org/ http://wikipedia.org/]
[[Category:Mixing services]]

Cryptocurrency tumbler - Revision history

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