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A well written Tumbler wouldn’t connect any of your money to your own wallets, it’s not hard to think how an algorithm would do this. Just keep an internal ledg

A well written Tumbler wouldn’t connect any of your money to your own wallets, it’s not hard to think how an algorithm would do this. Just keep an internal ledger and make sure the money doesn’t come back to the source. Ross probably could’ve even made his own tumbler. Giving out his money to anyone that sends him some would be a naive way to think about it. In terms of amount, I don’t think it would be hard with all the illicit activity on bitcoin to launder even this amount of money, but it’s not like he would need all of it right away. Anyways, this is in response to “isn’t this a public ledger?” To which the answer is, “not if you make part of the ledger private—outside the blockchain—it isn’t.”

colejohnson66 6y ago
I’ll admit, my knowledge of how Bitcoin’s blockchain works is limited. My question was based on a claim I heard a few years ago about how tumblers are ineffective. So I wasn’t aware that coins could exchange hands outside the public ledger. My understanding was that every transaction (even tumblers) was on the chain. Is there anywhere I could learn more about this?
- jdxcode 6y ago
  Of course they can change hands outside the ledger. We could create paper wallets and exchange them on the street and the blockchain isn't going to know that happened. A tumbler is just a more complex version of that. Imagine this scenario: You have 10 BTC of illegal funds you'd like to launder. I, and 3 of my friends each have 5 BTC and they're all wanting to do the same. I transfer some money into a new wallet from 2 of my friends and give it to you. Your money goes to me and 1 of my other friends. This way the blockchain has no link between your source funds and the money that you received. This is a simple example. If you split the money into random amounts and do this a few times with new wallets each time it can easily become untraceable.

colejohnson66 6y ago

I’ll admit, my knowledge of how Bitcoin’s blockchain works is limited. My question was based on a claim I heard a few years ago about how tumblers are ineffective. So I wasn’t aware that coins could exchange hands outside the public ledger. My understanding was that every transaction (even tumblers) was on the chain. Is there anywhere I could learn more about this?

jdxcode 6y ago
Of course they can change hands outside the ledger. We could create paper wallets and exchange them on the street and the blockchain isn't going to know that happened. A tumbler is just a more complex version of that. Imagine this scenario: You have 10 BTC of illegal funds you'd like to launder. I, and 3 of my friends each have 5 BTC and they're all wanting to do the same. I transfer some money into a new wallet from 2 of my friends and give it to you. Your money goes to me and 1 of my other friends. This way the blockchain has no link between your source funds and the money that you received. This is a simple example. If you split the money into random amounts and do this a few times with new wallets each time it can easily become untraceable.