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that's common practice to anonymize bitcoins. google 'bitcoin tumbling service'.

by mars 13y ago

deweller 13y ago
So do you think that these 429k bitcoins were all sent through a tumbler? Now that would be interesting information. Can we verify this? Obviously we can't trace the outputs, but can we look for patterns that suggest the use of tumblers/mixers?
- mars 13y ago
  well, that's the whole purpose of a tumbling service. i mean you don't even know how long they will be stuck there. i didn't investigate this, but splitting those into small amounts and then tumbling these around seems like exactly this pattern. if you are interested on how this was done in the maybe now second biggest known btc heist check http://www.newstatesman.com/future-proof/2013/12/theres-£60m-bitcoin-heist-going-down-right-now-and-you-can-watch-real-time http://www.newstatesman.com/future-proof/2013/12/theres-£60m...
  - Uberphallus 13y ago
    To be honest, tumbling such large amount of BTC serves no purpose because you overflow the rest of the people tumbling.
sbierwagen 13y ago
Tumbling only works if you're a small fraction of the total. If you put $300 million into a tumbler that only has $1 million of other volume, then it's pretty easy to track you.
- quandrum 13y ago
  Sure, but if you have access to $300 million and want to tumble $1 million, wouldn't it be hard to track you?
- danudey 13y ago
  Sure, but you don't tumble it all at once. Other commenters showed that these BTC were split up into ~1000 BTC chunks. Each of those could send randomly to different tumblers and anonymize all of their activities to send to a new set of addresses which people aren't tracking, and then from there gradually pull it out of various exchanges to various banks and accounts.
PeterisP 13y ago
If any scenario that 'blacklists' some bitcoins is implemented (IMHO it won't, but if we're discussing it..), then any bitcoins 'tumbled together' with blacklisted bitcoins would be blacklisted as well. Which would mean that either people would stop using tumbling services (since the process would turn 'good' bitcoins into 'tainted' bitcoins as soon as a single participant wanted to anonymize stolen BTC), or tumbling services would disallow tumbling any blacklisted bitcoins, or both.

that's common practice to anonymize bitcoins. google 'bitcoin tumbling service'.

by mars 13y ago

that's common practice to anonymize bitcoins. google 'bitcoin tumbling service'.

So do you think that these 429k bitcoins were all sent through a tumbler? Now that would be interesting information. Can we verify this? Obviously we can't trace the outputs, but can we look for patterns that suggest the use of tumblers/mixers?

mars 13y ago
well, that's the whole purpose of a tumbling service. i mean you don't even know how long they will be stuck there. i didn't investigate this, but splitting those into small amounts and then tumbling these around seems like exactly this pattern. if you are interested on how this was done in the maybe now second biggest known btc heist check http://www.newstatesman.com/future-proof/2013/12/theres-£60m-bitcoin-heist-going-down-right-now-and-you-can-watch-real-time http://www.newstatesman.com/future-proof/2013/12/theres-£60m...
- Uberphallus 13y ago
  To be honest, tumbling such large amount of BTC serves no purpose because you overflow the rest of the people tumbling.

sbierwagen 13y ago

Tumbling only works if you're a small fraction of the total. If you put $300 million into a tumbler that only has $1 million of other volume, then it's pretty easy to track you.

quandrum 13y ago
Sure, but if you have access to $300 million and want to tumble $1 million, wouldn't it be hard to track you?
danudey 13y ago
Sure, but you don't tumble it all at once. Other commenters showed that these BTC were split up into ~1000 BTC chunks. Each of those could send randomly to different tumblers and anonymize all of their activities to send to a new set of addresses which people aren't tracking, and then from there gradually pull it out of various exchanges to various banks and accounts.

PeterisP 13y ago

If any scenario that 'blacklists' some bitcoins is implemented (IMHO it won't, but if we're discussing it..), then any bitcoins 'tumbled together' with blacklisted bitcoins would be blacklisted as well. Which would mean that either people would stop using tumbling services (since the process would turn 'good' bitcoins into 'tainted' bitcoins as soon as a single participant wanted to anonymize stolen BTC), or tumbling services would disallow tumbling any blacklisted bitcoins, or both.