Cryptocurrency mixers are not inherently illegal, although they are used for illegal activities. According to a July report from Chainalysis, cryptocurrency mixers are a “reference tool” for cybercriminals who trade cryptocurrencies, and illicit addresses account for nearly a quarter of the funds sent to mixers since January. The mixing service mixes or mixes that bitcoin with other users' cryptocurrencies and then transfers the mixed cryptocurrency so as not to leave any connection between the original bitcoin and the final destination. You can use a centralized mixer, which are third-party services that receive bitcoins, extract other bitcoins from other deposits and return an equivalent amount of bitcoins at the end of the transaction.
While this was not the first cryptocurrency mixer to be attacked by the United States government, the difference is that, unlike the Bitcoin Fog case, Tornado Cash is not centrally managed. He promoted how Bitcoin Fog could mix one person's bitcoins in a pool with those of other users to eliminate any chance of finding someone's payments and making it impossible to prove any connection between a deposit and a withdrawal. And what's revealing is that blending companies like Bitcoin Fog and Helix allegedly use new addresses for every transaction, hampering law enforcement's ability to track and trace. However, Chainalysis noted in its report that it is “not aware that any bitcoin or Ethereum mixer is currently following these rules.” In addition, the Helix company received Bitcoin to send it to another place or person in order to hide the original source of Bitcoin.
The CoinJoin protocol allows a group of users to group together a quantity of bitcoins and then redistribute it so that they all recover the same amount of bitcoins. However, this capability has turned bitcoin transaction mixers into hotbeds of money laundering activities. The ability to hide where funds come from has turned bitcoin mixers into a hotbed of money laundering activities. Therefore, while operating a cryptocurrency mixing service is not a crime in and of itself, anyone who operates or works for a bitcoin mixing service should be concerned about being involved in a conspiracy investigation to launder cryptocurrency money.
