In the current scenario, when the crypto transactions for goods and services is on the boiling side, it is essential to maintain a certain degree of privacy. Any crypto hodler knows that a transaction history can be traced by the recipient using only the wallet address of the payee.
Since blockchain powers every cryptocurrency, each transaction is recorded on the blockchain network. Though it is tough to hijack a block or tamper recorded data, there are still loopholes that can be exploited for personal gains.
Only if there was a way to keep the transactions anonymous! It turns out there is a solution which is, what the crypto geniuses are calling, crypto mixing.
So, what is crypto mixing, and how does it work, adding an extra layer to privacy?
As the term suggests, crypto mixing is simply mixing various cryptocurrencies to make the trail of original transaction source anonymous. That said, in practicality, it is not as simple as the explanation.
There are different ways to tumble cryptocurrencies, each one offering something different to help keep privacy strong. Let’s take a look at a few crypto tumbler platforms to understand the concept in practice and what unique feature they have on their table.
Smartmixer
One of the newest and most reliable blending services is taking a road less travelled. Smartmixer isn’t simply mixing different coins to hide the trail, it blends the coins with random fund transfers. Smartmixer only accepts three coins at the moment including Bitcoin, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.
The mixing process is reasonably quick and straightforward, and clients can choose from one of the three types of mix they want for their crypto. Either they can have their funds mixed with other user’s inbound funds.
Or with other users’ fund along with crypto’s of investors and the reserved services.
And finally, only with reserved services and investor’s coins, which the platform touts as stealth pool.
The usability is pretty easy as well. One has to choose a coin from the mentioned above and send it to the entered address. Users can choose to delay the transaction, if they wish, by upto 72 hours or three days.
Platform charges a nominal fee, 1% of the mixed coins, which also happens to be the profit model for Smartmixer.
Anonymix
Another notable name in the crypto tumbling world, especially if you’re looking for entirely anonymous Bitcoin transactions. Anonymix has a mix of hot and cold storage that results in a really sophisticated reserve system. This system ensures mixing of upto 100 Bitcoins, delivering absolutely traceless bitcoin. In layman’s term, a user’s BTC is mixed with bitcoins reserved in the company’s system pool.
As it wasn’t hard enough, Anonymix gives its user even harder to trace options by providing a number of delay settings as well a feature to send BTC to more than one address. The option goes by the name Bulletproof mixing. This comprises of using blockchain analysis resistant algorithm to give the user the best possible BTC mix.
On top of that, to entice more users, the platform has introduced a comparatively lower transaction fee of 0.3% — a payout of one Satoshi per transactions.
Bitmix
It’s one of the safest bitcoin tumblers out there. The objective here is to provide you untraceable Bitcoin and in order to do that, the platform takes your BTC and other user’s coin and tumbles it in a central mix to give you a different but same amount of BTC. Bitmix calls it cleaning the coin while keeping the transparent BTC network anonymous.
Bitmix deducts a small fee of 0.4% - 4% for mining and 0.0005BTC for address output covering up any transaction charges incurred by the miners. The platform usually does mixing instantly but sometimes can take upto 24 hours given the amount of BTC a user is mixing. Any user is allowed to mix a minimum of 0.007 BTC to a maximum of 1000 BTC.
When you’re mixing your coin with others, the probability of you getting your original coin rises. However, Bitmix has taken care of that as well. The user is provided with a code, this code is utilized to make use of the service, and the same code makes sure a user doesn’t receive the coin it originally submitted to the mix.
Mixing cryptocurrency definitely seems like a viable option if a user is concerned with its privacy or wants to keep the transaction unknown to the recipient or anyone else. The platforms don’t keep any personal log or signs of a user using the platform or making a transaction. This in whole, adds a slight but much-needed layer of protection to the crypto ecosystem in general.