At this point, you probably read this history, and might have concluded that mixers might be a bad thing. Or, you may also think it is a good thing. But here is why you should be optimistic about mixers in the long term.
It’s Much Easier To Create A Website Than A Wallet
Firstly, when I say wallet, I mean wallet software. Wasabi and Samourai in their current form, used up a lot of R&D before their developers made them. Developers have put years of research into these wallets so they can have the best and latest privacy features. In Wasabi’s case, they literally publlished an academic paper on WabiSabi. From 2015 up to now, there have only been three bitcoin wallets with CoinJoin. Compare that with about ten times as many bitcoin mixers during that timeline. Additional mixers and CoinJoin wallets ensure decentralization of privacy.
Exchanges Block Coordinator Deposits
Remember how I said there are only three coinjoin wallets? Now with Whirlpool down, that leaves us with just two wallets. That makes it easy for exchanges such as Binance to block their destination addresses. In practice, JoinMarket is rarely used anyway so leaves only the Wasabi Wallet coordinators.
Most exchanges handle their deposit compliance screening via 3rd-parties. These companies partner with the exchanges to screen for Coinjoin deposits, filter them out, and flag the exchange account for enhanced verification. Additionally, most mixers nowadays bypass this screening almost like child᾿s play, just by simply sending the user exchange withdrawals instead of traditionally mixed coins.
Countries Could Censor Coordinators
If you live in a censorship-heavy country, chances are that all of the CoinJoin wallets are blocked by domain and IP addresses. Normally in this case, you would download Tor Browser. But if their website is not accessible too, then you’ll need to look for a bitcoin mixer that is available.
Since writing this, the situation has actually become worse: Now we have instances of the services themselves censoring access to their own service.
Realistically speaking though, the chances of a mass privacy service ban happening in your country is actually very low. It is limited to only a few specialized, advanced countries such as China for example, who have dedicated task forces for blocking this tyle of content.
Ease Of Use
This is not a strong reason since CoinJoins are just as easy to use in Wasabi and Samourai wallets. However, there’s no software you have to install in order to use a mixer. This means you can send the mixed coins to any wallet, while saving on transaction fees needed to sweep your coins otherwise.
The validity of this argument is debatable however, since Wasabi Wallet automatically performs the coinjoins for you without you having to do anything.
Other Reasons Why You Might Use A Bitcoin Mixer
But sometimes, you need to mix some bitcoin quickly, maybe you don’t trust the person who gave you the coins. Maybe you are taking a stand against “blockchain taint”. Or maybe you are an activist or some other kind of person who police unfairly go after. Or perhaps you are just an ordinary person who is not savvy in bitcoin. Or perhaps for some other reason.
Here is a very good thread from 2014 which explains why people should use mixers, and look one up on a bitcoin mixer list to protect themselves. This is especially true for people who keep their coins on an exchange. By the way, recent events should have shown you that’s not a safe place to keep them in the first place.
As of 2025, we are heading into a dystopian world where there is no privacy in any of your online activities, and, at least in the developed countries, even in your offline activities. As corporations and governments learn the true value of your personal information – for profit and for control respectively – they are doing everything in their power to extract and analyze every single byte of your data, and it is up to you to protect yourself and your information if you don’t want to find it for sale on the dark web, or used to arbitrarily arrest or otherwise “shadow ban” you. This includes your financial information, which various malefactors actively seek out to hurt you. So do you really think that succumbing to government advisories and regulation is going to save you? Maybe you think it would, but it will actually just accelerate your bitcoin-related data collection.
