[HN Gopher] Xmr.to shuts down Monero exchange service
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       Xmr.to shuts down Monero exchange service
        
       Author : lawrenceyan
       Score  : 38 points
       Date   : 2021-02-23 17:49 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (xmr.to)
 (TXT) w3m dump (xmr.to)
        
       | sn_master wrote:
       | What's the alternative to buy XMR? Does anyone know of any major
       | exchanges that support XMR?
       | 
       | I only found (Kraken) but it doesn't support where I am (WA
       | state) and others either don't support it or support
       | buying/selling but no sending to a private wallet.
        
       | babaganoosh89 wrote:
       | Anonymizing BTC via BTC -> XMR -> BTC seems hard these days.
        
         | spinny wrote:
         | bisq is the most anonymous way that i know of
        
           | john_alan wrote:
           | Good luck spending the tainted BTC you buy on Bisq.
        
             | rattlesnakedave wrote:
             | tainted BTC doesn't exist.
        
               | john_alan wrote:
               | What's your Bitcoin address? I'll send you some.
        
               | Kranar wrote:
               | It absolutely does, there are plenty of BTC addresses
               | that are tainted and not accepted by exchanges.
        
               | alfiedotwtf wrote:
               | How does it work if you just send the entire "tainted"
               | coin to a new address and then send _that_ to the
               | exchange? Sounds like smoke and mirrors to me
        
               | Kranar wrote:
               | I have to be blunt but this is a very basic property of
               | the blockchain, which by design keeps an entire history
               | of every single transaction (source and destination
               | address) that is ever made.
        
               | john_alan wrote:
               | This type of lack of understanding is rife. Makes me
               | quite bullish on Monero when people realise how little
               | privacy Bitcoin and crappy forks provide. Might see a
               | signal type movement to Monero.
        
               | heavyset_go wrote:
               | I don't think that irrational retail investors
               | understand, or care to understand, Bitcoin or Monero
               | implementation details. Bitcoin's valuation has little to
               | do with its technical merits. It's all just internet
               | money to most people.
        
               | john_alan wrote:
               | Yea I agree right now.
               | 
               | But even showing a few newbie friends how I could see
               | their balance and transactions after they sent me BTC or
               | shared their address with me, baffled them, they couldn't
               | believe it.
               | 
               | People will start to care as they become extorted, or
               | embarrassed. Privacy is a fundamental requirement of good
               | money.
               | 
               | I think people will learn this over time and gravitate
               | towards a better money for the internet.
        
               | john_alan wrote:
               | Very simply. They don't allow coins with that lineage.
               | There are so many people ignorant of the reality of
               | bitcoins fungibility problem it amazes me.
        
               | alfiedotwtf wrote:
               | > ignorant of the reality of bitcoins fungibility
               | 
               | This is not an issue with bitcoin, but of exchanges.
               | That's why I specifically asked if exchanges cared if
               | taintedness was transitive.
        
               | gojomo wrote:
               | If sent such tainted bitcoins, do the exchanges send them
               | back, or seize them?
        
               | Kranar wrote:
               | Coinbase won't let you sell tainted coins but will let
               | you withdraw them. No exchange will seize them.
        
             | x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
             | So they actually have measures to stop tumbled coins from
             | re-entering the supply?
        
             | heavyset_go wrote:
             | I doubt that the one valid use case for Bitcoin, purchasing
             | things on the grey/black market, is impacted by tainted
             | BTC.
        
         | yokem55 wrote:
         | The cool kids now launder their coins through mining rig
         | rentals. Spend old coins, get new ones back.
        
           | belval wrote:
           | That's interesting, rig renting has been available for a
           | while now but I never connected the dots and just assumed it
           | just made sense for some people.
        
           | labrador wrote:
           | Don't forget to buy carbon offsets
        
         | heavyset_go wrote:
         | There's nothing stopping courts from demanding that XMR.to keep
         | records of the chain of custody when users buy XMR via BTC on
         | their service.
         | 
         | Almost all exchanges adhere to KYC laws, so there's a good
         | chance that following transactions backwards will lead to an
         | identifiable buyer or seller of Bitcoin.
         | 
         | What technical features of Monero make it a solution for actual
         | anonymization of BTC?
        
       | seibelj wrote:
       | FYI - this happened several months ago, before the BTC run up.
        
       | muskox2 wrote:
       | I wonder if the recent price drop (from $280 to $180) is related
       | to this.
        
         | thinkmassive wrote:
         | You don't need to wonder, it's specified in the post:
         | 
         | "we won't compromise on our principles and, to give one
         | example, are not prepared to turn our back on digital privacy
         | preserving technologies such as TOR and VPNs. We have now got
         | to the point where it no longer looks feasible to run this
         | service in a manner consistent with our core beliefs."
        
           | john_alan wrote:
           | This was announced weeks ago. Before the rise recently.
        
             | thinkmassive wrote:
             | Correct, the linked post is from Jan 31.
        
           | sn_master wrote:
           | Does this mean they were getting push back from law
           | enforcement agencies?
        
             | YeBanKo wrote:
             | It's more likely from their lawyers, who recommended this
             | to avoid compliance issues in the future.
        
             | thinkmassive wrote:
             | There's a tiny bit of speculation here, but it doesn't seem
             | like any further official clarification will happen
             | 
             | https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/la46ds/comment/gll
             | q...
        
         | zmnxos wrote:
         | They announced this before the price ran up to $280.
        
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       (page generated 2021-02-23 23:02 UTC)