PrivCoin Shuts Down, Blames "New and Extensive Regulations"
The cryptocurrency mixer PrivCoin shut down due to “new and extensive regulations” in the European Union. PrivCoin previously made public and private contributions to the Tor Project and donated all of their profits to charities.
PrivCoin users will see a simple message in place of the mixer’s homepage. Text as follows:
Goodbye World
While we previously blocked users from countries with over-reaching regulations, new and extensive regulations added to the European Union in January 2020 have made it impossible to reasonably operate Privcoin.io
Privcoin has been not for profit and will donate the remainder of the “profits” made to worthy charities.
We sincerely hope that we have saved several lives by providing privacy services.
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[Caution] Telling other people how much Bitcoin you have
In addition to the usual claims about privacy made by other mixers, PrivCoin suggested that mixing coins potentially saved lives. The links in the GoodBye World message were also referenced on the mixer’s FAQ section titled “Why Should I Use You?”
When you use Bitcoin with other parties they know who you are, where your coins are held and how many coins you have. Armed with this information. an unscrupulous party can do things like attempt to hack you, kidnap you, torture you, or a competitor can track your company’s revenue. They can also monitor your coins and know where you send them to use that information against you for example if you should use coins on a dating website.
Instead, to preserve your own personal privacy and dignity you can send us (for example) 1 Bitcoin and receive 0.9949 BTC back into your new wallet that has no traces of your identity on it. Using time delays and multiple addresses ensures nobody will know anything about your coins.
PrivCoin had a significant number of users, according to forum threads and Reddit posts about the mixer. Empire Market even recommended the mixer to their customers as a method to conceal Litecoin transactions.
Last year, Dutch law enforcement seized BestMixer.io. Bitcoin Blender shut down only days later. The United States just indicted the administrator of Grams for operating the Grams Bitcoin mixer, Helix (which ultimately failed as a mixer). The number of trusted mixers is in decline and will likely continue to do so as users shift from Bitcoin to Monero and similarly private cryptocurrencies.