What is Chipmixer?
Chipmixer is one of the most popular and also one of the largest bitcoin crypto tumbler sites on the darknet. It became even larger after bestmixer.io was shut down by Europol in May 2019. If the market site is up, you can find the onion link for Chipmixer to the right of this article.
A crypto tumbler is a cryptocurrency mixing service that allows you to convert bitcoin into chips of equal value which you then cash out again. Essentially a crypto tumbler (or crypto mixing service) does the same as money laundering does for fiat currencies.
This is useful in many cases since often enough you can’t know for sure if any coins you received are linked to possible investigations. If you are not sure where any coins you received actually came from, it is a good idea to put them through a site like Chipmixer first before converting them into fiat currency. But it is also useful as a general precaution: If you put all your received coins into a crypto tumbler first you can be sure that no transactions can ever be traced back to your cashout accounts.
How it works
To achieve this ChipMixer creates Bitcoin addresses and funds them with specific sizes. These are valued at binary exponents (0.001, 0.002, 0.004, …, 4.096) so any amount can be converted easily. So, if you deposit 0.112 BTC you will receive three chips: A 0.064, a 0.032 and a 0.016 chip. All chips on the site have been funded beforehand so there is never a link between a deposit and following withdrawal of chips.
Furthermore, chips can be split or merged into the next larger or smaller chip, respectively. This adds another random element. For instance, if you received one 0.512 BTC chip and one 0.008 BTC, Blockchain analysis can prove that one of 0.512 BTC chips originating from here is yours. Since you can use split/merge, nobody knows if you’ve withdrawn big or small chips. It is not required to use, but the existence of this option increases your privacy.
Financing Model
Whenever considering to use a service offered on a website you should ask yourself how the site finances itself: Because if there isn’t any income possibility, the site could be a scam.
It turns out that ChipMixer has quite an interesting financing model: Apart from donations it allows you to bet any chips you have. This is a simple coinflip: If you win, you receive the next higher coin, thus doubling your bet. If you lose, the chip is gone. According to the FAQ on ChipMixer’s site, the odds to win are at 47% – so the bet favors the house slightly. This is about the odds you have in a casino when playing Black Jack or betting your money on red/black on a roulette table.
Obviously, from a strictly mathematical perspective, you shouldn’t bet your chips at odds lower than 50% because it means that you will lose money in the long run (This is how all casinos make money after all, by offering bets that seem about even but only slightly favor the house). But that doesn’t mean that it’s generally a bad idea to use this feature: After all, ChipMixer is a service site that has running costs and having its customers betting money is one way to offset these costs. This financing model ensures that the site has a reasonable income to offer its services. So, if you like the service and would normally consider donating money, check out the betting feature where you can either donate or get some extra coins.
Security Recommendations
Since ChipMixer is a site solely dedicated to depositing, converting and cashing out bitcoins, there are no specific security recommendations as the process is very straight forward. However, the normal, standard precautions apply: We recommend a dedicated device or at least a dedicated VM for all your darknet activities, including forums like Dread. Also be aware that you should avoid any kind of information that could reveal your real identity – even if it is only a small piece and not helpful on its own, if you drop enough pieces it may still be possible to identify you.
For additional system security, we recommend you run a secure operating system like Tails or Whonix on your dedicated system for darknet activities. We also recommend using a VPN as an additional security measure since TOR will only anonymize your browsing sessions but not other traffic.
Especially when using any public WiFi hotspots you should always use a VPN when accessing the Internet since you don’t know whether the access point is compromised. A VPN ensures that all of your traffic, no matter what application, will always be strongly encrypted when passing the access point, this protecting yourself not only from eavesdropping but also possible identity theft.
Chipmixer Summary
ChipMixer is one of your best option when you want to make sure that your Bitcoins cannot be traced back to your cashout accounts. The registration is quick and easy, only beaten by the process of mixing Bitcoins. Deposits and cashouts also work fast and with no problems. And should you ever have an issue, a dedicated support staff stands ready to answer your questions. As always, when visiting any darknet market make sure to only use trusted links, such as the onion link for Chipmixer on the top right.