Users of Bitcoin Prefers Anonymity, Rising Volume of Whirlpool Coin mixer Indicates

Whirlpool, non-custodial Bitcoin mixer of Samourai Wallet, has recorded tripling of volume in March, with the facility handling over $10 million worth Bitcoin (BTC).

As per data tweeted by Whirlpoolstats’ matt Odell, March volume was made up of 40% of the then-aggregate volume generated by Whirlpool from the time of its launch last May.

Samourai Wallet’s Whirlpool has been recording a sharp increase in usage so far this year. While Whirlpool recorded a decline in usage at the end of last year, after recording volume of 303.55 BTC in October 2019, every month in the first-quarter of 2020 posted successive records for the quantum of Bitcoins mixed using the facility.

In January, 356.65 BTC was processed by the platform. In the next month 529.05 BTC was mixed by Whirlpool. The volume of BTC handled rose to 1,523.45 BTC in March.

April may see new historical high in-terms of BTC handled by the mixer. In just 11 days, the platform has handled 1,020.80 BTC or 67% of volume handled in March.

Following the launch, Whirlpool claimed that it is the first to offer mobile based Bitcoin mixing facility. The service utilizes CoinJoin to jumble UTXO’s and nullify any identifiable connections between them.

As per Samourai, every mixing routine can be explained in 1,496 methods, with additional routines raising the number of possible explanations in an exponential manner.

Funds of users are clustered into pools of 0.01 BTC, 0.5 BTC and 0.05 BTC at the time of mixing. The 0.05 BTC and 0.5 BTC pools have been taking the top position in terms of monthly volume.

The rise in Whirlpool volume has come at a time when stringent rules from governments intending to meet FATF (Financial Action Task Force) suggestions and improved anti-money laundering rules on monitored centralized exchanges.

Last December, cryptocurrency exchange Binance Singapore supposedly locked a client’s holdings while scrutinizing a transaction that allegedly used Wasabi wallet’s CoinJoin service.

A Binance executive stated that its Singaporean branch “does not tolerate any transactions directly and indirectly associated with gambling, P2P, and especially darknet/mixer sites.”

In February, Ohio resident Larry Harmon was prosecuted for running a darknet mixing facility, named Helix, between 2014 and 2017.

Don Fort, who heads IRS Criminal Investigation, stated that “the sole purpose of Harmon’s operation was to conceal criminal transactions from law enforcement on the Darknet.”