What do you need an etherium mixer for?

What is an etherium mixer and what is it for

Internet users conducting various transactions with cryptocurrency usually strive to achieve maximum privacy. However, this is not always realistic, as modern blockchain technology allows the user to be quickly traced. Transactions with cryptocurrency varieties such as bitcoin and etherium are publicly available. The entire history of a particular user’s manipulation over a period of time can be seen from a single transaction.
In order to achieve maximum secrecy during various operations with cryptocurrency, a specific program — a mixer — can be used. It was developed several years ago and is the optimal solution for those who want to maintain the confidentiality of their transactions.

The main parameters of the mixer, or lightcoin mixer:
the method of operation is based on the fact that deposits from several pseudo-anonymous users are mixed with each other;
mixing occurs after a transaction arrives at the user’s assigned address;
During the mixing process, the user’s data and transactions are hidden by performing cryptographic mathematical actions;
After the end of the mixing it becomes impossible to identify the user and the amount of the transaction.

The mixer applies zero-disclosure arguments during transaction mixing. This misleads customers and confuses deposited funds. With a smart contract, a certain level of transparency is maintained. Third parties are allowed to verify the functioning of these contracts, while the secrecy of the users is fully preserved.
A unique hash
When a user deposits their monetary assets for mixing, a secret word and a secret hash are generated for them. They are then sent to a smart contract and added to the deposit list. If the user wants to withdraw the funds, he must provide proof (in the same principle as the key); this proof is similar to the secret word, allowing to find a specific hash from the total. In order to increase security and privacy, the following secret browsers can be used: Tor; I2P; Crowds.
Private software is one hundred percent decentralized. It is not connected to third parties who take responsibility for the user’s assets or have moderator rights to disrupt the mixing process.

Advantages of the etherium mixer

The etherium mixer resource guarantees complete secrecy for the user when transactions are sent. In this case, the connection between the address of the one who sends the cryptocurrency and the one who receives it is severed. Withdrawal of deposits is impossible to connect with the sender. To send funds to a new address, hashes or proofs are used, which are provided to the user at the time of the deposit.
Vitalik Buterin on the anonymity of blending
The first initiator of the development of Etherium blending was Vitalik Buterin, a well-known domestic cryptocurrency specialist. The essence of his idea was that many users were interested in encrypting their activity in blockchain technology while sending the etherium. The proposal initially focused on one-time anonymous transactions, with no suggestion of privacy at the network level as a whole.
Buterin says there are currently two ways for users to complete transactions. If the default transaction settings are made, users receive and send cryptocurrency from the same address, so all their actions are recorded in a single blockchain sequence. In addition, it is possible to perform transactions using multiple accounts simultaneously. However, it is not easy to hide blockchain activity with this method.

According to Buterin, today users can make transactions using one of two methods. «By default, users send and receive cryptocurrency from the same address, which means that all procedures are mapped to the public blockchain. Also, users can transact through multiple accounts, but this is not the best solution for hiding blockchain activity.
Buterin states: when users make transactions to send ether, all connections are viewed in the blockchain. To achieve privacy, he suggested developing two smart contracts — a repeater and a mixer. With their help, the client will be able to select private transactions using an anonymous set. This way, according to Buterin, is recognized as the most effective and suitable for the majority of Internet users who regularly make transactions with etherium.