Treasury Acknowledges Legitimate Use for Crypto Mixers
The U.S. Treasury Department has acknowledged that crypto mixers can serve legitimate purposes in its recent report to Congress.
Mixers obscure the path of transactions on public blockchains, and the Treasury said individuals may use them to protect financial information they don't want visible on a public ledger.
This includes details about personal wealth, business payments, and charitable donations.
The report drew a distinction between two types of mixers: custodial and non-custodial. Custodial mixers take temporary control of user funds during the process and can be required to produce identifying information, whereas non-custodial, decentralized mixers operate without a central party and are harder to monitor.
The Treasury identified non-custodial mixers as the higher-risk category, citing their use by cybercriminals to launder money and move illicit funds. Hackers linked to North Korea were mentioned as one example of actors using such tools.