What Are Coin Mixers and How Do They Work?

Coin mixers are services that obscure the origin and destination of crypto transactions, and they remain contested between privacy advocates, who call them necessary for anonymity, and government officials, who have argued they are tools for money laundering. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash in 2022, removed the sanctions in March 2025, and in March 2026 acknowledged that mixers have legitimate uses for financial privacy. According to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, about $1.5 billion of the more than $7 billion processed by Tornado Cash was connected to illicit activity.