If you’re on this Blender.io review I assume you already know what Bitcoin mixing is. In case you don’t, well it’s simply the process which makes your Bitcoins untraceable and more anonymous, but more on that later.
Before we proceed further, here are the factors we took into account prior to scribbling this Blender.io review down:
- The user-interface: The ease or hardship of using the Bitcoin mixer.
- Logs Policy: We check if the mixer stores logs.
- Time Delays: The variation of delays possible between the input and the output.
- Number of Additional Addresses: The number of output addresses the mixer allows for every single mix.
- Fee: Price matters, doesn’t it?
- Amount of User Control: How many variables can the user control from his/her end.
- Minimum Deposits/ Maximum Withdrawals: These have to be affordable for any mixer to be acceptable.
- Other Advanced Features: Mixing Code, Letter of Guarantee etc. are some of the other features we’ll look for.
I believe that covers almost everything that there is to a Bitcoin blender, doesn’t it? But let’s start with the basics first.
What is Blender.io?
Blender.io is a Bitcoin mixer/blender/ tumbler (a lot of names, the same goods). A Bitcoin mixer is a platform which takes your unclean, traceable Bitcoins, and sends you a different set of clean, untraceable coins, for a fee.
What happens in the background is, it takes your coins and breaks them into many parts before storing them for a long period of time.
On the other hand, it already has coins in its own reserve, and from other users which have absolutely no link to the coins you sent in. These are the set of coins sent to you.
Here’s an overview of the platform before we dive deeper into this Blender.io review:
- Website : https://blender.io
- Alternate URL : https://blender.to
- Onion URL : http://blenderiocpxfema.onion
- Additional Addresses : 8
- Fee : 0.5-2.5% + (0.0005BTC/extra address)
- Distribution share : Manually controlled.
- Confirmations Required : 3
- Letter of Guarantee : Yes
- Mixing Code : Yes
- Time Delays : Manually controlled.
- Minimum Deposit : 0.001 BTC.
So that’s settled, let’s get on with this Blender.io review then!
Using Blender.io
The user-interface with Blender.io is extremely simple and easy to use. The options are easily recognizable and understandable, and the process is broken down into multiple steps.
As you can see in the above screenshot, every box/option has a “?” sign next to it. Hovering over it will explain what the option does in case it isn’t already clear.
The interface is such that, if you’re an extremely basic user you don’t have to touch or change anything else except entering a “receiver’s address”.
Simply do that, the mixer will set the other options (time-delays, fee etc). to their default values and your coins will be mixed.
Adding new addresses is as simple as clicking on the “Add Address” button, changing the fee or setting the delays too isn’t any harder.
Basically the interface is self-explanatory, everything that you need to do comes automatically to you regardless of your expertise or experience in the field.
Additional Addresses
The prime purpose of a Bitcoin mixer is adding anonymity to your coins, isn’t it? Additional addresses are the number of addresses you can send your clean coins to from each mix.
The more addresses, the better. As the set of clean coins is broken down into as many parts and sent to all the individual addresses.
This ensures that whatever amount you sent in to the mixer, varies greatly (because now it’s broken into several parts) from all the individual outputs.
As far as Blender.io goes, it currently allows as many as 8 additional addresses for each mix. This is by far the maximum number of additional address-support that I’ve encountered till date.
Time –Delays
Again, time-delay is another feature which adds an extra layer of anonymity to your Bitcoins.
This basically is the time-difference between your inputs, and the outputs. If your coins go in and come out instantly, an aggressive Blockchain analysis may at times give rise to suspicions.
Hence a time-delay makes sure that there’s sufficient gap between the inputs and the outputs, so there’s no way to link the two sets of coins to each other.
Blender.io excels when it comes to time-delays, It not only offers the feature, but also lets us select individual and different time-delays for each output address. Most other mixers don’t.
The other aspect that’s impressive is the client gets to choose his/her delay manually. So it’s not something that’s random, or set by the mixer. Rather you decide exactly when you wish to receive the coins.
Blender.io offers delays from 1 to 24 hours. So you can choose from the lowest delay of 1 hour, to the maximum of 24 hours. All the hours in-between can be selected as the delay as well.
Fee
One of the most important aspects I believe. The mixer charges some amount of fee for its services.
For this Blender.io review, we not only consider the “quantity” of fee charged but also the control users get over the fee.
Blender.io’s fee starts at 0.5% of the transaction, and can be as high as 2.5%.
Fortunately, the client gets to specify and choose how much fee exactly (between these minimum and maximum amounts) he/she wishes to pay for the transaction.
You can either choose the 0.5% or choose one of the higher percentages, which are 0.683%, 1.028%, 1.366%, 1.686%, or 2.02%.
Randomizing the fee also helps with the anonymity. If you use the service often, an exact amount of fee for each transaction to your clean wallet may raise red flags.
There also is an additional 0.0005BTC fee for each extra address that you send the coins to.
Distribution Shares Control
The distribution shares are the amount of funds sent to each individual account. For e.g. if you’ve specified 10 additional addresses, the amount of funds each address receives out of the total is the distribution share.
Most other mixers do not let the user control the amount of funds for each individual addresses, fortunately Blender.io does.
So you can manually specify how much funds you wish each of your accounts to receive.
You can simply edit the values manually, or click on “Reallocate distribution shares” to automatically randomize the distribution.
What are the Minimum and Maximum Transaction Limits?
It’s important, if the minimum deposit requirement is too large not everyone would be able to afford it. If the maximum withdrawal is too small it’d be expensive and repetitive to withdraw funds.
Fortunately, the minimum deposit requirement with Blender.io currently is just 0.001BTC.
As for the maximum amount, it varies depending on the platform’s reserves at any given time. The maximum amount is displayed at the time of mixing before you send your coins in.
Mixing Code
The mixing code option is seen at two pages on Blender.io. Once on the first page, where you initiate your mix. This is where it asks you to enter a mix code (image -1). Or, at the final mix-page where the platform gives you the deposit address (image-2).
This code is like your identification for the mix, this is how you link yourself to the coins.
It’s used not on your first, but on your second mixing transaction. Once you enter a mixing code, the blender recognizes your coins from the previous mix and doesn’t send the same coins as “cleaned coins” to you on this second, newer transaction.
Letter of Guarantee
Not all mixers provide this, Blender.io does. You can download a PGP signed letter from the “deposit page” (the page where the fund deposit address is shown).
This is like a signed bond from the platform. It affirms to the fact that the displayed address is indeed the mixers and that they’ll forward you your clean coins.
In case they don’t, you can use the letter to tear them to shreds publicly, online as well as even in courts in some rare cases.
Can you Mix SegWit 32 and bech32 Addresses?
Yes the mixer allows using Segwit 32 addresses. The only compulsion being, the addresses must start with the number “3”.
Bech32 addresss are supported as well. They jsut have to be from the witness version, and start with “bc1”.
What Logs/Information is Stored?
Anonymity and Logs don’t exactly go hand-in-hand, do they? Well Blender.io doesn’t store any logs whatsoever.
All and any stored information exists only till a successful transaction. As soon as a transaction is successful and complete, all data is deleted permanently.
Registration – Not Required.
Again, a registration comes with quite a few strings attached. With Blender.io you need absolutely no registrations.
They provide us with the Mixing code, as well as the letter of guarantee. These act as our “identity credentials” for the sent coins, without having to reveal any bit of personal information.
Blender Wallet
This isn’t a Blender-mixer feature.
However, if we’re talking about the company in general, it sure is a new feature they’ve recently brought in.
I’m apprehensive towards web-wallets.
Hence, if you truly need a Bitcoin wallet, I’d suggest going with Hardware wallets only.
Anyway, Blender.io now offers a web-wallet which can be created in seconds.
It’s a non-custodial wallet, meaning Blender at no time has access to your funds.
It lets you create an “encoded mnemonic” in addition to the standard Mnemonic.
If and when this is selected, you get to set a password (maximum: 100 characters) which will be mandatory for fund-recovery in addition to the mnemonic code.
Note that the mnemonic code isn’t stored on the Blender servers.
Optionally, you can enable 2-FA via Google Authenticator for your wallets.
You can even have additional wallets inside a primary wallet.
Allows a minimum transaction of 600 satoshis.
You can choose the fee manually, depending on the “number of blocks“. A total of 5-choices available.
US, RUB and EUR are the currently available display-currencies.
Wrapping Up Blender.io Review
What do I personally think of the mixer? It’s nothing short of impressive. The control it provides, the number of additional addresses, the trust-features (mixing code, letter of guarantee etc). and the anonymity are all more than acceptable.
Do you, or don’t you agree? Do let me know in the comments. Also drop your two cents on this Blender.io review.