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Suppose a friend wishes to send some Bitcoins to me.
In terms of anonymity, which of the following would be preferable?
Have the Bitcoins sent to an eWallet/mixer first and then I withdraw them to my Wallet on my PC; or
Have the Bitcoins sent to my Wallet on my PC first. As and when I need to spend them, I will send a portion of them to the eWallet/mixer from where it will be spent.
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Depends on which link you want to hide. If you do not want observers to be able to tell that you and your friend traded then take option 1. If you want to later hide what you are doing with the coins, but do not care whether people find out that you and your friend traded then go for option 2.
You could of course do both but then you'd pay the mixer twice or at least pay the transaction fees twice.
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Receive first, mix later. Assuming that you are sufficiently clever to create a new bitcoin address (or multiple) to receive the bitcoins, and to secretly pass that bitcoin address to your friend (TOR, PGP, on paper) then the transaction cannot be linked to you. Next you use a mixer to make sure that any subsequent transactions cannot be linked to the initial transaction.
Using a mixing service to perform transactions for you is a risk for both you and your friend, as law enforcement could be monitoring the service, and the mixing service could screw up. In both cases, the relationship with your friend would be compromised. Mixing your own bitcoins is much less risky.
Your friend could mix his own bitcoins, if he cares about his privacy.
