no(not yet).. mining pools are not classed as payment facilitators,
however mixing is defined as a money service business, so adding mixing into mining pool operations would change the classification of mining pools instantly.. same goes if mixing was added as a direct feature of core would change things.
which is why core should just concentrate on the main audit, verification and archiving of blockchain

but it would be possible for congress to next try to classify mining pools as MSB's or other regulated activities.. much like the questionnaire they sent out to miners/pools already to start a consultation of treatment of pools/miners

its got nothing to do with bitcoin code. its more about demanding BUSINESSES(human managers) to follow new laws..
bitcoin itself has no eyes or ears to follow human laws. but the humans that run code or write code is a different story
many PEOPLE think they are immune to laws because they use bitcoin. but they dont realise they as people are still humans
this is why people need to learn whats ACTUALLY happening in congress so that people can use their own brains to learn the loopholes  and learn how bitcoin works to then find some work arounds or other ways to deal with things


well if you stop relying on laws to support you*. and instead take a stance to protect yourself by not revealing your life history then there would be less information revealed about you for them to even be able to find your door

*many people want to reveal things on the internet and then cry how a law is suppose to protect that revealed data.. and cry more to a judge after the fact that the info they revealed is used against them... simple solution, dont reveal info in first place, take control of yourself for yourself

its like the people that openly talk on forums saying exactly what mixers they use and show screenshots of them using it on particular days, ends up putting them on a short list of mixer used utxo's of that day(blackhatcoiner done demonstrations, thus probably on one of those lists and his coins linked to his name.. angelo).. thus linking them.. thus defeating point of using a mixer

i dont really care who does the mixing but it just seemed to me like the miners should be doing it as part of the protocol in bitcoin. bitcoin could still be auditable too unlike what i've heard about monero. because you can't see the transaction amounts publicly.

i kind of disagree. the more things that are in bitcoin core the less the government tends to think it can do anything about them. as a compromise though, there could be 2 kinds of miners. one type mines transactions without the mix flag and the other miner mines transactions with the "mix" flag. they could co-exist. and the government can't do anything about it. what are they going to do tell people "Please don't use the "mix" flag when submitting bitcoin transactions" ? but then  you have to ask "who wouldn't want their transactions mixed?" it just enhances their privacy...

bitcoin is already a service. miners perform a service called mining. nodes relay other peoples' transactions. already a service. everyone that runs a full node is performing a service if they allow people to download anything from them.

what if sending money becomes regulated? should they take away that feature of bitcoin core too?  

it doesn't really make sense to try and categorize bitcoin into little containers saying "if it does this then it's a service but if it does only this then it's not." mining peoples' transactions is as much a service as mixing them maybe even moreso because bitcoin couldn't exist without mining but it could exist without mixing...

I do understand the distinction you're trying to make franky. But I want it all in bitcoin core. The government can then try and regulate AMERICANS if it wishes. But there is a world outside of the USA and it shouldn't be held hostage by one country. We need to get things into the protocol itself so they can't really do anything about it except try and regulate Americans which doesn't mean the same thing as regulating bitcoin...

If they want to make their little bitcoin addresses blacklists and file lawsuits against individuals then that's fine but I don't want them trying to force bitcoin to behave a certain way.   Bitcoin is supposed to be independent of any particular government and its wishes. you know that. or at least you should.

I support Monero.  And it does keep the regulators scratching their heads.  Any thing wrong with that, or am I a statiscially qualified Criminal for using Monero too?

I would support introducing Privacy by default for Bitcoin if it kept the Bitcoin Fungibility going with out lowering its Security and if did not cause more oppression from Authorities.  But we all know this is impossible, so I rather leave Bitcoin as is and use other ways to Privacy instead.

It depends on who you ask

But if you have a few banknotes in your wallet, nobody is going to call you a criminal for the fact that they contain traces of cocaine, even though that's illegal and proves the banknotes have been used by criminals.

bitcoin core is software. people that use it can perform services to the bitcoin community franky. it's that simple. miners use bitcoin core to perform a service called mining which they get paid for. people running nodes also can perform an unpaid service of receiving and forwarding other people's transactions. those things seem like things ripe for regulating already. it's not going to matter if you throw in mixing too. services are already being performed.

apparently you think that this mixing service that miners would perform would mean that people would need to send their bitcoin to the miners bitcoin addresses and trust them to resend it on their behalf. if that's what they were doing then maybe you would have a point but that's not what i had in mind. the miners would just alter the transactions themselves so that the inputs and outputs got all mixed around but the correct amounts ended up in the correct places. no one would be sending bitcoin directly to miner controlled addresses though!  

and you keep on trying to take away capabilities from bitcoin and wanting to segregate them to outside services. pretty soon, there wont be anything left except people running nodes but no miners.

dude, we're not talking about terrorism.


and so? that means bitcoin should censor itself and not include certain features in bitcoin core so that the governments can all be happy? you and franky would get along good together since he has been advocating that it's enough to just try and blend in with the crowd. "blending in with the crowd" so that you don't get punished. what a philosophy. no one has a backbone anymore.

no wonder bitcoin is being trampled all over and threads like this exist. people have become weak.