This whole analysis is very confusing.
The first analysis about temporary addresses makes sense. Addresses used only for one hour. But what bearing does "transaction value" has? The real metric of a mixer controlling a currency would have been number of transactions. Mixing is about spreading the transactions far and wide and across many addresses to make it difficult to trace. When you look at the graph below, the mixer accounts for barely 11% of the transaction volume.
If I go further and read about the core and shell, the analysis falls apart even more.
The idea proposed is that the shell accounts are the ones responsible for generating output and inputs to external accounts like the exchanges and also talk to core which consists of 90% temporary accounts. Fair enough.
"In the end, it turned out that the total amount transferred into and out of the core is 4 times higher than the total that entered and left the shell and the core taken together." How is this even possible?
If assume flow of 1 ETH ignoring fees. Poloneix -> Shell -> core -> Shell -> Kraken
From the statement "total that entered and left the shell and the core taken together" = 1 ETH into shell + 1 ETH into core + 1 ETH out of core + 1 ETH out of shell = 4ETH
Total for core is 2 ETH - 1 in and 1 out. If shell is there to interact with the core, how is core doing 4 times the amount. Unless of course the confusion is dividing the total in and out of 4 by actual transaction of 1 ETH.
All exchanges need to segregate customer amounts to ensure everything works smoothly. Let's assume I have 1 ETH, then sent it to Kraken. No trades done and simply withdrew the ETH. Here's what will happen:
Me -> Kraken Temp account + network fees (mostly pool accounts ~ 0.0002) -> Me + Kraken account for withdrawal fee ie 0.005 + network fees (again pool)
In which case, two scenarios can occur:
a. Kraken temp account is tagged - So my account and pool accounts can be considered to be the shell. The in and out total for me is 1.9946 worth of ETH (1 ETH out + 0.9946 ETH in after Kraken and network fees). On the block fees side, in and out of the shell is 0.0004 ETH. Total is 1.995 in and out of the shell. While Kraken is doing 0.005 ETH.
b. The worse case scenario - Kraken temp account is unmarked. In this case the temp account becomes the shell while my personal account and pool becomes the so called core. Now this happens:
Core transaction volume - 1.995 ETH
Shell or Kraken temp account - 0.9998 In (after fees) + 0.9946 out (after Kraken and network fees) = 1.9944 ETH
Kraken - 0.005 ETH
Actual volume is 1 ETH but counting the transaction volume blows this thing up.