Topic: [ANN] Moneypot (Discontinued) (Read 856 times)

Hi all. As some of you might have noticed moneypot is discontinued due to a lack of interest.

If you are interested in a service which offers a similar product you can check out blindmixer.

As always: use at your own discretion.

You have a copper membership and Moneypot looks a wonderful Mixer service, why dont you put images to make your ANN design appealing?

Hello everyone! Due to a number of unforeseen reasons our mainnet custodian has been offline for the last couple of months shortly after the initial launch, as have we. No user has been negatively affected by this.

We plan on coming back in the very near future in a more planned out fashion than we've done hitherto.
In the meantime we are testing out the custodian and wallet software on testnet. You can get a feel for the wallet and give us feedback if you'd like to do so.

Our project development thread can be found here.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/feedback-moneypot-wallet-chaumian-bank-provable-nologs-lightning-5349725

We would love to hear your opinions! Anything at all, granted that you are sincere.

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Please note:

We currently do not offer any monetary reward for reporting bugs that cause severe security issues such as exploits that cause loss of funds for the custodian operators, as was previously mentioned in the OP, however we would still love for you to report them to us.

No, for some reason tor did not properly restart. This is a mistake on our end and I simply didn't notice it until now.
It should work now.

I think it should work fine with Brave + privacy mode. To be quite frank -- I don't think we know exactly why it does not work using the tor browser, just that it is probably related to the limited access to certain instances. I should investigate this further.

Please note that tor has significantly longer syncing times due to the higher latency. That might become an annoyance if you use our wallet together with something such as "Privacy Mode", as you'll have to constantly restore your wallet, as i previously pointed out above.

I added Moneypot.com to the list as you posted a few hours ago.

Questions:

Is it me or?

I'm unable to open the link with Tor (used in privacy mode with Brave)


"ERR_SOCKS_CONNECTION_FAILED"

edit:

I believe the reason is the same as the one given above?

Hi, thanks for asking!

Does the Money pot wallet supports Tor?

I can not load the wallet page with Tor: https://wallet.moneypot.com/
I see the message "Are you sure you're using Tor?" when I load the page without Tor.

Well, if this software has already solved the complexity then the complexity would be a non-issue.

The main support issue would be that customers would lose their keys to their wallets and then contact support to try to recover them.

In theory, it looks quite doable. The only two things you can do with your blinded coins:

A) Make a bitcoin transaction ( https://github.com/moneypot/moneypot-lib/blob/master/src/hookout.ts )
B) Make a lightning transaction ( https://github.com/moneypot/moneypot-lib/blob/master/src/lightning-payment.ts )

which then you give to a custodian, who processes it. So it would be pretty easy to make a "soft fork" style custodian, that simply added additional restrictions (e.g. only pay lightning invoices that were to do with an internal payment). Or you could go all-out and make a special transaction type, and modify the wallet, etc.

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But on a pragmatic note, I don't think it would make much sense. The complexity involved is *insane*. And trying to do any customer-support would be a lolsfest, (compared to now, just doing some db lookups).


The only case I can think it could maybe make sense, would be as a "legal hack". Like I'm imagining that if you were in a regulated industry who is required record keeping (and KYC?) you could technically comply with those laws, while also being able to offer a huge amount of privacy.  But you're always running up against a stupid amount of complexity. So you really need an application where privacy is genuinely extremely important and its a real selling point

Do you think it might be possible to run an intentionally and explicitly hobbled instance of this that can't send funds outside the system for acting as a "gift card wallet"?

It can be pretty useful for a merchant to allow users to keep a balance and even transfer balance between customers... but in some jurisdictions having funds leave the system creates additional regulatory issues... and isn't really needed for the purpose.

I've looked into setting up a chaum token system for this application before.  Pay bitcoin in, get tokens that can be moved among users, or eventually turned into purchases of goods/services.  One reason to use chaum tokens for this application is so that the merchant doesn't unnecessarily learn the exact linkage between the customer's Bitcoin transaction history and their name and physical address (needed for shipping goods) in order to reduce the risks from hacks/thefts.

It would be nice if some existing software could be deployed off-label for this application.

Great seeing this finally released, I know it's been years in the making. I took it through a spin, and it's a bit rough (like states not automatically updating or showing that they're updating), but it works as advertised and is quite a big break through imo

Well, decentralized != non-custodial. It would just mean that we would (probably) use something like multisig for our deposit addresses and signing, and find a couple trusted forum users to hold some of the keys.


This a good question, and allows us to dive deeper into the philosophy with which we crafted moneypot.
So with any regular centralized exchange or mixer, you, the client, almost always assume that they are your "friend", whether that be in the promise of not keeping of logs, or sending transactions of the right amount to the right address.

We at moneypot have taken a different approach. We assume that anything that the custodial server CAN exploit, will exploit, and so we've attempted to protect the client from that.

And so to provably preserve your privacy we've implemented blind signatures, as mentioned above. However, the custodian cannot reasonably claim that it does not log your IP, because it is able to do so.
We don't actually log your ip!

So, to be completely "protected" from the custodian server with regards to your privacy, you will also need to mask your IP, and we cannot do this for you. Thus the warning.

Note: It doesn't really need to be through tor, you just need to make sure that the request for a hookin (deposit) is made with a different IP than the request for a transfer (withdrawal).

In conclusion, what happens if you don't use TOR? well, nothing. You just trust us and the hops between us to not log your IP and to not tie that to your requests.

It is good to know that you still want your wallet to be decentralized.  Because that is preferable to use by users with sole control over coins.  What is the use of blind signatures?  Does it have to do with verification?  When you open the page, there is a question that comes up "Are you sure you're using TOR"?  Your highest priority is privacy.  What if a user does not use TOR?

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Update: I have not heard back from this user, so I assume this issue has resolved itself. If not, or if you think certain parts could be improved  (that which supposedly caused your issues), let us know.

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Sorry, I glanced over your post.

See the answer above.

We don't. We'd rather seen that moneypot was decentralized as well. This is definitely something we would love to do in some distant future.

However, certain features of the wallet wouldn't make much sense in a non-custodial setting.

If we had no control over your funds, implementing a blind signature scheme wouldn't make much sense. In terms of lightning and fees, there would be no way to really differentiate from already existing and established wallets.

From a user POV, moneypot works just like your regular bitcoin wallet.

You deposit bitcoin by sending it to an address only we have the keys to. Once the BTC are confirmed, you will be able to claim your "coins" (this all happens automatically).

Note: for those interested, A "coin" is nothing more than a public key that has an (unblinded) receipt (signature from the custodian) for a certain magnitude (which has an associated signing key).

For the client, this is no different than what you would normally do. You don't really notice the entire scheme, at least, that's the idea.
You can choose to pay to an address, or a lightning invoice. Upon initiating a transfer, the wallet sends the coins (up to the amount requested) to the custodian. The custodian checks the validity, and whether or not they have been spent before, and if you actually authorized the transfer of these coins.

If that all checks out, it will attempt to fullfill the requested transfer, or offer you a refund. If you had sent more coins than required, e.g you sent two coins with magnitudes 3 and 4 (2^3 and 2^4), while the transfer was meant for 20 satoshis, you will also be allowed to claim the remainder (2^3 + 2^4 - 20 = a claim to a coin of 2^2)
(A refund really is nothing more than a claim to new coins.)

That's basically it. All this is done provably-honest, meaning that you provide signatures to the custodian signing your transfers with the inputs (coins) you're using, so that you cannot claim that the custodian sent out a transfer of the wrong amount, or to the wrong address. Because only you have access to the private key belonging to the coins, and thus only you can create a valid signature. Both parties can independently verify this after and during the transaction.

Hey, this doesn't sound quite right. Moneypot is supposed to be 100% automatic both in receiving deposits and making transfers.

Could you try to
A. sync your wallet

and if that does not work B. PM me your txid, so we can work from there.

I'm a little confused though: Did you attempt to deposit funds, and have they not been credited yet; or, did you attempt to withdraw, and has the withdrawal not been sent yet?

"The bonus transaction" was done through a fake lightning invoice.

What priority did you use?

I tried to send my bitcoins to the exchange wallet address, yeah and of course waiting more than 12 hours, is the sending process done manually? I prefer everything is done automatically, this is with a transaction speed problem, a little strange too when I saw my wallet address to receive bitcoins I did not find any transactions in the address including the bonus transaction that was previously sent

I just saw this new wallet you are developing in the service section that you paid to ten participants who were able to generate a lightning invoice.  So I visited here to get more information about the services you offer.  I read that it seems like a lot of people don't like it because you chose to use a domain with a bad history.  Are you aware of that before you purchase or reuse this domain?  Why do you prefer to make a custodial than a non-custodial wallet?

Sorry for my questions, I don't know much because I have not tried to use a wallet or transaction that has a lightning feature so I would also like to try and have ideas on how to use it and how it works.

I believe the idea is pretty standard though. It's almost synonymous to how non-hardened keys are normally derived.

I guess this non-standardness will actually be a bit of an annoyance to technical users, but the real beauty is indeed the solution rhavar came up with, that is to derive a private key out of a public key
like

And to then derive the deposit address from that, as we described above.


Indeed, if our "wallet" custodian shuts down, you will no longer be able to access your bitcoin. However, I think you have the wrong understanding of moneypot. You shouldn't use our wallet as a wallet to hoard your coins in until the end of days.

Instead, you should us as an intermediary between your primary wallet, and the goods and services you want to acquire.

Let's assume you make 5 transactions a week currently from your primary wallet to something like bitrefill, or another payment service.

Now, instead of those 5 transactions, you can also make a single transaction to moneypot, and then use our lightning services to pay for your goods on bitrefill. Much cheaper!
Of course - not every service accepts lightning, but in that case you will still be able to make use of our batched / immediate transactions.

Again, all while enjoying a revolutionary amount of privacy.


While I agree with your initial statements, (you should aways use any service with caution!), I don't see how we can distance ourselves any further from the previous owners of this domain than we've already done. What are other issues you're having that cause you to view us negatively?

Quick sidenote: while you do not hold the keys to your bitcoin, you do solely hold the keys to a claim equivalent to the bitcoin you deposited.

You can't because in the OP, it’s mentioned that moneypot wallet is a custodial one. Not your keys. You should use the site  with caution, as stated above there are a lot of negativity going on. Just a friendly suggestion.

it's complicated. If your wallet shut down and never online anymore. how to recover bitcoin into another wallet?. I just want to know where to see the private key address.