Topic: 🔥 GingerWallet.io - Desktop, Non-custodial, Open source | #CoinJoin - page 3. (Read 1094 times)

The entire situation got my mind messed up too if I am being honest.

Realistically, there will probably be no way soon enough to hold your own Privacy and particularly to distribute a way for others to hold their own Privacy with out having repercussions from agencies such as FBI, CIA or other Authorities.  This is clear as day and the more options we will have, the harsher I suppose they will become.  And as much as I would love to offer others a way to have Privacy, I am not convinced I would be willing to risk my Freedom or the Safety and Security of my family for it.

So as much as I really wish we could go back and live the days when Know Your Customer was not even a thing around Bitcoin, I know reality speaks otherwise and I do get why some of them choose to obey rather than protest.  No body guarantees you can change the world by protesting.  If anything, you may end up changing only your life for the worst while the rest of the people move on.

Know Your Customer is bad.  Really, really bad and progressively damaging to our Privacy.  Privacy is more important in my opinion than EVER before in the world we live in.  Chain Analysis works in conjunction with Know Your Customer to progressively damage what I would always fight for.  Privacy.  But having Privacy is becoming an evident risk to every body.

For now, I know there are still ways to avoid a Ginger Wallet Black list and I am happy there is even THIS option of avoidance.  I would continue arguing how this Chain Analysis they are using is as useless as the one Wasabi wanted to implement and how the only thing it helps with is promoting the lack of Privacy and Freedom, but I already know the arguments would end up being a waste of time.  We know Chain Analysis is not accurate.  Even an accuracy of 99.9 percent is still extremely low, particularly considering many of us do multiple Coin Joins and the 'low chance of being a false positive' becomes an actually much higher chance.  This is to me an irrevocable answer.  Chain Analysis is useless and only a burden to us Bitcoin users.

The United States ban is just as useless and can still be avoided through work arounds.  What made me most furious is watching so called Privacy advocates coming with arguments pro Censorship and trying to convince every body who is also a Privacy advocate that Censorship is good.  I will never be pro Censorship but I understand why some Services resort to it.  What I will never accept is what I just said.  Trying to manipulate every body else into believing B S.

No. It was on their TODO list but they never came around to actually implementing it, according to the Wasabi wallet documentation somewhere.

Like most others posting here, I only heard about them reading this thread. If anybody wanted to use this wallet to test functions or coinjoins, they probably would have uninstalled WasabiWallet entirely (or never used it in the past) and would not know about issues when running simultaneously.

I am probably correct when I say the number of WasabiWallet users was most probably on the decline since controversy surrounding blockchain analysis became part of the conversation and it fell must have fallen significantly after they removed their default co-ordinator therefore not many people would have downloaded GingerWallet to use at the same time.

Therefore, both wallets should not be run at the same time.

In addition, previously, when I tried the Wasabi wallet and activated the Bitcoin Knots option, the setting automatically added configuration to the bitcoin.conf file in the Bitcoin Core file directory. The disablewallet setting becomes active (= 1), so the wallet is not displayed when Bitcoin Core is run. These settings must be changed manually to display the wallet on Bitcoin Core.

Not I am defending their actions but maybe those blog entries could simply be down to the fact that they were under heavy pressure from their own legal team which advised them to those steps. If not, maybe it was as a result of their own concerns that they could be facing future legal woes and decided to take drastic action as a precaution after Samourai Wallet was closed down and their founders arrested being accused of $1.7 billion money laundering.

If I remember correctly, not that long ago zkSNACKs was either seeking investment or were selling some or all of their company and as a result the owners were going to receive a financial windfall. All that seems to have ended now but it make people ask why GingerWallet would start up using the very same tools (via the fork) that WasabiWallet discontinued using in their attempt to protect themselves from any potential legal action.

I thought they did have the blacklisting in the coordinator. Or was is just there and checking but not doing anything?

Either way as for your meme I don't think that blocking is fine. And I don't think a lot of people here think blocking is fine.

But, what seems to be happening is more people throwing their hands up and saying fine, you don't care, they don't care, I do care but I am not going to fight over it. You do you and I'll do me and if you want to use those services fine. Could be we are all getting old and grumpy or just burnt from fighting the battles that a lot of people don't care about and don't want to win.

BTC / crypto in general:

As a BTC user who has to at times use regulated exchanges I have never had an issue with any coins I have sent to them. Could be luck, or it could be just using my head about who I accept money from. IRL I don't deal with or take cash from people who I see as sketchy. I also don't deal with them online. Yes it's subjective and I am probably frequently wrong, but it's worked for me so far. If / when it stops working for me doing things then it will be time to figure something else out.

-Dave

About that, their blog state they block U.S. resident and citizen from download and access any of their service[1]. Although 5 days later, they also write blog which state they discontinue their CoinJoin coordinator service[2].


Although it's worth to note some exchange/service simply decide not to accept any kind of mixed/coinjoined coins.

[1] https://blog.wasabiwallet.io/zksnacks-now-blocking-u-s-residents-and-citizens/
[2] https://blog.wasabiwallet.io/

Wasabi was not blocking US downloads until the FBI announcement. For the last two years it was only talk about a blacklisting mechanism getting implemented into the default coordinator (which ultimately never happened) until they took down their coordinator under external pressure.

Anyhow, this meme I generated 5 minutes ago gives people a good look at the state of this place nowadays:

This is a plus point for those that were using WasabiWallet but stopped because their default co-ordinator was removed. They could use GingerWallet and retain previous WasabiWallet folders or keep using WasabiWallet but modify the GingerWallet api link. Either way there is a benefit for those that want to keep using these wallets.

I cannot recall if WasabiWallet was restricting downloads to a specific country (USA) or whether their previous versions that did allow a default co-ordinator could even be modified to use n alternative one therefore cannot compare the two points you raised about GingerWallet. What I will say is that when a company claims they are privacy focused but people can see many issues with those claims, it becomes harder for the company to win back confidence.

If GingerWallet decided for example to go on a promotion or advertising spree to market their service, it could work out for them but not if they have question marks over their privacy structure and people are discussing the flaws in forums. If they want to avoid going down the WasabiWallet route with regards to reputational damage, they will need to ensure they never have any links with anybody that has the mindset of Kruw (and to immediately distance themselves if any claim of collaboration is made with someone like that) and they have to engage with customer/clients on some platforms. Even then, it might be difficult for them to succeed when people question how much privacy is actually afforded to people using their service.

There are two levels of privacy, network level privacy and blockchain level:

- If we take the network level, to avoid malicious spies and ISP spying, Ginger communications must be encrypted and broadcast using Tor^[1], which is something that contradicts restricting wallet downloads to a specific country.
- As for the blockchain level, making the Default coordinator set to Ginger coordinator (cannot be changed) while placing restrictions on some transactions on the Ginger coordinator (blacklists) means that it is difficult to achieve privacy at this level.

Claiming to be a privacy-focused wallet means promoting them on these two levels and not the other way around.

The only positive thing is that this wallet may be an option for those who are afraid of associating coinjoin with money laundering, although there are no guarantees from that coinjoin-ed coins will have a good AML record^{(I do not agree with this principle)}.

[1] https://nopara73.medium.com/bitcoin-core-vs-wasabi-wallet-network-level-privacy-bdca1d501387

Previously, I tried the Ginger wallet, and it turns out that some wallets that I had created in the Wasabi wallet were automatically detected in the Ginger wallet.
It is understandable because the Ginger wallet is a fork of Wasabi. So, the hierarchy of folders and wallets can be used with each other.

Indeed they have done it from the beginning and they have also kept that information limited to their terms and conditions without it becoming a major discussion point until now. As far as a PR exercise is concerned would it help their cause? What I am thinking about is what the opinion of potential customer/clients and most neutral onlookers would be and would it work to their advantage for starting out that way and receive credit for it rather than implement it half way through?

As we have seen from many posts in the WasabiWallet thread, companies that use blockchain analysis are not popular and members are usually advised to avoid them therefore GingerWallet will have to contend with that negativity if they plan on being successful.

But i think it's important to note that GingerWallet did that from beginning, while zkSNACKs did that halfway where people have high expectation from zkSNACKs.


I agree. They probably do that with expectation they would face less pressure from governments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VPN_service

They clearly took time and effort to build their product and will not probably try to build a brand too and I wish them success. Having said that, it does seem strange they would fork WasabiWallet yet would retain blockchain analysis when they must have noticed what happened to reputation of their owner zkSNACKs. If they were going to launch this a product that was distancing itself from the controversy surrounding WasabiWallet, the common sense approach probably would have been to avoid making the same mistakes. There is a possibility they concluded having blockchain analysis will help shield them in the event they were ever charged with any crimes such as money laundering.

This is the part I find confusing because whether they have blockchain analysis or not, they could be shutdown by the US or any law enforcement agency regardless of whether US citizens use their GingerWallet service or not. Maybe they took a business decision after witnessing the number of mixer/coinjoin cases with charges of money laundering being put before Courts therefore want to protect their position and I suppose looking at it from their perspective it is understandable.

Even by blocking USA IP addresses I think those residing in the US that are determined enough to use their services will find a way.

In practice, i expect they only block USA IP address from accessing their website and coordinator link. And don't forget someone can use different wallet (which support WabiSabi CoinJoin) and use their coordinator.

Exactly. It looks like they're trying to avoid being called money transmitters in the US, just as the zkSNACKs' coordinator.

It's possible they portray it as if that's the case, but considering that blockchain analysis is evidently flawed, it doesn't hold water. An American can exchange bitcoin with a European, and then mix "European bitcoin".

Why do Bitcoin businesses keep buying this harmful notion?

We literally crucified Wasabi wallet for selling out to blockchain analysis, two years ago. This project comes here and isn't even trying to hide their collaboration with them, and on top of that is basically doing everything that zkSNACKs did and expects us to applaud for them or something?

I can't say I'm not disappointed.

I understand that the whole point of this is to make a rebranding of Wasabi with a default working coordinator but their marketing is quite shameless IMO.

It's not a wallet I'd ever use (I can't, anyway - LOL!)

They even state that U.S. passport holders aren’t allowed to use it, so even if you’re in a different country you are still prohibited from using it. Unless they’re going to start doing KYC, this cannot be meaningfully enforced. If they could effectively block U.S. citizens it either wouldn’t be trustless like they claim or it wouldn’t even be a privacy wallet at all.

I can understand them trying to stay off law enforcement’s radar after the Samourai arrests, but anybody familiar with how Wasabi Wallet works, which they are a nearly identical fork of, understands that this is complete nonsense.

Their ToS state US citizens are not allowed to use their wallet therefore to some degree they are trying to avoid US jurisdiction but it will not help them if they are accused of money laundering as the US will seize their website regardless. Is it possible they are using blockchain analysis in order to present as a defence to legal authorities for mitigation if ever in future they were accused of money laundering?