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

I see. I only can hope those who use that feature backup their 12 seed words and password properly. Although by doing that, user would lose label on their TX or UTXO which could lead to worsening privacy.


I have no knowledge of the Electrumos method of implantation, so I have no basis for comparison. Ginger has no registration. The "user id", if you can call it that, is contained in 2fa_info.gws, a completely random sequence of bytes, generated during 2fa registration on the server side. It cannot and does not store any user information. If I want to simplify it a lot, all that happens is that the server responds to a fixed random byte sequence (clientserverid) with another one (wallet encyption key).
[/quote]

Your and Electrum 2FA works differently. Electrum 2FA refers to 2-of-3 multi-sig wallet, where user provide correct 2FA to get his TX signed. In case the user lose 2FA or TrustedCoin not available, he can use seed words which contain 2 master private keys.

I did use Ginger Wallet in the past because I wanted to know what the service was like and posted about it here mentioning the fee deductions and about wanting to test Open Coordinator if I used it again but that was on a previous version. Has anybody downloaded the latest version of Ginger Wallet either to coinjoin or to understand their 2FA or to simply take a look at it out of curiosity?

I am not familiar with the Electrum's method of implantation, so I can't provide a direct comparison. As for Ginger, it does not involve any formal user registration. The "user ID," if you can even call it that, is simply a random sequence of bytes stored in 2fa_info.gws. This sequence is generated during the two-factor authentication (2FA) registration on the server side and contains no identifiable user information.

To simplify, the server merely responds to a predetermined random byte sequence (client-server ID) with another one (the wallet encryption key). This exchange ensures security without directly linking any user data to the process.

Yes, that's right, the server stores an encryption key. If the 2fa server is not available, the wallet is not available. The user can reset it with the original 12 seed word and password.
This is inconvenient, but still better than someone getting the unencrypted file and keylogging the password (unfortunately we know of such a case).

Why does a wallet need 2FA?

It sounds like an implementation similar to Electrum x TrustedCoin, otherwise this makes no sense. Ginger wallet's website doesn't have a registration system.

Can you explain more how the 2FA works? I've read the FAQ just now and it seems the user depends on your server to obtain encryption key which used to encrypt/decrypt user's wallet files. If my understand is correct, what would happen if user lose access to their 2FA or your server isn't accessible?

We added Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) in our new release for more protection!
You can download the new version and read more on our website. https://gingerwallet.io

I cannot see why updating the client every 2-3 weeks is going to address issues about the product not being taken up by customers in huge numbers. I think the lack of awareness about the Ginger Wallet name/brand (and what the software actually does) is probably down to lack of awareness because of not having appropriate publicity targeting a suitable audience.

If more people were aware of the software maybe it would be have higher numbers of people using it. Also, the coin join analysis by Ginger Wallet could possibly be another factor behind people not downloading it.

🚨 Don’t forget! 🚨
The Ginger Free Coinjoin Weekend is in full swing! Join our Coinjoin rounds with zero coordinator fees until Monday 08:00 UTC. Time’s ticking—enhance your privacy while you can!

🚨 Reminder! 🚨
The Ginger Free Coinjoin Weekend starts today at 20:00 UTC! Take advantage of zero coordinator fees and join our Coinjoin rounds. This special offer runs until Monday 08:00 UTC. Don't miss out!

Currently we are working on the client to distinguish ourselves and change this tendency.
Unfortunately this takes longer than expected, but we plan to release new client versions every 2-3 weeks for the next couple of months.

I did not look in to either Wasabi Wallet, Ginger Wallet or Open Co-ordinator enough to know about any of these operating a system that facilitates users to lose change as a trade-off for increased privacy. A side question, you were probably hoping for more activity in this thread therefore does it concern you there in not much traction in this forum regarding your Ginger Wallet product?

You can always check your coins and their privacy level at the wallet's coin list or at the coinjoin bar. At opencoordinator you will also lose the "change" money, this is a client thing, not a server side thing. The client decides not to create change.

Also please consider using the Ginger Wallet directly, it can be installed parallel to Wasabi, has slightly different coinjoin solutions. Only one can run at a time though.

Also don't forget that we will have a free weekend.

I will take a look at those figures to work out what happened. Does that mean when coin join reaches a latter part (around 80-90% upwards), it is better to not further coin join as only a small amount remains and it is better to use/move the already parts of the private funds before proceeding further and only after further funds have been added?

The next time I use Ginger Wallet I will change the default co-ordinator to Open Co-ordinator because they charge zero percent fees therefore all that should be deducted is the mining fee. The time it takes to reach 100% privacy will be a key comparator the time Ginger Wallet took.

Both Wasabi and Ginger clients aim to avoid generating 'change.' In other words, all coins should be consolidated into specific denominations (those values that are generated by all clients). This means the difference should stay below a certain minimum output amount, which is set at 10,000 satoshis for Ginger. (It’s widely believed that change negatively impacts privacy). However, this can become a significant issue if the client can only participate with low-value coins.

If only a small amount of money remains, it’s advised not to coinjoin (this applies to all clients), as you'll lose an average of 3-5k satoshis per round on top of the mining fee. There's almost certainly no coordinator fee involved.

The mining fee can be calculated, but in an environment with a rate of 3-4 sat/vbyte, it shouldn't be a major expense by itself. The vbyte is roughly 70 times the size of the input coin and 30 times the size of the output coin, and you multiply this by the mining fee. At a rate of 4 satoshis, the cost will be around 3,000-4,000 satoshis (independent of the client, assuming an average number of input/output coins).

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🎉 Ginger Free Coinjoin Weekend is here! 🎉
Join us from Friday 20:00 to Monday 08:00 UTC and participate in Ginger Coinjoin rounds with no coordinator fee! Don’t miss out on this opportunity for enhanced privacy at no extra cost. 🚀

I used GingerWallet with their default gingerwallet co-ordinator because I wanted to know how much time the coin join took to reach 100% and wanted to check the fees incurred.

Ginger Wallet via their co-ordinator are supposed to take fees of 0.3% for deposits that are 0.01 BTC and above, the rest are supposed to be mining fees. In my case, the total deduction when it reached 100% was significantly higher than I expected and the time it took to get there was in double digit hours.

Rather than use a calculator to work out 0.3% from the actual deposit and then assume the difference from the balance is the mining fee, is there a simple way to categorically ascertain how much of the deduction is the co-ordinator fee and how much of it is the mining fee?

Since we operate as a company, a coin verifier solution is essential. This will not impact the average user.
Apologies if any of your questions have gone unanswered. What are they, and how can we assist you?

Ginger, new to the forum... just give them some time to get their bearings. 

Why the multi-posting? You should just keep everything in one post at a time instead of posting consecutively.

🚀 GingerWallet v2.0.10 is here!
* New Feature: One-click transaction viewing on mempool.space.
* Enhancements: Improved CoinJoin checks, fee estimation, and bug fixes.
* Flexible Browsing: Choose your preferred browser for transaction viewing, including Tor, Brave, Firefox, Chrome, and more!
Update now for a smoother, faster Bitcoin experience!
https://gingerwallet.io

---

Got questions? Join our Telegram channel and let's chat! 🗨️
🔗 t.me/GingerWallet

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🚨 The free remix and friends don't pay features are available only with Wasabi Wallet version 2.0.8.1 or earlier. If you are using a later version, you can still use our Coordinator, but without these benefits.
Download GingerWallet: https://gingerwallet.io

Mod note: Consecutive posts merged

Maybe icopress was creating the thread in the run-up to them giving the go-ahead for a signature campaign. It is possible something could be happening behind the scenes and just a few people are privy to it. Keeping that to one side, if a Ginger Wallet representative is active on other forums it really would be helpful if they were also active here too because there a lot of questions being asked.

I was unaware of that thread and the account. It was created on 15th June 2024 and last active on 3rd July 2024. Maybe they have given up trying to use this forum as a means to attract a customer/user base.

One of their representatives ^[sztest] used to be somewhat active when he/she created an announcement "thread" prior to this one, but they locked it because of this thread.
^{- The only other place where I'm seeing some recent activities is in one of their GitHub repositories.}

There is one account on the altcoinstalks forum belonging to a Ginger Wallet rep which has talked about their wallet on that thread - I've talked to it too - but it's just weird how they're just having @icopress create an ANN thread on Bitcointalk but they never show up themselves. It's not like they are banned or anything.

I have not seem any posts from a Ginger Wallet forum account, maybe they are not interested in engaging with members of the forum after they studied the way members interacted with Kruw (as a so-called Wasabi Wallet contributor that might or might not have actually been employed by zkSNACKs). Or maybe this thread is a pre-cursor to them getting ready to start engaging with members, we do not know but they should have at least started posting here by now.

It's a wolf in sheep's clothing. Just like AMLbot (sends all your addresses to law enforcement). I don't even understand why their developer or rep isn't writing on this thread.

Customers not knowing whether they will be allowed to coinjoin is counterproductive to those wanting to use their service.

I do not understand which logic they would apply to create a service based on Wasabi Wallet yet when they forked it instead of removing the same modifications that caused Wasabi Wallet to suffer an enormous loss of reputation, they have kept them implemented even though they knew how the community would react. The question arises, why would they launch a product that will probably not gain traction when they already know blockchain analysis of customers transactions is not accepted by the majority of people in the first place.

If you use open source, you partly SHOULD be paranoid. You always verify checksums and/or PGP signatures, and do other tedious things. Sometimes you could get very paranoid, you need to install and run it in a VM in another computer.

But for the developers of Ginger Wallet, if they're actually good, they should find flaws/bugs and patch them up, make UI/UX better for users, it's also their responsibility to find exploits and take advantage of them then report what they discovered.

To make it seem like they have done everything they can to block US citizens from using the service. But that restriction only prevents US IP addresses from accessing the website and downloading the wallet. They can easily bypass this with VPNs. If, after that, the wallet has a way to monitor and check that it's not being used by US citizens, then what kind of privacy are we talking about? And like I said previously, if we are moving towards a future where privacy-preserving services aren't welcome (and we are), the governments aren't going to make it easier for you just because you have terms meant to block certain people from using the service. Remember, they don't want the service to exist in the first place.

That's correct. You didn't misunderstand. If the blockchain analysis partner shows thumbs down, those coins can't be used in coinjoin rounds.

I agree, I see your point however the fact of the matter is GingerWallet was created by forking WasabiWallet and when they did they decided to use blockchain analysis when they easily could have chosen to exclude it. Furthermore, their terms and conditions clearly state the service is not open to US citizens. The logic of adding these two clauses demonstrate a pre-emotive move. I am curious, if not to do it to demonstrate to US authorities, then why do it?

About the blockchain analysis, with WasabiWallet I was under the impression coinjoining would not go ahead if the coins were analysed and deemed to be suspicious/taint and have the same impression from the GingerWallet fork. Maybe I understood it wrong.

That wouldn't make sense. If the authorities consider the act of coinjoining to be illicit because it provides you with a level of privacy they don't want to see, then using such a coinjoin-enabling service wouldn't be allowed (or it would be frowned upon) by default. Blockchain analysis does nothing to stop coinjoining. All it does is it sells the notion of bitcoin taint and dirty coins to those who want to purchase it. The coinjoining still happens with or without blockchain analysis.

No. When I say they are the same, I mean their software is probably the same. The coordinator software (as you've probably heard many times already   ) is open-source, available for everyone to download and setup, in Github. As per my knowledge, there is no guide from Wasabi that shows step-by-step how to spin off your own coordinator, but I've come across this:
They prioritize marketing, likely because they learned from the mistakes of another company that ruined its entire reputation through a marketing failure. Any such company comes to mind?  

Exactly why this was the first question that came up in my mind,


I thought I would be called out for being paranoid first so I removed part of my Reply.  But I asked that question because if they are NOT following an entirely separate path then they are some what if not entirely dependent on the work of Wasabi.  If today Wasabi releases a new update and it takes another few days for Ginger to work on it and tweak it to their own rebranding, then to me it sounds like the Security of Ginger Wallet is at least a little bit less since Ginger is going to pretty much be in a constant delay of Update releases, putting Users at risk too particularly if a new Wasabi update involves a crucial fix for Privacy or Security issues found.

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It sounds very much like copy pasting to me.  Are 'Forks' not copy pastes?  If I Forked Bitcoin Talk only to rebrand it with my own logo, I am pretty sure it would be a copy of Bitcoin Talk but rebranded to my liking?

This is disappointing.  Why is advertising a copy of what already exists more important than finishing their Product first to show us what they can do?  Putting Marketing first on a Product that speaks 'laziness' out loud seems like the worst way to introduce themselves.

I will sound that I'm nit-picking, although I agree that software/apps that fork from the original should be made easy to coexist with the original in the same computer. But how are their coordinators exactly the same? That they both use the services of some blockchain analytics companies to filter "tainted" outputs?


I encourage everyone to always give the benefit of the doubt, but if that's actually true, then the laziness of the developers will make the fork worse than the original because fork will inherit the flaws/bugs/exploits of the original and the "lazy developers" of the fork might not fix it without depending on the developers of the original.

...

That is just laziness. There is no reason why they couldn't have created their own config directory and then just restore the wallet with the recovery words. They didn't even bother to change the name of the .deb package - it's still wassabee.


It's just marketing BS and there's nothing different about their API unless blacklisting is fascinating to you.

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I can't believe I'm actually bad-mouthing a wallet right off the bat. Usually wallets only have a few problems, which is understandable, but this product looks like a rushed release with barely any development effort put into it.

I'm aware Ginger is fork of Wasabi before writing that post. Anyway, aside from different data directory, they should put effort not to replacing existing Wasabi installation/binary.


I wonder if it's just generic disclaimer to encourage people use their client or they plan to make addition/change on CoinJoin feature.

For this reason, I called Ginger Wallet as a copy-paste rather than a fork. The developer’s response was that they are focusing on marketing and development will come later.
so in the coming versions you can run Ginger and wasabi

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ALTT --->https://www.altcoinstalks.com/index.php?topic=321816.msg1570962#msg1570962

Ginger is a fork of Wasabi, that's written in their main page:

Still, not reasonable not to create another data dir, so that Wasabi and Ginger can coexist in the same computer. It's safe to say that Ginger is like a Wasabi coordinator with some extra modifications in the client. You can use their coordinator from Wasabi by pointing to "https://api.gingerwallet.io/", although they recommend to use their client for long-term reliability:

I literally just said that Wasabi Wallet needs to be forked and be more like how Linux has different "flavors", and here's one that arrived as soon as the community needed it.

👍

It's obvious that like many open source projects themselves, to secure their continued development and secure its future, the code should be forked and be made redundant with a wider group of developers working on them.

I just tried installing Ginger Wallet after installing Wasabi Wallet on Debian VM, where it seems what @Husna QA is true.

1. Ginger simply overwrite Wasabi installation.


2. After i open Ginger app, it detect wallet file i created using Wasabi app. I don't see any newly created directory (such as .gingerwallet) on my home directory either.


That's true, although who knows if majority of Bitcoin owner would agree of adding such privacy feature knowing LTC got delisted by some exchange after doing that.

This is not supposed to happen because in the end, GingerWallet is a Wasabi fork. You can now run the Ginger coordinator on the Wasabi wallet or run any other coordinator, while downloading GingerWallet means that you will use one coordinator.
In the future, the development of both wallets will be independent, and then the features of downloading GingerWallet will be limited.



Privacy can be at the protocol level. We have BitcoinCash CashFusion (the only problem will be high transaction fees) or a complete privacy update, as happened with litecoin MimbleWimble.

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?

One statement conflicts the other. It cannot simultaneously be "zero-knowledge" and not accept USA residents. To block USA residents, you need to know who's a USA resident.

If GingerWallet is following the exact same protocol as Wasabi (WabiSabi), then communication between the user and the coordinator is made using Tor circuits, otherwise input registration is not blinded. If that's the case, then the coordinator is incapable of identifying the region of the user.

Based on the "Why fork" section of this blog post, at some point in the future they might go in a different direction.

It depends on the state of mempool and how large their asset is before the split... As of this writing ^{[8 sat/vB]}, splitting 0.1BTC into 0.01BTC inputs would be cheaper than paying the coordinator fee in question.

As long as Ginger Wallet is entirely Transparent, I presume they can build a much stronger reputation around their name and Product.  Wasabi lost their reputation because of the way they handled the situation.

Working with Blockchain Analysis is understandable for a team of people who are not willing to compromise their own Safety and Freedom for a Product.  When lies come out, they doxx competitors et cetera, you probably naturally start questioning their real motives.  We never got answers for so many of our questions besides avoidance and 'I do not know', so the situation only became worse and worse.

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Got a few curiosities.

I wonder, is Ginger Wallet going to continue only tweaking future versions of Wasabi or are they going an entirely separate path and looking to build a separate Product?

This is a great incentive for new users who want to test it out or have small Inputs.  But can this be some how 'abused' by Ginger users resulting in spamming the Blockchain with unnecessary Transactions?  As in splitting their holdings into Inputs of 0.01 Bitcoin so they can avoid the Fees?  In my head, it would cost just about as much or even more if you did this than if you just paid the Fee, so I may be well wrong.

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A little note.  On a non Java Script browser, many of the images do not show up.

This looks like an interesting project, their website states: "Ginger Wallet forked from Wasabi Wallet. A new coordinator with an active coinjoin service has been established."

I was going to ask if GingerWallet was going to use a blockchain analysis company in the same way WasabiWallet did but I opted to check their Terms and Conditions.

It seems they are implementing the same use of third party blockchain analysis companies as WasabiWallet did therefore why do it when they saw how fast WasabiWallet lost trust and reputation because of it?

Reserved

GingerWallet is designed as a zero-knowledge software! .Open-source, Non-custodial, Desktop, CoinJoin.. The wallet employs WabiSabi, an anonymous credential scheme designed to facilitate more accessible and efficient coinjoins. CoinJoining coins with a value exceeding 0.01 BTC incurs a 0.3% coordinator fee + mining fees. Inputs of 0.01 BTC or less, as well as remixes, are exempt from coordinator fees, even after a single transaction.

• Release Highlights

➥ This version is similar to Wasabi Wallet v2.0.8, just small tweaks and rebranding.
➥ Default coordinator set to Ginger coordinator (cannot be changed). See coordinator highlights below 👇
➥ Ginger is using the user's same working folder as Wasabi. Create backup if required.
➥ Our signatures are new - in browsers so you might get warning messages because their reputation score is low.

• Coordinator Highlights ^{[Same fees structure as before with Wasabi(zkSNACKs) coordinator]}.

➥ FREE under 0.01 BTC!
➥ Coordinator commission 0.3% + mining fees.
➥ Free for coins that come from Wasabi coinjoins
➥ Secure! Illicit actors are not allowed to participate! Residents of USA not allowed to use it!

• How to add Ginger coordinator to Wasabi?

1. Click to Search bar » Type "Config File" » Press ENTER.
2. Change MainNetBackendUri from https://api.wasabiwallet.io/ to https://api.gingerwallet.io/.
3. Restart Wasabi Wallet.

• How to add Ginger coordinator to BTCPAY server?

1. Select Discover Coordinators over Nostr.
2. Select Ginger Coordinator.
3. Save ➥ FAQ

• Requirements

➥ Windows 10+ / https://github.com/GingerPrivacy/GingerWallet/releases/download/v2.0.9/Ginger-2.0.9.msi
➥ MacOS 12.0+ Intel / https://github.com/GingerPrivacy/GingerWallet/releases/download/v2.0.9/Ginger-2.0.9.dmg
➥ MacOS 12.0+ M1, M2 / https://github.com/GingerPrivacy/GingerWallet/releases/download/v2.0.9/Ginger-2.0.9-arm64.dmg
➥ Ubuntu, Debian / https://github.com/GingerPrivacy/GingerWallet/releases/download/v2.0.9/Ginger-2.0.9.deb
➥ Other Linux / https://github.com/GingerPrivacy/GingerWallet/releases/download/v2.0.9/Ginger-2.0.9.tar.gz