Topic: [POLL] Privacy features in bitcoin (Read 306 times)

It's easy to make that poll, then start asking what everyone believes without the presumptions of how we'll get there -technically and from a social consensus perspective, and what needs to be done to get there.

BUT let's pretend that it's easy, hard fork achievable, and it won't affect the block size/won't increase node hardware requirements. I would still vote against it because a transparent ledger is easier to audit to make sure that everything is balanced and authentic.

Another problem with ledgers that have on-chain confidential transactions is, the government might stop condoning Bitcoin, and actually start banning it.

Yeah, i'm aware Tapscript offer some privacy improvement. Although people more likely to notice they pay less fee due to smaller TX size. Anyway, we could start by replacing existing usage of script with tapscript version. LN developer already working switching from HTLC ot PTLC, although i don't see much multi-signature wallet use Taproot address.

When I was a newbie, it's always been described promoted with anonymity. That's why I am for its privacy but not to the level that privacy coins have. We've seen that the government are totally against it and we don't want them to intervene with Bitcoin although it's already established and at certain level, they won't do the same thing as Bitcoin because the institutions are already in and governments don't see the same privacy as it has got. I haven't followed Snowden for so long and I don't comprehend what he's up to. I think he should criticize more those that make the fees complicated by doing arc20, brc20 and runes protocol.

People who don't really like the privacy features in Bitcoin may be afraid that when the privacy features are implemented it will become a feature that directly burdens Bitcoin. Because by making Bitcoin like that, it means there will be a hard fork which might disrupt the stability of Bitcon and that might be a reason for the government to take tough action on Bitcoin and ban it. So there are a lot of considerations that need to be made regarding this privacy feature, and I also think that looking at the Bitcoin market that is already large now, this is a very risky thing for Bitcoin and its future development.

Tapscripts are already a good privacy feature, we just haven't figured out how to use them properly for serious projects.

I.e. not for monkey GIFs or runes.

Yes it will be more great additional feature for bitcoin to have, but unfortunately if privacy feature for bitcoin will be the reason for government to get trigger to eliminate it on scene then I guess I would rather remain to have the current feature where we are free to use it anytime we want rather than thinking about other things which can put bitcoin on more bigger risk to be hated by the government.

They hate privacy since government maybe think its illegal and use as a tool for those frauds to escape on their crimes so maybe they will do something that we don't like if this one will happen. Maybe he want to stir things up since he have some agenda which benefits him that he want to create.

If certain privacy feature also manage to improve scalability (e.g. due to smaller TX size or faster time to verify the TX), i see no strong reason to against such privacy feature.


I'd rather see him made constructive critic Bitcoin rather than exaggerate what Bitcoin can do.

If current Bitcoin protocol and technical blockchain is good for us to use, move funds, get basic privacy, it is good enough for me. With proposal to unpgrade the protocol for higher privacy, I see risk, like others see, and I am against this proposal.

This potentially can put Bitcoin protocol to bigger risk and threats that together can impact price negatively, I don't want to see it.

This, Monero is here and available to use.

If people dislike Monero, see it is not good enough for privacy, they can develop new cryptocurrency with higher privacy.

Neither "for" nor "against".

I don't want to see privacy features at the protocol level because it would make Bitcoin becomes privacy coins, then the government, centralized exchanges, banks start to ban Bitcoin.

At the same time, I didn't mean to make Bitcoin to lost it's privacy because I'm also a privacy oriented person.

Bitcoin is fine now, it offer freedom to choose, you can choose CEX to hand your coins, you can choose to get rid from CEX etc.

i wouldnt mind of there is a privacy feature for BTC. there will however have something to fud again when some changes will be done. government can make some changes to the current laws again. we are already good, its the regulations that isn't going to make things good.

and there is XMR readily available if one praises privacy.

I'm against it because Bitcoin is working fine and without any problems, we don't need to apply such a major change in the protocol that has to be implemented through a hard fork that would fundamentally change Bitcoin and comes with a lot of dangers and unknown consequences.

Any such features should be added on top of Bitcoin with side-chains, second layers, other works like the CoinJoin proposal, etc. At the end of the day Bitcoin is not an anon-coin.

Satoshi Nakamoto coded and designed Bitcoin to be a Peer-to-Peer electronic cash and with core idea of full control on any bitcoin owners through private keys that later were developed to mnemonic seed for HD wallets.

The important core idea of Satoshi Nakamoto is not designing a blockchain for private transactions. The Bitcoin blockchain is a public ledger, that is accessible for everyone, and every transaction is publicly for everyone to see and trace.

In Satoshi Nakamoto's emails to some Cypherpunks that were share to the court and public recent months because of Craig Wright case, the founder of Bitcoin emphasized his opinion that making Bitcoin as a private blockchain, for private transactions, contains risk for this cryptocurrency because of threats from governments and their regulations.

I guess Monero has sufficiently proven that it can be trusted on this. So, for me, there's really no reason why Bitcoin should be provided with the same capacity at the protocol level. After all, Bitcoin isn't designed to be a privacy coin.

And perhaps more importantly, Bitcoin might lose most, if not all, of what it has already achieved so far in terms of adoption. Integrating privacy features on Bitcoin might only make it an enemy of states which result to businesses and even individuals prohibited from using it. Everything registered or legally compliant that's linked to Bitcoin will be gone.

I do not think that recommending some advances or improvements in bitcoin is directly related to hating bitcoin. As investors we also have to make sure that we are utilizing bitcoin to the best of its abilities and if there are ways we think can be implemented to improve bitcoin then that is just simply criticism not hating.
Exactly not to mention the sheer difficulty of balancing anonymity and scalability. Bitcoin’s blokchain was not made for that and it would be hard to rewire the entire system like that. Our best bet would be a different coin altogether.

If you look at his resume, you'd probably understand why he'd be talking about cryptography, he leaked the information that NSA or in extension, the US government is spying on it's people and I think that's already a valid reason to call out the dangers of not having a good privacy in bitcoin because he knows what he's talking about in terms of offensive security. Regarding the privacy feature, I think that bitcoin can probably benefit to a more robust and stronger privacy, I really don't like the idea that institutional investors and the government is already getting into the bitcoin market so I'd like to see that I'd still be safe from all of these groups that would be trying to look at what I'm doing with my bitcoin.

I'm not a Monero expert but AFAIK on Monero you can't simply create a transaction only with your own inputs/outputs, you have always use the ring signature feature and mix it with other inputs/outputs, which would be equivalent to use only CoinJoins in Bitcoin. A thing which is optional are stealth addresses, you can use a single "primary" address if for some reasons you need someone to see e.g. the income on one address.

I interpret that you are also afraid of legal/regulatory action of many governments against Bitcoin itself? IMO Lightning already provides a privacy level similar to Monero. So we can observe if there are LN-specific regulations to come, or if Litecoin is affected in any way due to its MWEB feature. Generally however I don't think it would be easy to ban Bitcoin privacy (e.g. certain kinds of transactions, like LN, CoinJoins or atomic swaps) without outright banning Bitcoin usage, and Bitcoin usage could be protected by law in many countries (basically it's signed messages, so it's free speech).

If you're more afraid of criminals, I believe most criminals operate already with BTC and not XMR, and use XMR only as a mixer.

I'm generally pro-privacy (any that isn't is dumb), but things are more nuanced than vote no == against privacy. It's more of the fact that privacy upgrades in the base chain can be quite dangerous for Bitcoin stability wise as it would be such a huge upgrade that would put everything at risk.


I think we can love Bitcoin but at the same time criticize it.

Good point. But the reason I didn't specify is because Mr. Snowden said protocol level, so layer two solutions are ruled out.
As of "optional"... Aren't privacy transactions on Monero also optional? Why would anyone use them though? Notorious markets pick monero specifically for its privacy. So if this feature was enabled on bitcoin, even optionally, all of that kind of usage would naturally be attracted to the bigger network. So if by enabling such feature on the bitcoin blockchain a sizable part of the user base starts using it, all the disadvantages it could bring will come really fast optional or not.

I miss an "optional" button in the poll, maybe even something like "off-chain"/"sidechain".

Because I would be very likely against implementing a mandatory privacy feature like Monero or Grin have, for the simple reason it would make Bitcoin less scalable, and it would also need a hard fork which would basically re-start the transaction graph. And I think that an optional privacy feature would lead to an anonymity set large enough - because it's Bitcoin and not some random altcoin.

About the tools I would like to see implemented: mainly my bet would be for better support for sidechains, because in this case sidechains can go fully private. Imagine a Monero-style sidechain with a token 2-way-pegged to Bitcoin. I think however that could bring some additional challenges, because of the need of sidechain users to monitor "unruly" coin creation. But anyway that would affect only sidechain users, not the mainchain users.

In general I would approve the Litecoin model with MWEB too, but I think extension blocks will unfortunately not make it into Bitcoin.

This would be ineffective for governments if the goal is to combat crime, because you could buy Bitcoin still via atomic swaps with Ethereum for example or any non-privacy altcoin. And atomic swaps cannot be banned nor prevented in any way - see also this thread. Yes, the ETFs would be probably gone in most countries.

Monero actually increased its usage even after it was delisted at Binance, as you can see in the last stretch of this graph (ignore the spikes, these were spam attacks probably):



Source: Bitinfocharts

It's price is also slowly recovering, compared with Bitcoin, even taking into account some more recent news (e.g. Kraken delistings in several European countries).

But see what I wrote above. I also think it's 99,9999999 unlikely that we will see "mandatory privacy" on Bitcoin. But better support of optional privacy would be cool. Taproot was already an improvement on that.

I wholeheartedly support the implementation of privacy tools on Bitcoin. However, it's certain that such actions would trigger regulations that many exchanges and investors may struggle to comply with. Governments typically oppose privacy measures, as they seek visibility into transactions.

From my observations, it shows that some Bitcoin enthusiasts are prepared to endorse this idea and await the backlash action of the government. Even if implementing the privacy protocol leads to its declaration as illegal, I see no fault in using it . Illegality is not a new concept and has been practiced in almost every part of the world