Question about privacy of Blockchain.com wallet - page 2.

HCP

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Quote from: GekkeBelg on September 23, 2021, 01:11:13 PM

Do you know any other custodial wallets where you can quickly open an account without having to go through an extensive verification process like you have to at Coinbase?

One of the core tenants of Bitcoin was to give you complete control of your coins. Why would you want to use a custodial wallet? Huh

Is there some benefit that you believe they offer over a non-custodial wallet like Bitcoin Core or Electrum or similar? Huh

nc50lc

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Quote from: GekkeBelg on September 23, 2021, 01:11:13 PM

-snip-
Do you know any other custodial wallets where you can quickly open an account without having to go through an extensive verification process like you have to at Coinbase?

Unfortunately, custodial wallets that fall to that category are most likely scams.
Legit wallets have to comply with your Government's law so a level of verification is required depending on the country.

For Exchanges, their 'withdrawal fee' is ridiculous compared to wallets, you wouldn't want to use them as a wallet even though some of them allow crypto withdrawals for non-verified users.
They can also lock your funds if they found "something" in your transactions.

Despite the consensus in the replies, you still decided to go for custodial...
perhaps in terms of privacy, are you only concerned about your privacy against users, not the authorities?

BitMaxz

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Quote from: GekkeBelg on September 23, 2021, 01:11:13 PM

Do you know any other custodial wallets where you can quickly open an account without having to go through an extensive verification process like you have to at Coinbase?

Well, if you don't care about privacy then I would list a few of them.

- Binance wallet
- Bitpay wallet
- Coinex wallet
And any exchanges with wallet features are custodial wallets. It means you don't own any keys if those exchanges having issues on their wallets it would be a big problem.

And I suggest you to read this [General] Bitcoin Wallets - Which, what, why?

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: GekkeBelg on September 23, 2021, 01:11:13 PM

So Electrum and Blockchain are non-custudial

Yes, but they aren't comparable.

Electrum is open source software which you run yourself on your own computer. Provided your computer is not infected with malware, you can verify that the seed phrase and private keys are known only to you, no one else can spend your coins, and no one can lock you out of your wallet. Blockchain.com is a closed source website. You have no idea how they generate your seed phrase, who else might have access to it, or who else could potentially spend your coins. Your account is vulnerable to hacks, and their central wallets and servers are vulnerable to hacks. They can lock or shut down your account if they choose, and unless you have your seed phrase backed up somewhere, your coins will be lost.

All web wallets are the absolute lowest in the rankings for both security and privacy.

Quote from: GekkeBelg on September 23, 2021, 01:11:13 PM

Do you know any other custodial wallets where you can quickly open an account without having to go through an extensive verification process like you have to at Coinbase?

The real question is why you would want to do this? You are sacrificing all your privacy and all your security, giving unknown strangers the ability to prevent your transactions, freeze your account, or even steal your coins. The whole point of bitcoin is to not trust third parties with your money.

GekkeBelg

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Quote from: nc50lc on September 23, 2021, 03:27:13 AM

Quote from: GekkeBelg on September 23, 2021, 02:48:28 AM

So my question is: is Blockchain the same as Coinbase or the same as Electrum?
Does anybody know this? I could not find this in their FAQ anywhere.

In terms of handling funds, Electrum and Blockchain.com are the same because both are non-custodial.
You'll be spending your "unspent transaction outputs" (UTXO) from your received transactions to create a new transaction.
So if you're receiving funds with a single address, all your withdrawals will use the UTXOs associated with that address in your wallet;
to mitigate that, you just have to use a different address every time you receive funds so "receiver A and B" will see that the txns came from different addresses.
You'll have more options in Electrum by utilizing "coin control" for better selection of UTXO.

Coinbase (Wallet/Exchange) is different, it' a "custodial service", withdrawals came from different addresses because those are Coinbase's "Hot Wallet" used for withdrawals.
Different addresses, yes, but in terms of privacy, authorities or whoever in contact with them can easily point your identity based from their database and/or blockchain analysis,
custodial services aren't really that private with their hot wallets, even a regular user can tell that it's from Coinbase by using walletexplorer.com.

Thanks for this detailed explanation!
So Electrum and Blockchain are non-custudial and Coinbase is custodial.
Do you know any other custodial wallets where you can quickly open an account without having to go through an extensive verification process like you have to at Coinbase?

HeRetiK

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Quote from: GekkeBelg on September 23, 2021, 02:48:28 AM

With Coinbase it's difference. They send out their withdrawals from all kinds of different transactions. In this same example receivers A and B would never know they actually both received a payment from the same source (me), not even if they talked to each other about it and analyzed the blockchain.

A and B don't need to analyze the blockchain in this case. If the situation warrants it, they can contact the authorities, which could contact Coinbase, which could hand over all your transaction data and personal information.

pooya87

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In terms of privacy different wallets in decreasing order are like this:
Full node > Server-independent¹ SPV > Single-server-dependent² SPV > Web wallets (non-custodial)³ >> Web wallets (custodial)

¹ Any SPV client that can connect to an arbitrary full node and fetch the necessary data (this includes Electrum)
² These are light clients that connect to a fixed (centralized) server and fetch their data
³ I consider users of web wallets to have 0 privacy in general

nc50lc

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Quote from: GekkeBelg on September 23, 2021, 02:48:28 AM

So my question is: is Blockchain the same as Coinbase or the same as Electrum?
Does anybody know this? I could not find this in their FAQ anywhere.

In terms of handling funds, Electrum and Blockchain.com are the same because both are non-custodial.
You'll be spending your "unspent transaction outputs" (UTXO) from your received transactions to create a new transaction.
So if you're receiving funds with a single address, all your withdrawals will use the UTXOs associated with that address in your wallet;
to mitigate that, you just have to use a different address every time you receive funds so "receiver A and B" will see that the txns came from different addresses.
You'll have more options in Electrum by utilizing "coin control" for better selection of UTXO.

Coinbase (Wallet/Exchange) is different, it' a "custodial service", withdrawals came from different addresses because those are Coinbase's "Hot Wallet" used for withdrawals.
Different addresses, yes, but in terms of privacy, authorities or whoever in contact with them can easily point your identity based from their database and/or blockchain analysis,
custodial services aren't really that private with their hot wallets, even a regular user can tell that it's from Coinbase by using walletexplorer.com.

GekkeBelg

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Hello

I use the online wallet of Blockchain.com and it's nice that I can create a new address for every incoming transaction to keep my privacy high.

But what I'm not entirely sure of, is if my withdrawals always get sent from the same address or not.
For example Electrum does this. If I send 2 transactions from my Electrum wallet (1 to receiver A and 1 to receiver B), those two receivers A and B can see it came from the same source (if they talk to each other ofcourse, only then).
With Coinbase it's difference. They send out their withdrawals from all kinds of different transactions. In this same example receivers A and B would never know they actually both received a payment from the same source (me), not even if they talked to each other about it and analyzed the blockchain.

So my question is: is Blockchain the same as Coinbase or the same as Electrum?
Does anybody know this? I could not find this in their FAQ anywhere.

Topic: Question about privacy of Blockchain.com wallet - page 2. (Read 244 times)