Topic: Your options to having privacy in Bitcoin - and their tradeoffs (Read 542 times)

BlackHatCoiner.

You made a typo in your topic. Samourai wallet, not Samurai wallet.

You add an url link to a website of Samourai wallet but if any reader does not click on the link but typing it manually on a browser, it will lead to another website which can be a phishing site.

Sounds like rank hypocrisy coming from the same user who said this:


Also, if when making this deal with the mining pool, there was any sort of remuneration for them, you would also have to repeat your previous arguments about them having to register as money transmitters:


Or do these arguments only apply when the topic is about LN?  I forget how these subjective rules of yours apply sometimes.  There doesn't seem to be much consistency to it.  Just feels like layers upon layers of hypocrisy.

That implies you're buying the term "tainted coins". This thread has nothing to do with this. Wanting privacy doesn't mean wanting to pass the made-up "legitimate coin test" from chain analysis companies.

And also, tainted coins are completely subjectively interpreted. A "tainted coin" can be a block reward, because the miner used "tainted coins" to earn the transaction fees. "Tainted coins" are only destroyed if you don't buy them as concept.

shhhhh dont tell this to the idiots of the doomad clan..(blackhatcoiner, oeleo and other cult followers)

but just like other idiots who  promote buying blockreward sats(so called rare) for foolish things like BRC tokens.. here is an idea..
make a deal with mining pool that you will create a TX to spend dirty coin to a address where the receiving address is 0sat but the fee is 100% and only broadcast to the mining pool. thus destroying the UTXO of dirty coin completely and having no output to continue any taint..
the pool then after adding it to blockchain (thus claiming the utxo as fee) will then (using a separate reward from an earlier block) pay out an agreed amount to an address you want. thus you appear as just a legit miner receiving share of reward
thus destroying all taint of dirty coin at same time

buying reward sats is not deemed mixing and instead can be seen as just buying rare sats

i tried to give many hints over months about ways around the concern of mixer legitimacy and how to get around it.. but it seems a certain clan group couldnt put 1 and 1 together to get 2

yep bitcoin has had the ability to destroy UTXO and generate fresh coin with zero taint since day one... use it

I did post a reply in your thread. I wouldn't recommend doing that, but it can be helpful with toxic change. For instance, when you want to mix 10.4 mBTC, you can mix the 10 mBTC, and exchange the 0.4 mBTC for 0.4 LN-mBTC via submarine swap.

Or just use a centralized mixer, as it'll do it more effectively and cheaply.

Effectiveness and cost. It appears to be the case frequently, that a centralized mixer can charge absolutely zero, and be even more effective than coinjoins, as your inputs will hold no blockchain connection with the outputs.

Correct. Wasabi uses block filtering, so there is no privacy invaded as in regular light clients. I've edited my post.

When we're talk about privacy matter, we must avoid centralization as much as possible. What's the point of using a centralized site when you're having an option to choose the other way?

Not sure what's site you refer about centralized no KYC exchange, but my thought is Binance when they were still allow maximum of 2 BTC withdraw without KYC. Remember Binance has a KYC mandatory rule and able to freeze your coins.

Either centralized casino or centralized exchange, both of them are bad choice for privacy.

I would not recommend this method at all because this is the most risky. Although some casinos may let you deposit and withdraw without KYC but they will never let you withdraw unless or until you wager the whole balance. So now you have to first gamble the money, and you can lose everything in the process.

If you want to do this centralized way, better use the non kyc exchanges to send the bitcoin and withdraw in chucks in different btc addresses. Although a less effective method as compared to the methods listed in OP but still at least does not have a risk of losing money like in a casino.

Hi, I just post this thread 'Can Submarine Swaps in Lightning Wallet increase Bitcoin Privacy?'

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/can-submarine-swaps-in-lightning-wallet-increase-bitcoin-privacy-5464525

What do you think, could this be the 4th option to improve Bitcoin anonymity ?

Wow... Informative.

Privacy security is the first thing to look for in bitcoin. Protecting privacy is the responsibility of each. I always try to do it. All three are good options even though the mixer service option is often associated with illegal activity. The third option offered is good to be used as a step in securing privacy.

A_MP

If a 'honeypot' is a site or service that covertly passes your personal data on to governments, is a company that does it openly an 'overt honeypot'?  Or is there a better name for it?  Wasabi are giving your details to blockchain analysis firms and those companies are likely passing the details over to law enforcement or other government agencies.

Edited. I think that's enough:

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My bad. Just corrected it.

You have to run it on your own node. It's required. Joinmarket is a software that works with RPC, communicating with your Bitcoin client, you can't connect to a client you don't control of, and neither should you. As for Jam, while I've tried it, I think it lacks some features yet, and it's still in beta so I wouldn't trust it with huge amounts.

Brilliant post. Let me just say that JoinMarket has a nice GUI (Jam) and is really easy to use. You can run it on your own node too.

Although you can run Whirlpool without a full node, it's not recommended. Any time you are not connected to your own full node, you are sharing data with a third party. Anyone who is in any way serious about their privacy should be running their own node already.

Just spotted the mistake in the name of the website. It should be samouraiwallet.com, not samurai.com.

That seems completely fair. That is a simple statement of fact which any serious user would want to know.

I'm struggling to imagine how I could do that without seeming affiliated to a service.

Well, no. Just as with centralized exchanges, services which subsequently tumble your bitcoin wouldn't fall in the "Mixer services" category, in my opinion. If you want to go a la mixer, then use a mixer. Internet services listed are specifically created for that purpose. Don't exchange / gamble coins thinking that the outcome will be the same.

I removed anonymity set from both Joinmarket and Whirlpool. It's misleading and not important to begin with; both are very effective. From that point on, it depends on how many remixes you'll do.

It is, indeed. I have added - "Funds blockchain analysis company and requests permission from them when user does coinjoin.". I don't believe there's anything more to say.

Added both.

Apart from price fluctuations, the process itself has some additional costs.
One cost is the network fees you have to pay to create transactions in bitcoin and monero networks that can add up.
The other cost is the exchange fee you have to pay the platform like Bisq that you are using.
The last cost I can think of is the spread. Sometimes if the trading volume is low, there is a spread in the orderbooks between the top sell order and the top buy order. So even if price remains the same and you buy that altcoin and sell it immediately you still lose some money because of the spread.

The other disadvantage I can think of is the complication of this method. Someone who has never used Bisq before or have monero wallet/used monero will have to learn how to do these things first which is time consuming and could be difficult for some people.

Absolutely agree, but my point is the size of the total liquidity pool is not that relevant because nobody is mixing with every other output in the pool. Whether the total liquidity is 5 BTC or 500,000 BTC, it doesn't make a difference if I only coinjoin with 0.5 BTC of it.

So let's say JoinMarket has ~700 BTC in liquidity and Whirlpool has ~8,500. I have 0.5 BTC to coinjoin in each one. For JoinMarket, I perform a single coinjoin with 19 other participants. For Whirlpool, I perform a single coinjoin with 4 other participants. At this point, my anonymity set is greater for the JoinMarket, even though Whirlpool has the greater overall liquidity. But then I leave my coinjoined output in Whirlpool and it gets another 5 free remixes. Now my Whirlpool anonymity set is exponentially larger than my JoinMarket one, especially once you consider the forward looking anonymity set and all the free remixes that every other output I have coinjoined alongside is also getting.

I guess the essence of what I'm saying is that liquidity is not the same as anonymity set. It is difficult to say which out of JoinMarket and Whirlpool provides the best anonymity set, because it depends entirely on how you use them.

It absolutely does. Any sane user of a privacy service does not want the fee they pay being handed to blockchain analysis to spy on their inputs and potentially censor those inputs based on their findings. This is antithetical to the entire concept of privacy.

Great thread @BlackHatCoiner! ....

I just want to know if you see the anonymous (decentralized) casinos as another method to secure your financial privacy? There are still some casinos out there that supports pseudo anonymity, but I will not push large amounts of coins through them.

People can still "mix" their coins through these casinos, until they start asking for KYC verification. Just make sure these casinos are not scams and that you can actually withdraw from them. (They start with no KYC requirements, but eventually bend the knee to law enforcement) 

Great thread buddy, I would love if you could have created some infographics to make it easier to understand instead of reading the whole post, I still appreciate the post though.
Most of the Mixer services work good for months and once they hit a jackpot, a big order worth millions, they simply shutdown their services. I would prefer those which are trusted in the community.

I realized that there are many Bitcoin holders who are really concerned with their safety and privacy that is why they hired these service providers to accomplish the goal. It is just sad that some platforms are not here to do business honestly but has also some evil intent they only knew, judging by some popular mixers who are now six feet understand which left some people wondering what happened. As to myself, I still have to use any of these options since first and foremost I don't have much Bitcoin and I just decide to hold whatever I got.

Good to know, thanks. Liquidity noted into OP and JoinMarket removed as best in terms of anonymity set.

But what ultimately matters when remixing is the new coins that come in. If you do a coinjoin with all inputs remixed, then it won't make a difference. Also, it makes yourself more untraceable to be in a coinjoin with 100 inputs, than in one with 5, so the number of inputs used surely matters.

I've always had mixing in my mind as a picture of a person lost in crowd. The more the people, the less likely to find that one.

What's important here is to break down what's user's best courses to accomplish mixing. Even if funding blockchain surveillance is completely contradictory to being proclaimed a pro-privacy service, that doesn't change their coinjoin process. Just as if Samurai announced that they're funding the Ukrainian war, it wouldn't change the effectiveness of the coinjoin. It'd ruin their reputation, and people would stop using it; not because of effectiveness, but ethical concerns.