Bitcoin Forum

Has anyone tried using the Testnet to conceal their Bitcoin wallets? It seems to me that using the Testnet as an apparent primary Bitcoin wallet, and switching to a mainnet wallet for real transactions, would introduce a level of obfuscation that may fool some less sophisticated attackers or investigators. You could also maintain a variety of wallets on external drives to increase complexity.

Only flaw is that no one would use Testnet unless they are already using Bitcoin. Unless you're trying to fool some ridiculously incompetent adversary, this probably wouldn't work and would essentially be a confirmation that you use Bitcoin. Distraction won't work at all, and a decoy wallet that contains a small amount of Bitcoin would probably be a better idea.

I agree with ranochigo, I don’t see how you intended to that, your real bitcoin will definitely be on the mainnet and no attacker will actually recover a testnet when they get the phrases. If your idea is to create a decoy wallet then simply add a passphrase to your seed phrase and then halve a little amount on the seed phrase wallet without passphrase and the main wallet will be that with passphrase. Or better still just keep to the different wallet and different seed phrase technique

Have you read about the plausible deniability on Bluewallet?


Also have you heard about duress mode on Unstoppable wallet? Re: Unstoppable wallet {User experiences} (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5436273.msg63067240#msg63067240). It is a good feature also. With the duress mode, you can give different wallets different password and that will be the only wallet that will be seen. I mean the wallet that you enter its password will only be seen despite that you have more wallets on the Unstoppable app.

There is another feature on Sparrow wallet. It will require you to enter your password first and then followed by passphrase. If you enter a wrong passphrase, it will give you different keys and addresses. The only time you will be able to access your coins is when you enter the correct passphrase. I prefer Sparrow wallet.

Testnet bitcoin is completely different from mainnet and ranochigo is correct about this.

Testnets is supposed to be a helping hand to developers so that errors can be detected and fixed before launching it to go live on the mainnet. With the different security configurations during testing, the testnet functions just like a safety net to encourage innovation and learning and earning, but the tokens earned isn't real money that can be used on the mainnet.
Thus, only good developers and those with better understanding and intelligence of the Blockchain network, would be able to create testnet wallets and use it to conceal or use it as a distraction to prying eyes and often so switch to the mainnet when they intend to do real transactions.

It doesn't secure anything. Not even an illusion of security. Testnet wallets are separate files. Someone who compromises your machine and gets access, can compromise both your mainnet and testnet wallets. They might be disappointed that the testnet wallets are worthless, but they will provide absolutely no security nonetheless.

Just really secure your wallets and don't depend on security through obscurity which is evidently not wise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity#Criticism).

If you are in a situation when someone has access to your devices and can threaten you, they will not stop unless they get something, and if they for some reason have a good idea about how many coins you have, they won't stop until they get them all.

Obscurity rarely gives security, it's just an obstacle. The best defense is to never get into these kinds of situations.

Hmm, TBH for some of the free airdrops I've joined many testnet projects, and for testing purposes as well even some of the Bitcoin L2 tenets I've joined, in the last couple of weeks but the reason OP mentioned was not even in my imagination, because I'm not sure how many of the users will prefer to use a dummy wallet first to avoid these kind of attacks the outcome efficiency of this strategy is also unknown.

In my view if you hold a lot of the funds you should prefer using the hardware wallet and if you cant afford it, make sure to use the mutl=signature wallet, there some more alternatives as well but the best of all is Hardware wallet, and the multi-sign wallets. For more additional layers like 2fa and other different wallets that provide different ki nd of features set, make sure to find the open-source decentralized wallet.

I don't think that would fool anyone because they could easily realize they are in a testnet version. Maybe the fact that they need to introduce the password if they want to switch from testnet to mainnet wallet is the secure step, but they would have to introduce that password if the software wasn't running. And the fact that you are running the testnet node doesn't mean the block on that main net is on a sync process.

Use a Testnet Bitcoin wallet as a decoy to fool attackers is not helpful in practice.

If you store both Mainnet and Testnet wallets on a same device, you will lose both wallets. I test and the fact is both mainnet and testnet wallets will be stored in same directory, with a little bit difference in sub folders, except if you intentionally store them in different directory.

However, I believe attackers can use tools to detect Bitcoin wallets.

It might create more problems for a hacker but surely they can still do something about it. I think the best way to secure your funds is if you learned how to secure your main wallet instead of trying to implement different kinds of distraction in your device.

It might be helpful for testing but I’ve neard that it doesn’t even actually work properly and only allows you to make one transaction per day.

This will depends on the attackers or investigators' stupidity, if they ever own Bitcoin, they should able to know if the real Bitcoin is "BTC" instead of "tBTC". Probably you can fool them, but the probability to success is 50/50.

If you use the feature that mentioned by @Charles-Tim, it will be successful because the Average Joe will believe that's the only coins you own.

During my days of a more conventional life style, I was quite friendly with the managing director of a large international fire and security alarm corporation. During a period of frank honesty, he stated that it was not possible to protect property from determined thieves. All you could do was to spend more to make it harder, and buy time before they could achieve success. There is a point where the perceived time involved, and the risk of being detected is not worth the rewards. It seems to me that the more diverse and obscure ones investment structure, the less likely one is to lose many assets.  This is a policy that was adopted by the knights templar when they created their veil of tiers trusts to preserve their wealth. It has been so successful, that their descendants and associates still control over half of the wealth in the western world.
Multiple wallets and drives in various locations is one easy way to utilise this concept. There have been many suggestions in this thread, and, of course, they are all good and practical solutions to include in the mix. I just though that the inclusion of a testnet wallet could be one additional method to add to the mix.

Attackers actually spend their time, do research before set up their attacks so I don't believe they don't have knowledge about Bitcoin on main net and test net. They surely know difference between BTC and tBTC.

• Testnet Bitcoin. Activate, experience it, but don't trade and get scammed. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215716.0)

Chance is much smaller than 50%.

That could only reveal that you are advanced Bitcoin user, and that you probably have more mainnet coins than the average Joe.
Having multiple decoy wallets with smaller amount of BTC would probably work better, that can easily be done with passphrases.
I would not hide anything with testnet coins, but I would keep some of them as an easy and free way to teach others how Bitcoin works.