Bitcoin Forum

GingerWallet (https://gingerwallet.io/) is designed as a zero-knowledge software! .Open-source, Non-custodial, Desktop, CoinJoin.. The wallet employs WabiSabi (https://github.com/zkSNACKs/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 (https://github.com/GingerPrivacy/GingerWallet/tree/master/WalletWasabi.Backend) 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 (https://docs.btcpayserver.org/Wabisabi/#additional-coordinators)

• 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

Reserved

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 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5476197.msg64040255#msg64040255) 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?


https://i.postimg.cc/9QyX9nFS/Ginger-Wallet-terms1-Copy.png

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.

Based on the "Why fork (https://x.com/molnardavid84/status/1798997395298234864)" 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.

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 (https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/206.pdf)), 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.

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?

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.

We literally crucified (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5405325.0) 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!)

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?

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.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VPN_service

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.

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.

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.

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

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 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3534730) (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.

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:

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/07/02/oSZH2.png

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/ (https://blog.wasabiwallet.io/zksnacks-now-blocking-u-s-residents-and-citizens/)
[2] https://blog.wasabiwallet.io/ (https://blog.wasabiwallet.io/)

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

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.

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.

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.

No. It was on their TODO list but they never came around to actually implementing it, according to the Wasabi wallet documentation somewhere.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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

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.

...

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 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.

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.

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  :P ) 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:

Therefore, by setting up BTCPay Server, you can have your own coordinator, and probably all of these coordinators use the software from the original repository, each with its own configuration. (Like fee policy.)

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?  :D

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.

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.

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.

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. https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/6yxkca3aae7.jpeg

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

One of their representatives ^{[sztest (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3637868)]} used to be somewhat active when he/she created an announcement "thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5500013.0)" 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.}

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.

🚀 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 (https://gingerwallet.io)

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Got questions? Join our Telegram channel and let's chat! 🗨️
🔗 t.me/GingerWallet (http://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 (https://gingerwallet.io)

Mod note: Consecutive posts merged

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

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

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?

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?

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 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.

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 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?

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.

🚨 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!

🚨 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!

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.

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

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?

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.

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).

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.

I did use Ginger Wallet once in the past because I wanted to know what the service was like and posted about it here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5501302.msg64443284#msg64443284) 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 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.


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.

It seems another alteration that was made in your latest release was on the config file but you did not announce it.

In the previous version it was easy to edit the config file to add an alternative coordinator by modifying the line "MainNetCoordinatorUri" and then restarting the client. After that the connection would be with the new coordinator but the way the new update works is that every time you change the coordinator and restart the client it reverts back to the Ginger Wallet default coordinator.

Why did you add that particular functionality to force anybody using Ginger Wallet to either use your default coordinator or basically not use the wallet at all?

Solo with large coins?
The Ginger Wallet client provides more efficient management for users with larger coins. Instead of creating a large change output that requires multiple rounds to break down, Ginger splits the coin into 4-5 smaller parts in the first round.
These smaller parts align better with the denomination levels, resulting in a more efficient coinjoin process.
If you plan to use the Ginger coordinator, we recommend using our client to avoid these unnecessary decompositions.
Ginger can be installed independently without interfering with other clients or coordinators.

Give it a try!

https://gingerwallet.io

https://t.me/GingerWallet

It's weird that they would make a new post on the forum and completely neglect this question that you brought up.
I think the answer is pretty clear, isn't it? They charge a commission for coinjoins. Not for all, but for some. The wallet resets to the default coordinator because they want to continue charging coinjoin fees. That wouldn't be the case if you used a different coordinator. If it's all a mistake and the change was made by accident, GingerWallet is free to say so. 

Hello,
I would like to clarify that we do not intend to assume responsibility for coordinators that we are unfamiliar with. Regarding the change you mentioned, please note that it is purely cosmetic. It simply made it more apparent that the client has always been connecting to the Ginger server, which was the case even before the mentioned update.

Apologies for the delayed response. Should you have any further questions, feel free to join our discussion in the Telegram group.

Thank you for your understanding.

https://gingerwallet.io
https://t.me/GingerWallet

Hello,
I would like to clarify that we do not intend to assume responsibility for coordinators that we are unfamiliar with. Regarding the change you mentioned, please note that it is purely cosmetic. It simply made it more apparent that the client has always been connecting to the Ginger server, which was the case even before the mentioned update.

Apologies for the delayed response. Should you have any further questions, feel free to join our discussion in the Telegram group.

Thank you for your understanding.

https://gingerwallet.io
https://t.me/GingerWallet

But if I wanted to use the GingerWallet with a different coordinator than the default one (your own), can I do that? If I can, then how? According to JollyGood, users have to restart their wallet after changing coordinator. When the wallet reloads, it goes back to the default coordinator.

Theoretically we should still be able to switch the coordinator when we open Ginger Wallet since it is based off of Wasabi code and Wasabi already has this functionality.

Exactly. You can use Ginger Wallet only with the Ginger coordinator.

Over the past two months, Ginger has focused on optimizing smaller coinjoins for greater effectiveness, resulting in higher anonscores per round. Please note that these improvements are only available when using the Ginger client.

Additionally, the latest Wasabi release no longer supports the free remix and friends don't pay features. This means that if you're using the latest Wasabi client, you’ll incur fees in situations where they shouldn’t apply, leading to higher costs. Therefore, Ginger strongly recommends using the Ginger client when participating with the Ginger Coordinator.

Both Wasabi and Ginger clients function independently and can be installed on the same system, allowing you to switch between them as needed.

If you have any questions, feel free to join our Telegram channel: https://t.me/GingerWallet

Happy Coinjoining!

If everything with GingerWallet is open-source, then those who know how to code could code out the function that the wallet resets itself back to the default Ginger coordinator after a restart or just stick with Wasabi if they don't want to be forced to use the GingerWallet coordinator. Not that I am recommending one over the other.

Certainly possible, but keep in mind that the two wallets begin to move to different directions regarding coinjoins. If you misunderstood something in your change or the protocol begins to differ and your client signs the transaction without all the outputs, even the free coordinator will gladly take your money.

Exciting news! 🎉 Ginger Coordinator hit over 10 BTC in daily traffic yesterday! 🚀 Remember, CoinJoin is free for transactions under 0.01 BTC (around $635), plus free remixes, and friends don't pay! 🙌

Come hang out with us on Telegram: https://t.me/GingerWallet
Or check us out at gingerwallet.io! 🌐

This has been 100% checked. The latest version of the Ginger Wallet reverts to the default Ginger Wallet coordinator no matter how many times you want to change to another option (for example Open Coordiantor) because editing the config file is not a problem but the settings only change when the wallet is restarted. The way Ginger Wallet have altered the open source code, it automatically reverts to the original config file including Ginger Wallet coordinator upon restart.

In theory yes. That function was working in their initial release but they have modified the code in the latest release in order to force users to pay Ginger Wallet in order to use their coinjoin instead of allowing them an opportunity to select a different coordinator.

And that will probably be the biggest problem you will face when trying to people to download the wallet.

If we leave the coordinator issue aside for now, what would be the advantage of using the GingerWallet compared to using Wasabi Wallet if someone wants to do coinjoins? It's a rebranded Wasabi product with certain tweaks and changes. If it doesn't offer anything revolutionary different and also forces you to stick with the default coordinator, I would see no reason to use it. Again, this is only if I was interested in touching anything related to Wasabi.

I agree with you that this change GingerWallet made can negatively impact the interest for their software. Kruw's coordinator has the biggest share of the traffic already.

It seems their breaking down of 4-5 smaller parts in the first round is probably the new function that should be appealing to those wanting to coinjoin. It was mentioned in their post below but other than that it seems there is no real benefit in using Ginger Wallet over Wasabi Wallet (especially if you factor in the key issue not being able to select your preferred coordinator).

Using Wasabi Wallet means you can select any coordinator you would like including without paying fees but using Ginger Wallet means you have to use their default coordinator and pay 0.3% fees. Given those options, the choice is clear for potential users.

If Open Coordinator continue with their zero fees policy for several months more, they might close the gap on Kruw significantly.

Besides the 0.3% fee and the limitation on which coordinator to use, I would argue that using Ginger might be less trustless. In a recent blog post of Wasabi, their latest release removes coordinator fee (https://blog.wasabiwallet.io/killing-coordination-fee/). I would strongly recommend you to go and read it. It appears the case that using a non-free coordinator introduces a certain degree of trust, as if the coordinator is malicious, they can drain the user's funds.

However, the technical details in the client software are far beyond my knowledge, so please correct me, GingerWallet, if I'm mistaken.

You are mistaken, making a service free does not make it trusted, I don't know how you could possibly reach that conclusion.

Quote me where I said that making the service free makes it trusted.

He didn't say that making a service free makes it trusted. The idea is that if a coordinator charges a fee, you have to trust it to not be malicious, be fair, and not drain your wallet. We have already had some incidents with coordinators acting malicious in the past. I don't remember which service, though. And don't use your old "everything is open-source, there is no need to trust anyone" argument as you have done hundreds of times already. You have already stated that you have no coding skills yourselves and neither do the majority of people. Therefore, trust is part of the game to a certain degree.

Sorry, I misread that.

Whichever way you look this, it is true and cannot be denied. The fact of the matter is that the moment any coordinator has access to the funds (either directly or indirectly) the element of misuse of funds and/or misappropriation is a possibility if a malicious actor decides to use a coordinator for nefarious purposes. Whether anything related to theft will happen or not is different to whether it is a possibility.

Anyway, if there are open source coordinators with zero fees users would have to find something exceptional in Ginger Wallet for them to pay for coinjoins.

The Wasabi coordinator is an open-source software, but you can't verify what's running in somebody else's computer. This is why the client needs to be configured to background check a host variety of things. This is where "trustless" originates.

It is true, however, that if a coordinator has more liquidity than Ginger, and is completely free, then I don't see how Ginger competes.

It seems that it was a mistake on our side and previously only the backend was fixed to our servers. We never intended to allow other coordinators than the Ginger one from the beginning. Apologies for the misunderstanding.

Ginger Wallet comes as a package, it's really up to you whether you use it or the Wasabi Wallet.
- The coinjoin uses AML, it's the user's preference whether they consider this as an advantage or disadvantage there is no point arguing about it here. To be honest the average user won't see any difference.
- 2FA protocol, the wallet can be stored encrypted so even if your computer and/or wallet data will be stolen and had a keylogger, your money is still most likely safe.
Of course, we plan to add more features over time.

Wasabi was originally advertised as trustless, but it weren't really tested before as there was only one server (the backend and the coordinator weren't separated at that time) and that got the trust from the users.
After the removing of the original coordinator and making an easy way to create new ones, it revealed that this is not the case (in the past lots of the development went to defend the coordinator and not to the client for obvious reasons).
One of the mentioned issue is the free remix. The server sends whether a coin has exemption from fee, but the client does not check it. To be fair the protocol doesn't even provide a way to tell/advertise that there is a fee, but the remix is free, the server simply works that way by default.
To increase the trust, Ginger Wallet will check the remix in the upcoming release (in 1-2 weeks) and leave the coinjoin if it doesn't get it.
The 1-hop still won't be checked as that will need more development (still, the remix covers 99% of the case).

There are several ways Ginger Wallet cannot compete with some coordinators but considering Ginger Wallet is effectively a business and they make their income from selling coinjoin services, it stands to reason they would want to stop/block people from using their star product with third party coordinators (and in the process effectively cutting them out of their 0.3% fee).

If there are some exceptional technical advances in their next release, it might appease some of the negative sentiments surrounding their wallet.

That is interesting to read, thank you for clarifying. You do realise you would like Wasabi Wallet users to change their coordinator to Ginger Wallet therefore why do you not want to reciprocate the same for Ginger Wallet users?

It's not exactly and 100% free. Kruw explained in the Bitcoin Takeover podcast that aired a few days ago that he takes a few sats here and there. Since his coordinator has a lot of traffic, this isn't that small of a number. He can comment on that himself if he wants to, although this isn't the best place to do it.

No, we would like to ask the users to use the Ginger Wallet instead of the Wasabi Wallet if they want to use the Ginger coordinator.

You seem to have the assumption that the two coordinator is totally compatible with both wallet clients, but that's not true.

Short history from the recent releases.
- With the release of Wasabi Wallet v2.0.8.1 (2024-06-08), the maximum coinjoin coordination fee was introduced.
The default was set that all non-free coordinators stopped to work, even if the current one was a non-free one. Also, unfortunately the users didn't understand the error messages and what needs to be done.
- With the release of Wasabi Wallet v2.1.0.0 (2024-07-10), the following changes applied:
The coordinator minimum input count must be at least 21. At that time the malicious coordinator ran with 1 or 2 minimum inputs; all other, but Kruw's coordinator ran with 20 minimum inputs.
All, but Kruw's coordinators instantly failed after a client update (free and non-free).
The maximum fee was set to 0.5% (this might hit the wasabist.io's random fee system, I don't remember). Note, that there was a plan to set it to 0.01%, that's literally generating dust.
Not mentioned downgrade: the fee exemption check was removed, so the Wasabi client asked LESS amount for their input even if they got exemption from the coordinator due to remix.
After this release all other fee based coordinator died as they weren't able to manage the changes on the coordinator side.
- With the release of Wasabi Wallet v2.2.0.0 (2024-09-19), our coordinator is effectively banned by the Wasabi client.

The Ginger coordinator worked with the Wasabi clients till now, because of constant code and setup updates.
On the other hand, you have to understand the Wasabi developers and their goal:

They have limited time to make the Wasabi project "truly" open source.
That means heavy simplification, removing the less used and not needed features (of course they won't advertise it in the release notes, but who would?).
They could have fix the remix issue, but there is no incentive to do so (as they won't get any money from it) and increases the complexity, instead they removed the whole fee concept.
For the same reason they removed the AML system, increases the complexity and it's not their risk to run the coordinator anymore (also there would be no fund to use it anyway due to the above line).

The execution wasn't necessarily nice, but their goal is quite understandable.
They were fair, and told their plan in advance (even if there were some timeline change from 6 months to 3.5 months), so we knew from the beginning that a fork is needed.

Thank you for your understanding.

Yes, even the free element is not 100% free but that is more down to the manner in which the change structure part of the coinjoin works. Before your post I did not know about any Kruw related podcast though I think there was some mention of an interview maybe in another thread but not sure will check it out. Having said that, it sounds as though it is the same as Ginger Wallet stated in an earlier response:

Reminder: Free remix available only until Wasabi version 2.0.8.1. We recommend using Ginger Wallet (any version) instead!
Come hang out with us on Telegram: https://t.me/GingerWallet
Or check us out at gingerwallet.io! 🌐

When you look at Wasabi Wallet along with their option of using any coordinator that the user wants to use (including free fees and free re-mixes) and compare that against Ginger Wallet with a default 0.3% charging coordinator, what are the main elements that you would advise and encourage users to choose Ginger Wallet over another?

What will a user gain by paying 0.3% fees via Ginger Wallet instead of using Wasabi Wallet and a different free/paid coordinator?

Exciting news!
Ginger Wallet is proud to be a partner at the Hackers Congress (HCPP). Come find us if you have any questions or just want to connect! https://hardcore.hcpp.cz (https://hardcore.hcpp.cz/)
Come hang out with us on Telegram: https://t.me/GingerWallet
Or check us out at gingerwallet.io! 🌐

A reply to my post would have been helpful to those thinking about using Ginger Wallet instead of Wasabi Wallet. If you make it clear what the benefits are gained by users for paying that 0.3% fee than for example use Wasabi Wallet with a free coordinator, maybe you will start making an impression with those that are potentially contemplating which wallet to use. Hopefully you will answer the question in your next post.

Dear JollyGood,

We are happy to answer any new questions you may have, but we believe you will find the answer to your previous question if you read through carefully. If anything was unclear, feel free to join us on Telegram, where you can get answers to even more of your questions.

All the best!

🚀 Ginger Wallet v2.0.12 is now live! It includes label recovery during wallet restoration, a client-side remix check for enhanced security, and various bug fixes. Plus, Bitcoin HWI has been updated to version 3.1.0, now supporting Trezor Safe 5 and Coldcard Q.
Download now: https://gingerwallet.io (https://gingerwallet.io/)

Congratulations, it seems as though significant effort was applied in order for the new release of Ginger Wallet to be considered a very good update and upgrade from the previous version.

Does the new release facilitate the changing of the default coordinator? That will always be the main question/concern from users that are looking at this from the perspective of saving coinjoin fees.
 

Dear Jolly, We appreciate the recognition. The changes mentioned in the previous post have been implemented in the new version.

📢 Ginger Wallet is attending HCPP 2024! 🎉
Join us at the Hacker Congress Paralelní Polis in Prague, October 4-6, for an exciting weekend filled with discussions on privacy and tech innovation. Don’t miss the chance to connect with us.
More info: https://hardcore.hcpp.cz (https://hardcore.hcpp.cz/)

Therefore it means that the default coordinator cannot be changed and that also means anybody wanting to use Ginger Wallet must use the default Ginger Wallet coordinator and pay the 0.3% fee. I am not sure that is the way forward for your business because at the moment you probably need more customers to build your base before you ask/force them to use your coordinator.