Mimblewimble Paper Proposes ‘Near Complete’ Bitcoin Anonymity

[chennan]

This is definitely something interesting.... however, it is not important at all. Bitcoin doesn't need anonymity. Those who need it have things to hide...

Edward Snowden: "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say"

Source: https://mic.com/articles/119602/in-one-quote-edward-snowden-summed-up-why-our-privacy-is-worth-fighting-for#.kIdhVkssC

definitely a good point, plus you have to think about it in a way of realizing that the more and more you as a citizen give up your rights to privacy to the government and any other authoritative powers that be, the more and more leverage they can use on you to manipulate society in general.

For example, look at the supreme court ruling that money is a form of free speech. At first people might not have been able to connect the dots of what this would do in terms of politics (which manipulates society), but it most certainly did and is right now with corrupt politicians lobbying for corrupt corporations.

You can also say the same for the net neutrality debate between everyone and the FCC... and yadda yadda yadda.

Point being, while you can say that people should have their funds all out in the open and easily traceable because only criminals want to hide their money transactions is ridiculous.  But, I for one, don't really think MimbleWimble is a true anonymous solution for Bitcoin... so I guess it really doesn't matter.  If ALL transactions aren't anonymous by default with mixing them, then no transaction is anonymous.

[chennan]

The more Bitcoin becomes anonymous, the more it will struggle with opposition from the governments world wide. The masters wants control and anonymity takes control away from them. So we

should consider this negative tradeoff, if we want to go that route. {full anonymity} I see a situation where banks and governments will be joining forces in the future to control all money, with the help

of Blockchain based technologies. They will also hamper the progress of all public Blockchain based crypto currencies. 

Absolutely...

Just look at this Post by Theymos today on 'Scaling quickly' in /r/Bitcoin, in which he proposes to pretty much centralize Bitcoin and allow a "federated sidechain" to help allow people to transact quickly with the use of an "unlimited block size".

It seems that some of the original people who were apart of this project have become so worried about complying with the government in order for bitcoin to be somewhat accepted in the world of commerce.  It's just... not good, let's put it that way.

[andytoshi]

What kind of blockchain analysis could one reasonably expect with this scheme? It seems to make regular blockchain analysis just from looking at the blockchain close to impossible, but what about someone that monitors the network in real time? Couldn't you make the connection between inputs and outputs before they get into a block?

Unfortunately it would probably be reasonable to expect that every unmerged transaction was visible to surveillance companies (although CT does still protect the amounts). Although I'm sure services would pop up that take in transactions, merge them, then publicize them after merging (and it'd be so easy to set up such a service that they wouldn't all be in cahoots or NSA-controlled).

[franky1]

andytoshii. you do realise your spending alot of time theorizing extra code to mess with bitcoin verification and block confirmations.. when something like lightening network would be the better platform to achieve all of your desires, without risking the basic rules of bitcoin

[ObscureBean]

I just read the paper and I can't say I like the proposed solution. I'm no Bitcoin expert but it seems to me that this would introduce a number of weaknesses to the network. For starters, I don't like the idea of outputs being omitted from the ledger. It is true that the vast majority just take up space but without them a clear path for a transaction cannot be traced. I also think that anonymity should not be over-emphasized, the real game-changing feature of the blockchain is its utter transparency, the fact that everything is permanently recorded into a ledger that cannot be tampered with.

[MHopkins]

This is definitely something interesting.... however, it is not important at all. Bitcoin doesn't need anonymity. Those who need it have things to hide...

In that case, can you provide to us here a journal of all your recent cash transactions? 

[thejaytiesto]

Once this is ready, what will be the point of XMR? And don't get me wrong I love that coin, but let's get realistic, Bitcoin is king and as long as Bitcoin be used anonymously, markets will keep using it, and we will have segwit soon, after segwit we will have sidechains, and with sidechains, the implementation of MW could render useless all of those niche "anonymous coins", as a result, Bitcoin marketcap will go up, and will strenghten his position as the de-facto crypto even more.

[Kprawn]

The more Bitcoin becomes anonymous, the more it will struggle with opposition from the governments world wide. The masters wants control and anonymity takes control away from them. So we

should consider this negative tradeoff, if we want to go that route. {full anonymity} I see a situation where banks and governments will be joining forces in the future to control all money, with the help

of Blockchain based technologies. They will also hamper the progress of all public Blockchain based crypto currencies.  

i think bitcoin doesnt need to change.. multisig (coinjoin/LN) is the future of that as its then built in mixer by default.

EG
10 people connect to a bitpay LN hub.. all month they buy starbucks, train tickets, sandwiches
at the end of month its all signed off and broadcast to the network
all the chain sees is 10 payments in and lump sum payments to starbucks, rail company and a sanwich bar.. no way of telling who paid what to who, or when or how many times.. as its been aggregated into slimer transactions

I give you that one, but even if it cannot be directly linked to someone.. it might be narrowed down, if this person continuously and more or less at the same time, visit this same merchant day after

day. If you do want to stay anonymous, I would say that you should mix up your schedule and the pattern of their spending to help you stay more anonymous. You could also use different wallets for

the same thing, if you want to be that desperate or paranoid about it.

[2_Thumbs_Up]

Would it be possible to build sidechains on a mimblewimble chain with the lack of scripts?

[Denker]

Once this is ready, what will be the point of XMR? And don't get me wrong I love that coin, but let's get realistic, Bitcoin is king and as long as Bitcoin be used anonymously, markets will keep using it, and we will have segwit soon, after segwit we will have sidechains, and with sidechains, the implementation of MW could render useless all of those niche "anonymous coins", as a result, Bitcoin marketcap will go up, and will strenghten his position as the de-facto crypto even more.

I believe this is something we can think about when Bitcoin's anonymity and fungibility has indeed improved.
Right now many things just exist on the paper.Therefore XMR is very useful and has it's right to exist.
I myself see many of those altcoins as a kind of testnet."Which features are great and should be implemented in Bitcoin if possible?".
And I'm sure many BTC devs are looking at it the same way.

[European Central Bank]

Once this is ready, what will be the point of XMR?

Who's to say it'll ever be ready? xmr has a use case right now. it may not be perfect but it's the best option at present for what people want. but if there ever is a properly anonymous layer for bitcoin then most of xmr's appeal is gonna be gone. depends on how good and solid the layer is. it might be too compromised.

[NewLiberty]

MimbleWimble is a proposal for an altcoin or sidechain.
It calls itself bitcoin out of hubris but isn't.
It is baffling me how people accept that.

[Wind_FURY]

This is definitely something interesting.... however, it is not important at all. Bitcoin doesn't need anonymity. Those who need it have things to hide...

I have seen this argument used over and over and it is annoying because people seem to not think it over when they say it. This is about our privacy and it is our right. Some people do not think like you, some of us actually want our privacy and our family's privacy protected. If you are going to say such things do not speak as if you are speaking for everyone.

[NewLiberty]

This is definitely something interesting.... however, it is not important at all. Bitcoin doesn't need anonymity. Those who need it have things to hide...

I have seen this argument used over and over and it is annoying because people seem to not think it over when they say it. This is about our privacy and it is our right. Some people do not think like you, some of us actually want our privacy and our family's privacy protected. If you are going to say such things do not speak as if you are speaking for everyone.

I have nothing to hide, I have much to protect.

The "you have things to hide" argument is authoritarian pablum.  It presumes that the law enforcement is ever present and entirely protective.  It assumes that you can never protect yourself.  Does the person who says this leave their valuable objects in clear view in their car overnight.  Do they walk around naked?
Privacy is important for so many reasons, it is not about wrongdoing, it is about survival in a civil society.

[RewFrew]

Hey,
is there any update about this project ?

Minimal implementation of the MimbleWimble protocol: https://github.com/ignopeverell/grin

[dewdeded]

Hey,
is there any update about this project ?

Minimal implementation of the MimbleWimble protocol: https://github.com/ignopeverell/grin

Start @ https://github.com/dewdeded/GrinHelper

[tuskacz]

That is why Monero is better. Monero aims to improve on existing cryptocurrency design by obscuring sender, recipient and amount of every transaction made as well as making the mining process more egalitarian. Monero's blockchain protects privacy in three ways. Ring signatures enable the sender to hide among other transaction outputs, stealth addresses hide the receiving address of the transaction and RingCT hides the amount of the transaction. As a consequence, Monero features an opaque blockchain. This is sharp contrast with transparent and traceable blockchain used by Bitcoin. Thus, Monero is said to be "private, optionally transparent".