How anonymous are Dash transactions?

[Abiky]

Just for curiosity, how anonymous are Dash transactions from within the blockchain? I am asking this, because I can still track a specified Dash address in the block explorer, the same way I would with Bitcoin. 

Unless, I am looking wrong at it but until now I cannot differ from the anonymous nature of Dash. Any help here? Just want to know more about Dash's anonymity. After all, it is a anon coin. 

I will be looking forward to your replies. 

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[stealth923]

I wouldn't dare call it anonymous, if you want to understand just give a look at their whitepaper (lol High-school grade level paper): https://github.com/dashpay/dash/wiki/Whitepaper and compare with proper anonymous cryptocurrencies: https://lab.getmonero.org/ https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1098.pdf https://downloads.getmonero.org/whitepaper_review.pdf

Some coins such as Dashcoin [DH14], attempt to negate this by using
a larger number of trusted mixers (in this case masternodes) but this
number is still much smaller than the users of the coin. In contrast,
with a spontaneous ring signature, transactions can be created by the
owner of a given pubkey (this is the spontaneous, or “ad-hoc” property)
without relying on any trusted server, and thus providing for safer
anonymity

https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1098.pdf

Just read, research and give a good laugh at dash.

Go break it then. Idiot. No one has succeeded

[TechorMarketing]

I wouldn't dare call it anonymous, if you want to understand just give a look at their whitepaper (lol High-school grade level paper): https://github.com/dashpay/dash/wiki/Whitepaper and compare with proper anonymous cryptocurrencies: https://lab.getmonero.org/ https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1098.pdf https://downloads.getmonero.org/whitepaper_review.pdf

Some coins such as Dashcoin [DH14], attempt to negate this by using
a larger number of trusted mixers (in this case masternodes) but this
number is still much smaller than the users of the coin. In contrast,
with a spontaneous ring signature, transactions can be created by the
owner of a given pubkey (this is the spontaneous, or “ad-hoc” property)
without relying on any trusted server, and thus providing for safer
anonymity

https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1098.pdf

Just read, research and give a good laugh at dash.

Go break it then. Idiot. No one has succeeded

If there was a bounty high enough to make an attack financially worthwhile it would have been broken already.

Even the lead developer has admitted the DASH paper wallet was broken:

DASH paper wallet faulty RNG (January 4th - April 5th, 2016):

"Unfortunately we broke paper.dash.org on January 4th and the seeding process for generating a wallet was insecure since then. There are no known Dash thefts that have taken place because of this (yet), but if you created a wallet using paper.dash.org between January 4th and April 5th, please move your money to a new place."

https://dashtalk.org/threads/security-advisory-for-paper-dash-org.8525/#post-90291

[AmoreJaz]

in all reality if your making a transfer using any crypto wallet there is always a rick! if the hacker is just sitting there waiting for you to make any kind of financial movement to capture the data your screwed no mater what coin your talking about!

[btc_zero_sum]

Just for curiosity, how anonymous are Dash transactions from within the blockchain? I am asking this, because I can still track a specified Dash address in the block explorer, the same way I would with Bitcoin. 

Unless, I am looking wrong at it but until now I cannot differ from the anonymous nature of Dash. Any help here? Just want to know more about Dash's anonymity. After all, it is a anon coin. 

I will be looking forward to your replies. 

if you are interested in the technical details ask in the DASH main thread here

asking here you'll only get spam and disinformation, btw as stealth923 said no one has been able to break dash anonymity and considering this coin is valued in the top 10 crypto currencies i would say that is quite "financially worthwhile" for an attacker

[arielbit]

Just for curiosity, how anonymous are Dash transactions from within the blockchain? I am asking this, because I can still track a specified Dash address in the block explorer, the same way I would with Bitcoin.  

Unless, I am looking wrong at it but until now I cannot differ from the anonymous nature of Dash. Any help here? Just want to know more about Dash's anonymity. After all, it is a anon coin.  

I will be looking forward to your replies.  

if you are interested in the technical details ask in the DASH main thread here

asking here you'll only get spam and disinformation, btw as stealth923 said no one has been able to break dash anonymity and considering this coin is valued in the top 10 crypto currencies i would say that is quite "financially worthwhile" for an attacker

in my opinion a "financially worthwhile" attack would be in a 500 million to a billion or more market capitalization, look at the DAO hack (ETH is the target) and transaction malleability in Bitcoin exchanges, both happened when market capitalization is really big enough.  

[qwizzie]

Dash is using an heavily modified and improved version of Coinjoin where it split people's coins in smaller input amounts  
(0.1 / 1 / 10 / 100), which it then tries to mix with other users. It will need at least 3 users to get a successfull mixing done
and it is using mixing rounds. It starts with round 0 (zero anonymity) and can be set as high as to 8 rounds (full anonymity).
This whole mixing process and using it in transactions is optional, the user can select to either use it or not.
 
After the mixing has been properly done (8 rounds) the direct link between sender and receiver will be obfiscated in such a way
that it is impossible for anyone but the sender to trace darksend / privacysend transactions back to its origin.  

So far a full 8 round mixed darksend / privacysend transaction has never been broken and Dash code has been open sourced and vetted
a long time ago.

A lot of disinformation is spread about Dash by Monero fanboys, please make sure you get reliable information about Dash from other sources
then this specific sub forum which at times can be rather toxic.

[Goms]

Just for curiosity, how anonymous are Dash transactions from within the blockchain? I am asking this, because I can still track a specified Dash address in the block explorer, the same way I would with Bitcoin. 

Unless, I am looking wrong at it but until now I cannot differ from the anonymous nature of Dash. Any help here? Just want to know more about Dash's anonymity. After all, it is a anon coin. 

I will be looking forward to your replies. 

Help me out a little here, is "anonymous" the same thing as "untraceable"? Because I thought "anonymous" means no one knows the name of the owner, but if the transaction is untraceable such that it can't be found on block explorer, how will miners be able to add it to the ledger?

[qwizzie]

Just for curiosity, how anonymous are Dash transactions from within the blockchain? I am asking this, because I can still track a specified Dash address in the block explorer, the same way I would with Bitcoin.  

Unless, I am looking wrong at it but until now I cannot differ from the anonymous nature of Dash. Any help here? Just want to know more about Dash's anonymity. After all, it is a anon coin.  

I will be looking forward to your replies.  

Help me out a little here, is "anonymous" the same thing as "untraceable"? Because I thought "anonymous" means no one knows the name of the owner, but if the transaction is untraceable such that it can't be found on block explorer, how will miners be able to add it to the ledger?

Dash transactions just like Bitcoin transactions can be followed by block explorers, only when people choose to use Darksend / PrivacySend in their transactions the origin (sender) of that transaction will be unknown
to the block explorer as its input amounts (which you can see by activating coin control) have been mixed with other users. This is one of the advantages of Dash anonymity model, you can still use block explorers.   

[Abiky]

Dash transactions just like Bitcoin transactions can be followed by block explorers, only when people choose to use Darksend / PrivacySend in their transactions the origin (sender) of that transaction will be unknown
to the block explorer as its input amounts (which you can see by activating coin control) have been mixed with other users. This is one of the advantages of Dash anonymity model, you can still use block explorers.   

Thanks for letting me know about using the Darksend feature. At first, I thought that it happened automatically once you send some Dash to another address. I was a little confused at first, because I was receiving mined Dash to a paper wallet but I could still track the transactions through the block explorer. I guess that the Darksend feature can only be used from within the Dash Core wallet. 

[Lionel]

We don't need Dash to be anonymous.

1- Create an encrypted BTC wallet on your PC, connected via TOR

2- Buy BTC on Bitstamp with Fiat

3- Send BTC to your local wallet

4- Save the encrypted wallet.dat in cold storage or online drive, just to have a backup

Now, adversaries may think you sent coins to yourself , so that shady local BTC address probably is yours.

BUT, when they knock at your door they will find just encrypted data and you are not going to give them the password.
So they don't have the proof that BTC address is yours, right ?

You can pretend that someone hacked your Bitstamp account and robbed your coins

P.S. Alternatively we can use I2P instead of TOR, but i am not sure it will be more secure, i don't know the differences and implications from a privacy standpoint

[TimeHacker]

If you want really anonymous and untraceable transactions, use Monero. It is based on ring signatures, which makes the sender, receiver and the amount being sent undetectable and the transactions untraceable by default. You don't have to use any "special feature".

I think that the anonymity capabilities of Monero are self-demonstrated by the following statement of the officials after the AlphaBay shutdown: "In total, from CAZES' wallets and computer agents took control of approximately $8,800,000 in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero and Zcash, broken down as follows: 1,605.0503851 Bitcoin, 8,309.271639 Ethereum, 3,691.98 Zcash, and an unknown amount of Monero."

[lumbernieks]

Just for curiosity, how anonymous are Dash transactions from within the blockchain? I am asking this, because I can still track a specified Dash address in the block explorer, the same way I would with Bitcoin. 

Unless, I am looking wrong at it but until now I cannot differ from the anonymous nature of Dash. Any help here? Just want to know more about Dash's anonymity. After all, it is a anon coin. 

I will be looking forward to your replies. 

Nope. I think byteballs or Monero are anonymous and reeeally would be better for that things..

[mellorbo]

Just for curiosity, how anonymous are Dash transactions from within the blockchain? I am asking this, because I can still track a specified Dash address in the block explorer, the same way I would with Bitcoin. 

Unless, I am looking wrong at it but until now I cannot differ from the anonymous nature of Dash. Any help here? Just want to know more about Dash's anonymity. After all, it is a anon coin. 

I will be looking forward to your replies. 

Dash transactions are the first cryptocurrency after bitcoin. On bitcoin we can see all the transactions of all users while in dash, developer add more privacy to the transactions of dash. This is done through a decentralized network of servers called masternodes. There is a competition in offering anonymity as core features on bitcoin, monero and dash. There is a way to be anonymous in bitcoin, first Bitcoin mixing and us tor as browser to connect the bitcoin network then use logless VPN so it might not store the history or activities in their servers, create another address then buy and sell now.

[Lionel]

If you want really anonymous and untraceable transactions, use Monero. It is based on ring signatures, which makes the sender, receiver and the amount being sent undetectable and the transactions untraceable by default. You don't have to use any "special feature".

I think that the anonymity capabilities of Monero are self-demonstrated by the following statement of the officials after the AlphaBay shutdown: "In total, from CAZES' wallets and computer agents took control of approximately $8,800,000 in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero and Zcash, broken down as follows: 1,605.0503851 Bitcoin, 8,309.271639 Ethereum, 3,691.98 Zcash, and an unknown amount of Monero."

Monero is smart.

But suppose that for any reason you need to use BTC.
You still can use an encrypted wallet over TOR as i said above in the previous comment, and you can pretend that the widthdrawal you sent yourself from Bitstamp was made by hackers.
Do you think it is a safe method?

[theheolyn]

“no one—who properly understands anonymity technology—uses Dash’s masternode scam honeypot”

There was more discussion here.

If you want really anonymous and untraceable transactions, use Monero.

The anonymity of Monero is in doubt.

[Abiky]

We don't need Dash to be anonymous.

1- Create an encrypted BTC wallet on your PC, connected via TOR

2- Buy BTC on Bitstamp with Fiat

3- Send BTC to your local wallet

4- Save the encrypted wallet.dat in cold storage or online drive, just to have a backup

Now, adversaries may think you sent coins to yourself , so that shady local BTC address probably is yours.

BUT, when they knock at your door they will find just encrypted data and you are not going to give them the password.
So they don't have the proof that BTC address is yours, right ?

You can pretend that someone hacked your Bitstamp account and robbed your coins

P.S. Alternatively we can use I2P instead of TOR, but i am not sure it will be more secure, i don't know the differences and implications from a privacy standpoint

Awesome! Thanks for sharing this guide, mate. I never thought all of this was possible with Bitcoin. With the use of TOR, alongside the other steps you've mentioned, it is possible to achieve strong anonymity without having to switch to another cryptocurrency like DASH.

Still, DASH has some unique features like Masternodes and instant transactions, which Bitcoin lacks of. All in all, we could enjoy the goodness of both cryptocurrencies to achieve privacy and quick settlement within our transactions.

If you want really anonymous and untraceable transactions, use Monero. It is based on ring signatures, which makes the sender, receiver and the amount being sent undetectable and the transactions untraceable by default. You don't have to use any "special feature".

I think that the anonymity capabilities of Monero are self-demonstrated by the following statement of the officials after the AlphaBay shutdown: "In total, from CAZES' wallets and computer agents took control of approximately $8,800,000 in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero and Zcash, broken down as follows: 1,605.0503851 Bitcoin, 8,309.271639 Ethereum, 3,691.98 Zcash, and an unknown amount of Monero."

True. Monero has always been one of the greatest anon cryptocurrencies out there, providing true untraceability similar to what ZCash does with its shielded transactions. With coins like XMR, you don't need to worry about third parties obtaining your financial information, as block explorers would be of no use to identify the true recipient of the transaction.

With this in mind, XMR could really take off, especially in the dark net markets, although AlphaBay has been shutdown lately. Still, other markets could emerge, as well as increased user interest into preserving their privacy, to help make Monero reach new heights. Just my opinion.

[molecular]

You still can use an encrypted wallet over TOR as i said above in the previous comment, and you can pretend that the widthdrawal you sent yourself from Bitstamp was made by hackers.
Do you think it is a safe method?

That's not safe, at least not as safe as it could be.

Yes, you have some sort of deniability, but it's probably not plausible (did you report the supposed theft to the police? why not?).

But your biggest problem is: they actually do find you easily and while they don't have definite proof, they will definitely suspect your involvedment and start an investigation. Why become a target at all if it can be avoided?

[Abiky]

That's not safe, at least not as safe as it could be.

Yes, you have some sort of deniability, but it's probably not plausible (did you report the supposed theft to the police? why not?).

But your biggest problem is: they actually do find you easily and while they don't have definite proof, they will definitely suspect your involvedment and start an investigation. Why become a target at all if it can be avoided?

Yeah. Dash still has a lot to go through to achieve complete anonymity. Even if it uses Coinjoin mixing via masternodes, third parties can still track you if they manage to trace the masternodes. Therefore, for complete privacy it would be best to combine both masternodes and Zero Knowledge Proofs technology to eliminate any traces that would link to your real identity. When both are used, it doesn't only obfuscate the sender/receiver of the coins, but also the balances and other sensitive information.

Many say that the team behind Dash has most of the masternodes under their control, making it less decentralized than I've thought. Since it requires a collateral of a hefty sum of Dash, not everyone could afford this and run their own masternodes. The only way possible would be via masternode shares, but the masternode would still be owned by a third party. Using only TOR will not give you complete anonymity. You would need to combine other privacy solutions to be able to achieve the desired level of anonymity. Therefore, combining TOR + VPN, and masternodes + ZK-SNARKS will preserve your privacy.

Nevertheless, I hope that Dash could improve over time and become a solid cryptocurrency to bring privacy to the mainstream world. It has managed to gain a lot of improvements over its codebase, with greater consensus than Bitcoin itself. Only time will tell if Dash could remain one of the leaders in the anonymous cryptocurrencies market or not. Just my thoughts