ㅤ

[o_e_l_e_o]

Would it really matter which chain analysis provider was used?  Do any of them have any legitimate way of insuring their results are accurate?  What level of accuracy is expected?

Not at all. What's more, is that none of them have any real way of knowing that their results are even consistent with other entities in the field. What one provider deems tainted another might think is clean, and vice versa. This very quick test I performed a few months ago shows one provider who thinks Binance's hot wallet contains approximately 25% blacklisted coins, whereas whatever blockchain analysis firm Binance are using will obviously think their hot wallet is nice and clean.

And what's the criteria for determining what's tainted and what isn't?

Only Wasabi know this. They have appointed themselves judge, jury, and executioner, but the laws are all secret and you don't know if you've broken one until it's too late. How decentralized!

I'm of the opinion that if you're using bitcoin, you have something to hide.

I'm of the opinion that everyone has something to hide. If you wear clothes, if your house has curtains, if you use a password on your email account, if you close the door in a public restroom when you take a dump, then you are hiding something. You wouldn't let an anonymous stranger in to your house to have a look through your possessions and confiscate anything they think you don't deserve. Why would you let an anonymous stranger look through your transaction history and decide if your coins are "good enough" for them?

[1714637675]

1714637675

[1714637675]

1714637675

[1714637675]

1714637675

[1714637675]

1714637675

[BlackHatCoiner]

I'm of the opinion that if you're using bitcoin, you have something to hide.

I'm of the opinion that if you don't have something to hide, you don't value yourself.

Just like when you don't bother to take care of your body with exercise and diet, or when you don't care about your relationships and future in general-- when you don't have something to hide, you don't look after your personal development, for if you did, you wouldn't open up your life to full scrutiny. Leaving authorities put their nose in your precious private stuff not only does it mean you're willing to act accordingly to whatever else they may command, but you're essentially consenting they're ethically superior. If you seek for privacy, it means you recognize yourself as an authority. If you don't, it means you're weak.

If you don't have something to hide, you can't own bitcoin. Bitcoins are valuable as private property. If some Bitcoin owners don't value that, their property will eventually end up to those who do.

[NotATether]

I'm of the opinion that if you're using bitcoin, you have something to hide.  Even if that may not true right now, just wait 15 minutes.

"We want to inform you that beginning September 1, 2022, the forum administration requires all users to verify their account before you can continue using this forum. Please go to Account Settings and upload your ID or passport, and a proof of address such as a utility bill or bank withdrawal statement. Failure to provide verification by the deadline will result in your account being suspended. Thank you for using Bitcointalk Forum." You know the drill. ad nauseam

OK, that was 15 hours later and then some, but I was close enough.

[Wind_FURY]

There are no guarantees, yes, but it doesn't change the whole point that there are more risks that WasabiWallet is merely trying to avoid by accepting the trade off by having their coordinator block outputs used in "illegal transactions".

The risks that you claim Wasabi are trying to avoid only exist because companies like Wasabi are enforcing them in the first place. Wasabi is part of the problem here, not part of the solution.

"Enforce"? How has WasabiWallet enforced anything? Or are we each using a different definition of enforce? Because if Wasabi/nopara73 didn't accept the trade-off to block outputs from "illegal transactions", the government would still enforce "their regulations".

There's some probability that it might be connected to your real identity, right? I believe for ordinary users, just avoid taking actions that would put him/her at risk.

And how do we know what actions "put someone at risk" considering Wasabi have not revealed which blockchain analysis company they are paying to spy on you or what their criteria are? It sounds very much like you are saying "Well, just make sure you have nothing to hide, and then you'll have nothing to worry about."

That's a good point, and also valid, but it doesn't mean my point is invalid. If tainted outputs are connected to your wallets, and your wallets connected to your real identity, then I suggest to improve your OPSEC.

[o_e_l_e_o]

"Enforce"? How has WasabiWallet enforced anything?

By refusing to coinjoin your "tainted" coins. There's no way to use their centralized coordinator if they don't want you to, because they are enforcing a blacklist.

Because if Wasabi/nopara73 didn't accept the trade-off to block outputs from "illegal transactions", the government would still enforce "their regulations".

And if every service or platform refused to enforce taint, what then? The government regulations only work because of companies like Wasabi which implement them on behalf of governments instead of fighting against them like real privacy projects do.

If tainted outputs are connected to your wallets, and your wallets connected to your real identity, then I suggest to improve your OPSEC.

I mean, none of my outputs are connect to my real identity, but this is still a separate issue to Wasabi.

[Pmalek]

If tainted outputs are connected to your wallets, and your wallets connected to your real identity, then I suggest to improve your OPSEC.

Do you believe the future of Bitcoin involves people doing background checks on the coins they are about to receive? So if I want to sell my bike for Bitcoin, I need to ask the buyer to tell me the address/addresses they will pay from and what's the origin of the coins, so I can check if they are in any way tainted. But keep in mind: we don't know what Wasabi and their analysis companies consider taint, and we have no idea what they are looking for. Only they do and they will tell us when our coins are rejected.

[n0nce]

If tainted outputs are connected to your wallets, and your wallets connected to your real identity, then I suggest to improve your OPSEC.

Do you believe the future of Bitcoin involves people doing background checks on the coins they are about to receive? So if I want to sell my bike for Bitcoin, I need to ask the buyer to tell me the address/addresses they will pay from and what's the origin of the coins, so I can check if they are in any way tainted. But keep in mind: we don't know what Wasabi and their analysis companies consider taint, and we have no idea what they are looking for. Only they do and they will tell us when our coins are rejected.

You would need to accept the coins, deposit them into a Wasabi CoinJoin and if Wasabi declines them, send them back and keep the bike..
Sounds like a lot of fun! Honestly, I don't see people switching from fiat to Bitcoin if that's the intended (by Wasabi team) way to accept Bitcoin..

[dkbit98]

"Enforce"? How has WasabiWallet enforced anything? Or are we each using a different definition of enforce? Because if Wasabi/nopara73 didn't accept the trade-off to block outputs from "illegal transactions", the government would still enforce "their regulations".

I think case with Mara mining pool was much worse than with Wasabi that still didn't implement any restrictions as far as I know, and we didn't see nearly as much complains in forum about that.
There was probably some insider information that regulators are preparing to ban all privacy related stuff, and it's only a matter of time when this happens to Bitcoin.
Instead of complaining about wasabi all the time, it's much better to work on stuff that would make wasabi obsolete... like protocol based privacy in bitcoin.

You would need to accept the coins, deposit them into a Wasabi CoinJoin and if Wasabi declines them, send them back and keep the bike..
Sounds like a lot of fun! Honestly, I don't see people switching from fiat to Bitcoin if that's the intended (by Wasabi team) way to accept Bitcoin..

Well it's not something so strange, and I see no difference with what's happening every day.
People return stuff purchased for cash all the time for bunch of reasons, paypal cashbacks, people don't like bike, people changed their minds, card declined, tainted stolen cash bills, fake cash bills...
Maybe guy who pays don't even know he is using stolen marked dollars, so he needs to accept return and pay with real dollars.

[pooya87]

I think case with Mara mining pool was much worse than with Wasabi that still didn't implement any restrictions as far as I know, and we didn't see nearly as much complains in forum about that.

Mara pool received a lot more backlash than Wasabi has received and more since their stock crashed too which is worse for a company like this. It was so harsh and swift that soon after the initial announcement they had to go back on their words and claim they are no longer censoring anything.

[NotATether]

Well it's not something so strange, and I see no difference with what's happening every day.
People return stuff purchased for cash all the time for bunch of reasons, paypal cashbacks, people don't like bike, people changed their minds, card declined, tainted stolen cash bills, fake cash bills...
Maybe guy who pays don't even know he is using stolen marked dollars, so he needs to accept return and pay with real dollars.

Not all of that is a cash return. In particular, anything to do with cards or PayPal is dealing exclusively with banks and doesn't touch cash at all.

[Wind_FURY]

"Enforce"? How has WasabiWallet enforced anything?

By refusing to coinjoin your "tainted" coins. There's no way to use their centralized coordinator if they don't want you to, because they are enforcing a blacklist.

It's simply a trade-off to protect itself from being sanctioned like Tornado Cash, if you don't like it, use JoinMarket or fork the coordinator that don't block any outputs.

I understand, sympatize and actually also agree with your viewpoint, but understand that WasabiWallet controls a centralized coordinator. To illustrate, if ChipMixer decided to block "tainted outputs" what can we really do? Either accept the trade-off, or stop using the mixer.

Because if Wasabi/nopara73 didn't accept the trade-off to block outputs from "illegal transactions", the government would still enforce "their regulations".

And if every service or platform refused to enforce taint, what then? The government regulations only work because of companies like Wasabi which implement them on behalf of governments instead of fighting against them like real privacy projects do.

That would truly be a problem. Expect that anything centralized, their developers can do what they want. From the point of view of the service itself, it would be understandable if they accepted the trade-off to avoid sanctions. Their service, their decision.

[n0nce]

You would need to accept the coins, deposit them into a Wasabi CoinJoin and if Wasabi declines them, send them back and keep the bike..
Sounds like a lot of fun! Honestly, I don't see people switching from fiat to Bitcoin if that's the intended (by Wasabi team) way to accept Bitcoin..

Well it's not something so strange, and I see no difference with what's happening every day.
People return stuff purchased for cash all the time for bunch of reasons, paypal cashbacks, people don't like bike, people changed their minds, card declined, tainted stolen cash bills, fake cash bills...
Maybe guy who pays don't even know he is using stolen marked dollars, so he needs to accept return and pay with real dollars.

Fake cash bills? Yes. That's why in cash trades, I want to see the bills coming out of the machine or quickly put them into an ATM myself while the trading party is on the spot.
But tainted / stolen? Hell no. The ATM will suck those in, no matter if the buyer of your bike stole them from his roommate or even from a large robbery.
What's worse: in 'Bitcoin taint', you could even be deducted some of your balance way down the line; imagine this: the crime just happened, nobody even knows about it. Your bank accepts the cash. Months later, your bank account is suddenly in the red, as your funds are determined to derive from fiat that has been used in a crime before you got it [you're not the criminal], so it's frozen forever.

It's not how it works in fiat, but it is how it works in Bitcoin and that's why it's such a big issue.

"Enforce"? How has WasabiWallet enforced anything?

By refusing to coinjoin your "tainted" coins. There's no way to use their centralized coordinator if they don't want you to, because they are enforcing a blacklist.

It's simply a trade-off to protect itself from being sanctioned like Tornado Cash, if you don't like it, use JoinMarket or fork the coordinator that don't block any outputs.

This is your idea, though. Wasabi never said it is working with authorities and even denied having been pressured by them in any way or form.

For all we know, from the officially available information, this is purely their idea; they have no government contacts or interaction, they do not have access to government-mandated, -authorized or -enhanced blacklists and if / when their blacklist goes into service, it's not at all guaranteed that coins coming out of Wasabi are considered 'clean' by exchanges, regulators and governments around the world. Not at all. There is no guarantee they won't face the same treatment as Tornadocash, either!
The arguments you are presenting are pure speculation and purely your fantasy ideas. Please stop spreading misinformation.

[Pmalek]

It's not how it works in fiat, but it is how it works in Bitcoin and that's why it's such a big issue.

Centralized service providers have too much power because we - the users, gave them that power and put them in a position where they feel comfortable to make arbitrary decisions. Fear of government backlash and a desire to profit with various partnerships is way more up on the priority list than ethics, morality, and sticking to your principles. If everyone used Bitcoin (including myself) in a decentralized P2P way, this Wasabi discussion and their decision to possibly censor bitcoin would have ended a long time ago. People would simply switch to one of a dozens of other alternatives (unfortunately there aren't that many) and forget about Wasabi.   

[Wind_FURY]

"Enforce"? How has WasabiWallet enforced anything?

By refusing to coinjoin your "tainted" coins. There's no way to use their centralized coordinator if they don't want you to, because they are enforcing a blacklist.

It's simply a trade-off to protect itself from being sanctioned like Tornado Cash, if you don't like it, use JoinMarket or fork the coordinator that don't block any outputs.

This is your idea, though. Wasabi never said it is working with authorities and even denied having been pressured by them in any way or form.

For all we know, from the officially available information, this is purely their idea; they have no government contacts or interaction, they do not have access to government-mandated, -authorized or -enhanced blacklists and if / when their blacklist goes into service, it's not at all guaranteed that coins coming out of Wasabi are considered 'clean' by exchanges, regulators and governments around the world. Not at all. There is no guarantee they won't face the same treatment as Tornadocash, either!
The arguments you are presenting are pure speculation and purely your fantasy ideas. Please stop spreading misinformation.

You're right, there are no "guarantees", but nopara73 also can't just wait for a government agency to sanction WasabiWallet, and have the police come to his home and arrest him. He accepted the trade-off to keep Wasabi's pool "untainted", and probably hope that he doesn't get arrested. But he only had two paths, shut Wasabi down, or block tainted outputs. He chose to block tainted outputs.

[BlackHatCoiner]

It's simply a trade-off to protect itself from being sanctioned like Tornado Cash, if you don't like it, use JoinMarket or fork the coordinator that don't block any outputs.

Of course. I don't use Wasabi either way, and I'm sure most users of this thread neither do it since there are better solutions. We're just criticizing what's happened from our perspective.

You're right, there are no "guarantees", but nopara73 also can't just wait for a government agency to sanction WasabiWallet, and have the police come to his home and arrest him.

Sure, so let's switch from pro-privacy to pro-censorship, lie to our users, and act childishly while we still yell for us be the privacy guards of bitcoin. That'd definitely be their only option.

[n0nce]

You're right, there are no "guarantees", but nopara73 also can't just wait for a government agency to sanction WasabiWallet, and have the police come to his home and arrest him.

Again: nobody from Wasabi is talking about arrests (or threats of arrests) at all! It's not even on the table. I have no idea where these ideas of yours are coming from; according to their own words, there is no regulatory pressure on them.

They say themselves that it's just because

a private company has the right to choose its customers

and that they are acting

in a way that society allows us to do

Furthermore, they explicitly say:

there's no legislation that specifically says coinjoin coordinators must blacklist their customers' UTXOs

It's just that

challenges encountered operating the business in even the most liberal jurisdictions are numerous and multiplying

Now, encountering challenges is a very vague terminology and I'd argue every single business has its own set of challenges sooner or later.
It is absolutely clear from their blog article that it was a proactive decision to potentially make their life easier when regulators start asking questions.

He accepted the trade-off to keep Wasabi's pool "untainted" and probably hope that he doesn't get arrested.

No, the pool is not untainted. o_e_l_e_o has proved how e.g. the majority of a large exchange's coins are considered 'tainted' by the biggest blockchain analysis company, while the exchange itself considers its coins clean (as they do - similar to Wasabi) freeze supposedly tainted coins.
Thus, the concept of taint has thus been proven not to work (if it wasn't sufficiently clear in theory that it can't work without a central database).

Again, arrests are totally off the table for now - maybe you've watched one too many movies lately.

But he only had two paths, shut Wasabi down, or block tainted outputs. He chose to block tainted outputs.

That's wrong; that's what they say in the blog post, but think about it.
There was the option to continue running it as it is, and face the

challenges encountered operating the business

that every business has to face. Especially if you're a Bitcoin company and face challenges because of it, you do not solve these challenges by going anti-Bitcoin.
Another option: develop a new, decentralized system. At least implement a huge GUI option for changing the coordinator!

It is clear it was a deliberate profit-maximizing business decision that just threw fungibility and Bitcoin itself under the bus in the process, as well as users that rely on it.

I am once again presenting you the scenario of persecuted journalists which use Bitcoin to collect donations. Imagine they now land on Wasabi's blacklist as their job is illegal where they're operating; if this leads to their funds being freezed, what the hell do we need Bitcoin for? At that point can't they just use PayPal (and get their account frozen there, as well)?

[pooya87]

You're right, there are no "guarantees", but nopara73 also can't just wait for a government agency to sanction WasabiWallet, and have the police come to his home and arrest him. He accepted the trade-off to keep Wasabi's pool "untainted", and probably hope that he doesn't get arrested.

I feel like you are trying to justify the wrongdoings of the Wasabi team

But he only had two paths, shut Wasabi down, or block tainted outputs. He chose to block tainted outputs.

He could have handed over the project to someone else (it is open source after all) who is not under the same possible threat so that they could continue the project. Or at the very least they could introduce more decentralized option into the project and most importantly be clear about the anti-privacy things their own coordinator server is doing.
Guess what, if they did that they would have stopped making money!!!

[ABCbits]

You're right, there are no "guarantees", but nopara73 also can't just wait for a government agency to sanction WasabiWallet, and have the police come to his home and arrest him.

But you realize option move to different country exist, right?

But he only had two paths, shut Wasabi down, or block tainted outputs. He chose to block tainted outputs.

More than two actually. Few member already mention other possible paths.

[PrivacyG]

Guys.  There is no need for a debate actually.  Things are plain and simple.  Imagine you worked as an investigative journalist, you always KNOW and are CONSCIOUS there will be threats and enemies.  When you start being an investigative journalist, there are big downsides particularly when you investigate politics and corporations.

There is absolutely zero difference between the above and being a Wasabi developer.  I have an extremely high amount of doubt that Wasabi did not know they will at some point be threatened by certain corporations, three letter agencies, governments, public figures or whatever.  They knew why some people are starting to love Bitcoin although they did not beforehand (Blockchain Analysis allows them today to do what they thought they could not years ago), they knew that three letter agencies of the United States will not like their idea of developing something that is focused on privacy, something that is focused on an idea they can not control.

Now things become very simple.  United States does not like you and you knew it.  Why are you whining or telling us how hard it was for you to go through the threats?  If you want to investigate a cartel, are you seriously going to complain they are threatening you?  If that is the actual case, then these people are very immature.  If that is not the case, then they either did not actually create Wasabi for privacy but with other intentions or they were bribed into turning Wasabi to the enemy boat.

This is how it is for me.  No matter how many threats they received.  No matter how many things Governments did against Wasabi.  These events were a known thing since before Wasabi turned from an idea into reality.

It gets really frustrating and annoying though when people come in here telling me to choose 'an alternative' if I do not like it.  You know what, I am choosing an alternative.  But you also know what?  I have less and less alternatives every year.  If a decade ago I could purchase food and stuff from multiple grocery stores around, today I mostly have corporations.  If five years ago I could buy, sell and transfer Bitcoin through almost any exchange with only an e-mail and a password, today I have to complete KYC for about any exchange I would try to register for.  Today we have 'taint'.

It is still cool that we have a few alternatives.  Definitely not complaining about that.  But freaking hell, it is getting frustratingly annoying that I have to 'look for something else' every time while everybody else cares strictly about their own comfort and convenience.  I just wish the solution to customers who have used Wasabi so far was far different than 'find an alternative' because I am starting to find myself cornered.

Rant over.  Going back into my hut.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[Pmalek]

So what is going on with Wasabi's jurisdiction change? dkbit98 was the one who brought that up I think. Since they are now operating from a different jurisdiction or are relocating somewhere else, is there any noteworthy news that this censorship drama will be dropped? They have not yet (to our knowledge) started censoring any "dirty" coins. I am not sure they will ever regain their reputation or the lost community trust but it doesn't seem like they are trying either.