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[o_e_l_e_o]

The coordinator has to provide hundreds of inputs and outputs (equivalent to hundreds of normal bitcoin transactions) to deanonymize a single UTXO. In fact double that cost as the attacker must prepare the UTXOs in advance by making transactions.

I can produce a hundred outputs from a hundred separate transactions for less than $10 at current prices and fee rates. Add in a variety of sources, intermediate transactions, mixes, coinjoins, etc., along the way to obfuscate things, and you could still do this for a trivial amount of money. The coinjoin fees would be irrelevant since you can just hand them straight back to the blockchain analysis company since you are paying them for their services anyway. And in an ongoing attack, outputs from previous rounds can be recycled in to inputs in new rounds.

Furthermore, it's also detectable by looking at the remixes in the coinjoin.

Beyond the scope of the average user, and we can't trust you to tell your users since you are currently selling them out to a blockchain analysis company so you can serve institutional clients for your own profit.

[1714661635]

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[1714661635]

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[Wind_FURY]

My friends don't want their sex toy purchases found on the blockchain by their wives, or possibly seen by their employers. They work in a religious organization!

Wives and employers won't be able to follow the trail from the source to what was purchased. They also can't acquire this information by asking Wasabi or blockchain analysis firms. Analysis companies feed their data to government institutions and other 3rd parties. It remains private in a way that the wife and employer won't be told about it.    

If you were following the discussion and have gotten the context, my point is that newbies might be better using Wasabi if all they want is a little privacy without risk of tainting their coins which might make it a problem for them when they send them to exchanges.

It's merely a tradeoff. What newbie, or casual user would want to risk their "clean UTXOs" commingled with "dirty UTXOs", and be possibly accused of complicity in money laundering?

[Pmalek]

<Snip>

I get your point and I understand what you are trying to say. However, I hope Wasabi will lose their customer base and people will switch to other services, which won't cooperate with blockchain analysis firms of their own free will. Let them turn into a service for institutional investors if they want, who cares.

[BlackHatCoiner]

my point is that newbies might be better using Wasabi if all they want is a little privacy without risk of tainting their coins which might make it a problem for them when they send them to exchanges.

And we're telling you, a page now, that what you're describing is oxymoron. On the one hand, they want to obfuscate their outputs so they can hide their purchases from their wives and employers. On the other, they'll deposit their coins to centralized exchanges, because... They're clueless?

If they use Binance, Coinbase, Kraken etc., they should expect that all of their info, such as personal info, transactions, trades, is sold straight to chain analysis companies. If an employer wants to know their employees' activity, they don't need to mess with the chain at all; a phone call to Chainalysis is enough. This is what they do. Their customers are government agencies, financial institutions, cryptocurrency businesses.

There's no purpose in mixing your coins if you're going back to a centralized exchange.

[nopara73]

I can produce a hundred outputs from a hundred separate transactions for less than $10 at current prices and fee rates.

That might be a bit too low, but perhaps. There's no disagreement here. If you read what I wrote, I made the same point: "in fact this is the only sybil attack that as far as I know is feasible to do"

Add in a variety of sources, intermediate transactions, mixes, coinjoins, etc., along the way to obfuscate things, and you could still do this for a trivial amount of money. And in an ongoing attack, outputs from previous rounds can be recycled in to inputs in new rounds.

There are many patterns you must copy to execute this attack unnoticeably. For example, let's assume a pattern that 10% of all inputs of a coinjoin are coming from the preceding coinjoin. In that case, to copy this pattern, you would have to be 10% of every single coinjoin, which is already far from "a trivial amount of money" and this is just a single pattern example.

The coinjoin fees would be irrelevant since you can just hand them straight back to the blockchain analysis company since you are paying them for their services anyway.

Although the main point you're making that coinjoin fees aren't relevant, is correct, you box it into a loaded statement through a second incorrect claim, which is that "all the money is going to a blockchain analysis company." Loaded statements is quite a disturbing pattern I'm noticing in our conversations, so I'd greatly appreciate if you'd stop doing that.

Beyond the scope of the average user, and we can't trust you to tell your users since you are currently selling them out to a blockchain analysis company so you can serve institutional clients for your own profit.

We're not selling anyone out. We wouldn't even have the ability to do so even if we wanted to. Another loaded statement aside, it'd indeed be a problem if the detectability of an attack would rely on trusting the attacker itself. Luckily it's not the case.

[o_e_l_e_o]

you box it into a loaded statement through a second incorrect claim, which is that "all the money is going to a blockchain analysis company."

So are you withdrawing this statement you made on Telegram?

We'll have to hire a bc anal company and filter out coinjoin input registrations with them

Either you are using the money you earn via coinjoins to pay a blockchain analysis company, or you aren't. Can't be both.

We're not selling anyone out.

Oh that's right, I forgot. You are spying on and censoring your users for their own good.

[Wind_FURY]

<Snip>

I get your point and I understand what you are trying to say. However, I hope Wasabi will lose their customer base and people will switch to other services, which won't cooperate with blockchain analysis firms of their own free will. Let them turn into a service for institutional investors if they want, who cares.

That's another debate, and no one can blame you for your viewpoint. It's very understandable, and something that should be respected.

my point is that newbies might be better using Wasabi if all they want is a little privacy without risk of tainting their coins which might make it a problem for them when they send them to exchanges.

And we're telling you, a page now, that what you're describing is oxymoron. On the one hand, they want to obfuscate their outputs so they can hide their purchases from their wives and employers. On the other, they'll deposit their coins to centralized exchanges, because... They're clueless?

That isn't the point ser. The point is about the tradeoffs. That if someone who knows he has clean UTXOs simply wants "a little" privacy without the taint, Wasabi would be the better choice than choosing a mixer that will comingle his UTXOs with Mr. Heroine Dealer's UTXOs.

[pooya87]

That if someone who knows he has clean UTXOs simply wants "a little" privacy without the taint, Wasabi would be the better choice than choosing a mixer that will comingle his UTXOs with Mr. Heroine Dealer's UTXOs.

I disagree. People who don't  care about their privacy don't normally look for privacy improving techniques in first place. Besides what you are saying is just an illusion of privacy not actual (a little) privacy. If anyone just wants mixing (eg. they want to prevent regular people from knowing their coins) they could just use the centralized exchanges they are already using to do that.

[BlackHatCoiner]

That isn't the point ser. The point is about the tradeoffs. That if someone who knows he has clean UTXOs simply wants "a little" privacy without the taint, Wasabi would be the better choice than choosing a mixer that will comingle his UTXOs with Mr. Heroine Dealer's UTXOs.

What are the tradeoffs? I don't understand. If they want to escape from the centralized exchange for a while, deposit coins on their Wasabi, mix them using the censoring coordinator to make a few transactions and return to the centralized exchange, then it's meaningless. Their money is analyzed by chain analysis companies, which are likely cooperating with every centralized exchange out there.

Again, an employer isn't going to look into the chain. They'll probably just give a call to Chainalysis, Elliptic etc., and they'll happily assist their new customer. But, if they don't use a centralized exchange neither do they pass the arbitrary output test of the coordinator, then they'll likely get the obfuscation they want.

In the end, if the coordinator or their analyzing company isn't cooperating with centralized exchanges, who tells you they won't consider those "taint"? The problem begins from centralized exchanges. There are no tradeoffs; if they remain to Coinbase, Binance, Kraken etc, it's a loss-loss situation.

[n0nce]

In the end, if the coordinator or their analyzing company isn't cooperating with centralized exchanges, who tells you they won't consider those "taint"? The problem begins from centralized exchanges. There are no tradeoffs; if they remain to Coinbase, Binance, Kraken etc, it's a loss-loss situation.

Exactly: if they just buy and sell through a decentralized exchange, there is no definition or check for taint and thus also no 'risk of taint'. This is only introduced when you start using services such as centralized exchanges and Wasabi.

I don't understand why people are so hellbent to play by the arbitrary, subjective 'taint rules' that a small group of companies are trying to put on Bitcoin to make more money from large investors. Like, you get 0 benefits from using these companies as a customer, besides maybe 'convenience' (mobile app etc), though I don't personally consider an exchange convenient that charges between $5 and $20 to withdraw Bitcoin, that requires me to go through KYC to register there and that can close my account at any time.
I consider Bisq much more convenient: download and verification takes just a few minutes and you're immediately up and running, ready to get some coins. No questions asked, no paperwork, and withdrawing costs only as much as you're willing to pay for transaction fees and how full the mempool is.

But I will now stop arguing with Wind_FURY since we're already repeating ourselves and if he doesn't understand after 2 explanations, 10 won't help either. I don't feel like I'm adding any value to the forum by repeating myself over and over.

[pooya87]

I don't understand why people are so hellbent to play by the arbitrary, subjective 'taint rules' that a small group of companies are trying to put on Bitcoin to make more money from large investors.

This is because there has been a lot of newcomers who joined bitcoin world not because of Bitcoin but because of the fiat profit they could have made. In other words they have no understanding of the technology, they don't care about financial sovereignty, they don't want decentralization, etc. they just want to make money. This group of people always bend the knee to any authority's demands. They don't care about KYC, they're probably already doing it elsewhere like in stock market and they don't see bitcoin market differently either.

Good news is that not all bitcoiners are like that.

[Wind_FURY]

That if someone who knows he has clean UTXOs simply wants "a little" privacy without the taint, Wasabi would be the better choice than choosing a mixer that will comingle his UTXOs with Mr. Heroine Dealer's UTXOs.

I disagree. People who don't care about their privacy don't normally look for privacy improving techniques in first place. Besides what you are saying is just an illusion of privacy not actual (a little) privacy. If anyone just wants mixing (eg. they want to prevent regular people from knowing their coins) they could just use the centralized exchanges they are already using to do that.

You're not getting the right context, and missed the actual point completely. If you're merely a casual user/newbie who simply wants to use a mixer without the risk of tainting your coins, where can you go? What can you use?

Although you're also right, the simplest and most efficient solution for users who are, not criminals/have nothing to hide, are not mixers but centralized exchanges.

[witcher_sense]

You're not getting the right context, and missed the actual point completely. If you're merely a casual user/newbie who simply wants to use a mixer without the risk of tainting your coins, where can you go? What can you use?

Every time a casual user or any other type of user sends bitcoin or receives payment on their wallets, they are risking to taint their coins. Using "compliant" CoinJoin pseudo-privacy solutions like Wasabi Wallet won't help them escape being touched by dirty coins and will make things even worse because, from the standpoint of chain surveillance companies and other parasites, any CoinJoin transaction is always more suspicious and risky than any non-CoinJoin. It is because they deem suspicious everything they can't trace.

Although you're also right, the simplest and most efficient solution for users who are, not criminals/have nothing to hide, are not mixers but centralized exchanges.

A centralized exchange is the simplest and most efficient way to swap your clean coins for taint coins legally.

[n0nce]

I don't understand why people are so hellbent to play by the arbitrary, subjective 'taint rules' that a small group of companies are trying to put on Bitcoin to make more money from large investors.

This is because there has been a lot of newcomers who joined bitcoin world not because of Bitcoin but because of the fiat profit they could have made. In other words they have no understanding of the technology, they don't care about financial sovereignty, they don't want decentralization, etc. they just want to make money. This group of people always bend the knee to any authority's demands. They don't care about KYC, they're probably already doing it elsewhere like in stock market and they don't see bitcoin market differently either.

What's counterintuitive though is that buying without KYC and without 'bending the knee' actually allows you to make more money. On one hand, you have no risk of someone 'closing your Bitcoin account' (exchange account), further you avoid pretty high withdrawal fees that cut into your profits (you actually start at a loss if buying on a CEX and withdrawing) and you avoid the temptation to play around with the trading features that CEXs usually put nicely presented up front, big, flashy and nicely looking. The reason they do this is the same reason you should avoid them; they make good money off you: What Can Happen If You Want to Trade Cryptocurrencies, but You Don’t Know How?

Good news is that not all bitcoiners are like that.

True, true! We're all always learning and should encourage newcomers to do the same.

[pooya87]

You're not getting the right context, and missed the actual point completely. If you're merely a casual user/newbie who simply wants to use a mixer without the risk of tainting your coins, where can you go? What can you use?

The correct answer is nowhere because every chain analysis company that I've seen has a section for CoinJoins and considers such transactions as "tainted" which means using Wasabi would also introduce "taint" into their coins even if all the participants had 100% clean coins.

What you need to remember is that "taint" is a fake concept created by chain analysis companies. At some point in the future they could even start claiming that "any coin they can not deanonymize is tainted".

[Wind_FURY]

You're not getting the right context, and missed the actual point completely. If you're merely a casual user/newbie who simply wants to use a mixer without the risk of tainting your coins, where can you go? What can you use?

Every time a casual user or any other type of user sends bitcoin or receives payment on their wallets, they are risking to taint their coins. Using "compliant" CoinJoin pseudo-privacy solutions like Wasabi Wallet won't help them escape being touched by dirty coins and will make things even worse because, from the standpoint of chain surveillance companies and other parasites, any CoinJoin transaction is always more suspicious and risky than any non-CoinJoin. It is because they deem suspicious everything they can't trace.

You're right, and a tainted wallet owned by a nefarious user can send dust to thousands of other wallets to taint them, but that reply also got the debate out of context. I believe everyone is just trying to debate the debate because they disagree with Wasabi's new policy. From an idealistic standpoint, I understand, but from another standpoint, it's a trade-off. Users with tainted UTXOs can always use other mixers.

Although you're also right, the simplest and most efficient solution for users who are, not criminals/have nothing to hide, are not mixers but centralized exchanges.

A centralized exchange is the simplest and most efficient way to swap your clean coins for taint coins legally.

Can you tell for sure that all 100% of user deposits of tainted coins will not be confiscated by centralized exchanges? Is it 100% without risk to use the dark market to sell Heroine and send your UTXOs directly to Coinbase?

You're not getting the right context, and missed the actual point completely. If you're merely a casual user/newbie who simply wants to use a mixer without the risk of tainting your coins, where can you go? What can you use?

The correct answer is nowhere because every chain analysis company that I've seen has a section for CoinJoins and considers such transactions as "tainted" which means using Wasabi would also introduce "taint" into their coins even if all the participants had 100% clean coins.

From that point of view, you're saying that just because someone mixed his/her clean UTXOs with other clean UTXOs in Wasabi then suddenly it's tainted? OK. You are taking it way out of context.

What you need to remember is that "taint" is a fake concept created by chain analysis companies. At some point in the future they could even start claiming that "any coin they can not deanonymize is tainted".

I know, I was the one who debated that taint doesn't exist in the blockchain. I believe it was a long debate with my best friend franky1.

But from a practical standpoint, for a person who merely wants to mix his/her coins without the risk of the "taint", I believe the trade-offs accepted to use Wasabi, if he/she truly wants to use CoinJoin, is OK. Less risk.

[pooya87]

But from a practical standpoint, for a person who merely wants to mix his/her coins without the risk of the "taint", I believe the trade-offs accepted to use Wasabi, if he/she truly wants to use CoinJoin, is OK. Less risk.

That's the part we are not seeing eye to eye. I'm saying that using Wasabi wallet will add taint to otherwise "clean" coins, not remove it. That's simply because those who came up with the concept consider mixed coins tainted by default. In fact there has been some cases in the past where exchanges restricted user accounts because the coins they deposited were mixed using CoinJoin.

[BlackHatCoiner]

But from a practical standpoint, for a person who merely wants to mix his/her coins without the risk of the "taint", I believe the trade-offs accepted to use Wasabi, if he/she truly wants to use CoinJoin, is OK. Less risk.

There's no point to continue the discussion, we're just repeating ourselves. We've covered that those who'll use Wasabi to gain privacy, won't, because zkSNACKs is now cooperating with those who'll hand over this sensitive info back to the centralized exchanges. If they want to have their activities private, perhaps they should begin by canceling their Coinbase account first?

[Pmalek]

What's counterintuitive though is that buying without KYC and without 'bending the knee' actually allows you to make more money. On one hand, you have no risk of someone 'closing your Bitcoin account' (exchange account), further you avoid pretty high withdrawal fees that cut into your profits (you actually start at a loss if buying on a CEX and withdrawing)

There are also some other things worth considering. I have found that the exchange rates on decentralized exchanges are usually a bit worse than on centralized ones. So the money you would save by not paying withdrawal fees is lost due to a worse exchange rate. Then there is the question of the security deposit. I think new users who play around with DEXs for the first time are displeased with the security deposits. If all you have is 0.1 BTC and you want to trade all of it on Bisq, you can't because a piece of that pie has to be deposited as a security deposit. However, the positives still outweigh the negatives. 

[Wind_FURY]

We made our points, and out of respect to all of you, let's just agree to disagree.

Did nopara73, or someone from the core Wasabi team know something about the U.S. government's sanction on Blender.io? If they did, then that I believe, would make sense for WasabiWallet to accept the trade-offs to protect its users. I hope it won't be another witch-hunt like the Canadian government did to the truckers.