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[o_e_l_e_o]

I have found that the exchange rates on decentralized exchanges are usually a bit worse than on centralized ones.

This is unfortunately true if you are a new user. As a new user, you will probably struggle to have someone accept an offer you make and will instead be limited to being a taker, unless you are offering the only trade in a certain currency/method/country/etc. However, if you build up even a small reputation on your account as being a trusted user, then you'll find people will accept your offers and you can set any rate you want. When I trade on DEXs, I often end up with a rate a couple of percentage points in my favor over centralized exchanges, and minus many of the fees.

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.

That's a feature unique to Bisq (or at least, unique from all the DEXs I have used). Neither LocalCryptos nor HodlHodl require this.

If they did, then that I believe, would make sense for WasabiWallet to accept the trade-offs to protect its users.

They are making the trade off to protect their profits, not their users.

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[Wind_FURY]

If they did, then that I believe, would make sense for WasabiWallet to accept the trade-offs to protect its users.

They are making the trade off to protect their profits, not their users.

That's merely part of it. They want to protect their own reputation too, and to maintain the users' trust, or what's left of that trust. Plus Wasabi isn't just a CoinJoin service, it's also a wallet where people hold some of their Bitcoins.

[o_e_l_e_o]

They want to protect their own reputation too

They would do a far better job of protecting their reputation if they actively fought for privacy and against censorship, instead of implementing procedures which do the exact opposite.

Plus Wasabi isn't just a CoinJoin service, it's also a wallet where people hold some of their Bitcoins.

And yet there are wallets such as Electrum which have been developed for more than a decade without any income source and without even accepting donations.

zkSNACKs have already admitted in interviews (see quote below) that their decision to start censoring their users was because they want to make profit from institutions. This is the driving force behind every decision they are making.

if you, as a CoinJoin coordinator, if you want to work with institutional clients, hedge funds, insurance funds, Michael Saylor, and all these people, well, even if ZKSnacks were not to be regulated, those customers might very well be, maybe because they’re custodians of other people’s money or whatnot. And then these regulated entities can only become users of a coordinator—arguably, I’m not sure—if such a blacklisting is involved.

[nopara73]

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?

zkSNACKs does not only not share sensitive information with anyone, but it cannot even if it wanted to, because users don't share any sensitive information with zkSNACKs in the first place.

[BlackHatCoiner]

zkSNACKs does not only not share sensitive information with anyone, but it cannot even if it wanted to, because users don't share any sensitive information with zkSNACKs in the first place.

• People who use centralized exchanges share sensitive information.
• Centralized exchanges sell their users' data to chain analysis companies, governments and other private companies.
• zkSNACKs cooperates with chain analysis companies.

Therefore, if a person uses, say, Binance, and wants to have this "little privacy" we previously outlined, can't achieve it, because their outputs have to, now, get approved by those who wants to get hidden from.

[pooya87]

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.

This is called being a fully regulated centralized company.
I wonder what you would have said if zkSNACKs was the same centralized company but located for example in China and nopara73 was Jihan Wu... Would you still consider their actions "protecting its users"?

And yet there are wallets such as Electrum which have been developed for more than a decade without any income source and without even accepting donations.

Isn't TrustedCoin owned by the same Electrum developers and aren't they making money from the fees there?

[Pmalek]

Isn't TrustedCoin owned by the same Electrum developers and aren't they making money from the fees there?

It's CEO (not sure if he is also the owner) is a guy called Joshua Seims.
Electrum can be used just fine without its 2FA feature and theoretically no one would have to pay for their multi-signature addresses. It's a choice. If you continue to use Wasabi, you don't have that same choice. They have partnered up with chain analysis companies and can censor you whether you like it or not. 

[o_e_l_e_o]

Isn't TrustedCoin owned by the same Electrum developers and aren't they making money from the fees there?

Not as far as I know. As far as I know it is run by Joshua Seims (https://github.com/jseims) as Pmalek said above, and Lucas Ryan (https://github.com/badmofo). Whenever an issue regarding TrustedCoin is posted on Electrum's GitHub, the Electrum devs tend to ask Lucas Ryan (badmofo) for his input. For example:
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/7628#issuecomment-1012415047
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/5727#issuecomment-546556572

[Wind_FURY]

They want to protect their own reputation too

They would do a far better job of protecting their reputation if they actively fought for privacy and against censorship, instead of implementing procedures which do the exact opposite.

But it would also be that, or face sanctions and lose their users, or shut the service down. They simply chose the trade-off, and lose some reputation.

Plus Wasabi isn't just a CoinJoin service, it's also a wallet where people hold some of their Bitcoins.

And yet there are wallets such as Electrum which have been developed for more than a decade without any income source and without even accepting donations.

zkSNACKs have already admitted in interviews (see quote below) that their decision to start censoring their users was because they want to make profit from institutions. This is the driving force behind every decision they are making.

if you, as a CoinJoin coordinator, if you want to work with institutional clients, hedge funds, insurance funds, Michael Saylor, and all these people, well, even if ZKSnacks were not to be regulated, those customers might very well be, maybe because they’re custodians of other people’s money or whatnot. And then these regulated entities can only become users of a coordinator—arguably, I’m not sure—if such a blacklisting is involved.

It then makes logical sense for them. They want to provide their services to institutions who merely want a mixer/tumber, but without "the taint".

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.

This is called being a fully regulated centralized company.
I wonder what you would have said if zkSNACKs was the same centralized company but located for example in China and nopara73 was Jihan Wu... Would you still consider their actions "protecting its users"?

From their perspective, yes, and not only their users, they're also protecting themselves from being sanctioned.

[o_e_l_e_o]

But it would also be that, or face sanctions and lose their users, or shut the service down. They simply chose the trade-off, and lose some reputation.

Except they have freely admitted that they aren't facing sanctions and that are no laws or regulations forcing them to start censoring their users. They are doing it voluntarily to make more profit. They could either have continue to operate as they did, or they could have spun up an anonymous coordinator. Either way though they would make less profit, so they decided to sell out their users to line their pockets instead.

It then makes logical sense for them. They want to provide their services to institutions who merely want a mixer/tumber, but without "the taint".

Taint only exists because institutions like Wasabi perpetuate this nonsense.

From their perspective, yes, and not only their users, they're also protecting themselves from being sanctioned.

They aren't protecting their users from anything. They are selling them out for their own benefit.

[Wind_FURY]

But it would also be that, or face sanctions and lose their users, or shut the service down. They simply chose the trade-off, and lose some reputation.

Except they have freely admitted that they aren't facing sanctions and that are no laws or regulations forcing them to start censoring their users. They are doing it voluntarily to make more profit. They could either have continue to operate as they did, or they could have spun up an anonymous coordinator. Either way though they would make less profit, so they decided to sell out their users to line their pockets instead.

But think about the situation from WasabiWallet's own viewpoint, should they wait until it's too late, and they are facing sanctions and/or possible extradition before accepting the trade-off? Should they freely admit that the United States government, or any government is already threatening to sanction them? They will always say it's safe to use the service.

I'm not sure about spinning up an anonymous coordinator, let's ask nopara73, but WasabiWallet itself, the website, the developers, the profit would be threatened even if users can mix through an anonymous coordinator.

It then makes logical sense for them. They want to provide their services to institutions who merely want a mixer/tumber, but without "the taint".

Taint only exists because institutions like Wasabi perpetuate this nonsense.

I agree, but this is the point, "they" don't and "they" can lock us out of our accounts from "their" services/confiscate our coins.

From their perspective, yes, and not only their users, they're also protecting themselves from being sanctioned.

They aren't protecting their users from anything. They are selling them out for their own benefit.

I respect your opinion, and I can agree, it's protecting their incentives, but it's still up to the user if they continue to use a service/a software/an app or not.

[BlackHatCoiner]

But think about the situation from WasabiWallet's own viewpoint, should they wait until it's too late, and they are facing sanctions and/or possible extradition before accepting the trade-off?

As you said, think of it from their perspective. They're a company, known as privacy-oriented, that believes privacy is a human right and should be preserved at all times. "At all times" means regardless of who, which, what, when, where. Their focus is on everybody's privacy, not on yours nor on mine nor on theirs, but everyone's.

If they're threatened to not be private, while that's the only principle they follow since the development of Wasabi, what do you think it's reasonable thing to do? Besides, there wasn't such pressure. Nobody forced them do nothing. This happened voluntarily, which shows that the fish stinks from the head.

[o_e_l_e_o]

But think about the situation from WasabiWallet's own viewpoint, should they wait until it's too late, and they are facing sanctions and/or possible extradition before accepting the trade-off?

No, they shouldn't compromise on privacy at all. If entities such as Monero and Bisq can continue to provide privacy respecting services and fight against censorship, then Wasabi could too. The point is they don't want to because they want to make more money for themselves.

but WasabiWallet itself, the website, the developers, the profit would be threatened even if users can mix through an anonymous coordinator.

Emphasis mine. Hit the nail on the head here.

I respect your opinion, and I can agree, it's protecting their incentives, but it's still up to the user if they continue to use a service/a software/an app or not.

Sure, but all I'm saying is that no user in their right mind should use a "privacy" wallet which is anti-privacy, pro-surveillance, and pro-censorship.

[n0nce]

It then makes logical sense for them. They want to provide their services to institutions who merely want a mixer/tumber, but without "the taint".

Taint only exists because institutions like Wasabi perpetuate this nonsense.

I agree, but this is the point, "they" don't and "they" can lock us out of our accounts from "their" services/confiscate our coins.

I don't know which services you are talking about, since governments and regulators don't directly run services where you deposit coins or might have an open account.
But if you're talking for instance about a centralized exchange; first and foremost you shouldn't be worried about your account being closed, since you shouldn't have any funds on there anyway.
And if you're worried that some service or platform could deny your payments if they haven't been green-lighted by Chainalysis / them (whoever that may be), then consider switching platform or telling them to stop using payment providers that filter and censor certain Bitcoin payments.

[dkbit98]

If some of you ever used Wasabi wallet and then you want to send Bitcoin to Gemini exchange, you should think again about it.
I saw one user on reddit posting screenshot of email from Gemini support asking him to refrain from using Wasabi or mixers, and they are asking him for documentation evidence for source of his coins, with information about his salary, proof from his employer, link for his profile, bank statements, certificates, signed letters from lawyer, inheritance...  
I think it's borderline crazy to ask your customer to send you all this crap and more... but I guess we live in a crazy world, and we shouldn't use or depend on centralized exchanges at all.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gemini/comments/usvlny/just_received_a_disturbing_requestemail_from/

[BlackHatCoiner]

[...]

There are three kind of crypto users regarding this matter:

It’s annoying but unfortunately it’s a sign of a healthy, compliant organization.

No beef but would say if you don’t like regulation of any kind CeFi is probably not the place for your coins.

Monero fixes this

What are mixers?

skeemodream is the kind of guy who bites KYC, AML and ESG nonsense. Constantine28 is the one who doesn't understand what's the problem, but believes everything happens because of transparency, which is definitely not the case here. It's the arbitrary ruling. Monero has nothing to do about it.

vadoge is the kind of guy whose username says it all.

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

Jesus, this whole thread reminds me why I don't use Reddit. Snippets from the upvoted comments include:

Exchanges undertaking mass surveillance and spying on their customers is "healthy" apparently.
Please stop trying to maintain your privacy so the rest of us can sacrifice it in peace.
Numerous variations on "nothing to fear, nothing to hide" nonsense.
Stop using non-custodial wallets and instead use a wallet which pools all your funds with other users. ()

Then one comment pointing out that centralized exchanges are antithetical to many of the fundamentals of bitcoin is downvoted until it isn't visible any more.

What an echo chamber of stupid. As I've said before in other threads, when exchanges start spying on you, invading your privacy, and arbitrarily stealing (lets call it for what it is) you coins, the sensible, logical response is not "Let's make sure I play by their rules" but rather "Why in your right mind would you continue to use such an exchange?"

[dkbit98]

...

Maybe we should start thinking about making our own list of Blacklisted Centralized Exchanges that are known for confiscating coins from their customers if they notice connection with mixers or coinjoins, and if they ask for your ''soul'' (full history of your life) if you did this ''sin''.
I wouldn't be surprised if the next step from them would be sending all customer information with ''evidence'' to government and starting some dystopian legal process against people.

[PrivacyG]

I just read many posts I have missed and I have to say one thing.  If you claim you strongly support privacy and your user base is mostly composed of privacy geeks, if you turn your back to all the things you claimed and suddenly agree to work with whoever to debunk transactions then your goals are definitely not strongly supporting privacy and offering your users a way to be more private on the Bitcoin Blockchain.

If I was nopara, I would have let Wasabi die.  I would have let everyone down or whatever but never would I have agreed to apply procedures and collaborate with parties that are against the ideas Wasabi began from.  I see this situation closely resembling Google's sudden action of changing their 'Don't Do Evil' motto.  No matter how silent that change of motto was, it spoke and still speaks VERY loudly.

I understand there is a reputation at stake.  I understand they would become the enemy of the Government, and that probably nopara and the other developers have been so far living off Wasabi.  But as I previously said, if my intention was to offer users privacy, no way in hell would I accept to collaborate with the entity they are trying to cover themselves up from.  I thought by creating Wasabi there were some risks nopara and everyone else had to assume.  One of them is the Government conspiring against them.

Sure, information about my transaction is public.  There is probably a TON of data that can be used to determine with a pretty high accuracy certain information about my transaction such as origin, even after a Coin Join.  But only by denying these regulations and invasive procedures can we at least try to put an end to all of it.  If I stop using Binance as an Exchange, Electrum as a Wallet, Ledger as a Closed Source Hardware Wallet, Windows as an Operating System, now Wasabi as a privacy focused Exchange et cetera, the amount of information collected about us becomes much, much lower.  And without enough information, there is no point in doing Blockchain Analysis.  And if Blockchain Analysis companies do not have collaborators, their existence is once again worthless.

Jesus, this whole thread reminds me why I don't use Reddit. Snippets from the upvoted comments include

Then one comment pointing out that centralized exchanges are antithetical to many of the fundamentals of bitcoin is downvoted until it isn't visible any more.

What an echo chamber of stupid.

That is not just Reddit.  I am convinced it is the general mindset of humans.  Not sure what they are smoking or how and when the hell did privacy become a crime but things have been going wrong for years now.

Maybe we should start thinking about making our own list of Blacklisted Centralized Exchanges that are known for confiscating coins from their customers if they notice connection with mixers or coinjoins

A list of Whitelisted Centralized Exchanges would be a perfect addition to your proposed list.  It is nowadays rare to find a Centralized Exchange that still at least partially allows you to stay more private than most of the top Exchanges do.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next step from them would be sending all customer information with ''evidence'' to government and starting some dystopian legal process against people.

Very plausible and something I have been thinking about for a while.  They keep trying to attack from various angles to check where the weakest spot is, and the weakest spot seems to be right now our own mind.  By cunningly teaching us privacy is worthless and useless, they now have a big load of people who are willingly giving any kind of proof and documentation just to reach to that one free Dollar.

I already accepted this fate.  I accept there is a not negligible possibility that years from now I will be judged and persecuted for using Cryptocurrencies and trying to stay private.  At that point in time, you will probably have more freedom in jail than you will at home.  But I still prefer to rather stay positive and believe this is just a dystopian script we will not have to live through.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[pooya87]

I understand there is a reputation at stake.  I understand they would become the enemy of the Government, and that probably nopara and the other developers have been so far living off Wasabi.  But as I previously said, if my intention was to offer users privacy, no way in hell would I accept to collaborate with the entity they are trying to cover themselves up from.  I thought by creating Wasabi there were some risks nopara and everyone else had to assume.  One of them is the Government conspiring against them.

If these things are really their concern then they should have thought about it at the start not years later suddenly being worried that a soft dictatorship is going to go against them and their attempts at improving privacy.

That is not just Reddit.  I am convinced it is the general mindset of humans.  Not sure what they are smoking or how and when the hell did privacy become a crime but things have been going wrong for years now.

To be honest I haven't seen as much brainlessness on bitcointalk as I see on Reddit. But in any case I wouldn't judge humanity by what I read on the internet. Remember that in most cases only a certain type of people are the most vocal.
Take bitcoin price for example. Those who are accumulating and buy more in dips never make a noise when price drops. Only the weak hands who had no understanding of bitcoin and wanted to become rich overnight keep creating topics everywhere about "why has price dropped". In this case you can't make the conclusion that everyone bitcoiner is hoping to "get rich quick" just because all you see on the internet is such subjects.