Bitcoin privacy

[mindrust]

First 2 are the security cameras if you bought the coffee and the stuff from walmart in store (if you got the stuff shipped, now they know your home address) and the third one is your friend, he already knows your address now.

When you say "they know your home address" who are you referring to? Walmart? Does it really matter if Walmart knows your address? If you've ever purchased anything from Amazon or any other online store, you'll need to give them your address anyway?

It matters if you value your privacy.

What difference does it make if a Walmart employee or some random guy knows your home address? Both of them can be equally dangerous.

If you don't care about Amazon/Walmart knowing your home address, why do you even care about privacy in the first place? Overthinking about privacy can make you paranoid in no time.

[DaveF]

You don't need atomic swaps, just an email address and some time to put funds through a non KYC exchange.

I know we've disagreed on this before, but I'm going to disagree with you again. Using a non-KYC exchange is still bad for your privacy. This is becoming more true over time as more and more regulations are being passed, non-KYC exchanges and non-KYC accounts are being clamped down on, exchanges are more extensively cooperating with blockchain analysis, and so on. When there are services like ChipMixer which can be used with even smaller fees than non-KYC exchanges, then there is really no good reason to go down this route.

I *think* part of it is we are both correct AND we are both wrong.
IF chipmixer or any mixer is compromised any funds you put in and take out of are traceable.
However, you are correct as they have smaller fees and are quick and simple to use and do provide a high level of anonymity.

I do realize that my method of jumping though many steps with different private email address services and non KYC exchanges and going from BTC to XMR (or any other privacy coin) and back to BTC is both time consuming and expensive. Along with a lot more risk of loosing your coins along the way. BUT there is just about no way to know that the BTC you end up with had anything to do with the BTC you started with.
Unless both exchanges and email providers were compromised along with breaking XMR privacy.

-Dave

[Kakmakr]

What if you create multiple paper wallets and you split the main hoard into smaller chucks and distribute it via a Mixer service from the main hoard to the paper wallets?

The main idea should be for people not to trace a single use Bitcoin address to a specific individual.. right? So when you split the coins to multiple paper wallets via a Mixer service, you break the chain and you can simply "sweep" individual wallets into different wallets to spend the coins?

It is only when you use a single wallet for everything, that you get exposed ...because you might use that wallet with a service where you were identified and then when you re-use it, it links that identification to all other transactions that are done with that wallet?

You can obfuscate it even more, by using several different Mixer service....

[o_e_l_e_o]

What if you create multiple paper wallets and you split the main hoard into smaller chucks and distribute it via a Mixer service from the main hoard to the paper wallets?

This can work well, provided you are smart about it. If you fund 5 wallets (for example) in the same transaction, then obviously they are linked. If you fund 5 brand new wallets with the same amount, with all the transactions in the same block, then that's probably linkable as well. You also have to be careful with depositing exactly 1.024 BTC to ChipMixer and then withdrawing exactly 4x 0.256 BTC chips, for example.

If I sent part of my main stash to ChipMixer over Tor, and then a number of days later sent an amount to one wallet, and then a different number of days later sent a different amount to a different wallet, and then maybe sent a bit more of my main stash to top up whatever I still had in ChipMixer, and then withdrew another different amount, and so on, and donated a few chips along the way, then it becomes near impossible to track.

Once you've done that, then every paper wallet is essentially an anonymous standalone wallet, and cannot be linked to you or any of your other wallets unless you make careless transactions or leak information another way.