Wasabi blacklisting update - open letter / 24 questions discussion thread

[o_e_l_e_o]

My comments were more about tendencies, i.e. people want convenience; if I was a shitcoiner and I had to go to three of four different sites to trade fiat at one, XMR at another, Shithereum at a third, and Tron at a fourth just to avoid KYC or taint proclamations, I might just give up and hand over all my data to CoinBase.

You can trade all of those except Tron on Bisq already. You can add an altcoin account by following the steps here: https://bisq.wiki/Creating_a_payment_account#Creating_an_altcoin_account. Also, I have no data to support this, but the thought occurs to me that the person who is throwing their money away on shitcoins left, right, and center, probably isn't a person who is closely guarding their privacy.

If Bisq made trading those shitcoins easier, and included "accounts" for multiple smart-chains, more people might find it more attractive.

There is simply not enough demand. Bisq used to host even more altcoins than it does, but many were removed because they had literally zero volume over a period of months. The developers have decided that in general it is not worth their time and effort to integrate a new coin if it will have zero volume, which is understandable. There was a big discussion about this here: https://github.com/bisq-network/proposals/issues/153

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[dkbit98]

You can add an altcoin account by following the steps here: https://bisq.wiki/Creating_a_payment_account#Creating_an_altcoin_account. Also, I have no data to support this, but the thought occurs to me that the person who is throwing their money away on shitcoins left, right, and center, probably isn't a person who is closely guarding their privacy.

You can't add any altcoins in Bisq for years, it was officially put on hold, and I doubt there would be any volume for other coins without someone making a fake volume like on centralized exchanges.
Someone is working on Bisq fork exchange based on Monero, so there is a chance for listing more coins if that gets some traction and activity.
If you look at Bisq markets you will see that Monero currently have highest trading volume even more than currencies like Euro, Dollar, Pound and Brazilian Real.
https://bisq.markets/

[o_e_l_e_o]

You can't add any altcoins in Bisq for years, it was officially put on hold

It was officially put on hold from the end of 2019 as per the Github issue I linked to above, but that does not mean it is impossible or that no coins have been added since then. Exceptions have been made for notable coins - USDT, GRIN, and RSK are the ones which immediately spring to mind, but there have probably been others. The hold was essentially to stop any and every shitcoin applying to be listed just so they could use the fact they were listed as a marketing gimmick, all the while wasting Bisq developers' time and effort to support these coins/tokens which ended up with zero volume.

Although as we've just discussed in another thread, RoboSats lets you use literally any payment method you like. Someone can always take their Bisq acquired bitcoin over there and list it for any shitcoin they desire. The combination of Bisq and RoboSats is very attractive.

[n0nce]

Sparrow simply connects to Samourai wallet's CoinJoin implementation and to Samourai's own coordinator.

Thanks for clarifying that for me.  I haven't used Sparrow although I've been seeing it mentioned frequently these days.  I looked into it a couple of days ago and like the features it provides, like an integrated block explorer.  I was hoping it could connect directly to core and wouldn't need to a remote SPV server, but from reading the documents it looks like it just uses Electrum SPV servers for it's connections.  I may install it and play around with it for a bit just get familiarized.

Sure; give it a go. It does have a 'direct to Core' connection option. No need to install SPV software.

As for CoinJoin, I'm still on the fence about it.  Same with JoinMarket, tbh.  I don't mind using ChipMixer for some things, but usually I rely on Monero to break the link between me and my coins.

JoinMarket is just a CoinJoin implementation, of course. It's fun that in the original thread there's so much talk about 'taint' and how you get 'clean coins from exchanges' through them. Leaves a sour taste for me..

Because of the incentives of JoinMarket, you have access to a huge amount of clean, untainted bitcoins to mix with at a very low price. Many of the bitcoins you're mixing with will be bought from regulated exchanges, owned by legitimate holders of bitcoin.

Later, though, he claims another thing, no? Anyhow; things might have changed since then.

5. Improves the fungibility of bitcoin, since the distinction between 'clean' and 'dirty' bitcoins will be meaningless. Eliminates this particular systemic risk to bitcoin.

My comments were more about tendencies, i.e. people want convenience; if I was a shitcoiner and I had to go to three of four different sites to trade fiat at one, XMR at another, Shithereum at a third, and Tron at a fourth just to avoid KYC or taint proclamations, I might just give up and hand over all my data to CoinBase.  If Bisq made trading those shitcoins easier, and included "accounts" for multiple smart-chains, more people might find it more attractive.

Personally, I have this little distinction between 'on-/off-ramp' (fiat <> crypto) and 'exchange'. For me, such a 'fiat gateway' doesn't need the more advanced features and multitude of trading pairs that an exchange should offer. The services like ShapeShift (which you mentioned) or FixedFloat do allow basically any trading pair, so you'd only really need 2 services: Bisq and a crypto <> crypto exchange.

[witcher_sense]

I haven't used Sparrow although I've been seeing it mentioned frequently these days.  I looked into it a couple of days ago and like the features it provides, like an integrated block explorer.  I was hoping it could connect directly to core and wouldn't need to a remote SPV server, but from reading the documents it looks like it just uses Electrum SPV servers for it's connections.  I may install it and play around with it for a bit just get familiarized.

You can pair Sparrow Wallet with Bitcoin Core directly; however, this type of connection, from my own experience, appears to be very unstable, and often it is very difficult to identify what's wrong. Of course, like in the case of Electrum wallet, you can use one of the public servers or one of the "trusted" ones that were chosen by Sparrow wallet devs, but it is always recommended to spin up your own Electrum server with the easiest option being Electrum Personal server, especially if you're a Windows user. The other options, such as Electrs, require tinkering with software or hardware and considerable disk space.

As for CoinJoin, I'm still on the fence about it.  Same with JoinMarket, tbh.  I don't mind using ChipMixer for some things, but usually I rely on Monero to break the link between me and my coins.

By using Monero you may break the link between past and future transactions, but essentially you are merely swapping your transaction history with other users like in the case of CoinSwap.

It is quite sad to see all these reputable accounts running around promoting a wallet that's hurting the fungibility of bitcoin.  Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.  I guess that's what you get when you mix greed with short-sightedness.

At least, those users promoting Wasabi Wallet will know for sure that they are getting paid with clean, carefully filtered coins that will never be blocked by regulated entities. sarcasm

[NotATether]

As for CoinJoin, I'm still on the fence about it.  Same with JoinMarket, tbh.  I don't mind using ChipMixer for some things, but usually I rely on Monero to break the link between me and my coins.

That's not a dependency on coins, but a dependency on the exchange that sells the coins to you.

After all, you're not sending an obfuscated Monero transaction, but a regular one that has a bunch of dummy inputs baked in. Authorities that know the source and destination exchange should not have any trouble following the link from source to destination (and hence find your new BTC coins).

[Pmalek]

At least, those users promoting Wasabi Wallet will know for sure that they are getting paid with clean, carefully filtered coins that will never be blocked by regulated entities. sarcasm

Although the comment was sarcastic in nature, let's say it wasn't. We don't know which blockchain analysis company Wasabi has partnered with and there are several of them. What if the bitcoins are considered free of taint by some institutions and centralized exchanges based on the info they are given by one anal company, but at the same time a different anal company considers some of those coins as dirty and send out different signals to their partners? Unless all blockchain analysis companies cooperate in terms of what is tainted and what isn't, I would expect that they show different results and taint scores.   

[o_e_l_e_o]

but essentially you are merely swapping your transaction history with other users like in the case of CoinSwap.

Which is completely fine for my use case. I don't use, and will never use, any company or service which attacks bitcoin by enforcing taint nonsense, so I have absolutely no care about the history of the coins I receive. All I care about is that it is not my history and cannot be used to link my previous transactions to my future ones.

At least, those users promoting Wasabi Wallet will know for sure that they are getting paid with clean, carefully filtered coins that will never be blocked by regulated entities. sarcasm

How funny when Wasabi's blockchain analysis partner changes their rules and suddenly Wasabi's team's own coins are no longer allowed.

After all, you're not sending an obfuscated Monero transaction, but a regular one that has a bunch of dummy inputs baked in. Authorities that know the source and destination exchange should not have any trouble following the link from source to destination (and hence find your new BTC coins).

If you send Monero directly from one centralized service to another centralized service, then sure, but if you send Monero to your own wallet and then to someone else in a peer-to-peer trade, then this kind of tracking becomes impossible.

What if the bitcoins are considered free of taint by some institutions and centralized exchanges based on the info they are given by one anal company, but at the same time a different anal company considers some of those coins as dirty and send out different signals to their partners? Unless all blockchain analysis companies cooperate in terms of what is tainted and what isn't, I would expect that they show different results and taint scores.

This is exactly what happens. See my post here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5395035.msg59905002#msg59905002. 25% of coins in Binance's hot wallet were blacklisted.

[Poker Player]

At least, those users promoting Wasabi Wallet will know for sure that they are getting paid with clean, carefully filtered coins that will never be blocked by regulated entities. sarcasm

I don't know if you say that because the casino that pays you with its KYC/AML policies strongly advocates the P2P spirit of bitcoin without going through centralized entities and defends privacy:

https://roobet.com/termsandconditions

In my case is that I was going to be a traitor to the cause anyway: I had had in my signature casinos with KYC requirements and Best Change, and the only signature that seemed not to be a traitor to the cause was Lightlord's casino Bitvest.io, lol.

As I said, I liked the conditions of this campaign better, although I took a paycut per post.

It is like if Coinbase comes to make a campaign to the forum. Do you think they are going to leave a slot unfilled because people don't apply because of their policies?

Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to work for entities that are the authentic Bitcoin advocates and that pay very well.

PS: I hope that some irony is noticed.

And btw, bad news for the cause, it looks like the campaign is extended:

Thanks. I understand that the campaign will run for a few more weeks, then, as 4 weeks have passed:

Yes, the campaign is alive!

[PrivacyG]

If we get into this debate of whether it is moral and right or not to join a signature campaign that does not support your principles, we get into a really long one.  That is because I think all sides can have both good and bad points to score.  Joining Wasabi's signature campaign is perfectly fine if you support them, since that would be the ideal case anyway, but it is also perfectly fine if you do not because after all your mindset might be 'why would I miss this opportunity?', and it is OK to think that way as well.  To some here, it is probably extremely immoral to join a signature campaign that is against your principles, to others it may be perfectly fine.  This is fine as well to me.

Then you think about it, why would you help promote something that is against your principles.  But if you do not, then someone will take that spot anyway and the one on a loss is going to be you.  This gets worse and, on the other hand, also better at the same time if all the good posters of the forum avoid joining the said campaign while only shit posters apply and join it.  Worse because then you have shit posters earning in some cases from posts that suck more money than you earn from well thought posts, but better because if you have only bad posters promoting it then I am pretty sure chances of another user clicking the signature link lower down drastically.  I am very confident someone would rather click the signature link under one of n0nce's posts over the signature link under one of a shit poster's reply.  But then this is only better from your view, because you do not support what the company promotes, but the company is going to suffer.  So is it really better?

In some ways, 'renting' a signature room on this forum somehow resembles the process and motives of renting a billboard.  You, as the owner of a billboard, will probably not skip a contract with KFC just because you are a healthy eater.  It stands against your standards and diet, but business is business and if you skip the contract, the next person they contact will not.

There is obviously also a big exception of tolerance, at least in my eyes, which is scams.  When someone is promoting a straight up scam, there is zero way I could ever tolerate or promote it.  So as I said, there is a big debate and you have a lot of room for opinions and arguments that are probably never wrong really.  As mentioned in the first paragraph, all sides can be simultaneously right.

So while there is no way I can blame you for promoting their signature campaign, there are definitely questions I have for Wasabi that might never actually get a legitimate, honest answer from their team as I can clearly see from their reply to n0nce's open letter.

On a side note, I perfectly feel what you are saying about not being fortunate enough to be able to promote a campaign that stands for your principles and standards.  I have desperately looked for campaigns that did this, and I really do wish I could find a spot in a campaign that has more focus on privacy, but I think the choices have shrunk along the years of Bitcoin Talk's existence down to only a very, very small number of businesses such as Chip Mixer which have a very select and specific list of participants anyway.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[Poker Player]

If we get into this debate of whether it is moral and right or not to join a signature campaign that does not support your principles,

Who said it goes against my principles? If the signature campaign advocated that blacks or homosexuals should be killed just because they are blacks or homosexuals, I would not have joined it.

The signature campaign I represent I understand has a moot point about blacklisting.

But what I see is that there is a global trend in the world towards greater government control of Bitcoin, via KYC/AML, blacklisting and other measures.

Would the world be better off with purely P2P transactions as Satoshi devised? Surely, but the price would not have gone over $1k. I highly doubt it would have gone over $100. Just seeing that Coinbase is on this list:

[Blacklist] of unreliable, 'taint proclaiming' Bitcoin services / exchanges

Without Coinbase and traitorous institutions like it, the price would be much lower.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I see a future with Bitcoin much more controlled by governments, where there is a reduced space for privacy or P2P transactions, but governments were not going to let what reached 1T market cap, 2T if we count shitcoins, to remain uncontrolled.

On a side note, I perfectly feel what you are saying about not being fortunate enough to be able to promote a campaign that stands for your principles and standards.  I have desperately looked for campaigns that did this, and I really do wish I could find a spot in a campaign that has more focus on privacy, but I think the choices have shrunk along the years of Bitcoin Talk's existence down to only a very, very small number of businesses such as Chip Mixer which have a very select and specific list of participants anyway.

I think you didn't quite understand me before, because there was some irony in what I said, but I think I do understand you here when you say "I wish I could find a spot in a campaign that has more focus on privacy," because calling yourself PrivacyG and wearing the signature of a casino with KYC requirements, doesn't seem the most suitable thing to do.

[LoyceV]

I perfectly feel what you are saying about not being fortunate enough to be able to promote a campaign that stands for your principles and standards.

I'm pretty sure there are millions of people who don't have the luxory of choosing a job that aligns with their personal morals.
You'll need a decent amount of FU-money to be picky about who's money to accept or not.

There is obviously also a big exception of tolerance, at least in my eyes, which is scams.  When someone is promoting a straight up scam, there is zero way I could ever tolerate or promote it.

Agreed. If your employer asks you to rob a bank, you're the one who's going to end up in jail.

I see a future with Bitcoin much more controlled by governments, where there is a reduced space for privacy or P2P transactions, but governments were not going to let what reached 1T market cap, 2T if we count shitcoins, to remain uncontrolled.

Governments will probably try, and corporations will have to comply. Binance for instance just got a 3.3 million euro fine in a tiny country for not following local laws.
But the Wasabi case isn't about government regulations, and not even about a government enforced blacklisting. They're voluntarily blacklisting addresses based on some third party's list.

[n0nce]

If we get into this debate of whether it is moral and right or not to join a signature campaign that does not support your principles, we get into a really long one.  That is because I think all sides can have both good and bad points to score.  Joining Wasabi's signature campaign is perfectly fine if you support them, since that would be the ideal case anyway, but it is also perfectly fine if you do not because after all your mindset might be 'why would I miss this opportunity?', and it is OK to think that way as well.  To some here, it is probably extremely immoral to join a signature campaign that is against your principles, to others it may be perfectly fine.  This is fine as well to me.
~snip~

I do think this is an interesting topic that deserves its own topic. My personal opinion is that for myself, I never wanted to promote something that is against my values; at the same time I don't condemn people promoting something they don't 100% believe in.

I am very confident someone would rather click the signature link under one of n0nce's posts over the signature link under one of a shit poster's reply.

I'm not sure that's necessarily the case. An opinion from a signature campaign manager (like icopress ) on this would be interesting; to me signature advertising seems to be a mix of getting as many of your company's banners on the forum in general and having users with a certain reputation promoting you. The former refers to the psychological 'Mere Exposure Effect' ('as seen on TV'...) ; the latter steers towards an 'argumentum ab auctoritate', wherein people assume a certain legitimacy of a business if esteemed community members advertise for it.

To put it more concrete terms: First, a user is 'bombarded' by ChipMixer banners, which sparks interest, then they see that high-ranked users wear that signature which gives it legitimacy and ultimately leads them to try it out.
This is my impression, but I'm glad about more insights (preferably in a new thread).

Would the world be better off with purely P2P transactions as Satoshi devised? Surely, but the price would not have gone over $1k. I highly doubt it would have gone over $100. Just seeing that Coinbase is on this list:

[Blacklist] of unreliable, 'taint proclaiming' Bitcoin services / exchanges

Without Coinbase and traitorous institutions like it, the price would be much lower.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I see a future with Bitcoin much more controlled by governments, where there is a reduced space for privacy or P2P transactions, but governments were not going to let what reached 1T market cap, 2T if we count shitcoins, to remain uncontrolled.

Let's assume your statement regarding Bitcoin price was valid; what does it matter?
If it is higher or lower, in the end what ultimately counts in my opinion, is if Bitcoin is good money. This can be achieved at a price of $100,000 or $1,000 per coin; doesn't matter since we have enough decimal places.

I'd much rather have no centralized exchanges and services, lower Bitcoin price but higher privacy and thus higher utility and usage.

But the Wasabi case isn't about government regulations, and not even about a government enforced blacklisting. They're voluntarily blacklisting addresses based on some third party's list.

This has to really be emphasized in this whole story. It's easy to assume there was a legal reason, since it's what we're used to. That makes it even more important to keep in mind that here it was a deliberate business decision.

[Pmalek]

I'm pretty sure there are millions of people who don't have the luxory of choosing a job that aligns with their personal morals.
You'll need a decent amount of FU-money to be picky about who's money to accept or not.

I think those are very lucky individuals indeed. Especially if you have a family to feed, you have to put that food on the table or they are not going to eat. It's easy when you are young and you still have your parents to fall back on when times get tough. But man can that change fast...

Someone mentioned billboards and that's a good example. Imagine you bought several and you needed to earn X amount every month to make a living, but also pay back your loan rate. Your idea is to advertise healthy food and beverages. Who do you think would be more likely to want to rent out your billboard? Coca Cola and Pepsi - the multibillion dollar businesses, or a small local company who sells natural spring water with great PH values? The same goes for food. McDonalds or that small local shop that sells organic food?

The idea of advertising healthy food could soon die when you realize that it's the bastards that will earn you the needed money, while the better choice can get your car or house repossessed by the bank.  

[dkbit98]

But the Wasabi case isn't about government regulations, and not even about a government enforced blacklisting. They're voluntarily blacklisting addresses based on some third party's list.

Wasabi actually didn't start to blacklist anything yet, and from some information I am getting they are not even going to start doing that in near future.
All this operation appears to be decoy tactics, while in background they needed to buy some time while moving from Gibraltar to Seychelles.
They can't come up and publicly say that, but this is my speculation based on latest information I got.
To conclude, until I see bitcoin transaction actually being blacklisted in Wasabi, I am not considering they are blacklisting anything.

This has to really be emphasized in this whole story. It's easy to assume there was a legal reason, since it's what we're used to. That makes it even more important to keep in mind that here it was a deliberate business decision.

It's legal reasons for sure, maybe that's the reason for them moving to other country with less regulations
Let me say this in public, I will be the first to criticize Wasabi if they officially start to blacklist and track anything, but until then I think it's time for everyone to chill about this.

[DireWolfM14]

That's not a dependency on coins, but a dependency on the exchange that sells the coins to you.

After all, you're not sending an obfuscated Monero transaction, but a regular one that has a bunch of dummy inputs baked in. Authorities that know the source and destination exchange should not have any trouble following the link from source to destination (and hence find your new BTC coins).

I use a p2p exchange that leaves a light footprint, but it's certainly not infallible.  Regardless, if they want go through all that trouble just to find out that I pay my taxes, at least I didn't make it easy on them.  

You can pair Sparrow Wallet with Bitcoin Core directly; however, this type of connection, from my own experience, appears to be very unstable, and often it is very difficult to identify what's wrong. Of course, like in the case of Electrum wallet, you can use one of the public servers or one of the "trusted" ones that were chosen by Sparrow wallet devs, but it is always recommended to spin up your own Electrum server with the easiest option being Electrum Personal server, especially if you're a Windows user. The other options, such as Electrs, require tinkering with software or hardware and considerable disk space.

Thanks for the heads up.  I'm not in a hurry, but I did get around to downloading it and checking the signature.  I do have a couple of nodes under the staircase, both running electrumx, so I can point it there if it gives me trouble.  I also have an unpruned QT running on my main PC that I use as a hot wallet most of the time, so I might try it connected directly to that first.

By using Monero you may break the link between past and future transactions, but essentially you are merely swapping your transaction history with other users like in the case of CoinSwap.

That's the point.  If I'm converting my coins on a regular basis, in varying amounts, with multiple people I'll get bitcoin with diverse history.  Some form exchanges, some from other p2p, some from "tainted" UTXOs.  I don't really care what that history is, as long as it's diverse enough that even multiple transactions with a single individual are random enough to appear to be exactly what they are; me obfuscating the origin of my coins for privacy reasons.

At least, those users promoting Wasabi Wallet will know for sure that they are getting paid with clean, carefully filtered coins that will never be blocked by regulated entities. sarcasm

I got your meaning without the tiny hint, but I don't begrudge people for picking up a slot on Wasabi's campaign.

We don't know which blockchain analysis company Wasabi has partnered with and there are several of them. What if the bitcoins are considered free of taint by some institutions and centralized exchanges based on the info they are given by one anal company, but at the same time a different anal company considers some of those coins as dirty and send out different signals to their partners? Unless all blockchain analysis companies cooperate in terms of what is tainted and what isn't, I would expect that they show different results and taint scores.  

I'd like to know which provider or method or algorithm any "legitimate" exchange is using to determine what's tainted or not.  If they're going to operate in this space shouldn't they at least be transparent with that?

All this operation appears to be decoy tactics, while in background they needed to buy some time while moving from Gibraltar to Seychelles.

Lol, this is some 007 shit.  If it wasn't you posting it I would think it was a joke.  If this turns out to be true these bitches will be my new heroes.

[witcher_sense]

Unless all blockchain analysis companies cooperate in terms of what is tainted and what isn't, I would expect that they show different results and taint scores.   

Paradoxically, if they all were to cooperate and agree on what to consider tainted, it wouldn't make sense to have more than one surveillance company in place. If it were possible to interpret objectively what is going on in the blockchain, we wouldn't even need a single surveillance company (I am talking about businesses that have to hire these firms to comply with AML policies, not individuals making P2P transactions since no sane individual would support the harmful activities of these firms) because individuals themselves could track every payment and prevent money laundering and financing of other crimes.

But we have what we have. Inasmuch as it is physically impossible to interpret occurring objectively, we witness the intense competition between chain surveillance firms, where everyone is trying to sell their own subjective interpretation of transactions in the blockchain. Clients of these firms aren't seeking truth or justice, nor do they interested in protecting the rights of their customers. They simply need protection from regulatory pressure and chain surveillance firms kind of provide such protection by selling convenient and convincing interpretations both to businesses and governments.

[LoyceV]

Wasabi actually didn't start to blacklist anything yet, and from some information I am getting they are not even going to start doing that in near future.
All this operation appears to be decoy tactics, while in background they needed to buy some time while moving from Gibraltar to Seychelles.

That wouldn't make any sense: they could have quietly moved from one tax haven to an even bigger tax paradise without supporting and encouraging the foolish concept of tainted Bitcoins.

I will be the first to criticize Wasabi if they officially start to blacklist and track anything, but until then I think it's time for everyone to chill about this.

I've said it before: I believe the idea of taint can actually damage Bitcoin, and I also believe many people have an interest in doing so. Whether or not they go through with it, normalizing the believe that taint even exists is bad.

[Pmalek]

I'd like to know which provider or method or algorithm any "legitimate" exchange is using to determine what's tainted or not.  If they're going to operate in this space shouldn't they at least be transparent with that?

They could be transparent about it and make everything public. But are they going to? I seriously doubt that. I even tried to get them to talk about it and maybe reveal something in What Do Centralized Exchanges Consider as Taint? But that didn't go so well. And that information is surely above the pay grade of a regular support agent.

[Poker Player]

Let's assume your statement regarding Bitcoin price was valid; what does it matter?
If it is higher or lower, in the end what ultimately counts in my opinion, is if Bitcoin is good money. This can be achieved at a price of $100,000 or $1,000 per coin; doesn't matter since we have enough decimal places.

It does matter.

An invention that in theory is very good, because it is decentralized, autonomous and limited in its production, for it to be really good it lacks that people believe in it and that is reflected in the price.

If the price of Bitcoin were $0.01 today, after 13 years, it would still be a good invention in theory but bad in practice. And this forum would be long dead, for example.

Wasabi actually didn't start to blacklist anything yet, and from some information I am getting they are not even going to start doing that in near future.
All this operation appears to be decoy tactics, while in background they needed to buy some time while moving from Gibraltar to Seychelles.

That wouldn't make any sense: they could have quietly moved from one tax haven to an even bigger tax paradise without supporting and encouraging the foolish concept of tainted Bitcoins.

I am not clear on that either, as for example crypto casinos, which have tax havens licenses (most of them) are imposing more and more KYC requirements and some blacklisting mixed coins as reflected in n0nce's thread. And there would be no sense in all the explanations given to then change to a freer country, so to speak, and then going back on what was said.

Btw: budget for the Wasabi signature campaign has been reduced and the participants have gone down to 15 from 40, with a maximum of 30 paid posts per week, instead of 50. In other words, the budget has been reduced to 25% of the initial one.