Wasabi Wallet - Open Source, Noncustodial Coinjoin Software

[Kruw]

You lured people into EVERY SINGLE ONE of these rugpulls, yet, you spent years deliberately lying about Wasabi, which is TRUSTLESS SOFTWARE.

While you were attacking trustless open source software, you promoted Mixtum who said they explicitly perform blockchain analysis on their users and confiscate their users coins "at any time at its own discretion, with or without reasons, with or without notification assuming no responsibility whatsoever."

Custodial mixing shills contradict themselves by promoting and profiting off of the very thing they claim to be against. Such incredibly dishonest and disgusting behavior. These pathological scammers should donate their signature earnings to Samourai’s defense fund if they are capable of feeling contrition. Ideally they would pay restitutions to those who lost funds with mixers, but those losses could be in the millions and it will be impossible to ever fully undo the damage they caused by endorsing those thieves.

Exactly. BlackHatCoiner can only pay the money back to the people he scammed, but he can't give his victims their privacy back. That damage is permanent.

Is there a chance some really big shit is going on in their lives, and they are incapable of going online? For like... A month? I really can't believe this is an exit scam. The service seemed legitimate.

I'm really pissed off, and not because I lost money; fortunately, I had grasped that "don't leave coins to third parties" cliché. I'm so pissed off because I've been advertising and recommending this shit for months, in such a way that I'm practically part of this scam. And it's just feels awful.

It makes you question the integrity of the service you're currently carrying in your signature.

They deserve the storm if it ends up coming their way.

This is why crypto and privacy keep getting fucked more and more, people openly cheering for government overreach as long as it’s against those they hate. It’s not just a Wasabi vs. Samourai thing, it's Bitcoin vs shitcoins too. Everyone’s lives will get worse but at least Wasabi devs, lightning service providers, and Uniswap’s CEO will all be locked away and it might pump my bags of whatever I’m holding.

Everyone is still waiting for a list of apologies from Pmalek for RELENTLESSLY mocking trustless open source software for months while he was promoting a trusted custodian that turned everything over to the Feds:

Pmalek, don't you have a LOT of apologies to make?  You spent months relentlessly attacking open source trustless Bitcoin privacy software while promoting a trusted custodian. Now that trusted custodian has turned over its users' data to the government.

In the future, whenever someone mentions anything negative about Wasabi, your job is to hit them with the we are open-source and baaam, that will shut them up. If they are advertising a mixer, you also call them a thief to really get your point across.

Oh boy, now I am going to hear about how Wasabi is open-source again.  

To be fair, we don't hear it as often as we are open-source, mixers are a scam, or the many variants of look at how flawed these other implementations are.

Now you can tell me how mixing services steal coins and sell customer data. I think it's the perfect opportunity to play that card.

If you do, their forum representative will tell you the software is open-source and that they make donations to the Human Rights Foundation and the TOR project. Seeing as you are wearing the signature of a mixing service, they will throw in a few sentences about you advertising a scam and/or that you are a thief or scammer yourself.

Play the we are open-source card or everyone can run their own coordinator card, again because the software is open-source. Despite you knowing that's not the issue, you insist on playing those cards. No one is falling for your bluffs. Attacks on centralized mixing services incoming

You can stick your we are open-source and thus don't do anything unethical propaganda where the sun doesn't shine.

Kruw:
Thanks for using Wasabi and contacting us! We are glad to help you.
Did you know that BlackHatCoiner and o_e_l_e_o are to blame because they are openly advertising centralized mixing services? Amazing, right? They also did it before and will probably do it again. They are trying to trick you into handling your money over to these centralized services. We at Wasabi would never do that. Stay with us, we have amazing surprises for our users. Wasabi - the ultimate Bitcoin privacy tool.  

To all criminal users of former mixer Sinbad.io,
This is a collective warning issued by the Dutch Investigation Service for Financial and Tax Crime (FIOD) and the Dutch Public Prosecution Office.
Our investigation has uncovered illicit activities on this mixer platform and the logs obtained have compromised the anonymity of numerous users.
We urge all criminal users and admins of mixers to cease all unlawful actions immediately. Persistent engagement will lead to severe legal consequences. We are resolute in pursuing and prosecuting all involved in criminal activities.
Your anonymity is no longer assured. Law enforcement actions are imminent.
With Vigilance,
Dutch Investigation Service for Financial and Tax Crime (FIOD) and the Dutch Public Prosecution Office

Sparrow wallet has such PayNym option which is nice for preserving transaction privacy but when I tell about this to my contractual counterparties they are rolling  eyes upwards and don't begin to understand me.

Paynyms don't preserve transaction privacy, you should just give your counterparty a regular address.

[Wind_FURY]

Effective immediately and until further notice, zkSNACKs is now blocking U.S. citizens and residents from visiting its websites, downloading and using Wasabi Wallet and any related products and services, including APIs and RPC interfaces.

In light of recent announcements by U.S. authorities, zkSNACKs is now strictly prohibiting U.S. users from using its services. An IP address blocking for U.S. residents is effective on wasabiwallet.io, api.wasabiwallet.io and zksnacks.com.

“U.S.” refers to “United States” and includes the several states of the United States and related territories. If you are a United States Citizen or United States Resident, you are not allowed to visit any sites aforementioned, download Wasabi Wallet or use the Wasabi Wallet coinjoin feature. This includes if you are a U.S. permanent resident or if you are an individual that holds a U.S. passport.

https://blog.wasabiwallet.io/zksnacks-now-blocking-u-s-residents-and-citizens/

Was that something that the Wasabi developers expected? When nopara73 left the team, I was very curious why, but I didn't want to ask that question in the forum because people might merely FUD make tin-foil hypotheses about Wasabi again. But currently it's known that Wasabi left the U.S., did nopara73 already know that that - Wasabi/zkSNACKS to leave U.S. - was going to happen? I believe he's the only developer that made his identity public, no?

[Pmalek]

Everyone is still waiting from an apology from Pmalek for RELENTLESSLY mocking trustless open source software for months while he was promoting a trusted custodian that turned everything over to the Feds.

They got seized. But why expect a lying douchebag like yourself to know the difference. Now with Samourai Wallet out of the picture, have you and your handlers decided who to attack and sell out next? Maybe you can work with the US government and blockchain analysis to help identify the people behind JoinMarket. That's a tool that actually improves privacy, which would make it perfect for you to dox with your government pals.   

[Kruw]

Everyone is still waiting from an apology from Pmalek for RELENTLESSLY mocking trustless open source software for months while he was promoting a trusted custodian that turned everything over to the Feds.

They got seized.

See? No apology whatsoever after the exact thing I warned about happened. Satoshi, who built Bitcoin to operate without custodians, is ashamed of you Pmalek:

A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending.

You took money in exchange for actively destroying the fundamental property of Bitcoin, and you don't even have the decency to apologize to your victims.

[NotATether]

Unlike Samourai which records all of their users' financial activity by default, Wasabi does not collect any personally identifying information whatsoever:

The privacy policy you quoted quite explicitly declares that some data is collected by the service (ironically the part you bolded)

All User Information is Confidential
====================================

   Because we cannot link Your wallet and Your personal information (such as Your name and IP address) provided under the Service, Your personal information is safe and cannot be accessed by our staff or third parties.
    zkSNACKs will protect processed data in the customer Service process adequately against unauthorized access (of third parties) in accordance with the provisions of the legal framework of Republic of Seychelles. We will only process data which are essential to provide our Services. Data will not be used or stored by other means than set out in this document and are made accessible only to a restricted and necessary number of persons. We do not transfer any personal data to third parties.
    All employees of zkSNACKs have been informed about applicable data protection provisions as well as data security measures and are bound to our privacy practices. All staff are bound by confidentiality agreements.

You can't protect processed data if no data is being collected in the first place. Also you cannot run geoblocking without collecting IP addresses. This is not some Cloudflare job either, as even Wasabi's app servers are geoblocked.

Was that something that the Wasabi developers expected? When nopara73 left the team, I was very curious why, but I didn't want to ask that question in the forum because people might merely FUD make tin-foil hypotheses about Wasabi again. But currently it's known that Wasabi left the U.S., did nopara73 already know that that - Wasabi/zkSNACKS to leave U.S. - was going to happen? I believe he's the only developer that made his identity public, no?

I damn bet he knew. His departure announcement on Medium was suspiciously timed. I guess he didn't want to be part of the reputation smear that evidently the rest of Wasabi has been hit by, so who can blame him.

[Kruw]

The privacy policy you quoted quite explicitly declares that some data is collected by the service (ironically the part you bolded)

Where?

[Pmalek]

See? No apology whatsoever...

I am sorry that Wasabi and zkSNACKs are a threat to Bitcoin's privacy and fungibility. I am sorry that you choose the dark path instead of working for the good of Bitcoin. I am sorry that you have reached agreements with your handlers on what bitcoins are good and which ones are bad. I am sorry that you are a sell-out. I am sorry that you have sold out 300 million potential users in the States and that, sooner or later, you will also sell out around 500 million unsuspecting users in the EU when your handers tell you to. But it's also a good thing that more and more people can't use a privacy-invasive and malicious service like Wasabi and its default coordinator.

I am sorry that a threat to Bitcoin and privacy like yourself is still here, but Tornado Cash or Samourai Wallet isn't. I am sorry that you are in the business of doxing developers of privacy solutions, and probably wouldn't mind helping your handlers (for money or for free) to dox the remaining ones for profit or out of maliciousness. Finally, I am sorry that someone like you gets to boast that there are open-source, and it's sad that it's enough for some.

PS: I am sorry that you believe the donations you send towards open-source software is a sign of your righteousness and morality. Instead, you are a corrupt entity, in bed with the enemy.

The privacy policy you quoted quite explicitly declares that some data is collected by the service (ironically the part you bolded)

I think it refers only to the email address if given during customer support enquiries. But hey, never trust a liar and doxing service like Wasabi.

[Kruw]

See? No apology whatsoever...

I am sorry that Wasabi and zkSNACKs are a threat to Bitcoin's privacy and fungibility. I am sorry that you choose the dark path instead of working for the good of Bitcoin. I am sorry that you have reached agreements with your handlers on what bitcoins are good and which ones are bad. I am sorry that you are a sell-out. I am sorry that you have sold out 300 million potential users in the States and that, sooner or later, you will also sell out around 500 million unsuspecting users in the EU when your handers tell you to. But it's also a good thing that more and more people can't use a privacy-invasive and malicious service like Wasabi and its default coordinator.

I am sorry that a threat to Bitcoin and privacy like yourself is still here, but Tornado Cash or Samourai Wallet isn't. I am sorry that you are in the business of doxing developers of privacy solutions, and probably wouldn't mind helping your handlers (for money or for free) to dox the remaining ones for profit or out of maliciousness. Finally, I am sorry that someone like you gets to boast that there are open-source, and it's sad that it's enough for some.

PS: I am sorry that you believe the donations you send towards open-source software is a sign of your righteousness and morality. Instead, you are a corrupt entity, in bed with the enemy.

Lmao. You didn't bother to spare a single word for the victims you scammed with Sinbad.

To all criminal users of former mixer Sinbad.io,
This is a collective warning issued by the Dutch Investigation Service for Financial and Tax Crime (FIOD) and the Dutch Public Prosecution Office.
Our investigation has uncovered illicit activities on this mixer platform and the logs obtained have compromised the anonymity of numerous users.
We urge all criminal users and admins of mixers to cease all unlawful actions immediately. Persistent engagement will lead to severe legal consequences. We are resolute in pursuing and prosecuting all involved in criminal activities.
Your anonymity is no longer assured. Law enforcement actions are imminent.
With Vigilance,
Dutch Investigation Service for Financial and Tax Crime (FIOD) and the Dutch Public Prosecution Office

Pmalek, you betrayed Satoshi. Pay back the victims you owe.

[alani123]

Are Wassabi devs still feel safe and confident? Would be nice to have this reassurance from them in a statement perhaps.

You've probably not followed the events of Wasabi in 2022. Here are a few topics to read:

- The default Wasabi Wallet coordinator will start censoring "illegal" UTXOs.
- Wasabi blacklisting update - open letter / 24 questions discussion thread.
- Re: Petition to remove Wasabi from recommendations of bitcoin.org.

To me, it is crystal clear that Wasabi is not to be trusted. Maybe some coinjoins will work, but there is a vast amount of accusations, lies, inappropriate and diplomatic responses from the developers, and on top of that, they are funding blockchain surveillance.

zkSNACKs and Wasabi Wallet has been blocked for US citizens.

How can they block access to US citizens if connection to the coordinator is established via hidden service?

What a disgusting statement.

Are you capable of experiencing emotions? That's quite groundbreaking news.

I think that we have to be understanding of Wasabi's position before such conclusions. Developers that know how to develop bitcoin could apply to 10 positions today and have a very high acceptance rate for new job opportunities. Plus, when you make a piece of software free and open source, revenue avenues are kinda limited because it can't realistically be sold or licensed.

The devs somehow need to get paid or they won't develop FOSS at all.
So when it comes to developing a wallet solution that offers additional features on top of the bitcoin stack, the voluntary-funded model hasn't proven to work yet. Bitcoin-core developers might get external sponsors because it's a very knowledge intensive task and people need to pay their bills too if they spend tons of time doing something they've spent a large part of their life learning (without getting paid) to do.

But who would fund a privacy wallet? Even with bitcoin, nearly all of the dev funding comes from corporations and from the occasional well-meaning tech billionaire. Would these corporations and billionaires want to risk seeming as defying U.S. authorities and regulations though? I think most definitely not.

We can't realistically expect any software development to happen from developers operating without salaries and/or without knowing each other's person, operating in a rogue manner. Feature-packed privacy wallets are vast and can't be developed without any organization. So whoever is organizing things also could face liability against state entities.

The alternative to external pressure for a software project is always to give up and find jobs elsewhere. But instead Wasabi devs built offices in Budapest, found a team of professionals in the space, found ways to LEGALLY pay them a stable salary to continue development, and to this day offers a feature-packed bitcoin wallet with additional privacy services on top. They already do so much to develop the software and keep their operation sustainable.

After seeing what happened to Samourai devs, we just have to be glad that Wasabi is still standing and the devs behind it are still willing to provide the software, albeit with limitations. The software existing and being developed is what matters. If anyone wants to use it in whatever ways it should be on them and not in the developers. But if the US gov doesn't see it that way, what can be done?

Maybe we could try crowd-fund the development of a privacy coordinator and development team to operate out of Russia or Iran or at least anonymously and not have to worry about them being sent to a U.S. jail. But to my knowledge, no one has taken up to that endeavor and secondly I've seen overall nearly non-existent willingness of users to crowd-fund bitcoin privacy wallets. Let alone the fact that operating our of a non-western state and/or being anonymous doesn't guarantee that developers of such a project will be left alone.

To make a long story short, Wasabi is one of the best things we have for bitcoin privacy as of now. It's not perfect but it's they're operating with certain limitations that are very hard to overcome. We have to appreciate their efforts and recent developments with Samourai shows that they're dedicated for wanting to continue and more prepared overall.

[FinneysTrueVision]

I am sorry that a threat to Bitcoin and privacy like yourself is still here, but Tornado Cash or Samourai Wallet isn't.

Tornado Cash developers aren’t the martyrs you think they are. Just like zkSNACKs, they took precautionary measures to minimize the risk of getting their rights taken away and their lives destroyed by overzealous government persecution. Their website had a built-in compliance tool which would do chain analysis on your transaction. They also blocked US sanctioned countries from their domain.

[mikeywith]

I'll recognize that Samourai and Wassabi aren't the same and have many differences, but also people considered them competitors.
Having your competing product's founders arrested and their services shutdown sounds pretty alarming.

It would be pretty awkward if Wasabi faced the same end, it would only mean that all the bending over to the government never paid off.

[alani123]

I'll recognize that Samourai and Wassabi aren't the same and have many differences, but also people considered them competitors.
Having your competing product's founders arrested and their services shutdown sounds pretty alarming.

It would be pretty awkward if Wasabi faced the same end, it would only mean that all the bending over to the government never paid off.

Who would you blame in that case? Given how ferocious feds have been I wouldn't blame the developers.
As stated above, Tornado.cash developers also did their best to cover their ass and avoid having their lives ruined by federal indictments, and yet for the feds it wasn't enough. And as we saw with Samourai devs, one of them was even arrested in Portugal. Even if he doesn't get extradited, he's going to face charged difficult to combat for sure. Prison is never an unlikely scenario when the U.S. goes against you and you're in a western country.

So I'd argue that developers also have an obligation to themselves to try and do their best not to get rekt by feds. If someone else wants to take the risk they could always fork the software.

[Wind_FURY]

Was that something that the Wasabi developers expected? When nopara73 left the team, I was very curious why, but I didn't want to ask that question in the forum because people might merely FUD make tin-foil hypotheses about Wasabi again. But currently it's known that Wasabi left the U.S., did nopara73 already know that that - Wasabi/zkSNACKS to leave U.S. - was going to happen? I believe he's the only developer that made his identity public, no?

I damn bet he knew. His departure announcement on Medium was suspiciously timed. I guess he didn't want to be part of the reputation smear that evidently the rest of Wasabi has been hit by, so who can blame him.

Perhaps he did, but to give him the benefit of the doubt, it's not the "reputation smear". I believe that many privacy tools developers might have started to talk with each other about a pending suppression by some state-level actors months before Samourai Wallet. Personally, nopara73 made the right decision for himself and if he has a family - wife/kids - them too. I would definitely do the same to be honest.

Where can everyone find newbie-friendly guides/ELI-5 instructions to boot-strap a coordinator?

[NotATether]

The devs somehow need to get paid or they won't develop FOSS at all.

I'm sorry but that is simply untrue. So many Rust crates, PyPi modules, RubyGems, npm packages, wordpress, TeX, NuGet modules and plugins, and countless Linux and C/C++ libraries as well as the plugins for all of those were made without receiving any sponsorship or donation whatsoever. That is to say nothing about all the applications hosted on Github and Gitlab. Your next paragraph is a bit more correct in that developers somehow need to get money in order to sustain themselves, but usually, it comes from their day jobs and not from the packages they maintain, which is why you don't see much of this kind of problem in FOSS.

You are also correct that some people's living is only through FOSS development and in that case, funding naturally becomes more important to them.

But who would fund a privacy wallet? Even with bitcoin, nearly all of the dev funding comes from corporations and from the occasional well-meaning tech billionaire. Would these corporations and billionaires want to risk seeming as defying U.S. authorities and regulations though? I think most definitely not.

Continuing my discourse above, the more importance you attach to funding in order to maintain something, the less development you're actually going to do. Because then it becomes a matter of trying to make a wage through community donations, rather than actual development. Ideally, the project funding should be enough to cover the costs of developing and testing the project, but usually the total amount will not be anything close to a full salary. This is not to say that they don't need funding, but it should be second priority to actually programming the stuff.

That being said, there are crypto funds for the development of such infra, like what Human Rights Foundation has been giving out the past few years.

We can't realistically expect any software development to happen from developers operating without salaries and/or without knowing each other's person, operating in a rogue manner. Feature-packed privacy wallets are vast and can't be developed without any organization. So whoever is organizing things also could face liability against state entities.

Like I wrote earlier, funding is usually not going to be enough to cover salaries, but it will cover the cost of developing the app. All privacy developers and operators from TOR, anyone who makes E2E chat or email programs, and crypto developers will inevitably will be in the crosshairs of a few nation states, but not necessarily because they broke the law. They do need to take basic precautions to not get hurt though, like not talking too much and too loud (as Samourai's social media was well known for being edgy and triggering).

After seeing what happened to Samourai devs, we just have to be glad that Wasabi is still standing and the devs behind it are still willing to provide the software, albeit with limitations. The software existing and being developed is what matters. If anyone wants to use it in whatever ways it should be on them and not in the developers. But if the US gov doesn't see it that way, what can be done?

Most people used Wasabi Wallet for the automatic mixing feature. It is not very useful without that, or if it's sabotaged.

Maybe we could try crowd-fund the development of a privacy coordinator and development team to operate out of Russia or Iran or at least anonymously and not have to worry about them being sent to a U.S. jail. But to my knowledge, no one has taken up to that endeavor and secondly I've seen overall nearly non-existent willingness of users to crowd-fund bitcoin privacy wallets. Let alone the fact that operating our of a non-western state and/or being anonymous doesn't guarantee that developers of such a project will be left alone.

Assembling a team within a US enemy state is a recipe for disaster. That will just incentive them to take down the software and press charges for politics. Not to mention the countries you mentioned have their own police problems. The best thing that can be done is to develop such a thing where you will at least have a chance of a fair trial and free (within reasonable limits) speech. Most of these tools are developed by teams in those jurisdictions.

As well as the fact that developing a coordinator is simply not enough. Obviously it would have to be decentralized first of all, but we saw with Tornado Cash that even decentralized coordinators/mixers can be held liable for "Money Transmission Service" even if they are not living in the west. It requires a community, similar to the communities of Tor and Bitcoin. The reason why the feds simply can't outright ban those two technologies is that they have a large enough userbase that it can be clearly seen that it is being used for legal purposes as well. Ditto with secure email, confidential tipping services, secure chat, secure DNS resolvers, VPNs and so on.

Mixing tools are no different. The proof of that is that there is not a single western government that has made Monero illegal yet.

Of course, Uncle Sam don't actually care whether your service is operating within the law or not, and as soon as he sees a vulnerable project like the one whose thread I'm replying in, he becomes prime John Cena and body-slams you until you're either bankrupted, jailed, or otherwise ruined from being on a wanted list. They can't do that if you have lawyers, that is why increased legal representation for open-source projects is so important. Most projects can't afford a lawyer and the funding should be going to that, not towards the dev's livelihood.

[satscraper]

Paynyms don't preserve transaction privacy, you should just give your counterparty a regular address.

Sure I can, but regular address are usually given via emails, messengers, mobile messages and other potentially controlled channels. Provision of PayNym addresses via all those channels  eliminates the threat of revealing regular addresses to third parties which are potentially watching you and your counterparty. Thus, PayNym preserves privacy.

[NotATether]

Well, speaking about operating in Russia, its elimination didn't take so long 

https://cryptobriefing.com/russia-crypto-ban-reinforce-ruble/

[Pmalek]

Tornado Cash developers aren’t the martyrs you think they are. Just like zkSNACKs, they took precautionary measures to minimize the risk of getting their rights taken away and their lives destroyed by overzealous government persecution. Their website had a built-in compliance tool which would do chain analysis on your transaction. They also blocked US sanctioned countries from their domain.

I know about the compliance tool. But that's not the reason why I said I think it's a shame they are gone and Wasabi is still here in the form they have chosen to be in.

The compliance tool helps those who need to prove the source of funds. No one forces you to use it or share it with any third parties. But you do need to save "the Note". I think that's what Tornado Cash calls it. The note is mandatory to allow you to withdraw the mixed tokens. It's also used if you want to create a compliance report.

[dkbit98]

It would be pretty awkward if Wasabi faced the same end, it would only mean that all the bending over to the government never paid off.

I would not be surprised if that actually happens, but it would only mean that we are wasting time arguing and fighting each other, meanwhile government agents are slowing taking us down one by one.  
That is classical Divide and Rule example, and it's not the first time they are doing something like this.

[Wind_FURY]

Well, speaking about operating in Russia, its elimination didn't take so long 

https://cryptobriefing.com/russia-crypto-ban-reinforce-ruble/

If that's actually true, then someone should tell Putin that his subjects are wrong to ban Bitcoin UNLESS they're not going to lead by example. Because what actually could fix Russia's problems, that are caused by sanctions, is actually Bitcoin. It was built for that kind of censorship - financial censorship.

To understand the Russian government's viewpoint, they should ban Bitcoin and other forms of currencies from public use to maintain the value of their currency to avoid currency collapse and therefore avoid economic collapse. BUT their government should probably be HODLing Bitcoin, and treat it like it's Gold.

Gold to pay for the war, and use Bitcoin if everything else fails.

[examplens]

Well, speaking about operating in Russia, its elimination didn't take so long 

https://cryptobriefing.com/russia-crypto-ban-reinforce-ruble/

If that's actually true, then someone should tell Putin that his subjects are wrong to ban Bitcoin UNLESS they're not going to lead by example. Because what actually could fix Russia's problems, that are caused by sanctions, is actually Bitcoin. It was built for that kind of censorship - financial censorship.

The ban will be a legal pretext for greater financial control of the population and eventual confiscation of cryptocurrencies. I don't see here that there was anything different compared to everything that the US government and the SEC do. They do this without a publicly declared ban, so it appears that there is freedom when using Bitcoin.