Samourai Wallet seized by the feds

[BlackHatCoiner]

Samourai Wallet has been taken down by the U.S. authorities: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founders-and-ceo-cryptocurrency-mixing-service-arrested-and-charged-money-laundering. You can verify by opening samouraiwallet.com (it's under the authorities' control).

Another privacy enhancing tool goes down the road. Apparently, the governments use everything in their disposal to undermine the users' privacy. Samourai team had recently announced that they were developing a decentralized version of whirlpool, using the Soroban network. It could be the case that they foresaw their own disappearance.

Very frustrated. An important reminder and good quote is needed here.

>You will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography.

Yes, but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.

Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.

R.I.P. Samourai.

[1715142189]

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[alani123]

Petter Todd gave a 50% chance Samurai Wallet was run by feds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPNFdhZUGmk

I guess the chance is now 100%

RIP indeed, I hope the tech continues being used via open source anon development though

[Charles-Tim]

If there is conjoin campaigs on this forum, theymos could have been planning to ban the conjoin campaigns. But not necessary because there is no conjoin campaign on this forum anymore.

It is possible that Sparrow will be the next target. Only what the government will look for is allegation.

[apogio]

So my question is, since the feds control the website, is there a way to control the software that has already been downloaded to users' computers? I guess not.

So, I reckon that the whirlpool servers will go down. I also believe that there will be no more support for the products (samourai & sentinel).

Is there anything else I am missing?

It is possible that Sparrow will be the next target.

Ouch! That would hurt.

[Upgrade00]

"IRS-CI Special Agent in Charge Thomas Fattorusso said: “$2 billion in transactions with an unlicensed money transmitter means $2 billion flowed without any oversight, from whomever to wherever.  Because of the company’s disregard for regulation, it’s alleged that Samourai Wallet laundered more than $100 million in criminal proceeds"

Transactions are not unlawful cause you cannot trace the flow of the transaction. The $2 bliiion seems to have just been thrown in there for shock value, giving them a justification to clamp down on the service.

Cash pretty much allows anyone to transact without regulation or oversight, and way more than $100 million have been used in criminal transactions using it.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I guess the chance is now 100%

Now that it's been seized by the authorities, I think we can all agree it was never a US honeypot.

It is possible that Sparrow will be the next target.

The answer to this question depends on the roadmap of Sparrow. Will they write code that decentralizes Whirlpool, or will they completely remove it as an option? We'll see.

So my question is, since the feds control the website, is there a way to control the software that has already been downloaded to users' computers? I guess not.

No, but users who weren't running their own full node but using Samourai as wallet, will probably have to migrate to another wallet software, because Samourai servers are down.

I'm now getting this message in Sparrow:

[Charles-Tim]

"IRS-CI Special Agent in Charge Thomas Fattorusso said: “$2 billion in transactions with an unlicensed money transmitter means $2 billion flowed without any oversight, from whomever to wherever.  Because of the company’s disregard for regulation, it’s alleged that Samourai Wallet laundered more than $100 million in criminal proceeds"

Transactions are not unlawful cause you cannot trace the flow of the transaction. The $2 bliiion seems to have just been thrown in there for shock value, giving them a justification to clamp down on the service.

But they were greedy to clamp down Binance which was alleged for money laundering, bank fraud, sanctions violation and others. Binance paid 4 billion and still existing. Most money received through illegal activities are in their banks that their central bank being the head.

[Z-tight]

But they were greedy to clamp down Binance which was alleged for money laundering, bank fraud, sanctions violation and others. Binance paid 4 billion and still existing.

Binance pleaded guilty to all of the charges that was filed against them, the same as their former ceo CZ who also pleaded guilty. So i reckon that in their own case they knew they were doing so many things wrong.

R.I.P. Samourai.

Too bad that another privacy solution has been brought down, the U.S. government want to make it very difficult for people to use Bitcoin without exposing data that they can be tracked with. It is sad, but the fight for privacy is looking like a fight that we cannot win.

[BitMaxz]

If there is conjoin campaigs on this forum, theymos could have been planning to ban the conjoin campaigns. But not necessary because there is no conjoin campaign on this forum anymore.

It is possible that Sparrow will be the next target.

It could possibly be the next target to be seized by the government and other wallets with the same feature.
The only wallets that I know with the same feature that are currently not being seized by the government are Sparrow and Wasabi.

It seems the government wants to seize all services that have this feature and no more privacy.

[Slow death]

years ago when I saw that casinos were asking for kyc, when I saw that exchanges were also asking for kyc and started deanonymizing altcoins, when I saw that governments were seizing mixers, then I said it was a matter of a few years to governments target wallets too. I believe that in the future governments will not allow wallets to add or allow people to hold anonymity coins and that people will not kyc wallets and that wallets will operate without a license. This is because the governments' idea is that the same rules and laws that are applied to all financial services in the real world should also be applied to financial services on the internet.

For many governments, they no longer want the internet to be a different world from the real world in which the laws and rules of the real world do not apply in the internet world. we just need to see that governments are regulating social networks. Nowadays, speaking badly about someone on social media is punished as if you had spoken badly about them in the real world. privacy on the internet is ending at the speed of light, whoever wants to survive on the internet will have to accept the rules and laws of governments

[Sandra_hakeem]

But they were greedy to clamp down Binance which was alleged for money laundering, bank fraud, sanctions violation and others. Binance paid 4 billion and still existing. Most money received through illegal activities are in their banks that their central bank being the head.

...and what does that tell you? These people only care about their pockets and if they ever get a chance to forfeit already enacted laws, it'll definitely be for the highest bidder.... Sentiments!! Bloody sentiments!! FFS!!! Decentralization is gone!!

So, I reckon that the whirlpool servers will go down. I also believe that there will be no more support for the products (samourai & sentinel).

Yes!

Another privacy enhancing tool goes down the road. Apparently, the governments use everything in their disposal to undermine the users' privacy. Samourai team

it's clear that all they want isn't just the control per se ... If they wanna use these platforms to generate extra revenues for their greedy pockets, then why not go into a dialogue?
Edit: This whole drama won't go down well for alot of bitcoiners - you'll either be paying VAT on every transaction aside the TF, or facing detention for as long as they want.

[Mrbluntzy]

Sorry friends and @BlackHatCoiner but I have a question, I see that the US government have brought down a few Bitcoin mixers and some platforms too that support Bitcoins privacy for user but my question is, does it mean that the US government can shot down any sit or platform that they want even if that site or platform is not operated or was  not designed and managed by a US citizen?

Take for example, if Samourai Wallet was being designed by a black man somewhere in Africa and the platform was open to be used by anybody around the world (across other countries), can the government still shot it down?

If they can not, then it can be a means for SamouraiWallet to relocate their company to a country where they can operate freely but should restrict American citizens from using their service.  I don't know if this makes any sense, but it's just my suggestion.

[Davidvictorson]

Sorry friends and @BlackHatCoiner but I have a question, I see that the US government have brought down a few Bitcoin mixers and some platforms too that support Bitcoins privacy for user but my question is, does it mean that the US government can shot down any sit or platform that they want even if that site or platform is not operated or was  not designed and managed by a US citizen?

They do not work alone. They work with other international agencies to do it. For example, in 2019, the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) which is almost like the Feds in the US shut down a mixer. It is a collaborative effort.

Take for example, if Samourai Wallet was being designed by a black man somewhere in Africa and the platform was open to be used by anybody around the world (across other countries), can the government still shot it down?

No matter who you are and where you are, they can get you and shut down whatever platform you have running without apologies.

[logfiles]

Take for example, if Samourai Wallet was being designed by a black man somewhere in Africa and the platform was open to be used by anybody around the world (across other countries), can the government still shot it down?

They can shut it down so long as they believe the platform is being used by the criminals they hate the most, such as those North Korean hackers, to "launder" money through it. it doesn't matter where the platform was created from or who created it. They will work so hard to sanction it and then probably seize it.
Centralized platforms where the developers are not even anornymous are so prone to such a thing.

[OgNasty]

Are we understanding why privacy needs to be implemented at the protocol level yet?

I don’t know how Samourai Wallet worked but my understanding from what I’m reading is that there is potentially up to 700 million dollars now under Fed control as a result of this? Are the users the ones who have had their funds confiscated? If so, is there any hope for recovery?

[Kruw]

Are we understanding why privacy needs to be implemented at the protocol level yet?

I don’t know how Samourai Wallet worked but my understanding from what I’m reading is that there is potentially up to 700 million dollars now under Fed control as a result of this? Are the users the ones who have had their funds confiscated? If so, is there any hope for recovery?

Coinjoins aren't custodial, so there's no funds they can seize. The Feds are only able to access the data of Samourai's users since their wallet was designed to collect xpub addresses and IP addresses by default.

[anoawarbeg]

Is there another wallet that would support whirlpool transactions from samurai? I was in the process of using whirlpool but it's not possible to connect to it anymore. It just provides an error. How would I continue with my conjoin or worst case, withdraw my funds?

EDIT:

Managed to withdraw my funds from whirlpool. You'll have to use Sparrow wallet and import your seed + passphrase.

[OgNasty]

Are we understanding why privacy needs to be implemented at the protocol level yet?

I don’t know how Samourai Wallet worked but my understanding from what I’m reading is that there is potentially up to 700 million dollars now under Fed control as a result of this? Are the users the ones who have had their funds confiscated? If so, is there any hope for recovery?

Coinjoins aren't custodial, so there's no funds they can seize. The Feds are only able to access the data of Samourai's users since their wallet was designed to collect xpub addresses and IP addresses by default.

Samourai Wallet had something called Whirlpool with nearly 700 million dollars in it. This is now shut down and under the control of the feds from what I’m reading. This is what I was referencing. Again, I’m not sure how it all works so maybe I’m just misunderstanding your explanation, but there are definitely funds that have been seized or frozen in some fashion so I would assume some part of it is custodial or based on web contracts or something. I give you exhibit A of this below:

Is there another wallet that would support whirlpool transactions from samurai? I was in the process of using whirlpool but it's not possible to connect to it anymore. It just provides an error. How would I continue with my conjoin or worst case, withdraw my funds?

[Kruw]

Samourai Wallet had something called Whirlpool with nearly 700 million dollars in it. This is now shut down and under the control of the feds. This is what I was referencing.

I'm fully aware. The coins "in" Whirlpool are self custodied by Samourai's users. Their data, however, is now controlled by the Feds,

Again, I’m not sure how it all works, but there are definitely funds that have been seized or frozen in some fashion. I give you exhibit A of this below:

Is there another wallet that would support whirlpool transactions from samurai? I was in the process of using whirlpool but it's not possible to connect to it anymore. It just provides an error. How would I continue with my conjoin or worst case, withdraw my funds?

The funds aren't seized, he can just spend his Bitcoins:

EDIT:

Managed to withdraw my funds from whirlpool. You'll have to use Sparrow wallet and import your seed + passphrase.

[joker_josue]

Well, it's a fact that this kind of news is never good for the community. And it is regrettable that we are reaching this type of situation that the authorities have been promoting.

But we also have to note that they were the ones who put themselves in the sights of the authorities:


They invited Russians who were being penalized by the authorities because of the war to use their services to evade the sanctions. Without a doubt, it was a matter of time before the authorities caught up.

[Hazink]

It is possible that Sparrow will be the next target. Only what the government will look for is allegation.

Look for an allegation you said? They will make one; if the government is after you, they don't need any strong allegation against you; they make one that they can use against you; they make the law to suit them; they interpret the law to be in their favour; and they turn whatever they don't like to be against the law that they can use against you as long as they want; all they need is the perfect time to strike once they get it, that's all.

[DaveF]

Well, it's a fact that this kind of news is never good for the community. And it is regrettable that we are reaching this type of situation that the authorities have been promoting.

But we also have to note that they were the ones who put themselves in the sights of the authorities:


They invited Russians who were being penalized by the authorities because of the war to use their services to evade the sanctions. Without a doubt, it was a matter of time before the authorities caught up.

That was not one of their better moves. There is a difference between doing something that may be illegal or at least used for illegal things and broadcasting the fact that they want you to use their product to do illegal things.

-Dave

[riverdip]

if they can scare theymos into removing mixers, they can do anything !

[SamReomo]

Feds are against everything that we do as crypto users and whatever makes them suspicious of privacy, they will just stop that thing.

It's the first time I'm hearing that feds have seized a wallet which is somewhat insane but it was expected by many users.

I believe that in near future we may see feds seizing many swap platforms as those are allowing rug-pulls or you can say rug-pulls are operating on those platforms by scamsters.

[FinneysTrueVision]

The “land of the free” is a complete fallacy. A US-led global order has increasingly diminished freedom around the world. They went with the North Korean hackers excuse this time — no matter how minimal their involvement, there is always some convenient bad guy for them to justify wider surveillance, more regulation, and restricting how people are allowed to live their lives. You can’t use certain apps or technology because of vague “CCP spying reasons” or “it’s Kremlin propaganda”, yet Israel is allowed to spy on U.S. citizens and influence politics without media conglomerates and congressional representatives raising any concerns.

The reasons given for why they targeted Samourai are obviously BS. Any tool which enables users to transact outside their financial panopticon will be seen as a threat that cannot be allowed to exist. Whirlpool doesn't meet the legal criteria for being a money transmitting business. It’s simply a protocol for collaborative transactions. Arresting the Samourai developers is as absurd as arresting the Telegram or Session developers because those apps are used by pedophiles, drug dealers and hackers.

It might be argued that Samourai didn’t do enough to discourage illicit activity and were almost encouraging of it. If that was the case, they should be allowed to walk away with a fine, as is the normal standard when banks and corporations are implicated in money laundering.

[Despairo]

Theymos forbid centralized mixers to be promoted in this forum.

Government 1 - 0 Privacy

SEC seize Samourai wallet that has a privacy tools.

Government 2 - 0 Privacy

What's next? No KYC P2P, unregulated casinos or non custodial wallet (without privacy tools)?

I'm really shocked if the Feds now seized a non custodial wallet, Samourai asked FINCEN to withdraw few things on their proposal about CVC mixing, instead of respond it and enlighten to Samourai's developers, the Feds choose to seize everything.

[GreatArkansas]

Jeez! This is really scary right now.  These governments are really into it and no one is excuse.
Samourai's wallet is growing wallet this happened. They are really into mixing services. I'm curious if someone really affected here like their funds got locked because there are ways to withdraw your funds from Samourai wallet, I hope some will be able to do it.

[Despairo]

I'm curious if someone really affected here like their funds got locked because there are ways to withdraw your funds from Samourai wallet, I hope some will be able to do it.

I'm Samourai's user.

I can still open the wallet, view my seed phrase and any other features. I faced endless loading in my wallet and every time I click "Send" button, the software crashes. Technically the funds got locked only if I use Samourai, when I import my seed phrase to other wallet e.g. Electrum, Bluewallet, now I can access my coins.

Even though I know I've back up my seed phrase, but I'm still scared when I see this news lol.

[Darker45]

Feds are against everything that we do as crypto users and whatever makes them suspicious of privacy, they will just stop that thing.

It's the first time I'm hearing that feds have seized a wallet which is somewhat insane but it was expected by many users.

Your first statement explains your second statement. Samourai may be a wallet but it's designed in such a way as to strongly support privacy and anonymity. It is even labelled as a cryptocurrency mixer by the DOJ. It's not that it's a mere wallet. The point is that it has been used to make illegal transactions and even launder money. And it is made possible by its very design. The government doesn't like that as it weakens its "ability of law enforcement to trace the proceeds of criminal activity."

And you don't taunt these powerful guys.

I believe that in near future we may see feds seizing many swap platforms as those are allowing rug-pulls or you can say rug-pulls are operating on those platforms by scamsters.

It seems to me that the authorities are more focused on running after crypto services which offer privacy and anonymity. They seem to be nonchalant over scammers, which the market has a lot. Incidentally, Do Kwon is now a free man.

[alani123]

They invited Russians who were being penalized by the authorities because of the war to use their services to evade the sanctions. Without a doubt, it was a matter of time before the authorities caught up.

Anyone that has ever been on the twitters will know that Samurai was very popular there. Yes their main account was cocky but on the other hand, if you said anything non positive about the wallet, myriads of fan accounts would swarm at you seeking to inflict harm at you and your image for simply criticizing samurai and/or supporting one of their rivals.

If not suspicious, to me it's certainly odd that a purported privacy solution for Bitcoin transactions would have so vocal supporters in public. I always pondered as to why. Why be so public in the first place? What did they have to gain as a FOSS tool from attracting users through viral campaigns and attacking their competitors?

[barto123]

money laundering = moving your money privately
tax evasion = doing the right thing & not complying with criminals, keeping the fruits of your labor. not allowing pedos to extort you.

it's word magic, a spell that has been placed on the population

it's all a scam folks

if you think this system has any legitimacy left, you're brainwashed

government is slavery using lies, deception, psychological abuse over generations

samourai was bitcoin's best hope for privacy

they're coming for privacy in 2024 as the agenda progresses fast, time to switch to privacy by default - monero

[Die_empty]

They invited Russians who were being penalized by the authorities because of the war to use their services to evade the sanctions. Without a doubt, it was a matter of time before the authorities caught up.

How would they openly advertise such information knowing fully well that the US is doing everything possible to reduce the financial transaction of Russians? Maybe they were blinded by financial gains since Russians would find this service very helpful. I am also having some doubts if the Twitter account that made such an advert was really operated by Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill. It is sad to see that any action by privacy service providers is now connected to money laundering and illegal dark web marketplace by the government.

Even though I know I've back up my seed phrase, but I'm still scared when I see this news lol.

Such news is a source of concern because nobody knows the next wallet that will be attacked. The government wouldn't stop until they make privacy a scarce commodity.

[Z390]

But they were greedy to clamp down Binance which was alleged for money laundering, bank fraud, sanctions violation and others. Binance paid 4 billion and still existing.

Binance pleaded guilty to all of the charges that was filed against them, the same as their former ceo CZ who also pleaded guilty. So i reckon that in their own case they knew they were doing so many things wrong.

R.I.P. Samourai.

Too bad that another privacy solution has been brought down, the U.S. government wants to make it very difficult for people to use Bitcoin without exposing data that they can be tracked with. It is sad, but the fight for privacy is looking like a fight that we cannot win.

Privacy is a fight that we can never win.

Unless you are a selfish person, even if this privacy thing is good for your daily use, have you ever thought about putting yourself in a shoe of a ruler? Will you want such to exist in your country without worries about someone funding terrorists and they are untraceable? You won't be able to sleep peacefully.

We can't say because privacy is good for us that everyone in the world will use it right, samourai wallet is a dangerous piece of technology if it gets into the wrong hands, so I like the fact that they made it stop, o my God knows how many bad people have use its features for their own reasons.

In a world where no one is completely clean it will be a disaster to have a way to move funds untraceable, even this day's people do bad things and they feel like it's good, a world without law is called lawless, and that's more like a hell on earth.

Bitcoin works best and live this long because its not a privacy coin out of thr box, it would have been long gone if it was.

[apogio]

Privacy is a fight that we can never win.

I get the point, but please remember what we are here for.
We are here for Bitcoin.
What is bitcoin? A peer to peer electronic cash system.
Who invented it? Someone who won maintaining their privacy.

Privacy is extraordinarily difficult to achieve and you only achieve a percent of it.
Privacy is also extraordinarily easy to be lost and you lose 100% of it.

But we can win... I hope!

[NotATether]

Wait until you see Kruw circlejerking in this thread if he hasn't done so already elsewhere


serious:

OK guys, now you see they are not just targeting mixers anymore, they are targeting any service that offers coinjoin. So I don't want to hear any of this "mixing is money laundering for criminals" talk, because clearly that's not the only talk of the day.

Samourai wallet operated a centralized coordinator and everyone who still had their funds inside said coordinator at the time it was shut down (if it had even been shut down) lost money.  This is why decentralized coordinators like JoinMarket should be studied more carefully. Because it cannot be shut down by anyone even if they wanted it to be.

Many western governments appear to be having a grudge against privacy these past few months. I wonder why is that?

And why do JPmorgan and Citi still get to launder funds for criminals without any action?

Even though I know I've back up my seed phrase, but I'm still scared when I see this news lol.

Such news is a source of concern because nobody knows the next wallet that will be attacked. The government wouldn't stop until they make privacy a scarce commodity.

Wasabi.....

[davis196]

Another privacy enhancing tool goes down the road. Apparently, the governments use everything in their disposal to undermine the users' privacy. Samourai team had recently announced that they were developing a decentralized version of whirlpool, using the Soroban network. It could be the case that they foresaw their own disappearance.

Was Samourai wallet a "privacy enhancing tool" or was it a money laundering tool? Or maybe it was both?
It's funny how some people start whining about "the government taking away our privacy" every time some crypto mixing service gets banned/shut down for doing illegal stuff. I guess that some people think that the ability to conduct money laundering schemes and other illegal activities online is an integral part of their online privacy. Just get a Monero wallet and start using Monero. Why do we have to care about coinjoin/mixing services?

[NotATether]

Why do we have to care about coinjoin/mixing services?

Because your bitcoins are being traced by arbitrary analysis companies as we speak, in order to find any taint on them which any cooperating exchange will then freeze as soon as you make a deposit, without you even knowing about said taint.

[mindrust]

Why do we have to care about coinjoin/mixing services?

Because your bitcoins are being traced by arbitrary analysis companies as we speak, in order to find any taint on them which any cooperating exchange will then freeze as soon as you make a deposit, without you even knowing about said taint.

Do you think coin mixing is the answer to this problem? If you use mixers, then the exchanges will freeze your funds again because now your coins are coming from a mixer.

[NotATether]

Why do we have to care about coinjoin/mixing services?

Because your bitcoins are being traced by arbitrary analysis companies as we speak, in order to find any taint on them which any cooperating exchange will then freeze as soon as you make a deposit, without you even knowing about said taint.

Do you think coin mixing is the answer to this problem? If you use mixers, then the exchanges will freeze your funds again because now your coins are coming from a mixer.

Decentralized coinjoin when done with enough participants and UTXOs offers much stronger guarantees than a mixer ever could, and since all mixers addresses are being tracked by chain analysis, it is not useful when you want to send the result to an exchange.

This is almost what Samourai was doing, minus the "decentralized" part since all their coinjoin transactions were coming from their own server. But if you have the ability to set up decentralized coinjoins with a reserve of something like 1BTC then it becomes near impossible to track the ins and outs of them all - especially if dozens of people with 1BTC start their own coinjoin coordinators.

[hugeblack]

I can still access https://docs.samourai.io/
Privacy app developers should remain anonymous.

But we also have to note that they were the ones who put themselves in the sights of the authorities:

I think this was a stupid move, especially since domain and servers were in Iceland, which gave governments a compelling reason to look behind them.


I wonder if they had cooperated with Chainalysis or any blockchain analysis service, would the same charges have been brought against them? Or is the definition of privacy limited to those who appear to government agencies?

[joker_josue]

This is almost what Samourai was doing, minus the "decentralized" part since all their coinjoin transactions were coming from their own server. But if you have the ability to set up decentralized coinjoins with a reserve of something like 1BTC then it becomes near impossible to track the ins and outs of them all - especially if dozens of people with 1BTC start their own coinjoin coordinators.

This is the point.

There is a lot of talk about maintaining the privacy of money, transactions, etc. But then you try to use centralized services for this purpose. It's almost impossible to keep something private, at least for a long time, when using centralized services. One cannot want privacy and then use centralized services.

Solutions to obtain privacy must be increasingly decentralized, as this is the only way to maintain privacy and avoid these types of situations. Developers, instead of wasting time trying to bring GIFs into the Bitcoin blockchain, should look for decentralized solutions within the blockchain that would improve users' privacy.

In short, you want privacy but use centralized services, it's halfway to losing that privacy.

[NotATether]

I can still access https://docs.samourai.io/
Privacy app developers should remain anonymous.

https://blog.samourai.is is also accessible.

Although the main domain redirects to samouraiwallet.com which has already been seized.

It appears that their onionsite http://72typmu5edrjmcdkzuzmv2i4zqru7rjlrcxwtod4nu6qtfsqegngzead.onion/ is also down. Maybe it was hosted on the same server as clearnet.

[darkv0rt3x]

Bitcointalk people were already forseing this when they forbid conjoin campaigns in te forum...

It's nervewrecking that states and governments are trying to attack and estroy everything that may give us any privacy and/or control!

[mindrust]

Does it still sound like a conspiracy theory?

Privacy will be gone completely in a few years. We will be sharing our cars and homes with strangers. I already share my country with millions of illegals thanks to the US politics in the Middle East. Make a google search and see which country hosts the most refugees(!).

The US has been taking thousands from the Mexican border.

These things happen because of the evil globalist fucks like Klaus Schwab.

[NotATether]

[ img width=700]https://talkimg.com/images/2024/04/25/raZA1.jpeg[/img]

Does it still sound like a conspiracy theory?

Privacy will be gone completely in a few years. We will be sharing our cars and homes with strangers. I already share my country with millions of illegals thanks to the US politics in the Middle East. Make a google search and see which country hosts the most refugees(!).

The US has been taking thousands from the Mexican border.

These things happen because of the evil globalist fucks like Klaus Schwab.

Well as someone with a family full of conspiracy theorists who somehow came to the conclusion that covid was created by WEF, this is actually a very real and serious threat to Bitcoin, what they are doing right now. And I'm sure that there are some WEF-affiliated people in governments, the IMF, World Bank and others and also rich people who attend Davos meetings who give donations to said people.

I'm sure you remember when they tried to outlaw strong encryption and then people were printing the PGP source code on t-shirts, mugs and so on.

We need to channel that resistance because ultimately, code is free speech protected by the first amendment. You can't be held criminally liable just for writing it.

[mindrust]

[ img width=700]https://talkimg.com/images/2024/04/25/raZA1.jpeg[/img]

Does it still sound like a conspiracy theory?

Privacy will be gone completely in a few years. We will be sharing our cars and homes with strangers. I already share my country with millions of illegals thanks to the US politics in the Middle East. Make a google search and see which country hosts the most refugees(!).

The US has been taking thousands from the Mexican border.

These things happen because of the evil globalist fucks like Klaus Schwab.

… And I'm sure that there are some WEF-affiliated people in governments, the IMF, World Bank and others and also rich people who attend Davos meetings who give donations to said people.

You think there are some?

They are running the banks, businesses, countries. See which companies are WEF members. Do you want me to do the research for you? Here it comes:

https://www.weforum.org/partners/

When I take a look at the list, I see it is harder find a non-WEF affiliated business.

It is time to wake the fuck up.

[ABCbits]

But we also have to note that they were the ones who put themselves in the sights of the authorities:


They invited Russians who were being penalized by the authorities because of the war to use their services to evade the sanctions. Without a doubt, it was a matter of time before the authorities caught up.

And it's just one of some controversial things they did on social media. I remember they also picking fight with Wasabi Wallet, criticize few Bitcoin mining pool, criticize law on few country and others.

--snip--
Just get a Monero wallet and start using Monero. Why do we have to care about coinjoin/mixing services?

Because Bitcoin is accepted on more places (when compared with Monero)?

[Z-tight]

I'm curious if someone really affected here like their funds got locked because there are ways to withdraw your funds from Samourai wallet, I hope some will be able to do it.

Funds cannot be locked or confiscated in a self custodial wallet, as long as you have correctly backed up your seed phrase, you can import your wallet into another software and gain access to your funds.

We can't say because privacy is good for us that everyone in the world will use it right, samourai wallet is a dangerous piece of technology if it gets into the wrong hands, so I like the fact that they made it stop, o my God knows how many bad people have use its features for their own reasons.

We should also ban the internet, because bad people use it to scam and hurt others, and we can also go ahead to ban banks and cash, because people use it to launder money and store illicit funds. BTC and privacy solutions are tools, just like every other tool out there, and it should not be banned because some bad people use them.

[Lucius]

This is just a logical continuation of what has been happening for some time, and it is no secret that mixing is a big thorn in Big Brother's side. Therefore, I don't understand why anyone who provides such services still hasn't realized that it shouldn't be done right in front of them, regardless of what someone says that it doesn't really matter where you are if "they" want to find you.

Given that I see that the Russians are mentioned in the context of this story, will the feds do something about the USDT issue, given that there are allegedly serious indications that the Russians are avoiding sanctions in this way?

[Kruw]

Wait until you see Kruw circlejerking in this thread if he hasn't done so already elsewhere

What is that is that supposed to mean?...

Samourai wallet operated a centralized coordinator and everyone who still had their funds inside said coordinator at the time it was shut down (if it had even been shut down) lost money.

This is wrong. Coinjoins are non custodial, funds are not "inside" the coordinator, users control their keys at all times, so no one lost money.

[dkbit98]

Does it still sound like a conspiracy theory?

Probably yes to most of the people who experimented with latest safe and effective revolutionary government ''cure''  
As we move towards 2030 expect to see more crazy things worldwide.

These things happen because of the evil globalist fucks like Klaus Schwab.

Nice guy.
As if someone is joking with us and telling us that villains from James Bond movies actually exist.

Interesting tweet (or whatever it's called now) was made by Edward Snowden related with Samourai Wallet seizure:


https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1783222542464884911

Make money private by default = Monero.
Just sayin.

[Yamane_Keto]

What was seized? domain name and centralized Whirlpool coordinator? They already had plans to shut it down and if more continue to update to Samourai Wallet 0.99.98i_dexwp or any fork of that wallet, they will be able to use Soroban without any problem.

What happened is that Founders And CEO Of Cryptocurrency Mixing Service Arrested And Charged. The authorities may have found the data of the centralized Whirlpool coordinator, but this should not affect Samourai wallet.

[Kruw]

Make money private by default = Monero.
Just sayin.

You don't need shitcoins for privacy. Wasabi Wallet, BTCPay Server's coinjoin plugin, and Trezor's coinjoin account all provide privacy by default for Bitcoin.

[DaveF]

I can still access https://docs.samourai.io/
Privacy app developers should remain anonymous.

But we also have to note that they were the ones who put themselves in the sights of the authorities:

I think this was a stupid move, especially since domain and servers were in Iceland, which gave governments a compelling reason to look behind them.


I wonder if they had cooperated with Chainalysis or any blockchain analysis service, would the same charges have been brought against them? Or is the definition of privacy limited to those who appear to government agencies?

Looking through some of the samourai devs other posts & comments around the net they really seemed to going past 'anonymize your coins' and pushing the 'if you have funds from places you should not have funds from use our services'

It's a blow to privacy but, and I think this is universal to governments and police forces around the world, if you keep poking them, they are going to come after you.

Would this have happened no matter what? Probably.
Are they going to have more legal trouble because of how they went about it? Definitely.

Just my view.

-Dave

[nutildah]

Coinjoins aren't custodial, so there's no funds they can seize. The Feds are only able to access the data of Samourai's users since their wallet was designed to collect xpub addresses and IP addresses by default.

As if it wasn't possible to use it over Tor since 2019, or a VPN. Taking shots at your competitor even after they have been extinguished -- the kind of class I would expect from you.

Besides, nobody cares so long as you weren't sending money to North Korea-related or other watchlist addresses.

[Kruw]

As if it wasn't possible to use it over Tor since 2019, or a VPN.

I know. Samourai deleted the issue I opened in their Gitlab to have this information hidden from them by default: https://web.archive.org/web/20230417145554/https://code.samourai.io/wallet/samourai-wallet-android/-/issues/458

They said they would not even add a warning. Now the Feds got everything.

[NotATether]

As if it wasn't possible to use it over Tor since 2019, or a VPN.

I know. Samourai deleted the issue I opened in their Gitlab to have this information hidden from them by default: https://web.archive.org/web/20230417145554/https://code.samourai.io/wallet/samourai-wallet-android/-/issues/458

They said they would not even add a warning. Now the Feds got everything.

What makes you think that they are not going to target Wasabi next?

[BlackHatCoiner]

Bitcointalk people were already forseing this when they forbid conjoin campaigns in te forum...

Coinjoin services are allowed. Mixers are not.

The authorities may have found the data of the centralized Whirlpool coordinator, but this should not affect Samourai wallet.

It affects it, because their servers were used to run the whirlpool coordinator and the SPV backend for their lightweight mobile application, if I recall correctly.

What makes you think that they are not going to target Wasabi next?

Targeting Wasabi what for? They're not even a honeypot. They're officially paying for mass surveillance software and their privacy software is broken. What else could the government ask for?

[buwaytress]

Man that's sick to hear, hope the devs behind them don't get more blowback. This somewhat affects my work, more of a nuisance at the moment to just update tools for privacy, but longer-term not even sure any longer how US would view people who recommend these services, or even teach them how to use them.

Can anyone see a silver lining?

[Kruw]

Targeting Wasabi what for? They're not even a honeypot. They're officially paying for mass surveillance software and their privacy software is broken. What else could the government ask for?

You're lying, Wasabi's privacy software isn't broken. If you aren't lying, then prove it by tracing this Wasabi coinjoin: https://mempool.space/tx/bffa359a9d7908be069800e6bf471db1050496fc4fac40298b15c0d126202298

[NotATether]

What makes you think that they are not going to target Wasabi next?

Targeting Wasabi what for? They're not even a honeypot. They're officially paying for mass surveillance software and their privacy software is broken. What else could the government ask for?

Governments are not known to be very savvy, and with this recent anti-money laundering craze going on over there, it wouldn't surprise me if they see Wasabi as facilitating those kind of transactions. After all, they're the only large coordinator left now that Samourai's gone.

*Actually an elevated risk, since they have not implemented any blacklisting yet so nothing is actually getting blocked.

[RickDeckard]

Coinjoins aren't custodial, so there's no funds they can seize. The Feds are only able to access the data of Samourai's users since their wallet was designed to collect xpub addresses and IP addresses by default.

As if it wasn't possible to use it over Tor since 2019, or a VPN. Taking shots at your competitor even after they have been extinguished -- the kind of class I would expect from you.

Besides, nobody cares so long as you weren't sending money to North Korea-related or other watchlist addresses.

Considering their documentation[1] and how xpub[1] were handled when not using DOJO with Samourai Walelt can we assume that, in worst case scenario, the DOJ has access to every xpub and can trace the mixes that were done in the platform? I assume that is more private create a new wallet and then transfer the funds from Sparrow Wallet to it, instead of just importing them to another one...
[1]https://docs.samourai.io/en/dojo/using-dojo
[2]https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/keys/hd-wallets/extended-keys/#extended-public-key-normal

[BlackHatCoiner]

Can anyone see a silver lining?

I personally can't. Samourai wasn't a custodial mixer, so that to say this seizure encouraged the adoption of self-custodial solutions, or whatever. Samourai was one of the best and cheap solutions to coinjoin most effectively and self-custodially. Now the second best, IMO, is XMR swap, and I dare to add, XMR in general as it embodies the true spirit of cypherpunks, which Bitcoin failed to. The only problem is that Bitcoin appreciates more in capital than Monero.

You're lying, Wasabi's privacy software isn't broken. If you aren't lying, then prove it by tracing this Wasabi coinjoin:

This is not another Wasabi thread. I'm not attempting to de-anonymize Wasabi, all the evidence of people who used it and got caught speak for itself, but I know you'll blame the users that "they didn't use it correctly".

Governments are not known to be very savvy, and with this recent anti-money laundering craze going on over there, it wouldn't surprise me if they see Wasabi as facilitating those kind of transactions. After all, they're the only large coordinator left now that Samourai's gone.

I mean, totally possible. Wasabi funding chain analysis and getting seized would be a little ironic, though.

Considering their documentation[1] and how xpub[1] were handled when not using DOJO with Samourai Walelt can we assume that, in worst case scenario, the DOJ has access to every xpub and can trace the mixes that were done in the platform? I assume that is more private create a new wallet and then transfer the funds from Sparrow Wallet to it, instead of just importing them to another one...

Any user who shared their xpub should consider themselves traced already, and if I were them, I'd send everything to another wallet, not just migrate with the same seed phrase.

[EarnOnVictor]

Petter Todd gave a 50% chance Samurai Wallet was run by feds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPNFdhZUGmk

I guess the chance is now 100%

RIP indeed, I hope the tech continues being used via open source anon development though

It has been confirmed 100% indeed and I believe more is to come because the US and EU government seems getting more serious these days. And for me, is there any crypto establishment that can be trusted? Sadly, people often talk about the seizure but do not condemn the offence.

Besides, what is happening in the crypto world reminds me of my warning many times even as people claimed the decentralised system can't be brought down by the government, blah blah blah. Is it not the government we are talking about? They can do what pleases them and just because they've not clamped down on something doesn't mean they do not have the power or will still not clamp down on it. They have all the information, the power and the resources to do so, we should just hope for less destabilization of our plans regarding crypto simply for the sake of trying to control everything.

[darkv0rt3x]

Bitcointalk people were already forseing this when they forbid conjoin campaigns in te forum...

Coinjoin services are allowed. Mixers are not.

yeah I meant that. But the line between one and the other, for the FEDs is probably very slim!

Edited
I mean, there aren't many differences between the two. Mostly one is non-custodial and the other would be custodial. But both would be seen as to "money laundering" by any law enforcement, for sure!

[Kruw]

I personally can't. Samourai wasn't a custodial mixer, so that to say this seizure encouraged the adoption of self-custodial solutions, or whatever. Samourai was one of the best and cheap solutions to coinjoin most effectively and self-custodially. Now the second best, IMO, is XMR swap, and I dare to add, XMR in general as it embodies the true spirit of cypherpunks, which Bitcoin failed to. The only problem is that Bitcoin appreciates more in capital than Monero.

Samourai's coinjoins were massively expensive and provided the worst privacy compared to any of their competitors. Common input ownership is revealed and toxic change is created in Whirlpool tx0 transactions, making them trivial to trace on the blockchain:

Post the tx ID of any Whirlpool transaction and I will show you the tx0 transaction that was created by each of the new entrants.

Ok, here's one: https://mempool.space/tx/ed3131b544fbf00a71709942e483b55e629312ecb181e6e819409f419ee0d226

Where exactly is the privacy loss for new entrants, splitting a single UTXO in to multiple UTXOs to join the pool?

Okay, here's all the payments that can be tracked from the two new participants of the Whirlpool coinjoin transaction:

Entrant 1: bc1q03c0443ausjjdxl2h6ud5m8c0dux0zyg3dqdj7 created 0.00170417 BTC in unmixed change sent to bc1q3fduld0l3r8nclyt5p3r7ak675tekurstn55tl.  Since this UTXO is not private, the sats were marked as unspendable and have not been recovered by the wallet owner  

Entrant 2: bc1qzc8zku26ej337huw5dlt390cy2r9kgnq7dhtys created 0.00191247 BTC in unmixed change sent to bc1qjlltxr443uy236wl4xhpxlr6dgsu0zltlv3m44. This UTXO was used in a second tx0 transaction, creating a huge trail of transactions that could be traced to each other  

The 2nd tx0 transaction created 0.00076348 BTC unmixed change which was sent to bc1qehd7gy8rza9mnzm9wnfjhgw82rp47wmqt7vpgy

Since this unmixed change is below the .001 pool minimum, it was consolidated in a 3rd tx0 with 3 other addresses owned by the same wallet:
31x8GPqrhzdaxiBJa9N5UisuoxbX1rAnHa
16Gw5WKjbxZmg1zhZQs19Sf61fbV2xGujx
3LZtsJfUjiV5EZkkG1fwGEpTe2QEa7CNeY

The 3rd tx0 transaction created .00200317 in unmixed change which was sent to bc1q2p7gdtyahct8rdjs2khwf0sffl64qe896ya2y5
This was spent in a 0.00190000 payment to 3B8cRYc3W5jHeS3pkepwDePUmePBoEwyp1 (a reused address)

That payment left .00008553 in change that was tracked to 3Dh7R7xoKMVfLCcAtVDyhJ66se82twyZSn and consolidated with two other inputs in a 4th tx0 transaction:
bc1qeuh6sds8exm54yscrupdk03jxphw8qwzdtxgde
3ByChGBFshzGUE5oip8YYVEZDaCP2bcBmZ

This 4th tx0 created .00533406 in unmixed change which was sent to bc1qzh699s75smwukg9jcanwnlkmkn38r79ataagd9 which was consolidated with 3 more addresses into a 5th tx0:
3F2qiWQJKQjF7XFjEo8FUYP3AU5AC6RqX8
3HAYYVKUpYbr2ARMdZJr9yVu8xi8UcxtPz
3GQtwwRK31wwCc22q6WS5sCgixUHsG5KaT

The 5th tx0 created 0.00058494 BTC in unmixed change that was sent to bc1qvh2zjcwwkj9y70xulla2semvlav3lty0p3l3w3
This was spent in a .00047290 payment to bc1qvzg8jq6wqtr5navn4e3ps4qrkk9r6n4h98gjck

That payment left .00008411 in change that was tracked to bc1qg6j0f0wfhpktt2l8uzdn48ct3um2xyur40eyzd and consolidated with another input into a 6th tx0 transaction:
31iZLXWfoywhuMZTPGxTkpzphzh2NXshpP

The 6th tx0 created .00753775 in unmixed change that was tracked to bc1qgfll2apc27yct6h2c8r8wq4kqhxjsfrudhhn5q
This was spent in a .00737000 payment to bc1q5emzer2t0sq5dez0zsrqgh6scvwn0n24xsladp (a reused address)

This payment left 0.00010896 BTC in change which has not been spent yet, but the payment only took place 11 days ago, so I assume it will eventually be spent, allowing the Whirlpool user to be tracked even further.

This is not another Wasabi thread. I'm not attempting to de-anonymize Wasabi,

If you can't deanonymize Wasabi, then STOP LYING by claiming "the privacy software is broken".

all the evidence of people who used it and got caught speak for itself, but I know you'll blame the users that "they didn't use it correctly".

That's a fake thread self moderated by a hit job account, you can find the UNMODERATED response here:

User "kayirigi" has posted a fake accusation of scamming against Wasabi Wallet:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5480440.0

This user, of course, "self moderated" the fake topic in order to prevent anyone from commenting honestly about these blatantly false accusations.

There have been 5 documented cases of coinjoins being flagged by exchanges and brokers. All have concerned Wasabi. Rather than fix recurring issues with their implementation, Wasabi claimed that the problem was due to an anti-coinjoin campaign by KYC actors despite the fact that only Wasabi coinjoins have ever been targeted https://6102bitcoin.com/coinjoin-flagging/ (Update: now 6 documented cases. See below.)

Do not let these obvious hit job accounts scare you out of using Bitcoin privately.  If someone you are transacting with "flags" your coinjoined funds, it is not due to "an issue with their implementation", it's because that person is requiring your data in order to transact with them.  Defy them, and become anonymous anyway.

You are wrongfully blaming Wasabi for exchanges rejecting private funds.

[Wind_FURY]

OK, I believe this proves that the Samourai developers are NOT working for state actors, and the project itself is NOT a honeypot collecting information for intelligence agencies. This is a very sad day for Bitcoin privacy advocates. Kruw, some of your fellow developers were arrested, move on for today. Debate again tomorrow.

[goldkingcoiner]

Centralized elements will always remain attack vectors. Unless it is 100% decentralized, it should be considered 100% centralized. Too bad, they had the right idea but went about it all wrong.

Good thing the wallet itself is decentralized at least. I bet the government would love to steal users funds under the pretext of enforcing some bs law.

There is a reason why Monero and Bitcoin founders are anonymous. Now we see why.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

They can shut it down so long as they believe the platform is being used by the criminals they hate the most, such as those North Korean hackers, to "launder" money through it.

There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the US invading that country and taking down Saddam, right?  Right, guys??

Governments are the biggest liars, the biggest thieves (with banks in second place), and unfortunately since they make the laws and enforce them and instill fear in their citizens' hearts, they get to do whatever the fuck they want to. 

I've written letters to my state senators about crypto before.  What else can I or any of us who live in the US do?  The crypto crackdown is starting to look like it's being run by Joe McCarthy's resurrected corpse.

[Kruw]

OK, I believe this proves that the Samourai developers are NOT working for state actors, and the project itself is NOT a honeypot collecting information for intelligence agencies. This is a very sad day for Bitcoin privacy advocates. Kruw, some of your fellow developers were arrested, move on for today. Debate again tomorrow.

Why do you think it's too early to say "I told you so"? Samourai deliberately designed their wallet to collect user data by default and lied about it: https://twitter.com/SamouraiWallet/status/1576923638846005248

I opened an issue to have a warning displayed to users about the data they are leaking, Samourai closed it and later deleted it: https://web.archive.org/web/20230417145554/https://code.samourai.io/wallet/samourai-wallet-android/-/issues/458

I've spent an enormous amount of time warning people about the risks involved with this exact outcome. Now whatever data Samourai had is within arms reach of the Feds.

[JackpotRacer]

Well, it's a fact that this kind of news is never good for the community. And it is regrettable that we are reaching this type of situation that the authorities have been promoting.

But we also have to note that they were the ones who put themselves in the sights of the authorities:


They invited Russians who were being penalized by the authorities because of the war to use their services to evade the sanctions. Without a doubt, it was a matter of time before the authorities caught up.

Yes, the Russian move was a very bad idea and I am really surprised about it and I would like to know what was the reason for it.

[Kruw]

Yes, the Russian move was a very bad idea and I am really surprised about it and I would like to know what was the reason for it.

Geopolitics aside, they openly encouraged hackers to use their service: https://twitter.com/SamouraiWallet/status/1610484148057120768

[SlamDunkIT]

BlackHatCoiner, great choice to quote Satoshi, I love to see advice and wisdom from our founder. Also R.I.P. Samouri Wallet, something new and better will come along to replace you.

Samourai Wallet has been taken down by the U.S. authorities: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founders-and-ceo-cryptocurrency-mixing-service-arrested-and-charged-money-laundering. You can verify by opening samouraiwallet.com (it's under the authorities' control).

Another privacy enhancing tool goes down the road. Apparently, the governments use everything in their disposal to undermine the users' privacy. Samourai team had recently announced that they were developing a decentralized version of whirlpool, using the Soroban network. It could be the case that they foresaw their own disappearance.

Very frustrated. An important reminder and good quote is needed here.

>You will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography.

Yes, but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.

Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.

R.I.P. Samourai.

[joker_josue]

Yes, the Russian move was a very bad idea and I am really surprised about it and I would like to know what was the reason for it.

Pure marketing and with the aim of obtaining more customers and financial return.

Imagine if Satoshi in the Genesis block had said "currency created to avoid taxes". Do you think Bitcoin had reached this day without major complications? Logically not.

The problem is when people exaggerate how far they can go, and end up exposing themselves too much.

This is reminiscent of what happened with torrents and PirateBay. Why was this the most followed torrent site to date? Because it was what was most exposed and clearly shown to the public as a way to obtain paid content for free. Today, torrent sites continue to exist, but as they do not expose themselves to that level, they manage to go unnoticed. And with constant small adjustments, they manage to avoid the actions of the authorities. They are not free from being caught, but it ends up being different.

[bitmover]

Samourai Wallet has been taken down by the U.S. authorities: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founders-and-ceo-cryptocurrency-mixing-service-arrested-and-charged-money-laundering. You can verify by opening samouraiwallet.com (it's under the authorities' control).

I think US government should also look closer at all that NFT money laundry industries.  Specially ordinals and Runes.

No one can convince me that this single satoshi is worth 2.1 million to anyone.  This is money laundry
https://decrypt.co/228084/bitcoin-epic-sat-halving-sells-over-2-1-million

The first satoshi mined on Bitcoin after the halving, one of just four "epic sats" to date, fetched 33.3 BTC at auction. Here's why.

[NotATether]

I think US government should also look closer at all that NFT money laundry industries.  Specially ordinals and Runes.

No one can convince me that this single satoshi is worth 2.1 million to anyone.  This is money laundry
https://decrypt.co/228084/bitcoin-epic-sat-halving-sells-over-2-1-million

The first satoshi mined on Bitcoin after the halving, one of just four "epic sats" to date, fetched 33.3 BTC at auction. Here's why.

They are going to clean out white-collar crime nationwide before they investigate Ordinals and NFTs. which is a fancy way of saying they won't do it.

Sorry but that's just the reality of how the FBI and SEC are ran.

[cryptosize]

These mofos ain't lying:

Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better

https://medium.com/world-economic-forum/welcome-to-2030-i-own-nothing-have-no-privacy-and-life-has-never-been-better-ee2eed62f710
https://twitter.com/wef/status/809424034169581568



Just look at her eyes... do you think she has a sane mind?

Techno-Communism (AI/robots + CBDC + UBI) will require abolition of privacy, that's why they're taking everything down.



https://twitter.com/sethforprivacy/status/1783270473121382845

Use Monero for spending, keep using Bitcoin for savings

[coolcoinz]

OK, I believe this proves that the Samourai developers are NOT working for state actors, and the project itself is NOT a honeypot collecting information for intelligence agencies. This is a very sad day for Bitcoin privacy advocates. Kruw, some of your fellow developers were arrested, move on for today. Debate again tomorrow.

As for the honeypot, we're yet to find out what information they get from there, how well the servers were protected and so on. I'm not an expert here, but I've read that they had their own nodes and most of their users did not use them.

As for the US government, It's a great example of double standards where a person can kill another person and get 10 years, while these guys are facing 20 (correct me if I'm wrong) for running a privacy oriented software! That's insane.
At the same time Jamie Dimon's bank was FINED for money laundering. Why aren't these devs let go with a fine? Because the government rules with fear and likes to make examples of people to scare the rest.

[FinneysTrueVision]

You're lying, Wasabi's privacy software isn't broken. If you aren't lying, then prove it by tracing this Wasabi coinjoin:

This is not another Wasabi thread. I'm not attempting to de-anonymize Wasabi, all the evidence of people who used it and got caught speak for itself, but I know you'll blame the users that "they didn't use it correctly".

Those accusations are disingenuous and have been debunked numerous times already. The PlusToken scammers weren’t caught because they used Wasabi, they got caught because they were operating a ponzi scheme. Moreover, it’s well known they didn’t use Wasabi but instead a modified client they coded to specifically allow reusing the same address. A larger portion of their BTC was self-mixed, poorly, via repetitive UTXO splitting and merging. Also, they were using centralized exchanges which had their KYC information.

The Twitter hackers also used centralized exchanges as well as custodial mixers which you promoted and endorsed, yet I don’t see ChipMixer being blamed for their arrest.

Any user who shared their xpub should consider themselves traced already

This was repeatedly downplayed by their developers and their fanatical reply guys on social media. Anybody who dared to call it a vulnerability was relentlessly trolled. They had no regard for the possibility of exposing users to this risk, just as long as they were still collecting their fees, that’s all that mattered.

[buwaytress]

Can anyone see a silver lining?

I personally can't. Samourai wasn't a custodial mixer, so that to say this seizure encouraged the adoption of self-custodial solutions, or whatever. Samourai was one of the best and cheap solutions to coinjoin most effectively and self-custodially. Now the second best, IMO, is XMR swap, and I dare to add, XMR in general as it embodies the true spirit of cypherpunks, which Bitcoin failed to. The only problem is that Bitcoin appreciates more in capital than Monero.

Always held Monero with respect, and now that you mentioned it, am wondering why no one's gone for their devs or taken down their gits or whatever. Suppose it helps they have never really gathered the capital or volume as you say.

One must hope "this is not the end" but to bring back the silver lining question I asked and to answer myself, perhaps this is one more reason for people to attempt a "return" to basics. Hurts me personally a little to see recent cypherpunk headlines talking about Pavel instead of some other Bitcoin or even Monero relation.

[Eclipse33]

I heard the news about Samourai devs being seized by the feds and nearly vomited in my mouth.

DO YOU PEOPLE NOT SEE WHERE THIS IS ALL GOING. WE ARE GOING TO BE LIVING IN AN OPEN AIR PRISON.

The case against Samourai will no doubt take YEARS to resolve, and the case will be RAILROADED into oblivion if they plead not guilty.

Either way, these talented men will not see the light of day for DECADES over this.

They will never be able to write a line of code again. Their lives destroyed by the out of control, unaccountable criminal government.

Bitcoin-fog mixer and now Samourai. To the Feds reading this, WHO IS NEXT ON YOUR HIT LIST???

Government locking these innocent men up is a DISGRACE and an attack on every single bitcoiner.

[OgNasty]

We’ll have to wait and see if they are actually convicted of a crime. From reading on this forum it sounds like people have a completely different idea of the services provided from what is in the fed documents. If what people here believe is true, it’s possible the devs will beat this case. I have my doubts though. This sort of seizure doesn’t typically happen unless there are mountains of evidence.

[Wind_FURY]

OK, I believe this proves that the Samourai developers are NOT working for state actors, and the project itself is NOT a honeypot collecting information for intelligence agencies. This is a very sad day for Bitcoin privacy advocates. Kruw, some of your fellow developers were arrested, move on for today. Debate again tomorrow.

Why do you think it's too early to say "I told you so"? Samourai deliberately designed their wallet to collect user data by default and lied about it: https://twitter.com/SamouraiWallet/status/1576923638846005248

I opened an issue to have a warning displayed to users about the data they are leaking, Samourai closed it and later deleted it: https://web.archive.org/web/20230417145554/https://code.samourai.io/wallet/samourai-wallet-android/-/issues/458

I've spent an enormous amount of time warning people about the risks involved with this exact outcome. Now whatever data Samourai had is within arms reach of the Feds.

I'm not stopping you from having an opinion, or am I calling for you to stop posting what you believe is right and what you believe is the truth. I merely letting you understand that real people were arrested. They have families, and they don't want to be in their current situation.  I'm also asking you to PLEASE, keep quiet about Samourai for just a few days.

You may currently be annoyed by what I said, but I would tell other people to stop attacking Wasabi too if there were arrests made to their developers.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[NotATether]

OK, I believe this proves that the Samourai developers are NOT working for state actors, and the project itself is NOT a honeypot collecting information for intelligence agencies. This is a very sad day for Bitcoin privacy advocates. Kruw, some of your fellow developers were arrested, move on for today. Debate again tomorrow.

Why do you think it's too early to say "I told you so"? Samourai deliberately designed their wallet to collect user data by default and lied about it: https://twitter.com/SamouraiWallet/status/1576923638846005248

I opened an issue to have a warning displayed to users about the data they are leaking, Samourai closed it and later deleted it: https://web.archive.org/web/20230417145554/https://code.samourai.io/wallet/samourai-wallet-android/-/issues/458

I've spent an enormous amount of time warning people about the risks involved with this exact outcome. Now whatever data Samourai had is within arms reach of the Feds.

Come back to us after you've disassociated yourself from Wasabi Wallet and then you can tell us "I told you so". Until then, your project is inside the giant crosshairs of the FBI: https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2024/PSA240425

[pooya87]

We’ll have to wait and see if they are actually convicted of a crime.

Does it even matter? For those individuals, of course but not for Bitcoin.

What this act achieves is scaring every programmer out there from even contributing to anything privacy related since they now know the anti-privacy dictatorship can traumatize them and their families like this. Not to mention all the huge legal fees these "programmers" have to pay.
Speaking of traumatizing families and legal fees, lets not forget this is not a new thing in USA. Lest we forget arrest of BurtW basically just because he was a bitcoin user...

[Dave1]

OK, I believe this proves that the Samourai developers are NOT working for state actors, and the project itself is NOT a honeypot collecting information for intelligence agencies. This is a very sad day for Bitcoin privacy advocates. Kruw, some of your fellow developers were arrested, move on for today. Debate again tomorrow.

Why do you think it's too early to say "I told you so"? Samourai deliberately designed their wallet to collect user data by default and lied about it: https://twitter.com/SamouraiWallet/status/1576923638846005248

I opened an issue to have a warning displayed to users about the data they are leaking, Samourai closed it and later deleted it: https://web.archive.org/web/20230417145554/https://code.samourai.io/wallet/samourai-wallet-android/-/issues/458

I've spent an enormous amount of time warning people about the risks involved with this exact outcome. Now whatever data Samourai had is within arms reach of the Feds.

Come back to us after you've disassociated yourself from Wasabi Wallet and then you can tell us "I told you so". Until then, your project is inside the giant crosshairs of the FBI: https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2024/PSA240425

Yeah, and so for others who 'supposedly' want to check,



For example, I type 'Coinbase' in the Legal Name textbox, and this will be the result,

[ABCbits]

Make money private by default = Monero.
Just sayin.

You don't need shitcoins for privacy. Wasabi Wallet, BTCPay Server's coinjoin plugin, and Trezor's coinjoin account all provide privacy by default for Bitcoin.

Could you explain to us why you claim Monero is shitcoin? After all, Monero is one of few altcoins which usually not associated with such term.

From reading on this forum it sounds like people have a completely different idea of the services provided from what is in the fed documents. If what people here believe is true, it’s possible the devs will beat this case. I have my doubts though. This sort of seizure doesn’t typically happen unless there are mountains of evidence.

Yeah, i never hear about feature "Samourai Premium Add Ons" even though i've read Samourai Wallet documentation few times and read some discussion about Samourai Wallet. PDF (mentioned on the press release) doesn't even mention link/webpage source, so we can't verify whether it's true or not.

[mindrust]

Litecoin has a built-in privacy tool too. It is optional to use but it is there if you need it. That way litecoin has the best of the both worlds. It is not going to targeted by the government and businesses (they may not accept ltc that use mimble-wimble though) and it is not always semi-anonymous like bitcoin. You have a choice.

No need to use a 3rd party mixer/coincoin etc

https://www.elliptic.co/blog/explaining-mimblewimble-the-privacy-upgrade-to-litecoin?hs_amp=true

A viable alternative imo.

[SickDayIn]

The distinguishing reason I believe that these privacy related cryptocurrency ventures get taken down by government, particularly the US government, is because they knowingly contribute to or profit from criminal activity. Based on the DOJ website you linked, there is evidence that Samurai Wallet was aware their product was used by criminals, and they assisted grey/black market activity. Privacy tools will no doubt be used by operations like this, but their owners need to make sure they do not benefit from it.

[Kruw]

I'm not stopping you from having an opinion, or am I calling for you to stop posting what you believe is right and what you believe is the truth. I merely letting you understand that real people were arrested. They have families, and they don't want to be in their current situation.  I'm also asking you to PLEASE, keep quiet about Samourai for just a few days.

You may currently be annoyed by what I said, but I would tell other people to stop attacking Wasabi too if there were arrests made to their developers.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Why don't you tell people to stop attacking Wasabi even though their developers weren't arrested?

Come back to us after you've disassociated yourself from Wasabi Wallet and then you can tell us "I told you so".

Lmao, what? This is a basic truth that anyone who knows anything about Bitcoin privacy has been warning about since Samourai began spying on their users' xpubs. There's vindication across the board:

https://twitter.com/francispouliot_/status/1783245807170224291



https://twitter.com/heavilyarmedc/status/1783273530257244235



https://twitter.com/Mandrik/status/1783235201281216652



https://twitter.com/nvk/status/1783257921779822665



https://twitter.com/mononautical/status/1783215740079727064



https://twitter.com/sethx86/status/1783304959255073231

Could you explain to us why you claim Monero is shitcoin? After all, Monero is one of few altcoins which usually not associated with such term.

You don't need Monero because you can transact privately on Bitcoin.

Litecoin has a built-in privacy tool too. It is optional to use but it is there if you need it. That way litecoin has the best of the both worlds. It is not going to targeted by the government and businesses (they may not accept ltc that use mimble-wimble though) and it is not always semi-anonymous like bitcoin. You have a choice.

No need to use a 3rd party mixer/coincoin etc

https://www.elliptic.co/blog/explaining-mimblewimble-the-privacy-upgrade-to-litecoin?hs_amp=true

A viable alternative imo.

Mimblewimble doesn't provide privacy against an active observer since they can see all the transactions at the time they are created.

[alani123]

You may currently be annoyed by what I said, but I would tell other people to stop attacking Wasabi too if there were arrests made to their developers.

I'll start. I'd like to offer my sincere apologies and take back any statements I had made against Wasabi wallet and the people behind it, including you personally.

My understanding at the time was limited and based on falsehoods and misunderstandings perpetuated by other people as well. I regret having been one of such people at a time.
I think I now have a better understanding of what each proponent in bitcoin's privacy space represent and Really do understand where the Wassabi team are coming from.
In my view, Wassabi is a net-positive proponent for bitcoin's privacy uses and have started greatly appreciating the team for their efforts.

And to anyone else in this thread, I think that we should all acknowledge that Kruw personally has been offering level headed fact-based answers here for so long in spite of so many attacks he and the project have been receiving. Wassabi is offering one of the best bitcoin privacy solutions that can realistically be provided now, and we have to recognize and appreciate that.

[Synchronice]

I am not surprised that this happened. Yeah, they are fighting privacy but at the same time we can't deny that some people really abuse the privacy to do illegal things and hide their activity. We all know that government did it because they want to have power in their hand, they don't want to give people a financial freedom because those who control the money, control everything, so having a control on finance is the most important thing for governments. Since it's also true that people abuse privacy for doing illegal things and hiding traces, it gives governments a right and support from majority of people to do whatever it takes to close the every door for privacy and the majority of people are willingly letting them do it because they believe that government cares about them and it should be done to stop some people from doing illegal things and hiding traces.
So, don't be surprised! More is on the way!

[JackpotRacer]

So, don't be surprised! More is on the way!

Exactly! as sure as we are all going to die > more is on the way! Very sad though

[mindrust]

Mimblewimble doesn't provide privacy against an active observer since they can see all the transactions at the time they are created.

The data posted to blocks in the MimbleWimble blockchain doesn’t reveal any information on both the sender and receiver’s identification and transaction amounts. In fact, for an observer the information contained within a block looks like randomized data.

https://www.blockchainbeach.com/going-deep-on-privacy-mimblewimble-part-2/

How so?

[Kruw]

The data posted to blocks in the MimbleWimble blockchain doesn’t reveal any information on both the sender and receiver’s identification and transaction amounts. In fact, for an observer the information contained within a block looks like randomized data.

https://www.blockchainbeach.com/going-deep-on-privacy-mimblewimble-part-2/

How so?

h/t Shinobi: https://twitter.com/brian_trollz/status/1780220196994617725

People gave up on MimbleWimble because the privacy in practice doesn't work. The whole selling point was that transactions, which are just point multiplication, can be added together to obscure the graph.

The problem is, nodes snooping on the network are the ones who would aggregate them, and they can snoop on the individual transactions propagating before aggregation and undermine the privacy.

[NotATether]

Come back to us after you've disassociated yourself from Wasabi Wallet and then you can tell us "I told you so".

Lmao, what? This is a basic truth that anyone who knows anything about Bitcoin privacy has been warning about since Samourai began spying on their users' xpubs. There's vindication across the board:

If you were using Sparrow or running your own dojo instead of the main Samourai coordinator, then no xpub was sent in the first place. Also what does this have to do with my previous comment.

Could you explain to us why you claim Monero is shitcoin? After all, Monero is one of few altcoins which usually not associated with such term.

You don't need Monero because you can transact privately on Bitcoin.

You are lying. I run a mixer directory and even I admit that crypto transactions cannot be made anonymous as long as you can draw a transaction graph of an address. [I.e. everything except for CryptoNote coins]

h/t Shinobi: https://twitter.com/brian_trollz/status/1780220196994617725

People gave up on MimbleWimble because the privacy in practice doesn't work. The whole selling point was that transactions, which are just point multiplication, can be added together to obscure the graph.

The problem is, nodes snooping on the network are the ones who would aggregate them, and they can snoop on the individual transactions propagating before aggregation and undermine the privacy.

This is only correct theoretically, in practice Shinobi is wrong about this because almost all LTC nodes are running Litecoin Core which does not do such telemetry.

[Kruw]

You are lying. I run a mixer directory and even I admit that crypto transactions cannot be made anonymous as long as you can draw a transaction graph of an address. [I.e. everything except for CryptoNote coins]

Prove it then. Tell me which inputs created which outputs in this Bitcoin transaction:

If you aren't lying, then prove it by tracing this Wasabi coinjoin: https://mempool.space/tx/bffa359a9d7908be069800e6bf471db1050496fc4fac40298b15c0d126202298

[NotATether]

You are lying. I run a mixer directory and even I admit that crypto transactions cannot be made anonymous as long as you can draw a transaction graph of an address. [I.e. everything except for CryptoNote coins]

Prove it then. Tell me which inputs created which outputs in this Bitcoin transaction:

If you aren't lying, then prove it by tracing this Wasabi coinjoin: https://mempool.space/tx/bffa359a9d7908be069800e6bf471db1050496fc4fac40298b15c0d126202298

Why should I have to do it? I don't have server farms or sophisticated monitoring programs. You can challenge some people who do, though. Here, I will leave you their addresses:

sales@chainalysis.com
https://www.elliptic.co/schedule-demo

[Kruw]

Why should I have to do it?

You have to do it because you called me a liar:

You are lying. I run a mixer directory and even I admit that crypto transactions cannot be made anonymous as long as you can draw a transaction graph of an address. [I.e. everything except for CryptoNote coins]

[BlackHatCoiner]

You are lying.

You can have privacy on-chain, it's just becoming more and more difficult. Joinmarket, for example, is decentralized coinjoin. But, I doubt it's getting the necessary recognition, and it's pretty expensive to be honest.

Those accusations are disingenuous and have been debunked numerous times already.

OK, man. Stick with whatever acquits Wasabi, lol. If you can't see the red flags from the numerous accusations of users and even developers declaring Wasabi as risky for your privacy, the childish behavior presented by Wasabi developers and the fact that they're funding the enemy, then I don't know what to say. Nothing smells fishy, stick with this notion.

Prove it then. Tell me which inputs created which outputs in this Bitcoin transaction

At this point, you're making me quote him.

Hey guys! Don't look at those cars of ours on the news which are on fire! Look at these 1,000 new ones we just made. Ohhh, shiny!

[Kruw]

Prove it then. Tell me which inputs created which outputs in this Bitcoin transaction

At this point, you're making me quote him.

Hey guys! Don't look at those cars of ours on the news which are on fire! Look at these 1,000 new ones we just made. Ohhh, shiny!

o_e_l_e_o was never able to trace ANY WabiSabi coinjoins. He was proven to be a liar the entire time:

you don't need to be a "whale" at all in order to receive absolutely zero privacy from a Wasabi coinjoin.

Okay then, I'll call your bluff again- Here's 20 non whale non matching outputs from WabiSabi coinjoins, try to identify the inputs owned by even a single one of the 20 outputs (which would be 5%):

01 bc1q032caguldmlrrztmrwhv5wqveyywdu2rtmd740
02 bc1q6vgwhsfkg343mmh27vc6prg3clsd4xu3p68vyd
03 bc1qre8jjpu8p9taw8j44r39z56vfr4sw64d4wyaj4
04 bc1qarharg76gfcrvskfw46f67vtqzd6hxa9pnspp5
05 bc1q4sexgt2p96x3ytnjjttp59w6mkj00kedal3xze
06 bc1qwrf50wpjws5mhdg2rhdu5hy7nqdtl8z94lp75n
07 bc1qz0tal2udfpr20x793fdw6v8lzp2qze7z5zje64
08 bc1qqw2h7fa3n8vyxgqru664fmft2trl9sqh9kz3fp
09 bc1qsud748whmum4gpt2qu52z8gqlgzcjyvhd5w2a5
10 bc1qctvxddyvxupjj8w82m8w5grzn59arstlrnaauw
11 bc1qq2fl05cmmhkr3pzg8elyr859v2fpcltynrk2j5
12 bc1qvwkrd3aecrvql5j8mqkmketvw6g6qwzt4juprq
13 bc1qhc2565fac4lrgyfq6n0mzc0l86jeptfnv2um9x
14 bc1qat6445gutyl3qdz3zhmdng9cdt92mevjlvaljs
15 bc1qk5f3mz0fetccey4nyyjedlrmqstkz2hmun96ha
16 bc1q4tpvm378a9d4n0xcnjtwfwujtr8eatjzvru8dx
17 bc1qd5epyjpj6vuejdppj24wew5n4n5rzepjx2xnay
18 bc1qgafud63me5mffn00g90ch08jjn5h20umzwxd62
19 bc1q5u3f2ldrtqa7ea79a8hcd8kssgw2gmalk4uej9
20 bc1qa6n7g7r4j3nv78gzgzmuvg56em4guppckqpz7r

And just like o_e_l_e_o, you and NotATether haven't been able to trace anything either and were also proven to be liars. Stop making false accusations since you can't back them up.

[dkbit98]

Litecoin has a built-in privacy tool too. It is optional to use but it is there if you need it. That way litecoin has the best of the both worlds. It is not going to targeted by the government and businesses (they may not accept ltc that use mimble-wimble though) and it is not always semi-anonymous like bitcoin. You have a choice.

I wouldn't say it was not targeted by businesses because several exchanges delisted litecoin after they introduced mweb upgrade, even if they didn't have to add support for mweb addresses.
It's interesting that mimble-wimble could easily get implemented in Bitcoin (there is proposal already) after years of working fine in litecoin, but I am almost sure Saylor and his followers won't support that. 

You can have privacy on-chain, it's just becoming more and more difficult. Joinmarket, for example, is decentralized coinjoin. But, I doubt it's getting the necessary recognition, and it's pretty expensive to be honest.

Edward Snowden said something interesting few days ago that money must be private by default, and that should not be illegal anywhere.

[DooMAD]

Was Samourai wallet a "privacy enhancing tool" or was it a money laundering tool? Or maybe it was both?

It's unquestionably both.  A motorised vehicle can be used for both legitimate purposes and illegal ones.  A knife can be used for both legitimate purposes and illegal ones.  It's all about how people choose to utilise the thing in question.

It's funny how some people start whining about "the government taking away our privacy" every time some crypto mixing service gets banned/shut down for doing illegal stuff. I guess that some people think that the ability to conduct money laundering schemes and other illegal activities online is an integral part of their online privacy. Just get a Monero wallet and start using Monero. Why do we have to care about coinjoin/mixing services?

But Monero can also be used for illegal purposes along with legitimate ones.  You could absolutely launder money using Monero if you chose to.  The only difference between Monero and coinjoin/mixing services is that Monero is far more resilient against regulatory takedown.

It's not that people think illegal activity should be an integral part of their privacy, they merely want privacy any way they can get it.  But governments are indiscriminately destroying both legitimate and illegal use alike.  So legitimate users are getting caught in the crosshairs and taking collateral damage when they've done nothing wrong.


I suggest, going forward, the solution to this problem is to stop forming crypto companies.  

• Have an independent dev team, not a company with a CEO who can be arrested and company assets which can be seized
• Have a fully peer-to-peer architecture with no single-points-of-failure, not a main server which can be deactivated to cripple the service
• Have unpaid contributors, not paid employees

The moment you have a trading name, a head office, any reportable income, a primary company server or any kind of business expenditure, you become subject to all the regulations of the jurisdiction(s) in which you operate.  You can and likely will be shut down if the government don't like the service you are offering.

To create the kind of economy we want to create, there can be no perceivable connection to their economy.  For now, that is the only way to remain private.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Edward Snowden said something interesting few days ago that money must be private by default, and that should not be illegal anywhere.

And I absolutely agree with him. If we want privacy to be an integral part of our transactions, it needs to be available by default, across all wallet software; not optionally, expensively and even questionably effectively. All of the Bitcoin users who claim ourselves as pro-privacy and inspired by the cypherpunks, should opt-out to Monero, otherwise we're being dishonest to ourselves. There's a neighbour network that operates exactly as envisioned, respecting all the fundamentals of cryptocurrency.

The only obstacle I see is our greed / risk / call it whatever you like, that Bitcoin will appreciate more in value than Monero.

To create the kind of economy we want to create, there can be no perceivable connection to their economy.  For now, that is the only way to remain private.

But, what kind of economy do we want to create? One that's underground, or one that will reshape the current system as a result of its own collapse? We cannot realistically move forwards in terms of privacy if the merchants are afraid of being punished by the state for using privacy-respecting software.

[mindrust]

h/t Shinobi: https://twitter.com/brian_trollz/status/1780220196994617725

People gave up on MimbleWimble because the privacy in practice doesn't work. The whole selling point was that transactions, which are just point multiplication, can be added together to obscure the graph.
The problem is, nodes snooping on the network are the ones who would aggregate them, and they can snoop on the individual transactions propagating before aggregation and undermine the privacy.

If you aren't lying, then prove it by tracing this Wasabi coinjoin: https://mempool.space/tx/bffa359a9d7908be069800e6bf471db1050496fc4fac40298b15c0d126202298

How about you deanonymize a MW transaction? Let's see your skills in action.

Edward Snowden said something interesting few days ago that money must be private by default, and that should not be illegal anywhere.

Money is private... If it is not private, it is not money. It is not a matter of should, that's the definition of money. It is because money is a commodity and all commodities are fungible/anonymous by nature.

[Kruw]

How about you deanonymize a MW transaction? Let's see your skills in action.

Not sure that's a fair comparison since I would have to sync a node in order to even attempt this. There's no prerequisites to my challenge at all, these accusers against Wasabi are simply scammers, you can see here how I organized a ton of evidence against them proving how persistent they were targeting Wasabi users into getting scammed by Chipmixer: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5482198.0

[mindrust]

How about you deanonymize a MW transaction? Let's see your skills in action.

Not sure that's a fair comparison since I would have to sync a node in order to even attempt this. There's no prerequisites to my challenge at all, these accusers against Wasabi are simply scammers, you can see here how I organized a ton of evidence against them proving how persistent they were targeting Wasabi users into getting scammed by Chipmixer: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5482198.0

So you are saying you can't deanonymize a MW tx? Chickened out? Do you at least know someone who can? No? Show me an example who did? No? Why are you talking about it then?

[Kruw]

So you are saying you can't deanonymize a MW tx? Chickened out? Do you at least know someone who can? No? Show me an example who did? No? Why are you talking about it then?

Because privacy education is important and people having a false sense of privacy is bad?

[mindrust]

So you are saying you can't deanonymize a MW tx? Chickened out? Do you at least know someone who can? No? Show me an example who did? No? Why are you talking about it then?

Because privacy education is important and people having a false sense of privacy is bad?

You are claiming that MW isn't working but you can't show me an example which means you are lying and misinforming people. You call that education?

[cryptosize]

How about you deanonymize a MW transaction? Let's see your skills in action.

Not sure that's a fair comparison since I would have to sync a node in order to even attempt this. There's no prerequisites to my challenge at all, these accusers against Wasabi are simply scammers, you can see here how I organized a ton of evidence against them proving how persistent they were targeting Wasabi users into getting scammed by Chipmixer: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5482198.0

So you are saying you can't deanonymize a MW tx? Chickened out? Do you at least know someone who can? No? Show me an example who did? No? Why are you talking about it then?

I've never seen anyone deanonymizing BEAM (which is private by default, unlike LTC).

[Kruw]

You are claiming that MW isn't working but you can't show me an example which means you are lying and misinforming people. You call that education?

Why don't you provide everyone the unaggregated data from your own MW node then as an example?

[mindrust]

You are claiming that MW isn't working but you can't show me an example which means you are lying and misinforming people. You call that education?

Why don't you provide everyone the unaggregated data from your own MW node then as an example?

I don't have to prove or provide anything. You are the one who claim MW isn't anonymous or its privacy can be broken. You should put your skills where your mouth is.

[Kruw]

I don't have to prove or provide anything. You are the one who claim MW isn't anonymous or its privacy can be broken. You should put your skills where your mouth is.

I do, since I have access to the data from Bitcoin nodes, I was easily able to deanonymize Whirlpool coinjoins:

Post the tx ID of any Whirlpool transaction and I will show you the tx0 transaction that was created by each of the new entrants.

Ok, here's one: https://mempool.space/tx/ed3131b544fbf00a71709942e483b55e629312ecb181e6e819409f419ee0d226

Where exactly is the privacy loss for new entrants, splitting a single UTXO in to multiple UTXOs to join the pool?

Okay, here's all the payments that can be tracked from the two new participants of the Whirlpool coinjoin transaction:

Entrant 1: bc1q03c0443ausjjdxl2h6ud5m8c0dux0zyg3dqdj7 created 0.00170417 BTC in unmixed change sent to bc1q3fduld0l3r8nclyt5p3r7ak675tekurstn55tl.  Since this UTXO is not private, the sats were marked as unspendable and have not been recovered by the wallet owner  

Entrant 2: bc1qzc8zku26ej337huw5dlt390cy2r9kgnq7dhtys created 0.00191247 BTC in unmixed change sent to bc1qjlltxr443uy236wl4xhpxlr6dgsu0zltlv3m44. This UTXO was used in a second tx0 transaction, creating a huge trail of transactions that could be traced to each other  

The 2nd tx0 transaction created 0.00076348 BTC unmixed change which was sent to bc1qehd7gy8rza9mnzm9wnfjhgw82rp47wmqt7vpgy

Since this unmixed change is below the .001 pool minimum, it was consolidated in a 3rd tx0 with 3 other addresses owned by the same wallet:
31x8GPqrhzdaxiBJa9N5UisuoxbX1rAnHa
16Gw5WKjbxZmg1zhZQs19Sf61fbV2xGujx
3LZtsJfUjiV5EZkkG1fwGEpTe2QEa7CNeY

The 3rd tx0 transaction created .00200317 in unmixed change which was sent to bc1q2p7gdtyahct8rdjs2khwf0sffl64qe896ya2y5
This was spent in a 0.00190000 payment to 3B8cRYc3W5jHeS3pkepwDePUmePBoEwyp1 (a reused address)

That payment left .00008553 in change that was tracked to 3Dh7R7xoKMVfLCcAtVDyhJ66se82twyZSn and consolidated with two other inputs in a 4th tx0 transaction:
bc1qeuh6sds8exm54yscrupdk03jxphw8qwzdtxgde
3ByChGBFshzGUE5oip8YYVEZDaCP2bcBmZ

This 4th tx0 created .00533406 in unmixed change which was sent to bc1qzh699s75smwukg9jcanwnlkmkn38r79ataagd9 which was consolidated with 3 more addresses into a 5th tx0:
3F2qiWQJKQjF7XFjEo8FUYP3AU5AC6RqX8
3HAYYVKUpYbr2ARMdZJr9yVu8xi8UcxtPz
3GQtwwRK31wwCc22q6WS5sCgixUHsG5KaT

The 5th tx0 created 0.00058494 BTC in unmixed change that was sent to bc1qvh2zjcwwkj9y70xulla2semvlav3lty0p3l3w3
This was spent in a .00047290 payment to bc1qvzg8jq6wqtr5navn4e3ps4qrkk9r6n4h98gjck

That payment left .00008411 in change that was tracked to bc1qg6j0f0wfhpktt2l8uzdn48ct3um2xyur40eyzd and consolidated with another input into a 6th tx0 transaction:
31iZLXWfoywhuMZTPGxTkpzphzh2NXshpP

The 6th tx0 created .00753775 in unmixed change that was tracked to bc1qgfll2apc27yct6h2c8r8wq4kqhxjsfrudhhn5q
This was spent in a .00737000 payment to bc1q5emzer2t0sq5dez0zsrqgh6scvwn0n24xsladp (a reused address)

This payment left 0.00010896 BTC in change which has not been spent yet, but the payment only took place 11 days ago, so I assume it will eventually be spent, allowing the Whirlpool user to be tracked even further.

[mindrust]

I don't have to prove or provide anything. You are the one who claim MW isn't anonymous or its privacy can be broken. You should put your skills where your mouth is.

I do, since I have access to the data from Bitcoin nodes, I was easily able to deanonymize Whirlpool coinjoins:

...

Which one of these is a MW transaction? I am missing it probably. Old rusty can't see that well nowadays  

[Kruw]

Which one of these is a MW transaction? I am missing it probably. Old rusty can't see that well nowadays  

You are missing it: The unaggregated data of the MW transactions is observed from your node.

[mindrust]

Which one of these is a MW transaction? I am missing it probably. Old rusty can't see that well nowadays  

You are missing it: The unaggregated data of the MW transactions is observed from your node.

I don't have a node. What now? Setup your own and show us?

[Kruw]

I don't have a node. What now? Setup your own and show us?

Stop shitposting.

https://litecoin.com/en/news/the-litecoin-mimblewimble-extension-block-proposal-has-been-published

MW will offer pseudo privacy as before this history gets deleted those monitoring the network will be able to store the chain state, meaning even if values are hidden it is still possible to track user activity and interactions, so while yes, this will help with fungibility it is by no means perfect.

https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/breaking-mimblewimble-privacy-model-84bcd67bfe52

TL;DR: Mimblewimble’s privacy is fundamentally flawed. Using only $60/week of AWS spend, I was able to uncover the exact addresses of senders and recipients for 96% Grin transactions in real time.

[mindrust]

I don't have a node. What now? Setup your own and show us?

Stop shitposting.

https://litecoin.com/en/news/the-litecoin-mimblewimble-extension-block-proposal-has-been-published

MW will offer pseudo privacy as before this history gets deleted those monitoring the network will be able to store the chain state, meaning even if values are hidden it is still possible to track user activity and interactions, so while yes, this will help with fungibility it is by no means perfect.

https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/breaking-mimblewimble-privacy-model-84bcd67bfe52

TL;DR: Mimblewimble’s privacy is fundamentally flawed. Using only $60/week of AWS spend, I was able to uncover the exact addresses of senders and recipients for 96% Grin transactions in real time.

Grin Devs Respond: Mimblewimble Privacy Isn’t 'Fundamentally Flawed'

“We have to assume that the author conveniently confused transaction outputs (TXOs) with addresses, but these are not the same. And, as we’ve already detailed, the fact that TXOs can be linked is hardly news.”

Lehnberg’s critique of Bogatyy’s claims continues to address several further points, with his central line of argument — details aside — resting on the statement that:

“The Grin team has consistently acknowledged that Grin’s privacy is far from perfect. While transaction linkability is a limitation that we’re looking to mitigate as part of our goal of ever-improving privacy, it does not ‘break’ Mimblewimble nor is it anywhere close to being so fundamental as to render it or Grin’s privacy features useless.”

[cryptosize]

https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/breaking-mimblewimble-privacy-model-84bcd67bfe52

TL;DR: Mimblewimble’s privacy is fundamentally flawed. Using only $60/week of AWS spend, I was able to uncover the exact addresses of senders and recipients for 96% Grin transactions in real time.

Everyone should read the comments too.

Also this:

https://medium.com/grin-mimblewimble/factual-inaccuracies-of-breaking-mimblewimbles-privacy-model-8063371839b9

TBH, these are old articles from 2019... we need to have a discourse with 2024 data. BEAM also has improvements over GRIN.

Some people also argue XMR is traceable, but devs keeps improving it (higher ring size etc).

There's also an IRS bounty if anyone's interested (it's basically free money if you think you can break it):

https://www.interactivecrypto.com/irs-625-000-bounty-for-breaking-monero-and-lightning

[Kruw]

Grin Devs Respond: Mimblewimble Privacy Isn’t 'Fundamentally Flawed'

“We have to assume that the author conveniently confused transaction outputs (TXOs) with addresses, but these are not the same. And, as we’ve already detailed, the fact that TXOs can be linked is hardly news.”

Lehnberg’s critique of Bogatyy’s claims continues to address several further points, with his central line of argument — details aside — resting on the statement that:

“The Grin team has consistently acknowledged that Grin’s privacy is far from perfect. While transaction linkability is a limitation that we’re looking to mitigate as part of our goal of ever-improving privacy, it does not ‘break’ Mimblewimble nor is it anywhere close to being so fundamental as to render it or Grin’s privacy features useless.”

Exactly, David Burkett implemented MW on Litecoin and came to the same conclusion about the weaknesses of MW privacy: https://twitter.com/DavidBurkett38/status/1780758039567446290

[mindrust]

So it goes like this:

Dark market quality, best of the best, the hardest privacy, the choice of the drugsellers, money launderers and terrorists: Monero

>

Porn addicts, weirdos, pot buyers: Litecoin MW

>

Everyone else: btc

I’m am OK with MW :d

[joker_josue]

One of the founders was arrested in Portugal and is waiting to be extradited to the US.

If anyone wants to read the official statement from the Portuguese police, it is here:
https://www.policiajudiciaria.pt/pj-colabora-com-fbi-na-detencao-de-suspeito-de-branqueamento-de-capitais/

[Smilevictorobinna]

We’ll have to wait and see if they are actually convicted of a crime.

Does it even matter? For those individuals, of course but not for Bitcoin.

What this act achieves is scaring every programmer out there from even contributing to anything privacy related since they now know the anti-privacy dictatorship can traumatize them and their families like this. Not to mention all the huge legal fees these "programmers" have to pay.
Speaking of traumatizing families and legal fees, lets not forget this is not a new thing in USA. Lest we forget arrest of BurtW basically just because he was a bitcoin user...

To be honest with you the world leaders are afraid of cryptocurrency they feel is a way of bringing down the value of there currency, so for a programmer it is advised to build a decentralized cryptocurrency just like Bitcoin in other to be in a save side.
The creator of Bitcoin is no were to be found no trace of him but what he created is growing bigger and stronger by the day and the reason behind it is that he built a decentralized cryptocurrency.
And believe me he would have been jailed if not that he disappeared.

[cygan]

just came across the following tweets from @freedomtech
which describes the fastest/most secure way to migrate all your funds from the Samourai wallet to the Sparrow wallet. you need 6 steps for this whole procedure and there is also a screen recording as a video guide for the whole process:


https://twitter.com/freedomtech/status/1783850003179454731

[RickDeckard]

just came across the following tweets from @freedomtech
which describes the fastest/most secure way to migrate all your funds from the Samourai wallet to the Sparrow wallet. you need 6 steps for this whole procedure and there is also a screen recording as a video guide for the whole process:
~

The guide is very well made (after all I wasn't expecting less from the people behind Foundation[1]) but as I discussed[2] previously with BlackHatCoiner[3], if anyone used their wallet without running their own node, you have to consider that the xpub can/have been obtained by the DOJ/FBI. For privacy sake it would be best if you created a new wallet and then transfer the funds to it.
[1]https://freedom.tech/
[2]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5494114.msg63991397#msg63991397
[3]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5494114.msg63991471#msg63991471

[DeathAngel]

They hate everything they don’t control & it might get worse eventually. Don’t let this kind of thing scare you away from self custody though, they can’t take Bitcoin off you if they aren’t able to tell where it is. I hear there are a lot of unfortunate boating accidents happening lately.

[anna_20]

what happens now to the money kept in those wallets? 

[bettercrypto]

Samourai Wallet has been taken down by the U.S. authorities: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founders-and-ceo-cryptocurrency-mixing-service-arrested-and-charged-money-laundering. You can verify by opening samouraiwallet.com (it's under the authorities' control).

Another privacy enhancing tool goes down the road. Apparently, the governments use everything in their disposal to undermine the users' privacy. Samourai team had recently announced that they were developing a decentralized version of whirlpool, using the Soroban network. It could be the case that they foresaw their own disappearance.

Very frustrated. An important reminder and good quote is needed here.

>You will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography.

Yes, but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.

Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.

R.I.P. Samourai.

Literally speaking, that's sad news. It looks like the US government is starting to take a look at crypto wallets that are about to be shut down. I just hope that the other apps and wallets related to crypto will not be followed, which are helping a lot in the community of this field industry.

That Samurai wallet also lasted a year in this field, right? I just hope that the users can also release their funds so they don't get stuck. I hope they don't have another wallet to close.

[legendbtc]

We’ll have to wait and see if they are actually convicted of a crime.

Does it even matter? For those individuals, of course but not for Bitcoin.

What this act achieves is scaring every programmer out there from even contributing to anything privacy related since they now know the anti-privacy dictatorship can traumatize them and their families like this. Not to mention all the huge legal fees these "programmers" have to pay.
Speaking of traumatizing families and legal fees, lets not forget this is not a new thing in USA. Lest we forget arrest of BurtW basically just because he was a bitcoin user...

To be honest with you the world leaders are afraid of cryptocurrency they feel is a way of bringing down the value of there currency, so for a programmer it is advised to build a decentralized cryptocurrency just like Bitcoin in other to be in a save side.
The creator of Bitcoin is no were to be found no trace of him but what he created is growing bigger and stronger by the day and the reason behind it is that he built a decentralized cryptocurrency.
And believe me he would have been jailed if not that he disappeared.

They're not afraid of cryptocurrency or anything, what they're doing is showing everyone that they're still the dictators of the world and they can do whatever they think is right. They want to show us that there is no point in trying to fight them or think that we can escape their control. This is what I said before, we will never be able to fight the government if they really want to act against decentralization. Constantly spreading claims that bitcoin can help us fight them is completely harmful to us, it never benefits them if they actually take action.

Satoshi made the decision to stay anonymous at the right time and it has kept him safe so far. But I think if bitcoin was created in 2024 maybe things would be different, I don't think he could escape the government's hunt if he appeared again.

[Z-tight]

what happens now to the money kept in those wallets?  

BTC's are not stored in wallets, but on the blockchain. Since it is a self custodial wallet, in which users are in control of their funds through their seed phrase, all they need to do is to import their wallet into a different software to access their funds. Nothing is lost.

Your funds can only be confiscated if you use a custodial service that holds the keys to your wallet.

[anna_20]

what happens now to the money kept in those wallets?  

BTC's are not stored in wallets, but on the blockchain. Since it is a self custodial wallet, in which users are in control of their funds through their seed phrase, all they need to do is to import their wallet into a different software to access their funds. Nothing is lost.

Your funds can only be confiscated if you use a custodial service that holds the keys to your wallet.

it never ceases to amaze me 

[logfiles]

There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the US invading that country and taking down Saddam, right?  Right, guys??

Governments are the biggest liars, the biggest thieves (with banks in second place), and unfortunately since they make the laws and enforce them and instill fear in their citizens' hearts, they get to do whatever the fuck they want to. 

Absolutely right! Everything about Government makes me want to puke. From their policies, propaganda and enforcement. If only there was a world where Governments are illegal. Maybe that would be a much better world for freedom

Governments are basically a cartel living off people's hard-earned money through tax and still use the same revenue to threaten, imprison and kill their own Citizens.

They hate everything they don’t control & it might get worse eventually. Don’t let this kind of thing scare you away from self custody though, they can’t take Bitcoin off you if they aren’t able to tell where it is. I hear there are a lot of unfortunate boating accidents happening lately.

Next they will be coming for and seizing servers of any noncustodial wallet because they are not KYCing their users 

[NotATether]

what happens now to the money kept in those wallets? 

Nothing. Samourai is a non-custodial wallet.

[Saint-loup]

Nothing. Samourai is a non-custodial wallet.

Yes but it's a software, so if you download a malicious update made by someone who eventually took control of the project now leaders of the team have been arrested, it could create a transaction and send your funds elsewhere or steal your seed. So IMO it's better to import your seed or private keys into another wallet as soon as possible, and to not download any upgrade before.

[BlackHatCoiner]

If only there was a world where Governments are illegal.

The problem with making governments illegal is that you need a government to do it. Sounds like trying to convince a person to kill themselves. 

Even free market advocates do not believe in a world with absolutely no government. Less intervention in the market is already a milestone, which we are far away from. Writing code has been proved to be particularly effective manner to resist, but it needs more than that.

Yes but it's a software, so if you download a malicious update made by someone who eventually took control of the project now leaders of the team have been arrested, it could create a transaction and send your funds elsewhere or steal your seed.

That's why you should always verify the signatures of your software! The feds have not compromised the private key(s) used to sign software releases.

[Kruw]

That's why you should always verify the signatures of your software! The feds have not compromised the private key(s) used to sign software releases.

Samourai used their PGP signed warrant canary to announce that they started complying with information requests from the feds nearly a year ago:

https://twitter.com/FuegoDelMonte/status/1664723858274807811
https://twitter.com/SamouraiWallet/status/1664738065632436224

[cryptosize]

Privacy is a fight that we can never win.

Unless you are a selfish person, even if this privacy thing is good for your daily use, have you ever thought about putting yourself in a shoe of a ruler? Will you want such to exist in your country without worries about someone funding terrorists and they are untraceable? You won't be able to sleep peacefully.

We can't say because privacy is good for us that everyone in the world will use it right, samourai wallet is a dangerous piece of technology if it gets into the wrong hands, so I like the fact that they made it stop, o my God knows how many bad people have use its features for their own reasons.

In a world where no one is completely clean it will be a disaster to have a way to move funds untraceable, even this day's people do bad things and they feel like it's good, a world without law is called lawless, and that's more like a hell on earth.

Spoken like a true freemason.

Even knowledge/books can become "dangerous" into the "wrong" hands.

Sure, if I were a ruler, I wouldn't want want the plebs to escape the 9-5 rat race, but the thing is I'm not.

[cryptosize]

Does it still sound like a conspiracy theory?

Privacy will be gone completely in a few years. We will be sharing our cars and homes with strangers. I already share my country with millions of illegals thanks to the US politics in the Middle East. Make a google search and see which country hosts the most refugees(!).

The US has been taking thousands from the Mexican border.

These things happen because of the evil globalist fucks like Klaus Schwab.

Only gullible people believe this is a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. Most likely triple jabbed ones.

They want to bring Techno-Communism:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/could-capitalism-need-some-marxism-to-survive-the-4th-industrial-revolution/
https://twitter.com/mattgubba/status/1560529318857609217

It's a prerequisite to bring UBI + CBDC.

[ img width=700]https://talkimg.com/images/2024/04/25/raZA1.jpeg[/img]

Does it still sound like a conspiracy theory?

Privacy will be gone completely in a few years. We will be sharing our cars and homes with strangers. I already share my country with millions of illegals thanks to the US politics in the Middle East. Make a google search and see which country hosts the most refugees(!).

The US has been taking thousands from the Mexican border.

These things happen because of the evil globalist fucks like Klaus Schwab.

Well as someone with a family full of conspiracy theorists who somehow came to the conclusion that covid was created by WEF, this is actually a very real and serious threat to Bitcoin, what they are doing right now. And I'm sure that there are some WEF-affiliated people in governments, the IMF, World Bank and others and also rich people who attend Davos meetings who give donations to said people.

I'm sure you remember when they tried to outlaw strong encryption and then people were printing the PGP source code on t-shirts, mugs and so on.

We need to channel that resistance because ultimately, code is free speech protected by the first amendment. You can't be held criminally liable just for writing it.

Maybe your family is onto something:

https://twitter.com/EssexPR/status/1544273335881801728

They didn't create COVID (a variant of flu) per se, but they did orchestrate the COVID hysteria (mass media fearmongering, social media censoring of dissenting voices, lockdowns that destroyed our economy by increasing inflation, forced experimental vaccinations etc).

I was very sad to see Bitcoiners support all this anti-freedom measures back in 2020-2021, but I'll let it slide for a second.

And now they're attacking people's privacy...

These guys control almost all governments (not just the West, but even Russia/BRICs is a controlled opposition), they're not our friends.

The road to hell is always paved with good ("humanitarian") intentions.

[Wind_FURY]

So it goes like this:

Dark market quality, best of the best, the hardest privacy, the choice of the drugsellers, money launderers and terrorists: Monero

>

Porn addicts, weirdos, pot buyers: Litecoin MW

>

Everyone else: btc

I’m am OK with MW :d

But that's unfair to make such classifications, no? What if a normal user likes Monero or Litecoin for coffee transactions because they're faster? Or because he/she simply likes the logos of those coins?

"For everyone else", I believe Bitcoin could also be used for the utility of those other cryptocurrencies if you know what you're doing.

[mindrust]

But that's unfair to make such classifications, no? What if a normal user likes Monero or Litecoin for coffee transactions because they're faster? Or because he/she simply likes the logos of those coins?

"For everyone else", I believe Bitcoin could also be used for the utility of those other cryptocurrencies if you know what you're doing.

Obviously everybody is free to use whatever suits them the best. In fact Ltc makes more sense than the other two for coffee transactions since it is fast, cheap and is as widely adopted as btc.

I sorted them based on their privacy abilities. Monero is the most hardcore privacy oriented coin so people who demand the hardest privacy will use nothing but monero because it makes more sense. The biggest handicap of xmr is that it has low liquidity and that’s not a small problem. Especially when you want to cash out over a million usd. People who demand the best privacy still prefer to use btc over monero because of that probably.

It doesn’t have to be this or that in the end. There is a place for many alts in this market.

[DaveF]

Obviously everybody is free to use whatever suits them the best. In fact Ltc makes more sense than the other two for coffee transactions since it is fast, cheap and is as widely adopted as btc.

I sorted them based on their privacy abilities. Monero is the most hardcore privacy oriented coin so people who demand the hardest privacy will use nothing but monero because it makes more sense. The biggest handicap of xmr is that it has low liquidity and that’s not a small problem. Especially when you want to cash out over a million usd. People who demand the best privacy still prefer to use btc over monero because of that probably.

It doesn’t have to be this or that in the end. There is a place for many alts in this market.

Drifting a bit OT, but I don't think XMR has that low a liquidity. It's still trading $50 million a day. And it then follows that the more people use it the more that number will grow but people have to want to use it.
And I don't think a lot of people care about privacy as much as we think.

Most people want to pick out the stuff they want, pay for it and move on. Zero thought about privacy or what data tracking info is being sold.
Which is why when Samourai gets seized, mixers get seized and so on the general thought of most people is 'meh...whatever' even people in crypto. It's just not something they care about.

Which is also why XMR and a lot of privacy coins don't get a lot of traction,

Just my view.

-Dave

[MusaMohamed]

Drifting a bit OT, but I don't think XMR has that low a liquidity. It's still trading $50 million a day. And it then follows that the more people use it the more that number will grow but people have to want to use it.
And I don't think a lot of people care about privacy as much as we think.

No cryptocurrency can replace Bitcoin in trading volume in a long time. They can have very high trading volume that is higher than Bitcoin trading volume in one or some days but can not maintain it for too long time and never can take over Bitcoin in market cap or trading volume.

Monero with about $1.3B in trading volume last 30 days or as you said, $50M a day is good for trading and can satisfy criminals for money laundering. I could be wrong but criminals will not launder money with very big value within a day like more $B a day and Monero is good for their privacy and private transactions.

[mindrust]

Obviously everybody is free to use whatever suits them the best. In fact Ltc makes more sense than the other two for coffee transactions since it is fast, cheap and is as widely adopted as btc.

I sorted them based on their privacy abilities. Monero is the most hardcore privacy oriented coin so people who demand the hardest privacy will use nothing but monero because it makes more sense. The biggest handicap of xmr is that it has low liquidity and that’s not a small problem. Especially when you want to cash out over a million usd. People who demand the best privacy still prefer to use btc over monero because of that probably.

It doesn’t have to be this or that in the end. There is a place for many alts in this market.

Drifting a bit OT, but I don't think XMR has that low a liquidity. It's still trading $50 million a day. And it then follows that the more people use it the more that number will grow but people have to want to use it.

That's the total trading volume on all exchanges and trading pairs which is also mostly fake.


https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/monero/

The pair with the most volume is on Gate.io and it is probably fake. Azbit fake. Poloniex fake, bithash fake. All fakes till Kraken. Another fake exchange bit2me and then Kucoin comes with a volume of $2.8m. Mexc has $2m daily volume. Finex has another $2m.

I'd say Monero has no more than $10m genuine daily trading volume at the moment. A person with $1m can mess these pairs up quite easily.

[MeGold666]

Liquidity problem is a myth, otherwise Bitcoin would never be worth more than $1 per coin.

The more people want to buy it, the higher the price will go - that's a "problem" that is self-resolving.

"A friend of a friend" had no problem selling and buying XMR in very large quantities, it took minutes.

[JayJuanGee]

Drifting a bit OT, but I don't think XMR has that low a liquidity. It's still trading $50 million a day. And it then follows that the more people use it the more that number will grow but people have to want to use it.
And I don't think a lot of people care about privacy as much as we think.

No cryptocurrency can replace Bitcoin in trading volume in a long time. They can have very high trading volume that is higher than Bitcoin trading volume in one or some days but can not maintain it for too long time and never can take over Bitcoin in market cap or trading volume.

Monero with about $1.3B in trading volume last 30 days or as you said, $50M a day is good for trading and can satisfy criminals for money laundering. I could be wrong but criminals will not launder money with very big value within a day like more $B a day and Monero is good for their privacy and private transactions.

Why are we going to presume that the mere fact that something is secret that it all of a sudden is being used mostly by criminals rather than for legitimate personal privacy reasons?  We would likely need more data if we are going to start to make those kinds of presumptions, and surely I understand some of the ideas of the slippery slope that also would include increase in trade volume that allows larger and larger players to come into the product.. so surely there are ongoingly going to be some challenges when the non-traceable services increase in their capacities.

Liquidity problem is a myth, otherwise Bitcoin would never be worth more than $1 per coin.

The more people want to buy it, the higher the price will go - that's a "problem" that is self-resolving.

"A friend of a friend" had no problem selling and buying XMR in very large quantities, it took minutes.

How many millions did your friend of a friend sell / buy?

[peter0425]

Why are we going to presume that the mere fact that something is secret that it all of a sudden is being used mostly by criminals rather than for legitimate personal privacy reasons?  We would likely need more data if we are going to start to make those kinds of presumptions, and surely I understand some of the ideas of the slippery slope that also would include increase in trade volume that allows larger and larger players to come into the product.. so surely there are ongoingly going to be some challenges when the non-traceable services increase in their capacities.

I don’t think there has been a study regarding how much of privacy coins are actually being used in nefarious purposes probably because there is no accurate count of criminals that can be used for the research. So maybe all the idea that criminals are using privacy coins as some kind of fort came from mere idea that criminals have to be discreet.

The government does not trust anything they have no information on hence why they are suspicious of privacy coins.

[MeGold666]

How many millions did your friend of a friend sell / buy?

More than 1.