Edward Snowden Final Warning for Bitcoin

[Z390]

https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1786170805728039127

Edwards Snowden just made a tweet with final warning for everyone that privacy for Bitcoin is needed on protocol level.
I tend to agree with him on this and I really don't understand why nothing has been done regarding that for years, unless this was done intentional.
Funny comment was made by Jameson that we might take another ten years to do this  
The clock is ticking...

Let the clock tick.

Privacy is a bad idea for Bitcoin, it is not needy and it will only make Bitcoin looks bad, all the nonsense that Elizabeth has been talking about makes no sense because Bitcoin is not a privacy coin, if Bitcoin was a privacy coin it will be very harder for it to progress, I believe that most countries including the US will see Bitcoin as a great threat to their country.

If the government can't trace movement of money or fund on your innovation, that makes it a threat to the centralized world, please leave Bitcoin be on its decentralised feature only, this is tolerable by every centralized entities and to say the truth some still don't sit well with Bitcoin, and if privacy is add it will ruin everything.
We have seen what happened with mixers and privacy featured crypto wallets, that is a big lesson as to what could possibly happen if Bitcoin is a privacy-featured coin.

[NotATether]

Edwards Snowden just made a tweet with final warning for everyone that privacy for Bitcoin is needed on protocol level.

I'm up for it.

Let's start by implementing CoinJoin at a protocol level, with the new TapScript functionality. Time to utilize it for more than just JPEGs.

We are heading into a world where Everybody is about to be able to see your financial transaction history. Even random anonymous strangers. Including if you use most crypto. So if having any financial privacy is more important to any of you than HODL memes, then you should support it.

Yes, I like stacking sats just as much as the rest of you, but I am also a fierce privacy advocate.

It is shocking how the sentiment in this community has changed from promoting privacy to shunning it since the new year.

@everyone who's saying such a thing would cause BTC to get banned everywhere: I don't think that is possible, now that ETFs are here.

No point in using Tor, VPN, private email, Graphene OS, Bitcoin, Tails if everyone can see your financial history. That is all that is needed to take you down.

[MeGold666]

Let the clock tick.

Privacy is a bad idea for Bitcoin, it is not needy and it will only make Bitcoin looks bad, all the nonsense that Elizabeth has been talking about makes no sense because Bitcoin is not a privacy coin, if Bitcoin was a privacy coin it will be very harder for it to progress, I believe that most countries including the US will see Bitcoin as a great threat to their country.

If the government can't trace movement of money or fund on your innovation, that makes it a threat to the centralized world, please leave Bitcoin be on its decentralised feature only, this is tolerable by every centralized entities and to say the truth some still don't sit well with Bitcoin, and if privacy is add it will ruin everything.
We have seen what happened with mixers and privacy featured crypto wallets, that is a big lesson as to what could possibly happen if Bitcoin is a privacy-featured coin.

That's fear talking. Fear like this is the reason North Korea is what it is today, a hell hole with absolutely no privacy.

Everyone needs privacy, everyone loves privacy. Even Satoshi wanted to add it.
And now because of some bag of shit called "Elizabeth" and alike, you don't want it ?

If that were to happen, which is not going to happen, as things are now, the Bitcoin would only be used to buy stuff on the deep web and today it would not even be used to bet in casinos, since there are hardly any unlicensed casinos left, and with all the cryptocurrency alternatives there are, they would be forced not to accept bitcoin.

That's not true and other privacy projects are a proof that economy outside DNM's is growing, I pay for many things using private cryptocurrency and it's not DNM related.

Monero beats Bitcoin on ShopinBit
https://twitter.com/shopinbit/status/1775930595731775991

Monero beats Bitcoin on Coincards
https://twitter.com/CoinCards/status/1610105220138405889

Now you can buy anything from Amazon using Monero
https://monezon.com/

Some recent businesses from Lebanon
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/19dmsvz/1st_business_shop_in_my_town_accept_the_adoption/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/19dmupj/2nd_business_start_to_accept_monero_as_payment/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1cju2pk/3rd_business_in_lebanon_accepting_monero_as/

That's just few examples but of course, you personally may prefer no privacy and higher cost of transacting.

It's a free world (still) and as much as I respect Bitcoin for what it did, I prefer to use other means for transacting and storing my money.
I don't like random dude on twitter yelling to the whole world that I made a huge transfer or for the government to know how much I have and possibly wanting to tax me for the crypto I didn't even trade to FIAT.

Without financial privacy you may put in danger your family members, criminals may (and already did) kidnap and request ransom because they knew exactly how much money certain people have.

The fact that someone is arguing against privacy is insane for me, pure insanity.

If somehow my amount of wealth would leak to the public, I would need to change my name and move out to another country - Me and my family would be in constant danger.
People act like there's no evil, like privacy is just a fancy gimmick.. but very evil people do exist and they are just waiting for the opportunity.

For many people privacy and no privacy is a life and death difference.
Privacy = Safety, you don't want more safety ? it's like driving without your seat belts on.

[JiiBs]

Why not? RingCT in Monero wasn't a thing back in 2016, and it got implemented in January 2017. XMR amounts hidden, boom. More privacy gained. Bitcoin could have optional privacy with softforking to confidential transactions and ring signatures. It's just that we want it to enter the system like a trojan horse, therefore we can't risk with stuff like that.

Like a Trojan horse obviously what the rest of us expect as any addition seems to be unnecessary and users become skeptical about additions to the network as soft forks, which is seen to have no value as things will always return to normalcy with time based in on-going activities.

It won't solve anything for the same reason people are still using P2PKH/P2Sh addresses even though we added SegWit many years ago and it offers a lot of benefits.
An opt-in option is not going to help much with privacy specially in a world where centralized places are rejecting CoinJoin transactions (opt-in) they can reject the said opt-in privacy feature too hence forcing its adoption to remain low which means it won't solve anything.

While it doesn’t solve much, if their is a chance that it could help provide more options, then it could have been something what trying but, as complicated as humans would be especially given the adoption of innovations and policies, most times it’s best to live things as it is and have people build a behavioral pattern about it’s nature and usage.

[Kruw]

I wonder exactly what he means by "the clock is ticking"

Snowden is referring to the default coinjoin coordinator of Wasabi Wallet shutting down. dkbit98 cropped this information out of the screenshot:

Why did you crop the context out of the screenshot? Snowden's post is about Wasabi Wallet's default coordinator:



This isn't as hopeless as he originally thought. Anyone can run a WabiSabi coinjoin coordinator because the code is open source. I run one myself, all you have to do to connect to it is add this line to your Wasabi config file:

Code:

"MainNetCoordinatorUri": "https://btcpay.kruw.io/plugins/wabisabi-coordinator/",

[MeGold666]

Kruw - You have already posted this and even with full context, it still remains the same (Bitcoin protocol change to include privacy).

[Kruw]

Kruw - You have already posted this and even with full context, it still remains the same (Bitcoin protocol change to include privacy).

Edward reacted happily when he learned about this, he liked my Tweet about my WabiSabi coordinator: https://twitter.com/Kruwed/status/1786217133279412385

[BlackHatCoiner]

It's a free world (still) and as much as I respect Bitcoin for what it did, I prefer to use other means for transacting and storing my money.

Everyone in the crypto space no longer sees Bitcoin as the ideal medium of exchange, myself included. With privacy being the exception, Bitcoin is the best form of money that humanity has designed and engineered. In other words, it's so good, that you don't spend it.

Like a Trojan horse obviously what the rest of us expect as any addition seems to be unnecessary and users become skeptical about additions to the network as soft forks, which is seen to have no value as things will always return to normalcy with time based in on-going activities.

We can softfork; we can have privacy on the main chain by default. Stealth addresses, ring signatures, CT, all these can be implemented in a softfork way. "We" just don't do it, because "we" are afraid.

Edward reacted happily when he learned about this, he liked my Tweet about my WabiSabi coordinator: https://twitter.com/Kruwed/status/1786217133279412385

Edward wasn't talking about Wasabi, he just used it as a triggering event. He is clearly talking about main chain privacy by default. Anyway, could you disclose us your liquidity?

[barto123]

anyone who cares about privacy has moved to monero

it's clear saylor, blackrock etc will never allow consensus for it

if there was going to be privacy on base layer, it would have happened already

[BlackHatCoiner]

it's clear saylor, blackrock etc will never allow consensus for it

it's clear saylor, blackrock etc will not support the softfork, and their sweet money won't pump our bugs

FTFY.

[Kruw]

Edward wasn't talking about Wasabi

Yes he was, he directly quoted the Wasabi Wallet account. dkbit98 just cropped it out of the screenshot:

Why did you crop the context out of the screenshot? Snowden's post is about Wasabi Wallet's default coordinator:



This isn't as hopeless as he originally thought. Anyone can run a WabiSabi coinjoin coordinator because the code is open source. I run one myself, all you have to do to connect to it is add this line to your Wasabi config file:

Code:

"MainNetCoordinatorUri": "https://btcpay.kruw.io/plugins/wabisabi-coordinator/",

[MeGold666]

Kruw - could you post it one more time, I think my eyes aren't what they used to be...
YES, we know it was in relation to what Wasabi devs posted on their twitter, but he was talking about Bitcoin protocol, not Wasabi.

Because if Bitcoin did it on a protocol level, there would be no need to do it by Wasabi and putting them in danger of money laundering.
Maybe that's the true reason we won't see privacy tech in Bitcoin, because there is a company behind Bitcoin and they are afraid of money laundering accusations.

Unless you really think he was warning Bitcoin developers 10 years ago, about privacy on protocol level for.... Wasabi wallet that was created in 2017....

Yeah, makes sense.

[WillyAp]

For some unfathomable reasons some people need to have everything private.
What happened to the opensource movement, they are anti privacy?

Privacy is centralized in a sense.

[cryptosize]

For some unfathomable reasons some people need to have everything private.
What happened to the opensource movement, they are anti privacy?

Privacy is centralized in a sense.

What do you mean by that?

[franky1]

if privacy was made at the protocol level of the bitcoin network. bitcoin is no longer treated by regulators as a open ledger, but instead a AEC (Anonymity Enhanced Currency) by which all users of bitcoin become suspicious an become watchlisted and investigated and all services then will stop using bitcoin due to the headache of that...
(its why exchanges dont do monero, to avoid all the extra requirements because monero is a AEC)

adding privacy at protocol layer would kill bitcoins utility.
adding privacy wont actually give privacy because people will always be dumb to publish their payment/donation addresses and talk about the stuff they use a coin for

we see many idiots advocate for privacy but promote themselves transparently.
if you want to stay private, stay quiet

privacy breaks not at the currency layer, but at the human layer.

those mixer services seized by government were not seized via locating them physically due to bitcoins blockchain. they were caught via other communications outside of the bitcoin network

bitcoin does not need any added privacy.. it needs users to be private themselves and use bitcoin properly and understand how privacy really works

[tread93]

I wonder exactly what he means by "the clock is ticking"

Snowden is referring to the default coinjoin coordinator of Wasabi Wallet shutting down. dkbit98 cropped this information out of the screenshot:

Why did you crop the context out of the screenshot? Snowden's post is about Wasabi Wallet's default coordinator:



This isn't as hopeless as he originally thought. Anyone can run a WabiSabi coinjoin coordinator because the code is open source. I run one myself, all you have to do to connect to it is add this line to your Wasabi config file:

Code:

"MainNetCoordinatorUri": "https://btcpay.kruw.io/plugins/wabisabi-coordinator/",

Thank you for the context, I understand now lol. I think that ultimately privacy is very important and people will go to great lengths to get it, even using mixers to help guise their funds and paying a premium to do so. I’ll be interested to tune into the Bitcoin conference in Nashville where apparently Snowden is going to be attending and speaking. Which I don’t know how he will do that isn’t he not able to step foot in US soil after the NSA whistleblow ?

[MeGold666]

if privacy was made at the protocol level of the bitcoin network...

Again, it's fear talking - maybe we should get rid of all privacy like protonmail / and other encrypted services ? because it could be used for nefarious things.
Why are you so concerned about centralized exchanges banning Bitcoin when there are decentralized exchanges around and using Bitcoin on CEX is like using regular banking system.

adding privacy at protocol layer would kill bitcoins utility.

What is it's utility ? stacking and praying for number go up ? yep, due to no privacy it has no utility outside of being a speculation tool.

we see many idiots advocate for privacy but promote themselves transparently.

Being transparent on demand about what you think and giving up your privacy are two different things, you should know better.

privacy breaks not at the currency layer, but at the human layer.

Yes, that's why it's needed at the protocol level because people are not savvy enough to use all the manual techniques to stay private.
Even having Bitcoin as a donation address can reveal how much you have and where you spend your Bitcoin.

bitcoin does not need any added privacy.. it needs users to be private themselves and use bitcoin properly and understand how privacy really works

Tools that are used for making Bitcoin private are getting seized by the FBI and people get their accounts banned on CEX because they used them, that's not a great way.

For some unfathomable reasons some people need to have everything private.
What happened to the opensource movement, they are anti privacy?

Privacy is centralized in a sense.

Among many private aspects of life, financial privacy is the most important one.

Thank you for the context, I understand now lol.

Do you, my friend ? I think we need at least five more copy/paste of this image that proves he was talking about Bitcoin.

[khalidkhan82118]

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/05/03/rYV9H.jpeg
https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1786170805728039127

Edwards Snowden just made a tweet with final warning for everyone that privacy for Bitcoin is needed on protocol level.
I tend to agree with him on this and I really don't understand why nothing has been done regarding that for years, unless this was done intentional.
Funny comment was made by Jameson that we might take another ten years to do this  
The clock is ticking...

Snowden's tweet certainly raises important concerns about privacy in Bitcoin transactions, especially given his background in cybersecurity and privacy advocacy. It's intriguing that despite these concerns being highlighted for years, there hasn't been significant action taken on a protocol level. I wonder what the potential reasons for this delay might be—are there technical challenges or perhaps differing priorities within the Bitcoin community? And Jameson's comment adds a bit of humor to the discussion, but it also begs the question: why might it take so long to address such a critical issue? I am looking forward to hearing more insights on this!

[ABCbits]

Privacy sidechain? Liquid network might be what you're looking for since they implement Confidental Transaction. For something easier or lighter on Bitcoin on-chain, MimbleWimble or other form of non-interactive CoinJoin probably are better option than CT.

Litecoin, which signaled MWEB into activation in May 2022, has always been something of a test environment for features later implemented in Bitcoin. Litecoin was the 1st to have SegWit, a Lightning Network, and now MWEB, which is an optional privacy enhancing feature, used by Grin as default.

I don't think it applies in this case. Looking at bitcoin-dev mailing, there's no serious plan to implement MimbleWimble on Bitcoin.

Here's a pretty in-depth article about how it all works. I honestly don't see why this can't also be integrated with BTC, if miners signaled for it... maybe there's a good reason but I don't know what it is.

It's not in-depth and only small part of the article actually talk about MimbleWimble.

[MeGold666]

Imagine if Satoshi was a scared little P***Y as some people around here when he was designing Ditigal CASH...

He would be like "This could be used by criminals.. and used for money laundering.. we don't need it, people don't need anonymous cash, privacy like this would be abused and we already have paypal"

Dear cryptocurrency friends, grow some balls. It was never about conforming to regulators.
You've lost your way or you never were on the right path.

If Bitcoin does not include privacy, it must not be because of regulators but because of technical issues.

With privacy by default on protocol level, you still have option to provide view keys for anyone you wish - so it can be transparent when you want it to be.

There's really no reason to not have privacy like this on Bitcoin, don't let fear of regulators shape your future because they will never stop until they have full control - which will be achieved on mining level and black listing of transactions.

But maybe you won't even care about freedom when your BTC will be worth 10x...