Edward Snowden Final Warning for Bitcoin

[d5000]

We don't need to create a sidechain. Privacy can be available directly to the main chain with softforks, and maybe with no forks through some complicated decentralized coinjoin, like Joinmarket but vastly more available in wallet software like Sparrow, but that wouldn't be very effective and cheap.

ABCBitcoin has linked Joinstr in another thread, which seems exactly like that. Basically it's CoinJoins with the communication being coordinated via Nostr (a decentralized messaging protocol). It has an Electrum plugin. Only drawback is that it seems to be in beta still, i.e. it's not recommended to use it on mainnet.

I'm no coder, but I *think* it's possible to create something vaguely akin to Liquid

I'm a fan of combining several approaches, so for me it's not a "this solution OR another". Litecoin is showing that the sidechain approach (extension blocks are something like an "official" sidechain, see here how they work) seem to work. In addition, sidechains would help to alliviate the scalability problem (even if franky1 will yell "IOU! IOU!", he's wrong with that).

I have already proposed it in another context, but Bitcoiners could fork eventually a platform like Stacks (STX), replace the centralized premined consensus token with a PoW token, and you'd have a full decentralized sidechain. Stacks sBTC (the sidechain "bridge") is set to go live in the remainding of 2024. You could then integrate a privacy protocol there.

OP_CAT, which has recently got BIP status, could also help with the sidechain task, as it would allow covenants, required by some sidechain types.

And additionally solutions like JoinStr on the base layer.

The good thing about a "multitude of options" is that the Bitcoin developers themselves would not have to "know" about these solutions, i.e. they wouldn't be in danger to be accused to cooperate with privacy tools. The users wanting to buy Bitcoin with KYC or via ETF would also not have to bother. Yes, that makes the privacy set a bit smaller as if privacy was mandatory but I think even a set of 10% of Bitcoin users would be already a lot. Bitcoin isn't as small as an altcoin like Zcash.

[larry_vw_1955]

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...

if you want privacy then use a coin designed for privacy. simple as that. but to expect bitcoin to change the way it fundamentally works is kind of naive. snowden  doesn't seem to understand how bitcoin works... it's not that simple to just turn it into something like monero.

Worst case scenario, we can go back to gold - if we're allowed 

yeah at least until the IRS starts requiring people to register their gold with them, gold is pretty anonymous and private. it has no history that can taint it. you can melt it down and it is indistinguishable from all other gold. maybe edward snowden never heard of gold though.

[gmaxwell]

Existing "privacy coins" change the security model pretty substantially--  a DLP break results in unbounded undetectable inflation.  They also tend to have scaling/scanning problems that in practice obliterate much of the privacy gains-- e.g. because huge numbers of users hand over scanning keys who might well just be selling them to your adversaries (whomever they are).

There is no free lunch, at least not yet-- though there is a lot of research ongoing.

Meanwhile there are ways to use bitcoin much more privately with little cost-- and yet few users avail themselves of them.  So technology isn't the limiting point or at least not the only limiting point.  Even better things have been imagined and could be developed, but a limiting factor there is just that no one will use them.  Or only people doing actually shitty stuff will:  Helping bad actors as an unavoidable side effect of helping everyone else is one thing-- it's an inherent consequences of development and invention--, but helping mostly the bad actors is something else entirely. -- and a privacy tool that is mostly used by bad actors isn't really much of a privacy tool anyways.


Look at zcash or whatever, use of the anonymity part is such an insubstantial part of the system that careful bitcoin use probably gets you a better anonymity set in spite of the huge theoretical gap in the potential privacy level.


Aside: Stronger privacy tools built out of non-privacy or weaker privacy functionality are inherently more censorship resistant and techniques that can also join users that don't care about privacy in their anonymity set will tend to have bigger anonymity sets.


As far as the tweet goes-- I doubt any bitcoin developer has ever heard from Snowden, I can imagine if they had they'd be quite exited.  Don't read too much into hyperbole.

Ah and aside: the latest Bitcoin Core major release supports a new p2p protocol which is encrypted, -- an important step forward against global passive observers... yet only about 9% of listening nodes are running it!

[Wind_FURY]

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 is correct. This question has been lingering for a decade as our governments continue to regulate and sanction the crypto space. The day will come when this will be an emergency question. We need privacy blockchain solutions ready for a future that is adversarial to crypto. Projects like Iron Fish can be part of a private transaction movement away from transparent blockchains, which are vulnerable to restrictions of individual freedoms.

Although personally I am a minimalist of altcoins/shitcoins, I believe that everyone, Bitcoin-only or not, should support your movement. Transparent blockchains and blockchains with obfuscated transactions can co-exist, and be complementary with each other.

Because the community considers that Monero is the best altcoin for privacy, from a technological standpoint, how does Iron Fish differentiate itself from Monero?

https://ironfish.network/

[Kruw]

Ah and aside: the latest Bitcoin Core major release supports a new p2p protocol which is encrypted, -- an important step forward against global passive observers... yet only about 9% of listening nodes are running it!

Curious about BIP324 - In order for this to be effective, doesn't it require non-Bitcoin applications to purposely design their network communications to blend in with Bitcoin's encrypted traffic? Are there any of these applications in current use that add to the anonymity set of upgraded Bitcoin nodes?

[gmaxwell]

Curious about BIP324 - In order for this to be effective, doesn't it require non-Bitcoin applications to purposely design their network communications to blend in with Bitcoin's encrypted traffic? Are there any of these applications in current use that add to the anonymity set of upgraded Bitcoin nodes?

In order to be less identifiable as bitcoin traffic-- and iirc anything using the noise protocol also has an undifferentiated bitstream.

But that's not the purpose of the protocol, the purpose is to encrypt communications so that a passive monitor can't  simply watch where every transaction (/block) originates. 

It's just the case that since the protocol was changing it was convenient to switch to a form which would be more difficult to block (or at least would be when users move it off the default port. ).

[seoincorporation]

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...

It would be nice if he provide some example about how to implement, the privacy in the protocol. We have coins that already did it like monero and zcash, but maybe there are other ways to do this. But the problem is how big this change would be to bitcoin, it would hit the point where the coins is not bitcoin anymore, it will look like a totally different coin.

At this point, the governments are involved into bitcoin, and a change like this will not like them at all, this could make some governments like El Salvador, decide to stop using bitcoin and move to another coin like LTC.

[harapan]

Edwards Snowden think he's Satoshi Nakamoto, so he has a huge power to make the developers listen to him, while actually he's just an Average Joe in Bitcoin...

You definitely don't understand Bitcoin if you really think Satoshi Nakamoto has such a power/influence over BTC devs.

Hell, BTC Core devs have zero power/influence over miners... miners have the final word, since they possess the hashrate.

But bitcoin works with an unprecedented level of transparency that most people are not used to dealing with,does it mean that after all these years of improving and promoting bitcoin it still lacks privacy to operate for functionality and security.
To be honest,this latest warning has instilled fear amongst/midst of  crypto communities.Bitcoin developers are supposed to be aware of this lapses all along.

Bitcoin was invented as a heavy dose of anonymity and privacy altogether.So if privacy becomes a threat,that should be a withdrawal in privacy services and system abnormality.Anyways,bitcoin has it ways of responding to solutions and protocols.
It could be a REMINDER or WARNING!

[VanKushFamily.com]

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...

Bitcoin is a Project of Transparent Ledger Technology. It's Half the Purpose.

[alani123]

So people are forming a bandwagon with Snowden saying that BTC needs to have privacy on the protocol level, a change so radical it could see it delisted from all major exchanges and having its ETF status revoked, yet people aren't willing to accept that Ordinals and Runes abusing taproot features to front-run regular transactions at a comparatively cheaper rate is something that should be patched? The latter wouldn't even be that radical as it would essentially be just a bug fix. Whereas Snowden's suggestion would make BTC into an altcoin and also radically shift bitcoin's philosophy of public ledger and verifiable transactions.

I just see so many contradictions in today's bitcoin community. It's funny.

[DooMAD]

Whereas Snowden's suggestion would make BTC into an altcoin and also radically shift bitcoin's philosophy of public ledger and verifiable transactions.

Verifiable != traceable or identifiable

You can verify a transaction is valid without needing to know who the participants are.  Information about the real-world identities of the sender and the recipient is not a prerequisite for a public ledger.  The IP addresses of users are not required for a public ledger.  These things can be private.  How do people not understand this yet?

[BlackHatCoiner]

I just see so many contradictions in today's bitcoin community. It's funny.

It's ironic how the Bitcoin community prioritizes ETFs, regulations, and wealth accumulation over privacy-- the very essence embedded in the cypherpunk manifesto and its core principles. Was that Bitcorn thing presented as an anarchist movement that was supposed to overthrow the government and operate without any oversight? Must have been my mistake. 

How do people not understand this yet?

I just don't know. Here's another question of mine: Why don't people understand you can't ban people from injecting arbitrary data in their transactions?

[DooMAD]

How do people not understand this yet?

I just don't know. Here's another question of mine: Why don't people understand you can't ban people from injecting arbitrary data in their transactions?

Yeah, it's odd.  It's like you give people a tool for freedom and then they bitch about it because other people can do what they want.  I'm sat here thinking "Uh, yeah, that's kinda the whole point" but other people just don't see it that way and think it's somehow their place to try and police things that are of no concern to them.  Doesn't really make much sense to me, but I just chalk it up to that innate ability some humans have to try and ruin everything because they suck. 

Luckily, none of those deluded imbeciles are getting what they want. 

[freedomgo]

Funny comment was made by Jameson that we might take another ten years to do this  
The clock is ticking...

What is Jameson implying by that statement. Does he mean that Bitcoin developers don't see eye to eye on this?

I guess he is just playing with it and not actually serious on his comment. If others have found this concern to be given the highest priority, then I don’t think the developers themselves have never thought of this. Of course, they know what they’re doing, maybe it takes time but it will be soon realized.

However, I can’t blame the people from not feeling this because it’s their money that they risk with bitcoin. And if this privacy matter won’t be given a solution in the nearest time possible, I’m afraid that this would lessen the bitcoin community in the future. Just my thought as well.

[larry_vw_1955]

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

i do tend to agree that no amount of "privacy features" in a cryptocurrency will protect someone who is broadcasting to the world on social media and anywhere else that anyone will listen how smart they are because they use bitcoin. a cryptocurrency can only go so far. the person using it if they want privacy then don't tell other people they are using bitcoin. simple as that. but how many people do that? very few because most bitcoin users WANT to tell other people they are using bitcoin.

I just don't know. Here's another question of mine: Why don't people understand you can't ban people from injecting arbitrary data in their transactions?

well, there's nothing wrong with injecting arbitrary data into a transaction if it's not very much data. but if it's a huge amount of data then i think that's different.  want to use OP-RETURN to inject 80bytes, fine! want to use ordinals to store a 1 megabyte video? maybe that's not so fine. because with the ordinals data you're getting a 75% discount on data storage. vs OP_RETURN. so it's like encouraging people to do that.

i don't see why we need OP_RETURN at all in fact. let them inject small arbirary amounts of data into UTXOs and get rid of the prunable transaction altogether wouldn't bother me at all!

but back to edward snowden. i wonder what he thinks about ordinals 

[alani123]

Whereas Snowden's suggestion would make BTC into an altcoin and also radically shift bitcoin's philosophy of public ledger and verifiable transactions.

Verifiable != traceable or identifiable

You can verify a transaction is valid without needing to know who the participants are.  Information about the real-world identities of the sender and the recipient is not a prerequisite for a public ledger.  The IP addresses of users are not required for a public ledger.  These things can be private.  How do people not understand this yet?

So? Bitcoin doesn't need any protocol level changes because already it's not mandatory to use it with identification or your real IP address. Are you then saying that Snowden is stupid?

If he had wanted a Blockchain where the inputs and outputs of transactions aren't broadcasted he's free to fork Bitcoin as many have already done, or follow one of the existing forks.

It's not about the ETFs or the finance markets either. But at this point one has to recognize that Bitcoin remains the most highly adopted   cryptocurrency because its existing festureset is still more robus than all competition, even after so many years. For less traceable transactions go to Monero, Dash,  Zcash... Whatever. If you start to ponder why these coins aren't #1 you'll realize that in order to support a revolution you need more than electronic cash. Electronic cash will get you as far as toppling the banking system at best. What then? That's not much on its own. It's just a tool.

Bitcoin doesn't need to be everything, everywhere all at once under this pretense. Many have said that bitcoin should be anonymous, support smart contracts, support NFTs, be turning complete, support tokens etc. Those that try to build that on Bitcoin can only do so in a very sub par way because it was never designed to do thst. Bitcoin works well as is and is pretty successful so far doing what it was designed to. For radical changes hardforks have always been allowed and even supported by many, but they're not Bitcoin.

[DooMAD]

Bitcoin doesn't need to be everything, everywhere all at once under this pretense.

Correct.  But, above all, it does need to be resistant to regulatory shutdown.  If something is hard to trace, it's hard to kill.  If there were any sense in this place, people would recognise the importance of that.

But at this point one has to recognize that Bitcoin remains the most highly adopted   cryptocurrency because its existing festureset is still more robus than all competition, even after so many years.

Which is precisely why it needs to be the most robust to regulatory takedown.  Many governments and regulatory bodies can only see Bitcoin as "the biggest and most successful tool for illegal activity".  They would like nothing more than to take it away from us.  Like it or not, we're at war with these entities.  More privacy makes their task more difficult.  

[NotATether]

But at this point one has to recognize that Bitcoin remains the most highly adopted   cryptocurrency because its existing festureset is still more robus than all competition, even after so many years.

Which is precisely why it needs to be the most robust to regulatory takedown.  Many governments and regulatory bodies can only see Bitcoin as "the biggest and most successful tool for illegal activity".  They would like nothing more than to take it away from us.  Like it or not, we're at war with these entities.  More privacy makes their task more difficult.  

It doesn't help that most nodes are being hosted on cloud service providers. Imagine for example if AWS were to announce a total ban on running Bitcoin nodes - we would see the overall node count plummet.

Nodes not only have to be plentiful and geographically dispersed but also distributed across many ISPs and countries. We do not want a situation where the majority of nodes are hosted in the US and then they suddenly ban them all.

Or as gmaxwell said we can all just make our nodes listen on more private protocols, such as Tor and I2P.

[BlackHatCoiner]

So? Bitcoin doesn't need any protocol level changes because already it's not mandatory to use it with identification or your real IP address. Are you then saying that Snowden is stupid?

Bitcoin is not private by default. Chain analysis doesn't need your IP address to de-anonymize you. And as long as self-custodial privacy solutions get shut down one after the other, we can't have good privacy on the main layer.

It's not about the ETFs or the finance markets either. But at this point one has to recognize that Bitcoin remains the most highly adopted   cryptocurrency because its existing festureset is still more robus than all competition

Being the top asset != being the most widely adopted. Most vendors report more transactions happening on Monero and Litecoin than Bitcoin. Sure, everybody in the crypto space will accept Bitcoin as a payment, but the most usage for real transactions doesn't happen on Bitcoin.

It doesn't help that most nodes are being hosted on cloud service providers. Imagine for example if AWS were to announce a total ban on running Bitcoin nodes - we would see the overall node count plummet.

An AWS node would accept a coinjoin transaction without worrying for being banned, so why couldn't it just run a past-softfork node that'd accept a post-softfork private transaction?

[alani123]

So? Bitcoin doesn't need any protocol level changes because already it's not mandatory to use it with identification or your real IP address. Are you then saying that Snowden is stupid?

Bitcoin is not private by default. Chain analysis doesn't need your IP address to de-anonymize you. And as long as self-custodial privacy solutions get shut down one after the other, we can't have good privacy on the main layer.

Bitcoin is pseudonymous, not anonymous. This isn't something new. This also isn't something that we've just realized. It's more of a feature other than anything else. Altcoins that have implemented privacy features such as Monero, while good at what they do, face the issue of decreasing or stagnating adoption rather than growth.

We have to realize that censorship goes beyond nodes and a decentralized network though. Monero, due to the very fact that it features anonymous payments, is the victim of a continuous censorship attack. Being desisted from exchanges, blacklisted from institutional adoption etc.

So even if bitcoin made the bold move to make a departure from an open ledger standard, it would still be very prone to censorship. We have to consider the cost-benefit analysis.
What are the current benefits of BTC (especially among all crypto)?
More adoption.
More market access.
More widely recognized.
Deep market allowing for large transactions without killing liquidity.

What would bitcoin gain from being anonymous?
Recipients won't know where coins are coming from (averting some censoring scenarios).
What else?

If Bitcoin forks to be more like Monero, all the above benefits though are lost in an instant. Are anonymous payments worth that much over destroying what has already been built on bitcoin? I'd argue that this change would only bring more censorship by giving credence to FEDs and legislators to destroy all BTC infrastructure as it could more easily be deemed a notorious market.