How anonymous is the path:KYC -> Intermediate Wallet -> CoinJoin -> Cold Wallet?

[Zelus]

Hi everyone, I hope this is the correct section for this topic. I am very interested in the topic of privacy and anonymity with Bitcoin and would like to understand what are the best practices updated to 2025 to protect one's identity and reduce on-chain traceability. For example, when buying from a KYC exchange, the first outgoing transaction is linked to your personal data. I would like to have opinions from users more experienced than me on how privacy and anonymity oriented the flow described in the title of the topic is, so:

1- Buying BTC from KYC exchanges
2-Transfer them to non-custodial wallets such as intermediate Wasabi
3-Use Coinjoin
4-Send everything to cold wallet

My main questions and curiosities are:
- Which wallets still support CoinJoin today?
- How effective is mixing in real terms and what limits does it have?
- What mistakes are important to avoid?

Any explanation or resource is welcome. Thanks 

[Halifat]

I think the best place it should be is Development & Technical Discussion board
 

My main questions and curiosities are:
- Which wallets still support CoinJoin today?

There are many wallets that support CoinJoin such as: Samourai Wallet, Join Market, Wasabi Wallet etc.

- How effective is mixing in real terms and what limits does it have?

I think the effectiveness depends on how you use it, CoinJoin is a mixing tool that makes tracing so difficult and more expensive.

- What mistakes are important to avoid?

There are so many things you have to avoid like,
-Reusing address : use a new address to receive the coin.
-Do not put together mixed and unmixed coin, they should be separated.
-After mixing send it to a new wallet or any KYC exchanges to start new trace.
This what I can tell other will add up.

[Zelus]

I think the best place it should be is Development & Technical Discussion board
 

My main questions and curiosities are:
- Which wallets still support CoinJoin today?

There are many wallets that support CoinJoin such as: Samourai Wallet, Join Market, Wasabi Wallet etc.

- How effective is mixing in real terms and what limits does it have?

I think the effectiveness depends on how you use it, CoinJoin is a mixing tool that makes tracing so difficult and more expensive.

- What mistakes are important to avoid?

There are so many things you have to avoid like,
-Reusing address : use a new address to receive the coin.
-Do not put together mixed and unmixed coin, they should be separated.
-After mixing send it to a new wallet or any KYC exchanges to start new trace.
This what I can tell other will add up.

Thanks for your answer, I'm curious to hear a bit of opinions from different users on this topic.

[Ambatman]

If done well then it can be considered high level but the Bitcoin Network is a public ledger.
True anonymity you can use privacy coins like Monero.

Which wallets still support CoinJoin today?

Wasabi, joinmarket (lower liquidity from what I can remember)
And the more participants in a conjoin TX the better the privacy.

How effective is mixing in real terms and what limits does it have?

Depends on who's watching. If it's the government well it gets harder but casual is nothing.
Besides the Bitcoin Blockchain never forgets.

What mistakes are important to avoid?

Address Reuse
Clustering UTXO of mix and KYC
Going back to a KYCed exchange
Using same output from the exchange as Input when using conjoin.

For better understanding on Conjoin privacy
You can check out this post by Kruw
Can Coinjoin transactions be traced? Busting Bitcoin privacy myths!

Samourai Wallet

Samourai has been held by the government and founder sentenced to prison.

[BlackHatCoiner]

- Which wallets still support CoinJoin today?

Wasabi and Joinmarket are practically the only ones. The Samourai coordinator has been taken down. WabiSabi coinjoins are more cost efficient than Joinmarket's, as far as I recall.

- How effective is mixing in real terms and what limits does it have?

I think that you can get pretty good levels of anonymity with WabiSabi coinjoins. Perhaps the best, in coinjoin terms.

- What mistakes are important to avoid?

Not giving KYC. It's good to mix your coins after you buy them from an exchange, but the exchange would still know that you mixed them, and since this is a cat-and-mouse game, you may sooner or later get flagged for suspicious activity. Better buy them peer-to-peer at platforms like Bisq or Peach.

[ABCbits]

- Which wallets still support CoinJoin today?

Wasabi wallet and Ginger wallet are probably most convenient wallets to use that also support CoinJoin. If you choose Wasabi, AFAIK currently OpenCoordinator and Kruw's coordinator that have most activity.

- How effective is mixing in real terms and what limits does it have?

It's varied by several factor such as CoinJoin protocol you use and amount of participant. But note that usually it's easy to detect whether a TX is a CoinJoin TX, it may be important if you may send coin from CoinJoin TX to centralized service.

- What mistakes are important to avoid?

Not using wallet that let you load TX/block data from your own node/server.

[Zelus]

- Which wallets still support CoinJoin today?

Wasabi and Joinmarket are practically the only ones. The Samourai coordinator has been taken down. WabiSabi coinjoins are more cost efficient than Joinmarket's, as far as I recall.

- How effective is mixing in real terms and what limits does it have?

I think that you can get pretty good levels of anonymity with WabiSabi coinjoins. Perhaps the best, in coinjoin terms.

- What mistakes are important to avoid?

Not giving KYC. It's good to mix your coins after you buy them from an exchange, but the exchange would still know that you mixed them, and since this is a cat-and-mouse game, you may sooner or later get flagged for suspicious activity. Better buy them peer-to-peer at platforms like Bisq or Peach.

Hi, you are right that it would be better to buy from Bisq for example, but the exchange cannot see that you do coinjoin, it would only see that you have sent BTC to a wallet like Wasabi thanks to the lists of labeled addresses, such as known addresses of Wasabi Inputs, coinjoin rounds etc You could get around this by adding the middle between exchange kyc and wasabi, sending to another non-custodial wallet so as not to arouse suspicion and not risk being flagged. At least I think it can be a good practice to adopt.

[Zelus]

For better understanding on Conjoin privacy
You can check out this post by Kruw
Can Coinjoin transactions be traced? Busting Bitcoin privacy myths!

Thanks for sharing the link, I'll definitely check it out!

[BlackHatCoiner]

Hi, you are right that it would be better to buy from Bisq for example, but the exchange cannot see that you do coinjoin, it would only see that you have sent BTC to a wallet like Wasabi thanks to the lists of labeled addresses, such as known addresses of Wasabi Inputs, coinjoin rounds etc You could get around this by adding the middle between exchange kyc and wasabi, sending to another non-custodial wallet so as not to arouse suspicion and not risk being flagged. At least I think it can be a good practice to adopt.

Perhaps, but as I already said, this is a cat-and-mouse game with the edge on the exchange. You might be better if you make the withdrawn coins look like they've traveled a lot after you got them, but it might still raise some suspicion on where you sent them, given that their blockchain analysis tools cannot tell anything about the intermediaries. Unless you're planning of buying a large amount which can't be provided peer-to-peer, then simply use Bisq. You can always know with certainty that your coins are accepted, with or without coinjoin. If you've already bought bitcoin on a KYC exchange, it's not too late; you can still sell them back at it, and go buy non-KYC bitcoin with the fiat.

[Zelus]

- Which wallets still support CoinJoin today?

Wasabi wallet and Ginger wallet are probably most convenient wallets to use that also support CoinJoin. If you choose Wasabi, AFAIK currently OpenCoordinator and Kruw's coordinator that have most activity.

- How effective is mixing in real terms and what limits does it have?

It's varied by several factor such as CoinJoin protocol you use and amount of participant. But note that usually it's easy to detect whether a TX is a CoinJoin TX, it may be important if you may send coin from CoinJoin TX to centralized service.

- What mistakes are important to avoid?

Not using wallet that let you load TX/block data from your own node/server.

As done with the other users I thank you too for the advice, I am looking for as much information as possible on this.

[SilverCryptoBullet]

1- Buying BTC from KYC exchanges
2-Transfer them to non-custodial wallets such as intermediate Wasabi
3-Use Coinjoin
4-Send everything to cold wallet

If you want privacy and anonymity, do it with your first step. In your plan, you accept KYC in a first step, that means no long privacy and anonymity. Any steps later can not cover or fix that mistake for you.

If you truly care about anonymity, find no KYC exchange to buy bitcoin and do later steps if you want.
https://kycnot.me/?categories=exchange

Protect your privacy.
Bitcoin privacy guide.
Bitcoin privacy information.

[Alphakilo]

Hi everyone, I hope this is the correct section for this topic. I am very interested in the topic of privacy and anonymity with Bitcoin and would like to understand what are the best practices updated to 2025 to protect one's identity and reduce on-chain traceability. For example, when buying from a KYC exchange, the first outgoing transaction is linked to your personal data. I would like to have opinions from users more experienced than me on how privacy and anonymity oriented the flow described in the title of the topic is, so:

1- Buying BTC from KYC exchanges
2-Transfer them to non-custodial wallets such as intermediate Wasabi
3-Use Coinjoin
4-Send everything to cold wallet

My main questions and curiosities are:
- Which wallets still support CoinJoin today?
- How effective is mixing in real terms and what limits does it have?
- What mistakes are important to avoid?

Any explanation or resource is welcome. Thanks 

You can for one make using coin join more effective when it comes to your privacy concerns by learning how to manage your UTXO and by using something like Tor or even a new address anytime you want to transact.

Since conjoin is a more privacy driven platform, the leading wallets with the right implementations that work well with it today includes Wasabi wallet, Samourai wallet and sparrow wallet.

[Zelus]

1- Buying BTC from KYC exchanges
2-Transfer them to non-custodial wallets such as intermediate Wasabi
3-Use Coinjoin
4-Send everything to cold wallet

If you want privacy and anonymity, do it with your first step. In your plan, you accept KYC in a first step, that means no long privacy and anonymity. Any steps later can not cover or fix that mistake for you.

If you truly care about anonymity, find no KYC exchange to buy bitcoin and do later steps if you want.
https://kycnot.me/?categories=exchange

Protect your privacy.
Bitcoin privacy guide.
Bitcoin privacy information.

Of course, surely starting from a no KYC exchange would be better, but I wanted to know if with these steps there was the possibility of having a minimum of anonymity after performing all the steps I listed. Thanks anyway for sharing the various guides, I'll definitely take a look!

[Zelus]

Hi everyone, I hope this is the correct section for this topic. I am very interested in the topic of privacy and anonymity with Bitcoin and would like to understand what are the best practices updated to 2025 to protect one's identity and reduce on-chain traceability. For example, when buying from a KYC exchange, the first outgoing transaction is linked to your personal data. I would like to have opinions from users more experienced than me on how privacy and anonymity oriented the flow described in the title of the topic is, so:

1- Buying BTC from KYC exchanges
2-Transfer them to non-custodial wallets such as intermediate Wasabi
3-Use Coinjoin
4-Send everything to cold wallet

My main questions and curiosities are:
- Which wallets still support CoinJoin today?
- How effective is mixing in real terms and what limits does it have?
- What mistakes are important to avoid?

Any explanation or resource is welcome. Thanks 

You can for one make using coin join more effective when it comes to your privacy concerns by learning how to manage your UTXO and by using something like Tor or even a new address anytime you want to transact.

Since conjoin is a more privacy driven platform, the leading wallets with the right implementations that work well with it today includes Wasabi wallet, Samourai wallet and sparrow wallet.

Thanks for the advices!

[PrivacyG]

The first question I have for you is why do you want a Third Party to know how much Bitcoin has been bought under your name, exactly when they were purchased and where the Bitcoins have gone from your identity?

I believe there is a risk you may not see coming in your strategy.  It is that you would do the same pattern over and over again.  This may end up with you becoming suspected by the Exchange of doing illegal things with your Bitcoin and the only thing they have to do is check where each of your Withdrawals went.  If they all show Coin Joins, there is a chance you will become a suspect.

- How effective is mixing in real terms and what limits does it have?

Are you talking about Mixing or about Coin Joins?  The effectiveness of Mixers depend on many factors.  If a Mixer keeps logs for example and they are shut down or seized by Three Letter Agencies then all the Privacy previous customers have earned in the past can turn to dust.  Both Coin Joins and Mixers effectiveness also depend on the customer.  If you are going to mix non Coin Joined with Coin Joined inputs or make mistakes such as linking an Internet username to your Coin Joined Bitcoin, you will do every thing in vain.

- What mistakes are important to avoid?

ANY mistakes are important to avoid.  The most important is in my opinion not mixing the wrong inputs.  It can reveal a LOT and undo almost all the efforts you made to break links.  The answer to your question also depends on your threat model.  Are you only running from Exchanges knowing where your Bitcoin goes or are you running from other Entities as well?  For example.  If you are doing Coin Joins through Tor then it is not the best idea to use Clearnet for the rest of your Bitcoin operations.  In this situation it is much better to anonymize any and all Internet traffic through Tor.

But then if you REALLY want to follow your strategy, I would use Clearnet for Know Your Customer linked Bitcoin and only use Tor for the Coin Joined Bitcoin.  Because what is the point of using the same Tor identity for both Exchange withdraws and Coin Joins when not linking them is exactly what you are trying to avoid.

This may be even more helpful to avoid making mistakes.  If you keep all your Bitcoin in the same Wallet on the same computer there are higher chances to mess up.

Another mistake to avoid is using Blockchain Explorers to look up your Coin Joined Bitcoin.  Do NOT do this if you want to preserve your Privacy.  If you REALLY want to do this then what I would do is flash Tails on a USB Stick, launch Electrum and add only ONE Address to a Watch Only Wallet.  Restart your Tails session if you need to look up another Address.

If you want to use the Browser then use the Onion link of Blockchair and follow the same rule.  One Address per session.

But then there is one more thing to consider.  My paranoia is tingling my senses.  If you have to look up 5 Addresses then let some time pass between looking them up one by one.  If you are doing the exact same thing repeatedly it will look like a searching pattern.  And searching patterns can be linked to one single individual.

There is a LOT more to say as I am very passionate about the subject but I will stop here for the sake of your peace and mind.  Welcome to my broken mind filled of paranoia.

[SilverCryptoBullet]

Of course, surely starting from a no KYC exchange would be better, but I wanted to know if with these steps there was the possibility of having a minimum of anonymity after performing all the steps I listed. Thanks anyway for sharing the various guides, I'll definitely take a look!

You need to practice with proper actions for securing your anonymity since the beginning. It will help you to protect your annonymity in the future and it's best practice if you can do it.

If you did not practice well, and leaked your personal information, identity since the beginning, later you can try to improve your practice, it's good but no longer enough to defend your anonymity. You can hide your identity since the time you changed your practice from bad to good for annonymity but remember that information about your identity would have been stored somewhere. This means someone can know who you are and can attack you in the future.

[Zelus]

Of course, surely starting from a no KYC exchange would be better, but I wanted to know if with these steps there was the possibility of having a minimum of anonymity after performing all the steps I listed. Thanks anyway for sharing the various guides, I'll definitely take a look!

You need to practice with proper actions for securing your anonymity since the beginning. It will help you to protect your annonymity in the future and it's best practice if you can do it.

If you did not practice well, and leaked your personal information, identity since the beginning, later you can try to improve your practice, it's good but no longer enough to defend your anonymity. You can hide your identity since the time you changed your practice from bad to good for annonymity but remember that information about your identity would have been stored somewhere. This means someone can know who you are and can attack you in the future.

I agree, on everything you said. I would just like to clarify that I am not wanted by anyone and I don't have to hide from anyone, I am just passionate about OPSEC in general and since I am not an expert user about BTC I wanted to hear the opinion of users more experienced than me in this field. Thank you anyway!

[Zelus]

The first question I have for you is why do you want a Third Party to know how much Bitcoin has been bought under your name, exactly when they were purchased and where the Bitcoins have gone from your identity?

I believe there is a risk you may not see coming in your strategy.  It is that you would do the same pattern over and over again.  This may end up with you becoming suspected by the Exchange of doing illegal things with your Bitcoin and the only thing they have to do is check where each of your Withdrawals went.  If they all show Coin Joins, there is a chance you will become a suspect.

- How effective is mixing in real terms and what limits does it have?

Are you talking about Mixing or about Coin Joins?  The effectiveness of Mixers depend on many factors.  If a Mixer keeps logs for example and they are shut down or seized by Three Letter Agencies then all the Privacy previous customers have earned in the past can turn to dust.  Both Coin Joins and Mixers effectiveness also depend on the customer.  If you are going to mix non Coin Joined with Coin Joined inputs or make mistakes such as linking an Internet username to your Coin Joined Bitcoin, you will do every thing in vain.

- What mistakes are important to avoid?

ANY mistakes are important to avoid.  The most important is in my opinion not mixing the wrong inputs.  It can reveal a LOT and undo almost all the efforts you made to break links.  The answer to your question also depends on your threat model.  Are you only running from Exchanges knowing where your Bitcoin goes or are you running from other Entities as well?  For example.  If you are doing Coin Joins through Tor then it is not the best idea to use Clearnet for the rest of your Bitcoin operations.  In this situation it is much better to anonymize any and all Internet traffic through Tor.

But then if you REALLY want to follow your strategy, I would use Clearnet for Know Your Customer linked Bitcoin and only use Tor for the Coin Joined Bitcoin.  Because what is the point of using the same Tor identity for both Exchange withdraws and Coin Joins when not linking them is exactly what you are trying to avoid.

This may be even more helpful to avoid making mistakes.  If you keep all your Bitcoin in the same Wallet on the same computer there are higher chances to mess up.

Another mistake to avoid is using Blockchain Explorers to look up your Coin Joined Bitcoin.  Do NOT do this if you want to preserve your Privacy.  If you REALLY want to do this then what I would do is flash Tails on a USB Stick, launch Electrum and add only ONE Address to a Watch Only Wallet.  Restart your Tails session if you need to look up another Address.

If you want to use the Browser then use the Onion link of Blockchair and follow the same rule.  One Address per session.

But then there is one more thing to consider.  My paranoia is tingling my senses.  If you have to look up 5 Addresses then let some time pass between looking them up one by one.  If you are doing the exact same thing repeatedly it will look like a searching pattern.  And searching patterns can be linked to one single individual.

There is a LOT more to say as I am very passionate about the subject but I will stop here for the sake of your peace and mind.  Welcome to my broken mind filled of paranoia.

Thank you so much for your reply post. You can see that you are an OPSEC enthusiast. Your info has been very helpful to me and I understand you very well about the fact of paranoia, since being passionate too, I come many times to do many without any reason. As I replied to another user, I would like to clarify that I am not hiding from anyone, mine is just pure curiosity and I want to learn from users more experienced than me in this area. Thanks again anyway for your very clear and exhaustive post!

[PrivacyG]

As I replied to another user, I would like to clarify that I am not hiding from anyone, mine is just pure curiosity

You are lying.  You are hiding from others when you are using the toilet.  You are hiding from the rest of the World when you are having intercourse.  You are hiding from your partner when you are talking with somebody else about secretly purchasing them a gift.  You are hiding from the World the precise location where you keep your Money.  You are hiding your messages from other people.

And there is not any thing wrong with it.  You could be hiding your Bitcoin only because you want to.  Or to experiment, or to hide particularly from me.  And there is no thing wrong about it.  When we start feeling guilty and feeling like having to explain why we want Privacy, our Privacy is in grave danger of becoming extinct.

You deserve your Privacy and there is no explanation to give anybody for having it.

[Zelus]

As I replied to another user, I would like to clarify that I am not hiding from anyone, mine is just pure curiosity

You are lying.  You are hiding from others when you are using the toilet.  You are hiding from the rest of the World when you are having intercourse.  You are hiding from your partner when you are talking with somebody else about secretly purchasing them a gift.  You are hiding from the World the precise location where you keep your Money.  You are hiding your messages from other people.

And there is not any thing wrong with it.  You could be hiding your Bitcoin only because you want to.  Or to experiment, or to hide particularly from me.  And there is no thing wrong about it.  When we start feeling guilty and feeling like having to explain why we want Privacy, our Privacy is in grave danger of becoming extinct.

You deserve your Privacy and there is no explanation to give anybody for having it.

Your thesis could be correct, it always depends on the point of view. I accept your judgment, what I simply reiterate is that not being a BTC expert as you could be, my topic was only born from my thought and curiosity about how to make BTC purchased from a KYC exchange "anonymous" and from my passion for OPSEC. Thank you again for your advice!