How to remove traces / records of bitcoin

[bitmover]

Your question makes sense. Centralized exchanges have very low trading/swap fees. If you get used to those, you will think that a 1% or 2% fee that you see on certain no KYC exchanges is a lot, and that it's not worth using them. But anonymity has its price.

So how much fee do we expect if we are to use coinjoin or mixers and not use the centralized exchanges 

Usually 3 to 5% + a flat fee...

It is expensive.

Even if I am holding most of the crypto outside of Binance, but when you move your funds to some external wallet, the exchange can see where you transfer, and basically that wallet balance also becomes your wealth that the government asks for the taxes and all this stuff. So needed to find a way so no one can track which wallet addresses I own.

No exactly. 
This is why you should create a new address for every transaction.
Binance will only get to know the address you inform. If it is a new address, they wont know anything about how much you have.

[Pmalek]

So how much fee do we expect if we are to use coinjoin or mixers and not use the centralized exchanges 

It depends on the service. According to the data on BitMixList, for example, the fees go from 0% to 6% in some cases. I see even 10% in the table. It's best to check this out yourself because fees might change anytime.

Yup, the story is that it is heard that Binance may become legit in our country in few month time and therefore the government may get to know about our crypto holdings, etc. Even if I am holding most of the crypto outside of Binance, but when you move your funds to some external wallet, the exchange can see where you transfer, and basically that wallet balance also becomes your wealth that the government asks for the taxes and all this stuff. So needed to find a way so no one can track which wallet addresses I own.

I don't know where you live, but owning and holding crypto shouldn't be a taxable event. Converting crypto to fiat or spending it for goods are usually taxable events. Binance and CEXs for sure report their customers to government institutions requesting such data. That's why it's a good idea to stay as far away from them as possible.

[lontivero]

So how much fee do we expect if we are to use coinjoin or mixers and not use the centralized exchanges 

Usually 3 to 5% + a flat fee...

It is expensive.

No way. The most used coinjoin implementation is by far Wasabi Wallet, and it doesn't charge any service fee, only network fees to pay miners. Wasabi clients, however, can give dust to the coordinators. According to real-world data extracted from https://liquisabi.com in 2025, 42,488.54 fresh bitcoins have entered Wasabi coinjoins, and the coinjoin coordinators have earned 2.634899 bitcoins. This means that approximately 0.0062% of wallets give up to the coinjoin coordinator on average. In other words, for every BTC you enter in the coinjoin process, 0.000062 BTC is given to the coordinator on average.

Enter into https://liquisabi.com and select the time frame to cover the full 2025 and verify it by yourselves.

[bitmover]

So how much fee do we expect if we are to use coinjoin or mixers and not use the centralized exchanges 

Usually 3 to 5% + a flat fee...

It is expensive.

No way. The most used coinjoin implementation is by far Wasabi Wallet, and it doesn't charge any service fee, only network fees to pay miners. Wasabi clients, however, can give dust to the coordinators. According to real-world data extracted from https://liquisabi.com in 2025, 42,488.54 fresh bitcoins have entered Wasabi coinjoins, and the coinjoin coordinators have earned 2.634899 bitcoins. This means that approximately 0.0062% of wallets give up to the coinjoin coordinator on average. In other words, for every BTC you enter in the coinjoin process, 0.000062 BTC is given to the coordinator on average.

Enter into https://liquisabi.com and select the time frame to cover the full 2025 and verify it by yourselves.

Coinjoin may be cheaper.

just check any mixer by your self.  There are plenty of them here:
https://www.altcoinstalks.com/index.php?board=21.0

You will see for yourself how expensive they are, and that those numbers are correct.

[lontivero]

just check any mixer by your self.  There are plenty of them here:
https://www.altcoinstalks.com/index.php?board=21.0

You will see for yourself how expensive they are, and that those numbers are correct.

Mixers are sucker traps and exit scams. Who in their right mind would give their bitcoins to a mixer hoping to get them back while paying 5% plus a flat fee? If someone asks about coinjoins or mixers, why ignore the best option (coinjoining) and jump directly to a riskier, more expensive, and almost certainly scam option (mixers)?

Coinjoin may be cheaper.

Coinjoining with Wasabi Wallet IS in practical sense almost free in many many cases and free in most of the cases.

[virasog]

Mixers are sucker traps and exit scams. Who in their right mind would give their bitcoins to a mixer hoping to get them back while paying 5% plus a flat fee? If someone asks about coinjoins or mixers, why ignore the best option (coinjoining) and jump directly to a riskier, more expensive, and almost certainly scam option (mixers)?

That is why I asked here that a high fee can be a concern for the OP ?

For example if OP (or anyone) decide to use mixers, he shouldn't be sending all the money at once as that will increase the risk of getting scam as you never know if the mixer scams a big transcation. So in case, we mix our coins in chunks through mixers, it will increase the cost considerably.

[bitmover]

Coinjoining with Wasabi Wallet IS in practical sense almost free in many many cases and free in most of the cases.

There are reasons to use mixers.

There are people who say Wasabi is doing AML checks in coins sent there, and working with authorities and surveillance. They have a centralized coordinator node.

There are topics about it in the forum.
You can read more in their ann
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5286821.msg62077206#msg62077206

[lontivero]

Coinjoining with Wasabi Wallet IS in practical sense almost free in many many cases and free in most of the cases.

There are reasons to use mixers.

There are people who say Wasabi is doing AML checks in coins sent there, and working with authorities and surveillance. They have a centralized coordinator node.

There are topics about it in the forum.
You can read more in their ann
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5286821.msg62077206#msg62077206

No, there is zero reasons to use mixers.

In 2023 the Wasabi coinjoin service was provided by a company called zkSNACKs which director board decided to pay for a chain analysis API to prevent coins from using the service. That is objectively true and was announced publicly by zkSNACKs before implementing that meassure.  Working with authorities and survillance is simply not true, a lie. Given Wasabi doesn't know anything about its users nor its users' wallets, it can not share anything with anyone. 

In 2024 zkSNACKs closed its doors and let the Wasabi FOSS project in the hands of independent contributors to maintain it (I am one of those). The coordination servers are run by independent volunteers (currently 6 according to https://liquisabi.com/), in fact all the Wasabi infrastructure is run and maintained by independent contributors. 

[BlackHatCoiner]

There are people who say Wasabi is doing AML checks in coins sent there, and working with authorities and surveillance.

Just an update: this was back when zkSNACKs was funding chain analysis. That coordinator is no longer with us, Wasabi is now just sitting there open-source, allowing you to select any coordinator you want. Also, zkSNACKs was charging you to coinjoin, if memory serves right, while there are coordinators now that charge you near zero, and you end up paying only mining fees and maybe leftover (which is usually something around ~1k sats).

Authorities haven't managed to de-anonymize a WabiSabi coinjoin, unless the user was a whale (> 5 BTC) and did a stupid consolidation.

[Forsyth Jones]

Mixers are sucker traps and exit scams. Who in their right mind would give their bitcoins to a mixer hoping to get them back while paying 5% plus a flat fee? If someone asks about coinjoins or mixers, why ignore the best option (coinjoining) and jump directly to a riskier, more expensive, and almost certainly scam option (mixers)?

The main difference between mixers is that they can deliver you coins with very low AML score, some of them claim to take funds from exchanges and other licensed services and deliver uncommitted coins to their customers.

Regarding coinjoin, I can't give much opinion on its functioning, as I don't know much about its technical details, just the basics kind of above... but I believe it's a good option too.

-snip-
This is why you should create a new address for every transaction.
Binance will only get to know the address you inform. If it is a new address, they wont know anything about how much you have.

Yeah, it's important to avoid receiving coins at the same address, despite being a basic thing, it is a practice highly encouraged by modern wallets.

There are also silent payments that some wallets like Cake have the option to receive at SP addresses, they are similar to Monero's stealth addresses. I can't wait for this feature to be made available in Bitcoin Core, Electrum, Wasabi, etc. (especially the receiving function).

[bitmover]

There are also silent payments that some wallets like Cake have the option to receive at SP addresses, they are similar to Monero's stealth addresses. I can't wait for this feature to be made available in Bitcoin Core, Electrum, Wasabi, etc. (especially the receiving function).

I don't think those wallets will ever support silent payments.

I think such feature will be similar to lightning network.  We might see some good wallets that supprt it, but the UX will always be somewhat problematic...

LN has been there for years and there isn't a great wallet yet.

[lontivero]

There are also silent payments that some wallets like Cake have the option to receive at SP addresses, they are similar to Monero's stealth addresses. I can't wait for this feature to be made available in Bitcoin Core, Electrum, Wasabi, etc. (especially the receiving function).

I don't think those wallets will ever support silent payments.

I think such feature will be similar to lightning network.  We might see some good wallets that supprt it, but the UX will always be somewhat problematic...

LN has been there for years and there isn't a great wallet yet.

Wasabi support sending and there is a PR for receiving which works well but it contradicts the main goal that Wasabi is pursuing which is becoming more resilient by avoiding the need for central servers or indexers.