Important update

Major upgrades will be live towards the end of the week, at this point it's probably safe to say that Whirlwind is going to be the most complete solution after these changes. A complete changelog will be provided but here is a shortlist:

1.new UI and FAQ for better user experience

2.stability issues completely fixed, all delay times will be respected to the minute

3.withdraw fees will be reduced from 5000 sats/address to 2000 sats/address. we might eliminate them altogether after we gather more data

4.fast mode will be deprecated, everyone will have to use the Note system. you will still be able to withdraw instantly after your deposit is confirmed so it can be used in the same way as the fast mode

5.outputs will be fungible, namely 0.001BTC, 0.01BTC, 0.1BTC, 1BTC, 10BTC. the unspent balance will remain on the Note and you can withdraw it at any time

6.minimum deposit amount will be lowered so you can consolidate small amounts anonymously by combining multiple Notes

7.Pay to Note feature enabling feeless and anonymous Bitcoin transactions.

8.Complete compliance module - Whirlwind provides a signed Guarantee Letter for every action executed by the end user. It's the end user's responsibility to save all the guarantee letters and use them as needed. We stated publicly since before starting Whirlwind that we do not believe our service could be considered illegal by any standard and we intend to do everything in our power to stay compliant without compromising our user's privacy even in the slightest bit.

The compliance module is needed for the following type of situation: You send some funds to your online friend through Whirlwind and he deposits those funds in a centralized exchange resulting in his account getting frozen. Since you both saved the guarantee letters for the deposit, the transfer between your Notes and the withdraw, if he wants to he could prove to the exchange where the funds originated from and have his account unlocked.

We are not here to judge anyone's approach to AML or where our users deposit their outputs afterwards, but as a service we need to provide the tools to be compliant. It's still solely the user's responsibility to use these tools properly and equally any service where funds from Whirlwind get deposited have the right to ask questions and act according to their individual terms and conditions. That is none of our business

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You could coinjoin yourself before or after using Whirlwind, I don't think it makes much sense for us to build an alternative to coinjoins because one part of the system would have to remain centralized regardless. The only way in which the current system can be decentralized is if we add multiple trusted parties to the multi-sig.

We could build an extension so you don't have to use any website, but the service itself would still remain centralized