The goal of this pattern is to aggregate different deposits into a single pool, such that distinguishing between them becomes unfeasible. The only factor to keep in mind is that this pattern is useless if there are not many deposits of varying sizes, such that the set of probable suspects is too small. We aim to overcome this issue by launching the Anonymity Mining campaign. The more people use Whirlwind, the more secure it becomes for everyone. We will consider the bootstrapping phase over when the Anonymity Set crosses 10,000 deposits.
What is more important to the Anonymity set, the number of deposits or the total amount? if I understood correctly it's both, but according to what I understand from the "Anonymity Mining campaign" the goal is to increase the number of deposits only -- simply because when the 10,000 deposits number is reached there will be no incentives for people to keep their funds in the pool, so you would end up with 10k deposits and maybe next to nothing of
BTC in the pool.
The reason why I ask is that I think there could be "easier" and probably "cheaper" ways to create those deposits if the only result required is a certain number of deposits.