Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: Can Coinjoin transactions be traced? Busting Bitcoin privacy myths!
by
DaveF
on 25/01/2024, 14:40:04 UTC
If a Fed was running a Whirlpool coordinator, they could perform a targeted attack where they only choose you to mix in rounds with 4 decoys so you gain a false sense of privacy.  Or, they could just rug pull you by not mixing your funds after you pay the coordinator fee.

Should read:

ANYONE can run a Whirlpool coordinator, and they CAN perform a targeted attack where they only choose you to mix in rounds with 4 (or more) decoys so you gain a false sense of privacy.  Or, they could just rug pull you by not mixing your funds after you pay the coordinator fee.

There are probably more then a few people on this board sitting with 50+BTC from the early days who could setup a coordinator



- Can WabiSabi be traced?

Not unless you are the biggest whale in a coinjoin round with insufficient liquidity. Even outputs that do not have matching amounts cannot be traced to an owner on the input side - it’s even possible that the output changed hands as a payment to someone who did not own any funds on the input side at all:


Once again, if I setup a CoinJoin Coordinator for Wasabi users with a bit of tweaking it's not impossible. Getting people to use it would be the issue. But if I am charging no fees I can see where every TX came from and where they went.



The right tool for the right job. Hammering together something to make your BTC private will always have flaws / vulnerabilities.
It was not made to be private. Same way a VW Bug was not made to haul lumber. You can do it but why. Rent a pickup truck or a van.
Same here, want more private BTC there are enough BTC -> XRM or other privacy coins -> BTC and done.



Not kicking any of the people working hard to do this, but it really seems to be more effort then it's worth.

-Dave