Replies (54)
I don't think this will ever happen. It is not bitcoins goal or stated in the white paper.
Privacy / Secrecy are up the user and how the user sets up their devices. It can be made as private as cash if you use the right tools and setups.
If you really want private transactions with bitcoin there's always sneakernet. They figured out a clever way to do it at opendime.com.
Never heard of this. Anything else I should know before I look into it?
Actually page 6 section 10 of the Bitcoin white paper does talk about Privacy:
"The traditional banking model achieves a level of privacy by limiting access to information to the
parties involved and the trusted third party. The necessity to announce all transactions publicly
precludes this method, but privacy can still be maintained by breaking the flow of information in
another place: by keeping public keys anonymous. The public can see that someone is sending
an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone. This is
similar to the level of information released by stock exchanges, where the time and size of
individual trades, the "tape", is made public, but without telling who the parties were."
The way I interpret this, if you always use your node to connect to the network, and you have not identified yourself during any transactions, then there is zero knowledge of your identity. Adding VPN and/or Tor to the mix is not even necessary if you only connect to your own node from your wallet.
But as soon as you do business with someone. That someone can reveal your public address?
1 wallet for Savings
1 wallet for transactions
only send full UTXOs in order to break blockchain heuristics
Here is a great article on the topic from my favourite wallet Sparrow Wallet:
Sparrow Wallet
Spending Privately
Sparrow is a modern desktop Bitcoin wallet application supporting most hardware wallets and built on common standards such as PSBT, with an emphasi...
This is kinda my point. This seems like a lot of work to figure out for the non tech savy person.
It should be as private and easy to use as cash imo.
I may be persuaded but atm i need to learn more about it.
Thanks for commenting with the links. Will do some reading.
I don't see any major downside to hedging that sort of risk in #monero. In extreme times, the flight to personal safety lies in contrarianism, not conformity.
I stack equal units of #xmr as I do #btc due to the former being such a small percentage allocation of capital. Yes, there are tradeoffs, now it's not a shitcoin.
Bitcoin will likely never have solid privacy and most of the ardent bitcoin zealots that I know use Monero even though they'd never publically admit it.
no problem. only good intentions here and trying to promote my point that Bitcoin is private. its us who make it not private lol
Nostr is anonymous too, unless you paste your npub somewhere where its associated to your real identity or dont protect your ip address.
This is a step backwards. Ooendimes are great for gifts and satscards also for a cheaper alternative but you've got to sweep those funds sometime and when you do you have to isolate those UTXOs as you are faced with the same privacy issues are before.
This is why bitcoin is a near perfect SoV and a far from perfect MoE.
I never owned Monero mainly because I have no idea where you go to trade it lol. But I have seen a lot of John macabre videos where he talks about it as alternative. I really hope to btc allow for this kinda privacy one day.
Agreed but you shouldn't have to use any tools. One slip up and you can undo all your previous privacy gains. Save in Bitcoin, spend in Monero. It's a pretty simple life under their method.
Yeh pseudo anonymous.
I am only an anon because I do not want to reveal my identity and btc bags to people I transact with.
Am sure some very nosey onchain analyst has worked out my stack already lol.
I would love to just be myself online. But I risk revealing my stack so I don’t.
I am following you for some privacy content. I want to learn more. Thanks for your comment.
*John Macafee
McAfee 💪
Haha yeh that.
I couldn’t watch you break down any further. Had to step in.
Appreciate you QW! Not all heroes wear capes 🦸♂️!
Lots of reading to do 😔
Bitcoin Bookmarks folder :-D
Not a dev myself either. But I heard lightning splicing improve anonymity on lightning even further.
Haven't really read on it yet
Spending off chain with LN is plenty private for almost all use cases, most data leaked is on the receiving side. It isn't difficult to manage this simply through segregation and compartmentalization, of everything, not just your transactions and coin of choice. More data is exposed through your phones, IP addresses, browsers, etc. than is exposed with off chain transactions. Spending from a phone registered in your name, an IP service paid with by a CC, while in the home address registered ass your legal address makes your privacy with even Monero an illusion.
In the end, ONLY good Op Sec, treating secrecy as secuity in ALL things can lead to Anonymity, which matters more than data privacy. It is Control, not Title that matters, these practices must be carried over into the paper and physical realms too. Smart money use registered LLC, Corporate, and Trustee agents as special purpose vehicles for Titling real assets, the same as smart Bitcoiners do with Blue Wallet, Sparrow, and Cold Card.
It’ll never be as private as some people want it to be.. as in, a public ledger cannot be private. That just is what it is.
If you want privacy on the base level, then you cannot verify that it has a capped supply. At least, we haven’t worked that out yet.
But, privacy solutions can be built on top of amthe public ledger, to solve most privacy problems. Look at lightning and things like Fedi, crash.. look at coinjoin etc.
Most privacy problems come from the fiat on and off ramps. In a bitcoin circular economy, privacy would be a lot easier to come by.
Listen to guy swan read 749 for a little more here 🤙
I would never propose a change to the base chain.
You could move your btc to Monero type sidechain or roll up trustlessly use your btc on this layer for any transactions you wish to be private and as simple to use as any other blockchain. However requires a soft fork similar to taproot.
You have lightning companies that are using AI to track all your transaction on ln. Fedimint and ask is interesting but I think it will like have to same weaknesses in terms of privacy as lightning.
Yes you can buy non-kyc bitcoin and never spend it. But whole point of money imo is to spend your money p2p without any middle men or state surveillance.
I am just a paranoid dude l. I really wish to see brc to be like cash. One can dream.
https://tradeogre.com/exchange/XMR-BTC if you like an order book CEX
https://www.majesticbank.sc/user/login
If you like a swap serive with onion option.
Both are non KYC 🔥
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Fiat -> Monero:
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https://www.kraken.com/ (KYC)
BTC -> Monero:
Bisq - A decentralized bitcoin exchange network
Bisq - A decentralized bitcoin exchange network
Bisq is an open-source desktop application that allows you to buy and sell bitcoin in exchange for national currencies, or alternative cryptocurren...
eigenwallet
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Find services that don
Buy Monero gift cards for almost anything:
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Welcome
Coincards is a service designed to allow Americans to purchase gift cards from hundreds of American retailers using their bitcoins.
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Open source wallets:
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Fiat -> Monero:
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BTC -> Monero:
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Buy Monero gift cards for almost anything:
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Spend Monero directly:
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Not trying to be contentious, but Bitcoin can't be private it's a public blockchain viewable by the world. Only psuedonymous (user unknown, actions known) if bought and transacting p2p/NoKYC.
You can coinjoin to make your actions probabilistic, but that is obfuscation, not privacy (all information is known, data is "muddied", but not hidden). Similar to leaking metadata. Can be saved and potentially used with future data to deanonymize the user or deobfuscate the data.
Yeh that’s what I thought. But you could have a Monero style trustless sidechain if btc would implement bip 300.
Yes agree, it is possible, and if bip 300 goes thru I'm sure will happen. But it will have it's own unique trade offs that won't be the same as Monero's (both good and bad).
I am seeing lot of chat on twitter between btc core devs debating it. I think it’s in the realm of possibility that it gets pushed forward.
No. You should just look into it.
Or you could just spend the loaded opendimes/satscards like old fashioned paper money. I guess there's a lack of privacy insofar as having to meet whomever you're transacting with face to face, but at least there's no record of the transaction.
Im sorry I used the wrong word. Private was the wrong word. Anonymous is what I should have wrote. Bitcoin is anonymous by default. It is us who de-anonymyze ourselves through our careless usage of the internet.
its one thing if the devs do it or not, a whole other thing if node operators follow or not. There could be a temporary chain split, and the stronger one will win out and be called Bitcoin.
Maybe. If you do everything by the book, even the nosey on-chain analysist cant figure out shit about you.
lets us know what you find
This seems like the best option imo.
Layertwolabs have proposed a Z-cash type sidechain for complete end-2-end encrypted BTC transactions.
Projects | Drivechain: Peer-to-Peer Bitcoin Sidechains
a side chain seems the likely solution
it seems like at the end of the day the possibilities for Bitcoin are limitless, without ever necessarily updating the core protocol ever again ;-)
the core should always be improved but you have it right
It's really the cost. All my ooendimes are curios and I collect them and the satcards for the art element. Opendimes is around $15 iirc?
This is why #monero just works.
Dynamic block sizing so tx fees are always a few picos at most. As long as you have some churn in your wallet, you are 2min confirmation and then you're done.
Finally I do a heap of research and work on the DNMs and there isn't a single market in 2023 that accepts bitcoin anymore. It's a fully #monero payment environment out there in the digital wild west and that's pretty telling.
Should be easy as using cash. If we going to declare btc better money then it should be at least private and easy to use as cash imo.
There’s a few ways around this. Send your funds in and out of liquid then send some over to self custody on your own lightning node and spend with lightning. There’s no need to give people the address of your main stack if you don’t want to. Sure it’s a work around at present but over time it’ll become easier and easier. These things take time but saying that the pace of development is unreal in my mind. And Nostr and zaps are the icing on the cake. You can top up lightning channels using liquid atomic swaps.
Boltz | Non-Custodial Bitcoin Bridge
Boltz | Non-Custodial Bitcoin Bridge
Swap between different Bitcoin layers while staying in full control. Fast and non-custodial Lightning / Bitcoin / Liquid / Rootstock swaps.
Why would I trust a federation with my coins it’s basically trusting an exchange. When I mean privacy I mean just as easy as using cash. Not giving up my coins to custodian who may not return my coins and hope my txs can’t be traced back to me. From what I read it. You need true end-2-end encryption from the privacy experts I have spoken to.
IMO it will never be private and will never rival cash. I stack coins everyday but always as a store of value. Lightning has its uses such as zaps and that's crazy fun but if I pay for anything that I need privacy the my go to is #monero every time.
Yes, they are expensive enough that they're just novelties, but the concept is correct.
I am going to keep complaining maybe something will happen.
There are regular improvements, but its always up to the node operators to "vote".
LN is overwhelmingly used in a non-private way. Same non-default privacy tediousness of Bitcoin (meaning majority will not use it privately. Defaults matter.). It's possible to have semi-private unannounced channels by sacrificing useability.
Your list of attack surfaces is kind of a moot point because Bitcoin has all that against it *ON TOP OF* being a public blockchain. Monero is not a privacy panacea, but it makes privacy possible and much more simple and accessible. And IP address is automatically protected with Dandelion++ when using Monero so the IP thing isn't even true.
The most you can hope for on Bitcoin is to remain anonymous, but your actions are always public. Obfuscation is not privacy. Nothing is hidden. That data can be saved and combined with future data and novel techniques to deobfuscate and eventually use that data to deanonymise. Both anonymity *and* privacy matter and can be weaponized to unconver the other.
