The “Buy Anything” Button

What if you could buy a car directly through Wasabi and have it shipped to you? 

Now you can.  

The 2.0.5 release of Wasabi Wallet includes a “Buy Anything” button that allows you to literally buy ANYTHING (legal).

Just click on the “Buy Anything” button next to the “Send” and “Receive” buttons in your wallet to start a chat conversation with ShopinBit’s professional concierge team. 

After letting them know what you want in good detail, you’ll have to wait a few hours (24-48) for a submission. When all the details have been checked by ShopinBit’s team, they’ll give you an offer.

Your order will be confirmed once you accept it and pay the bitcoin invoice.

If the product is physical, you will need to enter your shipping address details to receive it. The shipping time depends on the product and the shipping destination, but don’t worry, you can track your order with the link provided.

“Your Order Has Been Shipped”

The timing of this release couldn’t be better. The new year is starting and Bitcoin’s price is doing well again, you can order anything you want for yourself and your dear ones directly from your favourite wallet.

Download the latest version (2.0.5) of Wasabi Wallet and start shopping now.

We Have Partnered with ShopinBit

We’d like to thank the Shopinbit team for making this possible through their Premium Concierge Service, which allows you to buy anything and get it delivered anywhere. They’re based in Poland and are Europe’s largest Bitcoin store, but they ship worldwide. 

You have a direct communication channel from your Wasabi Wallet client application to Shopinbit’s servers. zkSNACKs (Wasabi’s development company) can’t see anything exchanged on this channel and doesn’t know anything about your orders. 

To learn more about the ShopinBit company and team, click here.  

What are the Limits and the Fees?

For now, the minimum total order price is USD 1,000. There is no limit per se, but only VIP customers can place orders for more than USD 60,000. VIP customers must have at least one previous shopping experience through ShopinBit’s Concierge service.

Fees might vary depending on the order.

Update Wasabi Wallet and Buy Anything with Bitcoin Now

Other Questions You Might Have (FAQ)

1. Can I really buy anything? 

ShopinBit’s Concierge Service does not provide any kind of drugs, prescription medications, weapons, precious metals, cryptocurrencies, financial instruments, or any type of product that is illegal in Poland. You can buy anything else. 

2. Can I pay my rent or another invoice?

Yes, ShopinBit can pay with almost any payment method supported by Wise, Revolut, the banking system and major credit cards, so services like your rent can be paid. 

3. Why does it take 24-48 hours to get my quote? 

All requests are handled manually by ShopinBit’s team and sometimes need to be reviewed with legal counsel. The following 4 points have to be reviewed: 

 a) That the product/service can be bought from Shopinbit;

 b) ShopinBit is allowed to sell the product to you;

 c) ShopinBit can ship the product to you;

 d) It is all legal to do so.

An offer will be issued only until these 4 points are sorted out. If it’s not possible, you will receive a friendly decline with an explanation of why.

4. How is the bitcoin price calculated at the time of the transaction?

The offer quote is always in fiat (in USD precisely) and the final BTC amount is displayed when the user agrees to buy now. The exchange rate is reserved for 30 minutes.

5. Will I get an invoice? 

Yes, it will be available through a download link.

6. What about duties and taxes? 

It will depend on the source and destination of the product. If it has to cross borders, it might be subject to duties or taxes. If it can be purchased in the same country as it’s being delivered, there will be no duty taxes added to the final price.

7. How long does it take to ship a physical product? A digital product?

There is no general answer to this question for physical products. It depends on where the product is (ShopinBit’s warehouse or third-party warehouse) and how it will be shipped to you. 

For digital products, they are shipped on the same day as payment.

8. What is the data management policy? 

ShopinBit pseudonomizes (a.k.a. turns real personal data into generic gibberish) 30 days after completion of the order. ShopinBit is legally obligated to store invoices (with the shipping address), which are kept offline.

Remember that zkSNACKs is never aware of the data of this service, and you can delete your local data anytime.

9.  How does zkSNACKs make money? 

Orders made through Wasabi include an affiliate code and a fair cut is given to zkSNACKs, similar to standard affiliation programs.

10. Will I get in trouble with tax authorities because of this?

We can’t help you with tax issues, you need to know the laws of your own country. In general, if you haven’t paid taxes, you may get in trouble for not paying the taxes, not for spending your money with ShopinBit’s service.

11. What countries are not allowed?

Iran and North Korea are not allowed. Ukraine and Russia are currently halted due to the ongoing war.

12. Does the service include shipping to remote areas? What shipping service will be used?

ShopinBit ships anywhere, if you can pay for it. The service depends on the country. Their team has experience with difficult shipping conditions.

13. What is the return and reimbursement policy?

After you receive your order, you have a 14-day right of return. This means that if you do not like it, you can send it back (you will have to pay for the shipping).

Cars, boats, yachts, airplanes, jewellery, custom and digital items are non-returnable

If you exercise your right of withdrawal, the USD value will be used to calculate the amount of your returned coins on the day your order arrives back at the warehouse. 

The post Buy Anything with Bitcoin through Wasabi Wallet appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Coinjoins.org was announced earlier this year by Thibaud and Gustavo as a new public resource to discover and review bitcoin wallets with coinjoin features. Today, 3 new wallet reviews were released to help consumers discover the best bitcoin wallets for privacy. 

Trezor Suite and WabiSabi 

Trezor Suite is an easy-to-use bitcoin wallet desktop application with hardware wallet integration (Trezor T, One and Safe) and a built-in coinjoin feature using WabiSabi, the same coinjoin protocol used in Wasabi Wallet. 

One benefit is that Trezor Suite is the only wallet that allows you to coinjoin directly from a hardware wallet account, significantly increasing the security of your bitcoin. There is no need to use a hot wallet.

One limitation is that the process of coinjoining is somewhat manual. Users need to create a separate coinjoin wallet account, block filters have to be downloaded, and once the funds are deposited, a user need to manually click start to join a round.

The coinjoin integration was co-announced by Trezor and Wasabi Wallet back in April of this year. 

Find the full Trezor Suite review on Coinjoins.org. 

Jam and JoinMarket 

Jam is a web interface for JoinMarket focusing on user-friendliness and ease-of-use. It aims to provide sensible defaults and be easy to use for beginners while still having the features advanced users expect.

One benefit is that Jam significantly improves the user experience by abstracting away the complexity of Joinmarket. Joinmarket is the most censorship-resistant coinjoin on the market due to the competitive nature of a peer-to-peer free market with many takers and makers. There is no single coordinator in Joinmarket, but each round has a central coordinator (the taker).

One limitation is that Jam is not easy to install if you don’t have a full node system such as Umbrel, Citadel, Start9, Raspiblitz, MyNode and Raspibolt. Running Jam still requires technical skills. If a user doesn’t buy the pre-built node systems, it also requires technical skills to DIY (do it yourself).

Find the full Jam review on Coinjoins.org. 

BTCPay Coinjoin Plugin

BTCPay Server is a self-hosted, open-source bitcoin payment processor that includes a bitcoin wallet with a WabiSabi coinjoin plugin. 

One benefit of using BTCPay Server is that it is the most censorship-resistant WabiSabi bitcoin wallet because you can browse coordinators on Nostr (uncensored social media platform) and also run your own coordinator and publish it for discoverability.

One limitation is that it’s harder to run your own BTCPay server instance than it is to install a desktop or mobile wallet application. To use the WabiSabi coinjoin plugin, you need to install it after deploying BTCPay. It’s mandatory to use coinjoin on your own instance because you need to use a hot wallet.

Find the full BTCPay Server Coinjoin Plugin review on Coinjoins.org. 

Contribute 

Coinjoins.org is a free and open source project developed and maintained by Thibaud and Gustavo. If you would like to share suggestions, please open an issue on the GitHub repository, or even fork the project to show improvements. 

The post Coinjoins.org Presents 3 New Coinjoin Wallet Reviews appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

As software, Bitcoin is programmable, and its transactions can be made collaborative to protect users from leaking sensitive transaction details. Coinjoins are bulk bitcoin transactions that do just that. Coinjoins allow users to prevent personal information leaks on the public Bitcoin network, reclaiming their privacy. Users can protect their transaction history while retaining the ability to choose who to share confidential financial information with.

Coinjoins for Everyone, Anywhere

For a long time, coinjoin protocols have been difficult to develop and implementations have been difficult to deploy and maintain, with many performance, reliability and efficiency quirks. 

Now, with a simple Coinjoin API recently announced, collaborative bitcoin transactions are accessible to anyone, including companies that want to add powerful and robust privacy features to their bitcoin products, such as wallets, brokers, custodians and more. Over the past five years, Wasabi Wallet has shown that coinjoins can bring privacy to a large number of consumers without any tradeoffs on security or sovereignty. With an ever-growing interest in recording and analyzing public bitcoin transactions, bitcoin companies must now find new ways to protect the privacy of their customers as they move to a Bitcoin standard. The Coinjoin API makes this available to the enterprise market and increases the value proposition for Bitcoin itself. 

“Anonymity loves company, and that’s why we love that anyone can use our Coinjoin API to join the privacy party of our existing users. WabiSabi is efficient, fast, and flexible, where alternative clients can pioneer cutting-edge features. BTCPayServer users can efficiently batch multiple payments in a single coinjoin, and Trezor Suite users are the first to enjoy hardware wallet security of their private keys in coinjoins. This freedom to innovate on the edges will let a thousand flowers bloom” – Max Hillebrand, CEO at zkSNACKs and Wasabi Wallet contributor. 

With over a million devices sold, Trezor, one of the world’s most popular bitcoin hardware wallet manufacturers, has already integrated the Coinjoin API developed by zkSNACKs earlier in 2023. 

“Our mission is strengthening the power and independence of the individual. Coinjoin is an essential piece in the privacy puzzle and we try to make it as simple as possible. Now anyone can reclaim their privacy without compromise on security.” – Hynek Jína, Head of Development at Trezor

As a self-hosted bitcoin payment processor, BTCPay Server has integrated the WabiSabi coinjoin protocol into a plug-in, making this feature available to all of its merchants, who can now even run their own coinjoin coordinator infrastructure. 

“BTCPay Server has always championed privacy-centric solutions. When the WabiSabi protocol became production-ready, it was a no-brainer for me to build an option to incorporate it. The flexibility of WabiSabi is astounding, allowing me to innovate by using a privacy solution as a scaling solution. Now, merchants can schedule and batch their bitcoin payments to be broadcast through coinjoins, hitting two birds with one stone. BTCPay Server even allows you to effortlessly integrate WabiSabi coinjoins into your operations through its extensive API. And with the upcoming payment protocol, a service provider will be able to offer the most private financial settlement experience possible to its customers, at no extra cost.” – Kukks, BTCPayServer

In the early Wasabi Wallet 1.0 version, Cyphernode and Chaincase had already successfully integrated the API to build clients with new functionalities such as multi-wallet management for the former and deploying on the iOS platform for the latter. Even with these early innovations, we’re still at the beginning of scaling accessible Bitcoin privacy to millions of users, and the Coinjoin API is a new product to help bitcoin businesses on that path forward. As new partners integrate with the zkSNACKs Coinjoin API, liquidity improves, which provides better service to all existing users. In other words, coinjoins are social and benefit from network effects to improve the level of privacy for all users with an optimal level of speed, cost and ease of use. 

Existing bitcoin companies can leverage new opportunities to monetize a high-traffic wallet or broker through an affiliate program with revenue sharing. Offering an additional feature to existing users creates new income diversifying revenue streams, while potentially attracting new users by providing state-of-the-art Bitcoin privacy features. With regular user data breaches targeting bitcoin exchanges, brokers and lenders, companies can now mitigate the impact on their customers by preventing address clustering and transaction tracking. Companies can also fully comply with local and regional consumer privacy laws by protecting users’ personally identifiable information, preventing non-consensual sharing of user data on the public Bitcoin network. 

If you are a Bitcoin company interested in joining the affiliate program and learning more about the Coinjoin API, please get in touch with zkSNACKs at [email protected]. 

The post Announcing Private Bitcoin for Enterprises with a New Coinjoin API appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Hunting Sats at Bitcoin Amsterdam is sponsored by Wasabi Wallet and 8 partners including BTCPay Server, BTCTKVR, Bull Bitcoin, Coinkite, Cryptosteel, Trezor, Vexl, and Wizardsardine. Read this article to understand how it works, why Bitcoin Amsterdam is the place to be, and to read additional information on all partners involved.

How Hunting Sats at Bitcoin Amsterdam Works

A bitcoin wallet was created and backed up with a standard 12-word recovery phrase with over $1,500 of bitcoin. All the words from the recovery phrase are hidden in the Bitcoin Amsterdam venue, as seen in the map below.

Together, these words make up the recovery seed of the wallet which is securing the prize money. Find the words, place them in the right order and get over $1,500 of bitcoin rewards. First come, first served! Placing them in the right order requires brute forcing software. 

You have all the words but can’t find the correct order? Find @thibm_ at the Bitcoin Amsterdam venue to win 4 Coldcard MK4s, 2 Cryptosteel Capsules and some Bitcoin merch. Hurry before it runs out!

For More Information, Visit HuntingSats.com 

For all the general information regarding the contest, including updates about this contest’s edition!

Additional Information on Bitcoin Amsterdam 2023

On top of hosting Hunting Sats’ latest edition, Bitcoin Amsterdam is a festival for financial freedom. If you want to learn the basics of Bitcoin or go deep, this conference will be great to push further your educational objectives. 

Don’t forget that it’s all about networking here, and you can do so talking not only about bitcoin but art and culture as well. Amsterdam is one of the greatest cities on earth. Visit huntingsats.com/amsterdam for more information. 

Official Hunting Sats Amsterdam Partners 

There are 9 partner projects and companies who each have contributed to this Hunting Sats edition along with our team at Wasabi Wallet. All partners have bitcoin-only products and care deeply about security, privacy and Bitcoin education. 

BTCPay – A self-hosted, open-source bitcoin payment processor. It’s secure, private, censorship-resistant and free. 

BTCTKVR – The home of insightful Bitcoin articles, podcasts, videos & music.

Bull Bitcoin – The World’s best non-custodial Bitcoin company. Buy, sell and pay bills with Bitcoin. Our Mission: Destroy Fiat.

Coinkite – A leader in security and hardware manufacturer. Maker of some of the most iconic Bitcoin products, such as OPENDIME, COLDCARD, BLOCKCLOCK and more.

Cryptosteel – The mother of all backups. A fireproof, shockproof and waterproof offline tool that you own to backup your bitcoin and passwords. 

Trezor – A hardware wallet providing advanced security for handling bitcoin.

Vexl – Vexl is a mobile app giving its users a simple, accessible and safe way to trade bitcoin as it was intended – peer-to-peer and without KYC. 

Wizardsardine – A team of bitcoiners with a passion for security. Our mission is to make bitcoiners sleep better at night. We focus on safety: preventing both theft and loss.

The post Hunting Sats is Back at Bitcoin Amsterdam 2023 appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Wasabi 2.0 has redefined the Bitcoin privacy world with the introduction of the WabiSabi coinjoin protocol. This does not require sacrificing any of the rich features offered by the battle-tested 1.0 version, so that’s why we’re excited to reintroduce the Headless Daemon in Wasabi Wallet v2.0.4. This powerful tool offers a lighter, more efficient way to manage your Bitcoin wallet. No more worrying about resource consumption — the daemon’s got you covered.

What is the Headless Daemon?

Normally, you’d interact with Wasabi Wallet through our graphical user interface (GUI). While user-friendly, the GUI can sometimes demand a lot of your computer’s resources. The headless daemon changes all that. With this new feature, you can interact with your wallet via a simple command line interface. Think of it as your wallet but on a diet. It uses fewer resources like CPU, GPU, memory, and bandwidth, allowing you to run Wasabi Wallet unobtrusively in the background.

Why You’ll Love It

• Developer-Friendly: Before making new features live on the GUI, developers can test them out via the RPC interface.
  
• Always Ready: If you keep it running all the time, there’s no need to worry about synchronizing your wallet every time you wish to use it.
  
• Easy Configuration: No need to navigate through config files. You can override settings with a simple command.
  
• No Compromises: Enjoy all the features you love without any tradeoffs when switching from the GUI to the daemon.
  

How to Run the Headless Daemon

Installed Package

Linux Users

wassabeed –wallet=WalletName –jsonrpcserverenabled=true

macOS Users

cd /Applications/Wasabi\ Wallet.app/Contents/MacOs

./wassabeed –wallet=WalletName –jsonrpcserverenabled=true

Windows Users

cd C:\Program Files\WasabiWallet

wassabeed –wallet=WalletName –jsonrpcserverenabled=true

Building from Source

If you prefer to build from source, you can navigate to the WalletWasabi.Daemon directory and run:

$ dotnet run –wallet=WalletName –jsonrpcserverenabled=true

Examples to Get You Started

1. Connect to Testnet

$ wassabeed –network=testnet

2. Run on Testnet with Additional Configurations

$ wassabeed –usetor=false –datadir=”$HOME/temp/wasabi-1″ –network=testnet –jsonrpcserverenabled=true –blockonly=true

3. Open Multiple Wallets

$ wassabeed –wallet=AliceWallet –wallet=BobWallet

4. Check Daemon Version

$ wassabeed –version

Wasabi Daemon 2.0.4

Wrapping Up

With the headless daemon, power users can easily integrate Wasabi’s unmatchable privacy into their project workflow. Get ready to experience a more streamlined, resource-friendly way of managing your Bitcoin. Upgrade to Wasabi version 2.0.4 today and give the headless daemon a spin!

The post Unpacking Wasabi Wallet’s Power Feature: The Headless Daemon appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

As a coinjoin user, you’re not only looking for privacy for your coins but also efficiency in terms of fees and time. We could say that the perfect on-chain coinjoin would be one transaction, would cost very little, and would provide a lot of privacy for all your coins while leaving no toxic change. At Wasabi, we have always improved our software so that it becomes more efficient, because this increases the accessibility of privacy. 

With the 2.0.4 release, we have improved coinjoin efficiency in multiple ways so that you reach private status on all your coins faster and incur less cost. Our main goal is to even further reduce the occurrence of toxic change. 

How are we improving coinjoin efficiency on the 2.0.4 release?

First off, the maximum number of outputs per user per coinjoin transaction is no longer 8 but is now 10. Then, output decompositions that produce toxic change outputs are now rarely chosen. Additionally, we have slightly changed how the anonymity scoring is calculated, to reflect further the reality. Finally, Wasabi’s definition of private coins has changed to a random value of an anonymity score of 27 to 76, instead of 50 to 100 in the privacy profile.

If you want to understand the details of how this works, what the above numbers mean, and understand the motivation behind our update, read further. To better communicate this topic, we have to first take a look at Wasabi Wallet 1.0 and its flaws, then how Wasabi Wallet 2.0.0 fixed many of them, and finally, the improvements done on the 2.0.4 release, to bring us one step closer to providing the perfect coinjoin protocol and application. 

This article assumes you understand Bitcoin’s UTXO model and the lack of privacy it creates, read about it here if you don’t.

The Flaws of Wasabi Wallet 1.0 and Zerolink

Wasabi Wallet 1.0 was released on October 31st 2018. It was the first implementation of a Zerolink Chaumian coinjoin protocol, in which encrypted communication with the coordinator was introduced through blind signatures. 

Trustless coinjoin transactions at scale became a reality. However, nothing is perfect and this mechanism has inherent flaws. Let’s look at how Wasabi Wallet 1.0 works and where the issue relies, particularly around coinjoin efficiency. 

How does Wasabi Wallet 1.0 work?

When you use Wasabi 1.0, you have to manually select the inputs you wish to be part of the coinjoin transaction and queue them. Once enough participants had joined the current queue, the coordination process of the coinjoin transaction would begin, including the phases of input and output registration, and transaction signing. Once all coordination phases are completed, the coordinator broadcasts the coinjoin transaction to the bitcoin network. It confirms and the coinjoin is complete. To learn more about the details of the Zerolink protocol, read about it here.

This is what the Wasabi Wallet 1.0 interface of the registration process looks like. 

What are the Flaws of Wasabi Wallet 1.0? 

Due to the inherent nature of blind signatures, the private output values of a coinjoin transaction in Wasabi Wallet 1.0 are of a fixed set of multiples of a base denomination. This inherent design issue leads to coinjoin inefficiency.

Example of what a Wasabi Wallet 1.0 coinjoin transaction looks like, with a no fee assumption for simplification purposes.

Since it’s unlikely that a participant’s input will equal the sum of the fixed output value and the additional required fees, the coinjoin transaction creates toxic change outputs for almost every user. This means that a user will pay bitcoin mining fees to create outputs that are not even private, and will have to pay even more in the future to get those UTXOs private. 

An additional issue of a fixed set of multiples of a base denomination for private outputs is accessibility. Users with less bitcoin than the base denomination find themselves excluded from participating in Wasabi Wallet 1.0 coinjoin transactions. 

Fortunately, the flaws of Wasabi Wallet 1.0 motivated the team to research and develop a new system that would fix those caveats on the WabiSabi protocol. 

WabiSabi to the Rescue

As previously said, Zerolink’s usage of blind signatures restricted Wasabi Wallet 1,0 to a fixed set of multiples of a base denomination. On the other hand, WabiSabi introduces KVACs (keyed-verification anonymous credentials) to replace blind signatures’ standard denominations with homomorphic amount commitments. To learn more about KVACs, the WabiSabi academic paper explains well the technology behind it.

This allows the coordinator to verify that the sum of any participant’s outputs does not exceed that of their inputs while allowing the user to hide the underlying values from the coordinator. This innovation allows for Wasabi Wallet 2.0 to be more flexible on output decomposition for coinjoins, which means that users can now register inputs and outputs worth anywhere in between 5000 sats and 40000 bitcoin (find all the output denominations here). This greatly improves coinjoin efficiency, allowing most users to avoid toxic change outputs from the coinjoin transaction, and it drastically increases accessibility by lowering the minimum amount by 99%.

Example of what a Wasabi Wallet 2.0 coinjoin transaction looks like, with a no fee assumption for simplification purposes.

Now that we’ve explored the different approaches taken in Wasabi Wallet 1.0 and 2.0, let’s take a look at how coinjoin efficiency works. 

How is Coinjoin Efficiency Measured?

Briefly, the WabiSabi research paper defines coinjoin inefficiency “ to be the fraction of non-mixed change outputs and the total number of outputs in a CoinJoin transaction”. This means that a coinjoin transaction without any toxic change outputs has no coinjoin inefficiency. 

It’s also important to consider that a coinjoin participant wants to minimize the amount of fees he will pay and the amount of time he will spend to gain a sufficient level of privacy. 

Let’s complete this article by looking at the latest coinjoin efficiency improvements.  

Wasabi 2.0.4 Release Improvements on Coinjoin Efficiency

Wasabi Wallet’s 2.0.4 release introduces a few improvements to coinjoin efficiency by reducing further the occurrence of toxic change. It does so by introducing Naive Decomposition, an alternative way to decompose the input value sum into private outputs, which decreases the rate of decompositions that create toxic change outputs. 

Additionally, there is an adjustment to the anonymity score calculator, in which there’s now three types of anonymity score calculation for outputs instead of two. Also, the profile “Maximize Privacy” anonymity score target is now of a different value, from 50-100, to 27-76.

In this section, we’ll explain in detail what this means.

What is Wasabi Wallet’s Naive Decomposition?

Like previously mentioned when introducing Wasabi Wallet 2.0, coinjoin output decomposition happens freely, which means that amounts are no longer fixed, they’re way more flexible. However, it’s nowhere near perfect and some coinjoin transactions still have toxic change. This particularly affects whale users that bring high value UTXOs to the collaborative effort.

To partially solve this problem and reduce even further toxic change, we introduce Naive Decomposition. It’s a method that attempts to break down a larger amount of money into smaller denominations in a straightforward or ‘naive’ manner, while adhering to certain constraints such as maximum number of outputs and minimum allowed output amounts. Here’s the codebase section on the Naive decomposition.

How does Naive Decomposition Create Less Toxic Change?

The way it does this is fairly straightforward: it iterates over the provided denominations and continuously subtracts them from the total sum until it can’t anymore, respecting the constraints of maximum number of outputs and the available virtual size (vsize).

If there’s enough ‘remaining’ to create a change output (greater than the minimum allowed amount + change fee), it adds a change output.  If not, the ‘remaining’ amount is treated as a ‘loss’ that goes to the miners. 

It’s also important to note that on the Naive Decomposition the maximum number of outputs is 10, including a toxic change output. For regular previously used decomposition, the number remains at 8. Increasing this number helps in creating better decompositions, with less toxic change. However, we don’t want to increase this number too much because it could lead to  heavy computer resource consumption and then to software crashes. Also, it’s important to avoid creating too many outputs, to reduce the future fees the user will have to pay to spend each one of them.

Now that we’ve understood the gains of coinjoin efficiency of the Naive Decomposition on the 2.0.4 release, let’s finish up the blog post by describing the motivations behind the changes on the anonymity score calculator and the profile “Maximize Privacy” anonymity score target value. 

The Anonymity Score Calculator Becomes More Accurate

Every coinjoin protocol has its own way to calculate anonymity gain, and on Wasabi Wallet 2 it’s called anonymity score. This term is different from anonymity set used in Wasabi Wallet 1.0, and to know more about the difference between these two terms and how the anonymity score calculator works in detail, read this previous blog post. 

Here’s a brief but exact description of the anonymity score calculator for coinjoin transaction outputs. 

Before the 2.0.4 Release

There are two different anonymity scores possible to inherit for a coinjoin transaction output, they are as follows:

1. Non-Sanctioned: When the output is of standard denomination AND it’s not one of the two biggest output amounts in the transaction. It’s uniqueness doesn’t matter, it is a private output.
   1. Anonymity score is calculated as the sum of the weighted average of the anonymity scores of a user’s own inputs part of the coinjoin transaction, and the total number of outputs of the same denomination divided by the number of a user’s own inputs of that denomination.
2. Sanctioned: When it’s not non-sanctioned, so it’s either not of a standard denomination OR it’s one of the two biggest output amounts in the transaction.
   1. Anonymity score is calculated as the minimum anonymity score of a user’s own inputs part of the transaction. 

Since the 2.0.4 Release 

There’s now three different anonymity scores possible to inherit for a coinjoin transaction output. The changes will be highlighted. They are as follows:

1. Non-Sanctioned : When the output is of standard denomination (uniqueness doesn’t matter) AND it’s smaller than the biggest pair of foreign equal outputs(in other words, my output is smaller than the biggest foreign denomination that has at least two outputs)
   1. The anonymity score calculation doesn’t change for Non-Sanctioned outputs.
2. Sanctioned: When it’s not a standard denomination only (so it won’t be applied anymore for big standard denominations outputs, this is the main goal of the change)
   1. The anonymity score calculation doesn’t change for Sanctioned outputs.
3. Half-Sanctioned (new): When we are not a Non-Sanctioned or a Sanctioned output (is of a Standard denomination AND is bigger than the biggest pair of foreign equal outputs)
   1. The anonymity score is calculated as the minimum anonymity score of our own inputs part of this transaction that are bigger than the biggest foreign output. 

Why did we change this? 

We would previously lower the anonymity score of what is now a half-sanctioned output to the minimum anonymity score of a user’s own input part of the transaction. This calculation is done client-side so the software knows which inputs are yours. 

However, anonymity score should be a measurement of what can be perceived from analyzing the blockchain, so if an input is not in the penalty, well we can’t know it’s yours from a blockchain analytics perspective. It made little sense to penalize a half-sanctioned output to that level, instead we penalize it to the minimum anonymity score of our own inputs that are part of this transaction and are bigger than the biggest foreign output.  

Let’s conclude by explaining the profile “Maximize Privacy” change.

Why Has the Anonymity Score Target of Maximize Privacy Changed?

When you initialize Wasabi Wallet 2.0, you can choose your wallet profile either to “Minimize Cost”, “Maximize Speed” or “Maximize Privacy”. The first two will give the target an anonymity score superior to 5, but differ because the first one will wait for bitcoin network fees to be low to coinjoin. Maximizing privacy used to target a random number between 50 to 100, but that’s now 27 to 76. Why?

Based on our goal to prioritize efficiency for our users, we always want to offer the most economical solution available. We believe that an anonymity score of 100 is currently probably an overkill to recommend as a default setting, and we’ve lowered it because of that reason.

We’ve calculated that an output can never gain more than 26 anonymity scores from 1 coinjoin transaction, so a minimum of 27 enforces at least two coinjoin transactions. We kept the same spread which gives us 27 to 76. 

It’s important to know that this is just a default setting and you can always change your anonymity score target to a maximum of 300. 

Conclusion

This article explains the mechanism behind Wasabi Wallet 1.0 (and the Zerolink protocol), its inherent flaw of coinjoin inefficiency, how Wasabi Wallet 2.0 (and the WabiSabi protocol) improved efficiency and fixed many of the resulting caveats. This part introduces the goal of this article, which is to explain the improvements made on Wasabi Wallet’s latest release (2.0.4) on coinjoin efficiency through the introduction of the Naive Decomposition, and the further changes to the anonymity score calculator and the anonymity score target value of the profile “Maximize Privacy”. 

The post Wasabi’s Latest Release (2.0.4) Improves Coinjoin Efficiency appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Tired of waiting for transaction confirmations? So are we! Much time has been spent trying to solve this ubiquitous issue. As a result, we’ve packed Wasabi Wallet version 2.0.4 with highly requested features and a bundle of performance optimizations that drastically speeds up wallet load time, frees transactions from getting stuck in the mempool and make life easier than ever for privacy-conscious Bitcoiners. 

Key upgrades include transaction speedup with RBF and CPFP, privacy warnings when sending transactions, and a headless daemon for advanced users who prefer using their keyboard instead of their mouse. Tasks running in the background now take even less time with improvements made to coinjoin output efficiency and wallet synchronization speed.

“Since the last release four months ago, the amount of progress is mind-blowing. Now Wasabi is even faster, more private, and easier to use. The contributors have really outdone themselves this time.” ~ Max Hillebrand, CEO at zkSNACKs and Contributor to Wasabi Wallet 

Don’t Float in the Mempool

Unpredictable gaps of time between blocks often lead to users overpaying on fees for urgent transactions to avoid getting stuck in the mempool below competing bids. Wasabi’s new transaction speedup feature eliminates this risky gamble so users always win. Incoming funds can now be secured quickly with Child Pays For Parent (CPFP) to self-spend an unconfirmed UTXO, and outgoing transactions can use Replace By Fee (RBF) to increase confirmation priority or cancel the payment entirely. In addition to these flexible new features, clients now adapt to high mempool fees and never create small value coinjoin outputs that would be uneconomical to spend. Coinjoin reliability was reinforced further on the coordinator side with more accurate fee rate measurements and a robust transaction broadcasting process.

Turbosync Drastically Reduces Wallet Load Times

Wasabi clients use compact block filters to privately synchronize a wallet’s balance with the Bitcoin network. Block filters allow light clients to download only the blocks that contain their transactions instead of downloading every block like a fully validating node. This release optimizes the filter-checking process to reduce wallet loading times by 90% thanks to code cleanup and a clever key prioritization process dubbed “Turbosync”. With Turbosync, internal addresses that have already been used are not checked for coins in new blocks until after unused addresses have been checked first. Filter performance improved even more by storing them in an SQLite database instead of a plaintext file, reducing disk space requirements by about 1 GB and increasing resilience against file corruption.

Privacy Warnings and Spending Suggestions

New Privacy Warnings present users with one-click fixes if they are attempting to construct a transaction that spends nonprivate funds or creates change. Notifications are provided when consolidating more than 10 UTXOs or spending unconfirmed funds, allowing users to avoid potential mistakes without restricting intentional usage.

More Privacy, Less Blockspace

The amount decomposer was refined to make the most effective use of scarce block space so that whales who set a high anonymity score target now need fewer coinjoin rounds to reach 100% privacy. The amount of outputs a client can create in a round has been increased from 8 to 10, and decompositions that produce change outputs are now rarely chosen. The occurrence of non-private coinjoin “toxic” outputs is reduced even further to improve coinjoin efficiency. Adjustments to the anonymity score calculator and default settings additionally reduce the amount of coinjoining required before all coins are considered private. The anonymity score target of the “Maximize Privacy” coinjoin strategy setting was reduced from a random value between 50-100 to a less conservative range of 27-76, which brings the behavior closer in line with the two efficiency-based strategies.

Headless Daemon

More experienced users can directly interact with the core features of the wallet through an RPC (Remote Procedure Call) interface making it easy for developers to customize their experience and build features that are not available in the GUI version. This release bundles the Daemon, an executable called ‘wassabeed’ that runs the wallet without the graphical interface. The wallet can be run in the background by using the RPC interface allowing users to coinjoin, see their balance, and perform every other function of the wallet without the resource consumption of the graphical interface.

Other Features

• QR code scanning for Linux to copy payment addresses
• Improved Tor behavior
• Hardware Wallet Interface updated to v2.2.1
• Decoupling of the user interface for better testing and alternate client support
• Separation of WabiSabi cryptography library for compatibility with other projects
• Sunset of Wasabi Wallet 1.0 zerolink coinjoin coordination

About Wasabi Wallet

Reclaim your privacy with Wasabi Wallet, a free and open-source bitcoin wallet with built-in coinjoins. Coinjoins are collaborative bitcoin transactions that enable cash-like privacy features for bitcoin.

Download Wasabi Wallet here .

The post Free Transactions from Being Stuck in the Mempool appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Today, Trezor rolls out coinjoin for the original bitcoin hardware wallet, the Model One, the remaining hardware product. This takes place 9 years after the initial release of the (also) first ever of its kind. Trezor’s products remain the only to support hardware wallet coinjoin.

VIDEO HERE

To learn more about Coinjoin on Model One and how it works, check Trezor’s website here.

To read our initial announcement on the Trezor coinjoin release, read our blog post here that explains the motivation behind this effort, the real use cases of their users and how it works.

You might be asking you the following question:

How is Trezor’s Coinjoin Different from Wasabi Wallet?

Wasabi Wallet and Trezor Suite are distinct open-source desktop software wallet applications. You can use both Trezor hardware wallets with the Wasabi Wallet software interface for regular hardware wallet transactional usage. The core difference is that you can’t coinjoin with your Trezor connected to Wasabi Wallet.

Trezor’s Opt-In and Wasabi’s Opt-out

Wasabi Wallet automates coinjoin by default, a user only has to choose a profile between Maximize Speed, Minimize Fees, Maximize Privacy, receive coins and the privacy reclaim process would begin automatically. On the other hand, to coinjoin on Trezor Suite, you have to create a separate wallet account, send some bitcoin there, leave your Trezor connected and click on start. It’s opt-in instead of opt-out. 

Trezor Suite Coinjoin Account’s Network Privacy 

Trezor Suite comes bundled with Tor, as Wasabi, and a user will be prompted to enable it when setting up coinjoin, if he hasn’t done so already. Block Filters are also implemented, which is a different bitcoin network connection model from the regular non-coinjoin wallets in the Suite application.

Trezor’s Coinjoin Specifications

Trezor Suite uses the same default coordinator as Wasabi Wallet does, zkSNACKs. Everything related to the coinjoin protocol is the same, except the algorithms for input and output selection, which are client-side due to how the WabiSabi protocol works.

Finally, Trezor Suite only uses Taproot addresses for coinjoin. Read Trezor’s FAQ on the topic for further information. 

How to Get Started

To enjoy the best level of security for coinjoin at the best price, buy a Trezor Model One here. 

If you already have one, you should update your software and firmware to the latest version. For a step-by-step guide to setting up coinjoin on your Trezor, read here.

Trezor Suite Update August 2023

To learn more about all the improvements made on Trezor Suite 23.8.1, read the changelog here. 

We’ll leave you with a teaser.

About Trezor

Trezor is the independent Czech company behind the world’s first Bitcoin hardware wallet, the Trezor One in 2014. Both hardware wallets are open-source with over 200 contributors and are enhanced by the free Trezor Suite app which increases privacy and makes crypto more intuitive. Trezor has sold over a million devices.

About Wasabi Wallet

Reclaim your privacy with Wasabi Wallet, a free and open-source bitcoin wallet with built-in coinjoin. Coinjoins are collaborative bitcoin transactions to enable cash-like privacy features for bitcoin.

The post TREZOR ROLLS OUT COINJOIN FOR TREZOR MODEL ONE appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Trezor, the original bitcoin hardware wallet company, today rolled out the coinjoin feature for its devices allowing users to more easily enhance privacy and security on bitcoin transactions. Coinjoin is a process where users send their bitcoin as part of a large collaborative transaction and receive the same amount back, but with the transaction history obscured. Users’ balances and transaction history are then hard to track on the otherwise fully-transparent bitcoin blockchain. The feature is possible thanks to Trezor’s collaboration with Wasabi Wallet, the privacy-focused bitcoin wallet that specializes in coinjoin.

Trezor is the first and only hardware wallet to enable coinjoin transactions within a hardware wallet environment. The function is now live on Trezor Model T and Trezor plans to enable coinjoin for Model One in the near future. Coinjoin is the latest addition to a host of features found on Trezor devices for enhancing security and privacy, such as Tor, coin control, and Shamir backup.

Matěj Žák, CEO of Trezor, explained: “Trezor values privacy as an individual’s most important asset. Consequently, we’re delighted that we’ve found a way for our community to keep their bitcoin history private. Our coinjoin solution in Trezor Suite is intuitive and safe, making bitcoin privacy more accessible to the general public.”

Real use-cases

The coinjoin approach tackles a number of glaring privacy issues resulting from the inherent transparency of the bitcoin blockchain. For example, when people use exchanges, it’s easy to draw a link between their real-world identity and their bitcoin addresses. Exchanges can track user transactions even after they withdraw and can share this data with third parties. Through obscuring transaction histories, coinjoin prevents such surveillance.

Secondly, coinjoin offers welcome additional protection when using bitcoin for purchases. Ordinarily, merchants receiving bitcoin payments can see the total balance of an address from which the payment was sent, which some people consider an unacceptable breach of privacy. With coinjoin, users can safely break up their bitcoin balance into small amounts with no transaction history so as to obscure their total balance, like swapping a large dollar note for smaller denominations.

A third coinjoin benefit is in safeguarding privacy for donations made using bitcoin. By default, all bitcoin transactions can be analyzed and in some cases, real-world identities can be linked. This can put non-governmental organizations and their donors in great danger, especially under authoritarian regimes. Coinjoin protects the transactions of donors and recipients, and therefore, improves the safety of organizations and their supporters.

Matěj Žák further elaborated: “People who want to make private transactions can use cash without leaving any digital footprint, and without the need for the counterparty to store our identity. No one gets to see how much money they have left in their wallet or bank accounts. Trezor with coinjoin brings a similar level of privacy to bitcoin, with one click. The security of the process and ease of use help deliver privacy to a wider audience, which is one of the core values of the bitcoin community.”

“Making bitcoin privacy tools easy to use and secure is essential, as this is what drives people to use products, which increases the privacy for everyone. That’s why we see Trezor’s integration of coinjoin as such a major milestone. A coinjoin is inherently non-custodial and now for the first time, coinjoin transactions can be signed with the keys on a hardware wallet. This is a major security improvement,” says Max Hillebrand, contributor to Wasabi Wallet and CEO of zkSNACKs (the company sponsoring the development of Wasabi Wallet and operates the coinjoin coordinator).

How does it work?

With the Model T, Trezor users can now see a new coinjoin account type in their Trezor Suite and simply click on the “anonymize” button. Users then choose the number of coinjoin rounds — with every round increasing the level of privacy — confirm their choices on the Trezor device and then leave the Trezor connected with the Trezor Suite running. The rest of the coinjoin process is automated and requires no active user participation. The time needed to complete the coinjoin depends on the number of rounds – one round takes approximately 10 minutes. After completing the procedure, users will receive a confirmation dialogue with the transaction details. The fees for the transaction consist of the coordinator fee of 0.3% of the coinjoined amount and a network mining fee. The coordinator fee is paid just once, and for further remixes users pay only the mining fee.

For more information about coinjoin, please visit: https://trezor.io/learn/a/coinjoin-in-trezor-suite

About Trezor

Trezor is the independent Czech company behind the world’s first Bitcoin hardware wallet, the Trezor One in 2014. Its flagship product, the Trezor Model T comes with a full-color touchscreen and many advanced features. Both wallets are open-source and enhanced by the free Trezor Suite app which increases privacy and makes crypto more intuitive.

About Wasabi Wallet

Reclaim your privacy with Wasabi Wallet, a free and open-source bitcoin wallet with built-in coinjoin. Coinjoins are collaborative bitcoin transactions to enable cash-like privacy features for bitcoin.

The post Trezor Rolls Out Coinjoin Feature for its Devices in First for Hardware Wallets appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Over the years, Coin Control has evolved to become an industry standard for privacy-conscious bitcoiners. However, usage of Coin Control in Wasabi Wallet 1.0 demonstrated that the feature often causes more harm than good. To use coin control efficiently, users must be explicitly aware of the UTXO model to avoid degrading their achieved privacy progress after coinjoin. Since the launch of Wasabi Wallet 2.0, the wallet has been powered by a smart coin selection algorithm to automatically pick the most private combination of coins to send. With Wasabi Wallet 2.0.3, users are now offered the best of both worlds: smart coin selection by default and optional insight and control for advanced users. While beginners have no need to worry about the coin selection process through automatic calculations, advanced users retain the option to inspect and modify the features selection on their own behalf by holding the ‘Alt’ key (‘Option’ key on Mac devices) on the Preview Transaction screen.

“The goal of Wasabi 2.0 has always been to remove complexity and friction from the default user experience. That’s the only way we can gather a large user base and offer substantial privacy. However, we can make the default even easier, if we have an optional place to put the complexity, where skilled users can fine-tune their wallet’s performance to their heart’s desire”, Max Hillebrand, CEO at zkSNACKs, and Contributor to Wasabi Wallet

The 2.0.3 release also includes an upgrade to Tor 0.4.7.12, offering improved stability for MacOS M1 users and of course, there are also many other minor bug fixes.

“If we want privacy to become the default for Bitcoin transactions, we must do everything we can to reduce the fee costs falling on users for using privacy preserving technology.” – Max Hillebrand, CEO at zkSNACKs and Wasabi Wallet contributor

About Wasabi Wallet

Reclaim your privacy with Wasabi Wallet, a free and open-source bitcoin wallet with built-in coinjoins. Coinjoins are collaborative bitcoin transactions that enable cash-like privacy features for bitcoin.

The post Coin Control is Back on Wasabi Wallet appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.