Privacy is a multifaceted issue, encompassing different aspects of our lives. It centers on the control we have over our own information, and specifically, who has access to this information. Crucial to this is understanding the entities we trust with our privacy, those we don’t, the difficulty in breaching our privacy protections, and who could feasibly accomplish this.
Bitcoin, unfortunately, has a less than stellar record when it comes to transparently communicating these realities to its users, especially in the realm of privacy tools. The long-standing feud between Wasabi and Samourai, two projects offering centralized coinjoin coordinators, is a case in point. The Samourai developers were apprehended in a baseless overreach of custodial financial regulations applied to a purely self-custodial project. Wasabi, on the other hand, elected to deactivate their coordinator due to fears of similar legal repercussions.
This regrettable state of affairs is not new. The years leading up to Samourai’s arrest and Wasabi’s deactivation were filled with misleading information and hidden risks. Both teams have failed to disclose significant privacy or security issues, while simultaneously launching aggressive attacks on each other.
The unvarnished truth is that both projects, either through intentional design or implementation flaws, depended on the coordinator to protect users’ anonymity. Many users may have continued using these projects despite this reality, but the choice for most was uninformed. Privacy is about the patterns in our behavior, the risk we take in concealing something, and the reality that inadequate effort can expose our actions.
The exposure of our actions can carry significant consequences – from ruining social lives, possible legal repercussions if laws are violated, and even life-threatening situations. This reality is not fully recognized by many creators of privacy tools, including the teams at Wasabi and Samourai.
The time has come for a change. We need to move away from marketing slogans and trolling campaigns and focus on objective, scientifically-backed measures. This includes defining threat models, conducting mathematical analysis of the privacy provided, and understanding the monetary and resource costs necessary to undermine that privacy. We need to approach this with a rational scientific effort, not PR campaigns and slogans.
Without this shift, the future of privacy in Bitcoin looks bleak.
Please take note, this article is an opinion piece. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
