As cryptocurrencies have matured from a Blockchain experiment to a fully-fledged currency that can be used for payment and banking, the way people use the technology has similarly evolved. One of the original selling points of currencies like Bitcoin was its privacy feature, allowing users to create, buy and sell digital money in complete anonymity online in a way that is untraceable. However, a series of high profile security incidents involving stolen cryptocurrency wallets, and the accusation that untraceable currency is a gift to criminals, has caused many Bitcoin traders and the wallets that they use to tighten up security, in a way that often sacrifices elements of the privacy that drew people to cryptos in the first place.
The holy grail
As a result of this tension between privacy and security, the holy grail of Bitcoin wallets is something that is able to do both – which is the claim being made by Wasabi Wallet, an open-source Bitcoin Wallet that implements several innovative security features in a way that provides all the transaction security of a traditional bank but is so anonymous that not even Wasabi Wallet is able to track your purchases. In what is being seen as the next generation of cryptocurrency privacy, Wasabi uses advanced coin control features and a form of coin shuffling to effectively merge your coins with the coins of one or more people so that individual wallets are indistinguishable from each other. It also implements Chaumian CoinJoin to completely unlink coins from their past, so not only can you be sure of your anonymity while you hold the coins – there won’t be a trail linking you to their next owners either.
The fungibility factor
Another major benefit of Wasabi Wallet is the contribution it makes to the fungibility of your coins, and the whole Bitcoin network. Ideally, all currency should be equally fungible so that one coin of a stated value is worth as much as another coin with the same stated value, but the aforementioned privacy issue means that coins that don’t have as clean a history as others make them less attractive to buyers and therefore less valuable. The hardcore privacy features of Wasabi Wallet effectively clean your coins, meaning that they are guaranteed to attract their stated value and not put off potential buyers because they have been tainted by traceable data about you, your transactions or those of past owners.
The verdict
In short, Wasabi Wallet has the strongest privacy for its users that today’s technology is able to provide – so if anonymity is vital for your cryptocurrency needs, and you’re looking to avoid having your coins tainted by traceable data – it’s a must-have and a glimpse of the future of the technology.
