22
votes
Is there something about Bitcoin that prevents us from implementing the same privacy protocols of Monero and Zcash?
I'm curious as to why Bitcoin has not perused a similar path to privacy.
I want to start by commenting on the phrasing of this question. Bitcoin is defined by the consensus of its users, and isn't a ...
- 108k
17
votes
Accepted
Is my account balance publicly visible?
If your business partner knows your address, they can learn the transaction history and balance of that address. Often it is possible to guess or deduce that other addresses also belong to you, but ...
- 77k
15
votes
Is my account balance publicly visible?
If I'm sending someone my wallet-address, am I making my account balance visible to him?
Yes.
all transactions are public, means if I know the wallet address, I
can reconstruct the current ...
- 986
10
votes
Accepted
Can I send bitcoin to other address in my wallet to provide anonymity?
Let's assume you're the outside observer. You see 1 BTC go from aaa to bbb, then from bbb to ccc, then from ccc to ddd, and them from ddd to zzz (zzz being associated with service Z). Can you see how ...
- 3,234
10
votes
Accepted
Why is the length of the transport messages on the lightning network encrypted?
TCP and other stream based protocols do not have a 1-to-1 correlation of application level messages and IP packets. If you call send() 3 times, it might result in sending a single IP packet over the ...
- 3,334
9
votes
What are tainted coins exactly?
The term "Tainted Coins" is often misinterpreted as a measure of provenance. That's understandable considering the traditional definition of the word "tainted" coupled with the reality that many ...
- 101
8
votes
Deanonymizing dust attack
A deanonymizing dust attack works by sending dust to large amounts of addresses. The assumption is that when people send transactions/perform consolidations in the future, dust from multiple addresses ...
- 17.2k
8
votes
What exactly is "privatekeys.pw"?
The site is a joke, or at best a confusing attempt to educate.
It literally lists all private keys, from low to high, as private keys are just numbers. There are of course way more than can be ...
- 108k
7
votes
Accepted
Can you detect that the addresses generated by an HD wallet came from a single wallet?
No.
All addresses generated by HD derivation are indistinguishable to someone who does not know the parent's master key (the private one for hardened derivation, the public one for normal derivation)....
- 108k
7
votes
Accepted
Do confidential transactions produce an UTXO
In Confidential Transactions (as used in Blockstream's Elements and Liquid), there are still identifiable UTXOs.
The only change is that instead of the amount, a homomorphic commitment to the amount ...
- 108k
7
votes
Why do people claim that governments cannot confiscate Bitcoins?
While it is true that Bitcoin can still be physically taken away from you, it is still much harder to do that than it is for a government to confiscate your fiat stored in a bank account (as most fiat ...
- 71.5k
7
votes
What are the advantages/disadvantages to using the same Wallet Address?
Questions about altcoins are off-topic here, but the answer is essentially universal: if you re-use addresses, especially because of a desire to think of them as a long-term identity, you're ...
- 108k
7
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to identify UTXOs signed by HD wallets?
Almost every wallet today uses HD key derivation. You'd need to go back to software from 2016 or earlier to find any that don't. So I'd say your question is moot.
That said, there certainly are ...
- 108k
6
votes
Accepted
Would quantum computing be able to deanonymize CoinJoin transactions?
No.
CoinJoin does not rely on any cryptography to hide transaction flows. It merely combines multiple transactions into one, and randomizes the order of inputs and outputs.
Of course, as you point ...
- 108k
6
votes
What are the privacy implications of filtered blockchain downloads?
I know it is an old question, but it deserves an updated answer.
Since the introduction of BIP37 (=SPV with bloom filters) a number of serious privacy vulnerabilities have been discovered. By using ...
- 846
6
votes
Accepted
Is It Possible to Prove Ownership of Public Key Hash without Public Key?
The simple answer is no.
A hashing algorithm is ment to be a one-way function. If it is possible to recreate the public key from the hash, this means that the hashing algorithm is broken.
However ...
- 546
6
votes
Accepted
Are there any risks of publicizing a Lightning network invoice?
Does it affect -most importantly- the safety of the funds?
It does not. Funds are not affected by publishing a LN invoice.
Does it negatively affect the privacy or something else?
If a lightning ...
- 71.5k
6
votes
Accepted
How can I hide my bitcoin transactions to protect anonymity from others?
Your address is a classical 1 (Pay-to-public-key-hash) address. Your friend has a newer Bech32 Pay-to-Witness-public-key-hash-type address. The block explorer you referenced is partially compatible ...
- 10.2k
6
votes
Accepted
What is the rationale for the Lightning network's path length limit (20 hops)?
The onion routing in Lightning is based on the Sphinx Mix Format described in this paper. The situation is different from Tor
We don't have entry and exit nodes in Lightning as all nodes are inside ...
- 11.9k
6
votes
Why is it impossible to get a straight answer as to whether Bitcoin is anonymous or not?
Why is it impossible to get a straight answer as to whether Bitcoin is anonymous or not?
Because privacy is not binary in nature. It is not as if there is some moment at which your information flips ...
- 18.3k
5
votes
Accepted
Does Segwit mean easier government monitoring?
No, that's completely wrong. There is absolutely no anonymity benefit to third-party transaction malleability.
Third-party transaction malleability makes use of a symmetry in ECDSA signatures that ...
- 77k
5
votes
Accepted
Would it be possible for miners to discriminate Lightning Network transactions?
The most distinguishing feature of a LN channel-opening transaction would be an OP_OR in the scriptPubKey of the channel-funding UTXO, where one side of the OP_OR requires two signatures, and the ...
- 8,822
5
votes
Accepted
Bitcoin Privacy
Bitcoin does not guarantee privacy. Everyone can see exactly how much Bitcoin is associated with any address. The privacy comes from people using multiple addresses so as to hide how much Bitcoin they ...
- 71.5k
5
votes
What are main advantages of Bitcoin over Monero?
So, what would be the main advantage of Bitcoin over Monero?
Bitcoin is more scalable. Monero inherently requires every full node to maintain an ever-growing database of spent outputs, and is many ...
- 108k
5
votes
Accepted
Is there a way to link a bitcoin user's transaction to entering a lightning network channel?
Is there a way for companies like chainalysis to see if your on the lightning network?
Not really. Funding a channel will look just like sending coins to a P2WSH address. Closing a channel ...
- 71.5k
5
votes
Accepted
How do we know which miner or pool mined a block?
We know which miner/pool mined a block only if that miner/pool chose to identify themselves. Most commonly, they do this by inserting their name or other recognizable signature in the block's ...
- 23.1k
5
votes
How secure is using TOR in Lightning Network?
The paper you link to when used as advice rather than a scholarly investigation into the tradeoffs of different choices is outright bad advice.
The attacks they give are largely generic and have ...
- 7,727
5
votes
Accepted
Securely erase a previously used address from bitcoin-core
No, and in fact, deleting a file is not destructive enough.
File deletion typically does not actually delete the file. Filesystems will just mark a file as deleted and allow it to be overwritten. If ...
- 71.5k
5
votes
Where can I find research on wallet fingerprinting?
Is this the research article you are thinking about? It's blockchain.com wallet fingerprinting mostly on the basis of feerates by 0xB10C.
- 1,709
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible