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. Coinjoin allows 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.

Coinjoin 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 contact zkSNACKs at [email protected]. 

The post Announcing Private Bitcoin for Enterprises with a New Coinjoin API 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.

Merchants can now reclaim their privacy while managing their BTCPay Server stores the same way they did before. Any BTCPay Server merchant can activate the optional coinjoin plugin instantly for their stores. BTCPay Server stores that activate the coinjoin plugin will be able to automatically coinjoin all the bitcoin they receive. This protects the privacy of all their incoming and outgoing transactions by preventing sensitive information about their store’s payment history from leaking to unconcerned parties.

In addition to auto-coinjoin, the BTCPay Server plugin also offers an unprecedented payment batching in coinjoin feature. Utilizing BTCPay Server’s scheduled payouts, users are able to pay addresses directly within a coinjoin transaction, which saves block space and provides greater privacy compared to making a payment in two steps.

Also included is a detailed coin selection interface allowing merchants to spend their coins based on their gained anonymity scores. In addition to the default zkSNACKs coordinator server, merchants are able to discover alternative coinjoin coordination servers via the Nostr protocol and can easily run their own coinjoin coordination servers. Adding coinjoin in a BTCPay Server store only requires users to activate the option in plug-in settings and restart the server for new settings to apply.

By using Wasabi Wallet’s WabiSabi coinjoin coordination protocol, merchants can perform arbitrary amount coinjoins rather than fixed denomination coinjoins as required by other protocols. This greatly reduces the amount of non-private change users receive and also makes payments inside the coinjoin possible.

Protecting Customer Information, Company Funds, and Employee Salaries

Even with sovereign payment processing platforms such as BTCPay Server, privacy is hard to protect on Bitcoin. A BTCPay Server merchant earning bitcoin for their products and services should not have their transactions tracked. And yet today, merchants from all around the world unwillingly, and sometimes unknowingly, leak personal and commercial information via their bitcoin transactions. Up until now, merchants living on a bitcoin standard have had most of their business activities monitored by many parties such as clients, suppliers, or employees. This is a known issue inherent in the open design of the Bitcoin network and requires new technology to be mitigated.  

When a merchant consolidates bitcoin UTXOs from their store to optimize for network fees, all the wallet history gets leaked on the blockchain, allowing anyone who transacted with them to learn about payments made by other customers. The store’s transaction volume, total available balance, and customer base can be unwillingly leaked. This is unacceptable and is not something that merchants should be concerned about. Unfortunately, UTXO consolidation at the cost of privacy remains a common practice for many merchants processing high volumes of transactions. A merchant has only so many things they can focus on to deliver great products and services to their clients, and a lack of financial privacy should not be one of them.

“BTCPay Server is the most sophisticated merchant payment processing software for bitcoin. It only made sense that it would include an optional coinjoin plugin with the most sophisticated privacy-enhancing tool for Bitcoin. As a coinjoin protocol, WabiSabi has been designed with merchants in mind, enabling payments inside coinjoin and optimizing block space usage to save on fees.” – Max Hillebrand, Wasabi Wallet Contributor & CEO at zkSNACKs

BTCPay Server merchants can access a comprehensive dashboard to assess the level of privacy of their wallets, the details on the current coinjoin transaction they are participating in, and gain additional insights and control with coin selection in and out of coinjoin transactions.

Enabling New Coinjoin Coordinators

All BTCPay Server merchants can now benefit from powerful privacy tools straight from their store. BTCPay merchants can choose to coinjoin for a fee with a highly liquid coordinator provided by zkSNACKs, the company behind the privacy wallet, Wasabi Wallet. On top of that, all BTCPay Server admins can spin up their own coinjoin coordinators using their own terms, built upon Wasabi Wallet’s robust WabiSabi coinjoin protocol. They can then advertise this coordinator via the Nostr protocol. This can create a new free market of coinjoin coordinators with different policies and fees, opening up a wide array of choices for all merchants.

If users choose to run their own coordinator, the BTCPay Server Plugin offers an optional revenue sharing feature that by default donates a percentage of proceeds to the HRF and OpenSats foundation to further Bitcoin development. In addition, the plugin allows users to participate in different coinjoin rounds across multiple coordinators at the same time.

“BTCPay Server was created to empower individuals and businesses to regain their financial sovereignty. The Wasabi Wallet team and I are proud to offer even more privacy protection with this new coinjoin feature. I believe that financial privacy is a fundamental human right, this feature is my contribution to that cause.” ~ Kukks, Contributor at BTCPayServer and developer of the BTCPay Coinjoin Plugin.

For any questions about the BTCPay Coinjoin plugin, please contact https://chat.btcpayserver.org

About BTCPay Server

BTCPay Server is an open-source bitcoin payment processor that is censorship-resistant, free to use and self-hosted, which drastically improves payment processing for global merchants in all parts of the world. Features already include automatically generating unique addresses for each new payment, custom address labeling, invoicing, and advanced wallet management options such as coin control. More information here.

About WabiSabi

WabiSabi is an anonymous credential scheme for centrally coordinated coinjoin transactions. It utilizes keyed-verification anonymous credentials, homomorphic value commitments, and zero knowledge proofs to achieve privacy and flexibility. WabiSabi allows users to utilize arbitrary amount coinjoins rather than fixed denomination coinjoins and reduces the amount of non-private change produced in other coinjoin transactions. More information here.

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 to enable cash-like privacy features for bitcoin. More information here.  

The post BTCPay Server Adding Coinjoin Plugin for All Merchants appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.