About Wasabi Wallet
Wasabi Wallet implements trustless CoinJoins over the Tor anonymity network. The CoinJoin coordinator cannot steal from, nor breach the privacy of the participants. Wasabi Wallet is an open source and cross platform Bitcoin wallet with advanced privacy features. The Tor anonymity network is integrated and the wallet cannot be used without it. The wallet implements a trustless Bitcoin mixing technique, called Chaumian CoinJoin and enforces constant 100 anonymity set.
Wasabi Wallet is a Bitcoin (BTC) digital wallet. It allows users to store, manage and monitor their BTC by using the available Windows version of the wallet. Wasabi Wallet supports the BTC, it has trading facilities and the private key is personal, which means that the user is the one who keeps it. The wallet uses a new type of validation, which involves communication with a central server anonymously over Tor AND the Bitcoin P2P network.
Fees
You currently pay a fee of 0.003% * anonymity set. If the anonymity set of a coin is 50 then you pay 0.003% * 50 (=0.15%). If you set the target anonymity set to 53 then Wasabi will continue mixing until this is reached, so you may end up with an anonymity set of say 60, and you will pay 0.003% * 60 (=0.18%).
There are also edge cases where you do not pay the full fee or where you pay more. For example if you’re the smallest registrant to a round, you will never pay a fee. Also when you are remixing and you cannot pay the full fee with your input, then you only pay as much as you have, but if the change amount leftover would be too small, then that is also added to the fee. Currently the minimum change amount to be paid out is 0.7% of the base denomination (~0.1BTC.)
It is also possible that you get more back from mixing than you put in. This happens when network fees go down between the start of the round and its end. In this case, the difference is split between the active outputs of the mix.
Trust Wallet
No, Wasabi’s coinjoin implementation is trustless by design. The participants do not need to trust each other or any third party. Both the sending address (the coinjoin input) and the receiving address (the coinjoin output) are controlled by your own private keys. Wasabi merely coordinates the process of combining the inputs of the participants into one single transaction, but the wallet can neither steal your coins, nor figure out which outputs belong to which inputs.
100% Privacy
No. The worst thing that can happen (through user’s negligence post-mix) is that the level of your privacy stays the same as before coinjoin. It is crucial to understand that Wasabi is not a fool-proof solution if you neglect to practice coin control after the mixing process.
Hardware Wallets
Most hardware wallets communicate with servers to provide you with your balance. This reveals your public key to the server, which damages your privacy – the hardware company can now theoretically link together all your addresses. As a result it is not recommended that you send your mixed coins to an address associated with your hardware wallet unless you are confident that you have set up your hardware wallet in a way that it does not communicate with a 3rd party server (see below).
You can however manage your hardware wallet with the Wasabi interface. Alternatively you can use your hardware wallet with Electrum, which connects to your Bitcoin Core full node through Electrum Personal Server.
Tips for securely storing your Wasabi Wallet
- Do your own research. Before sending any coins or private data to a wallet, make sure you have researched the wallet provider to make sure everything is above board. Keep an eye out for scam wallets, such as those using URLs only slightly different to the URLs of legitimate wallet providers, and check out some independent reviews for all the pros and cons.
- Back it up. Make use of your wallet’s back-up and restore facility so that if something ever goes wrong with your wallet, you’ll be able to recover your funds.
- Set a strong password. Now is not the time to be lazy when creating a password; take your time to create a strong and uncrackable code.
- Make use of all available security features. Make the most of all the security features your wallet offers, such as two-factor authentication or multi-signature transactions. It’ll offer increased protection for your funds and greater peace of mind for you.
- Update your antivirus software. Take care to regularly update the antivirus protection and anti-malware software on any device you will be using to access your wallet.
- Keep your private keys private. Last but not least, don’t underestimate the importance of your private keys. Store them somewhere safe and don’t share them with anyone else.
