Author: nopara73 2020-06-10 12:32:05
Published on: 2020-06-10T12:32:05+00:00
The desire for privacy is explicitly signalled by CoinJoins, making them suspicious to adversaries. PayJoin and CoinSwap, on the other hand, are unnoticeable and thus solve this problem. However, this logic does not stand up to scrutiny. There are three kinds of coin histories: clean, dirty, and suspicious; using a dirty or suspicious coin can result in unwanted attention. If starting with a clean history, using CoinJoins makes the new coin's history suspicious, meaning there is no incentive to use it. By using CoinSwap/PayJoin, the new coin can be either clean or dirty, but this still presents risks. If starting with a dirty history, CoinJoins become more appealing, as they make the new coin's history suspicious. Again, however, using CoinSwap/PayJoin presents risks, as one may get blamed for a dirty coin that they have nothing to do with. Full adoption of any of these techniques solves the tainting issue, but PJ/CS does not ultimately solve the problem. The goal of unobservable privacy may be a fallacy, and a protocol change or social change (decent adoption) may be necessary to solve the taint issue.
Updated on: 2023-05-20T23:24:05.605819+00:00