No crypto for criminals: Coinjoin BTC mixing tool to block illicit transactions
CoinJoin, a popular Bitcoin (BTC) mixing tool, will block transactions associated or flagged as illegal. The announcement came from the official Wasabi Wallet Twitter account, which Coinjoin is a part of.
The zkSNACKs coordinator will start refusing certain UTXOs from registering to coinjoins. pic.twitter.com/X3kBuQwieO
The official announcement noted that CoinJoin services would start blocking certain unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) from registering with the CoinJoin with the help of the zkSNACKs coordinator. A zkSNACKs coordinator is a virtual machine used to mix the origin of the transitions.
Privacy-focused mixing tools are primarily used to obscure the origin of the transactions and are often seen as a medium to wash illicit funds. However, blockchain being a public ledger as well as, with several forensic tools developed by the likes of Chainalysis, money laundering via mixing tools has become quite difficult over the past few years.
The latest announcement from the firm had riled up many privacy advocates who accused the privacy-focused wallet of bowing down to law enforcement. However, a Wasabi developer who goes by the Twitter name of Rafe explained that they haven’t compromised on their core values, but have to adhere to certain benchmarks.
No one has infiltrated Wasabi, since we wouldn't be having this conversation if that were the case.There's no need to spy when banning inputs.Many would be happy to sink with the ship when needed. Is it better to have no zkSNACKs coordinator or to keep it running for majority?
Related: What are Bitcoin mixers, and why do exchanges ban them?
Rafe also pointed out that the blocking of UTXOs is limited to the ZkSNACKs coordinator and people using any other coordinator can still
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