If you mix in whirlpool every mix deeper you go increases the obfuscation exponentially so after 5 mixes (each mix is 5 participants) you get 3125 different addresses that could be you. Another mix gets you 5^6 so 15,625. So I’d say the sweet spot for long term storage is over 5 mixes in whirlpool to be sure they’ll never know.
Discussion
that sounds really good
what are the disadvantages one should take into acc whit whirlpool? any valid criticism you know of?
I would use Sparrow wallet on desktop or Mac and connect to a full node that you own to mix with. Sparrow wallet has fantastic whirlpool integration, better than Samourai’s own wallet imo. Make sure to pick the right pool size so you don’t pay too large a fee, there are good guides online that explain how it all works.
https://sparrowwallet.com/docs/mixing-whirlpool.html
Just be aware that fundamentally when you’re mixing in whirlpool it’s a hot wallet because the wallet needs to be able move the bitcoin. You need to leave this computer on all the time and it will just mix for you 24/7. Just explaining what I do. You can tell the mixing wallet in sparrow to automatically withdraw to a public key address you specify after a certain number of mixes so I just see transactions trickle into my cold storage over the weeks/months it takes to mix my bitcoin.
You can password lock the hot wallet too and it will keep mixing and stay connected to your full node so that’s good, password protected hot wallet.
You don’t need to mix a lot of bitcoin either. There is a 100k sat pool, try sending over like 750k sats and if you mix in that pool you’ll end up with 7 100k sat utxos mixing.
This disadvantages of whirlpool are the small round sizes (5 inputs and 5 outputs) and unmixable change. Wasabi coinjoins are more efficient and more private since they have much larger rounds and eliminate the problem of traceable change. Here's a side by side list of features:
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You don’t have to tell me, I’ve used both and I much prefer Whirlpool.
Why do you prefer Whirlpool?
A big factor for me is just understanding the entire model a bit better than I understand Wasabi. I’m going to spend more time with Wasabi this year to try and get a better grasp of it. I like the fee system of whirlpool where you can get increased mix depth for free (just requires waiting longer) but yeah, tbh I should learn more about Wasabi and I will.
If you don’t mix your KYC bitcoin they pretty much always know when you do anything with bitcoin. All the transactions are children of that initial KYC exchange transaction. Do be aware though, when you coinjoin KYC bitcoin they see that you did that. At best they will see you moved your bitcoin and whoever got it then mixed it. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that mixing bitcoin isn’t illegal, it’s actually just the proper way to use bitcoin on chain when you’re dealing with KYC bitcoin.
but the real problem is there is a record that John Stevenson bought 0.02 BTC at $25k on 23rd February 2023, you cant get rid of this