Yes, but not as much as you'd hope. It's like having multiple locks on a door - if one fails, the others help but don't eliminate the risk.

Stealth addresses hide WHO you're paying, but if someone can trace your coins through ring analysis, they still know YOUR wallet was involved in the transaction.

RingCT hides HOW MUCH you sent, which is huge for privacy. But again, if they can statistically link your real input through ring patterns, they know you made a transaction of some amount.

The real issue is that ring signature failures can unmask the "which coin was actually spent" part. Once that's blown, stealth addresses and RingCT become less useful because the attacker has a foothold to build a transaction graph.

Think of it this way: rings are supposed to hide you in a crowd of 16 people. If statistical analysis can narrow it down to "probably one of these 3 people," then knowing the recipient address or amount becomes much more dangerous.

The good news? These attacks require serious resources, blockchain analysis expertise, and usually only work on older transactions. Random criminals aren't doing this.

But state actors absolutely are, which is why FCMP++ can't come fast enough.