sgp_

We tried a specialized Ethereum smart contract auditing AI tool. It made up a bug and suggested introducing the same critical vulnerability to fix it.

There's a lot more context about what browsers they recommend (and what they recommend them for) on the dedicated page for it: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop-browsers/

The part you quoted was an example of what _not_ to do ("not the time").

Hey, I'm Justin from the 501(c)(3) fiscal host of Privacy Guides, MAGIC Grants. Us board members administer the funds for Privacy Guides, and we are different people than those who are on the Privacy Guides committee.

I assure you that Privacy Guides has not made a deal with Brave or any other of the tools that it recommends on the website. I'm happy to address any other questions about raising funds if you have them.

There are lengthy discussions about whether to recommend a tool or not on the Privacy Guides GitHub and their forum. There is a lot of great context there.

Ironically, not necessarily.

If you sent funds to Coinbase's provided address and they wanted to refuse/refund it for some reason, your new owned output would likely be marked as clean and from Coinbase.

This may vary across circumstances of course. And they may decide to refuse to issue a refund.

It's not comparable though. The simplified (though slightly wrong) way to think about Grin is that its privacy is like Monero but without Monero's ring signatures. Its transaction graph privacy is quite weak.

While the author of this article makes some mistakes, here's an example of that weakness: https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/breaking-mimblewimble-...

Grin developers said in response:

> The Grin team has consistently acknowledged that Grin’s privacy is far from perfect. While transaction linkability is a limitation that we’re looking to mitigate as part of our goal of ever-improving privacy, it does not ‘break’ Mimblewimble nor is it anywhere close to being so fundamental as to render it or Grin’s privacy features useless.

Hiding addresses and amounts is certainly better than Bitcoin, but the transaction graph privacy offered by Grin is significantly weaker than Monero. It's not the same.

About 25,000 transactions per day right now. So about 750,000 per month.

Edit: here's a good comparison chart https://moneroj.net/percentage/

I feel you're deliberately being pedantic. There's nothing legally dictating 1 pound of flour = any other 1 pound, but it is fungible, by the definition of them being indistinguishable.

1 NFT isn't the same as any other NFT. They're deliberately non-fungible.

Specific Bitcoin outputs have histories associated with them. While you dismiss this as related to traceability (which is also true), it still stands that one output with a favorable history is preferable to an output that was known to be mined in North Korea.

For these differences, as evidenced by the specific exchange action examples in the linked article, show that different output histories allow companies like Chainalysis, CipherTrace, TRM Labs, and Elliptic to add specific risk scores to outputs. Those with lower risk scores are worth more than those with higher risk scores. This is a breakdown in fungibility.

This largely is not true. While privacy on LN is still being evaluated, it is also extremely complicated. There's no easy "privacy on LN" guide that's industry standard, for example. Monero comparatively is much older and much better understood on the privacy side (eg: see Breaking Monero).

Largely, no. While the full privacy implications of lightning network use are extremely complicated and still being researched (and the best practices updated with that information), it absolutely is not as simple as open/close channel, done.

> Also, with enough time, all the Bitcoins would be dirty.

This is a misconception. Coins are only associated with the last identified node. So for example if I sent tainted BTC to Coinbase, sure Coinbase would investigate my account obviously. But the coins can be used from then on as "clean" Coinbase coins, until they hit the next identified node by blockchain analysis companies.

I work for Cake Wallet and Monero.com so I'm biased, but you should try one of the wallets that does this relatively burdensome scanning task locally to see that normally it's not the end of the world. It takes me only a few seconds to scan a month of blocks.

Kraken US supports Monero, so clearly it can be done. If another exchange chooses not to, that's a company making their own decision.

Monero is on Kraken US. Coinbase and Gemini, acting as companies choosing to add the coin they're mutually invested in Zcash instead of Monero, is a dumb indicator to use of what's "allowed," especially when there are obvious compliant examples in the US (Kraken, DV Chain, etc).

Don't take my word for it. Read what FinCEN says directly:

https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/FinCEN%20...

Well, you see what FinCEN says about those:

> An anonymizing software provider is not a money transmitter. FinCEN regulations exempt from the definition of money transmitter those persons providing “the delivery, communication, or network access services used by a money transmitter to support money transmission services.” This is because suppliers of tools (communications, hardware, or software) that may be utilized in money transmission, like anonymizing software, are engaged in trade and not money transmission.

In simple terms, the Monero developers are providing software (the Monero network, nodes, and wallet software) that can be used for money transmission, but the developers do not need to register as MSBs unless they also have a side company that conducts money transmission.

Obviously not legal advice, but FinCEN's guidance is quite easy to follow here:

https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/FinCEN%20...

> Providers of anonymizing services, commonly referred to as “mixers” or “tumblers,” are either persons that accept CVCs and retransmit them in a manner designed to prevent others from tracing the transmission back to its source (anonymizing services provider), or suppliers of software a transmittor would use for the same purpose (anonymizing software provider).

> An anonymizing services provider is a money transmitter under FinCEN regulations. The added feature of concealing the source of the transaction does not change that person’s status under the BSA.

> An anonymizing software provider is not a money transmitter. FinCEN regulations exempt from the definition of money transmitter those persons providing “the delivery, communication, or network access services used by a money transmitter to support money transmission services.” This is because suppliers of tools (communications, hardware, or software) that may be utilized in money transmission, like anonymizing software, are engaged in trade and not money transmission.

Another resource: https://www.perkinscoie.com/en/news-insights/anti-money-laun...

There are many ways to account for this in a risk-based approach however. Asking for basic information about a customer's occupation and source of funds (as is common when opening a bank account) can adequately address ML/TF risks. You don't see exchanges freaking out over other higher-risk activities like onboarding PEPs, but they can do this with proper risk controls.

https://www.perkinscoie.com/en/news-insights/anti-money-laun...

Miners are unlikely to be money transmitters under current regulatory guidance since they never "accept" money for transmission. They only verify transactions that they never have custody over.

Creator of the Breaking Monero series and a compliance analyst at a cryptocurrency OTC desk here.

This mixer was penalized for running an unlicensed MSB. This is far more about that then it is about banning privacy technologies generally. For traditional Bitcoin mixers as in this case, someone receives money from users and then transmits money to many users. This is money transmission and requires registration with FinCEN and sometimes requires registration with states (though some states have exemptions for completely crypto to crypto transmission that doesn't touch USD or other fiat).

Mixing in this case is interactive where there is a clear money transmitter. In Monero's case, the ring signature "mixing" (mixing is a terrible/misleading way to refer to ring signatures) is non-interactive, and there is no intermediary (eg: a mixer) acting as a money transmitter. Thus, there is nothing to fear from this specific enforcement action.

I'm happy to answer other questions as well. But for money transmission to occur, an intermediary needs to accept customer funds. For a Monero transfer, there is no intermediary. Someone could build an MSB on Monero itself which would require registration, but using Monero to send funds directly to a merchant for one's own purchase, for example, is not money transmission.

Correct, not as far as I can tell. The methods they describe may be applicable to CoinJoin services (at least the very high-level methods are applicable), but they didn't show any testing with these sort of transactions (unless that's covered by one of the two "Unknown"s, which isn't likely).

Monero has a significantly higher "base level" privacy than other cryptocurrencies, and it's great for many use-cases. However, it still has limitations. You should check out the Breaking Monero series: https://www.monerooutreach.org/breaking-monero/

I work in compliance for an OTC desk that supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, others: https://dvchain.co

We conduct AML on everyone who is onboarded, but we're of the opinion that trades should not be public information.

It's not impossible to use properly, but it requires time and money. Just to enter the Samourai mixing pools, for example, costs ~$5-270, exclusive of Bitcoin miner fees. Mixing can also take days. Mixing may provide the intended effect for some people, but it's certainly not something for non-enthusiasts. Plus, Chainalysis and other companies will just mark the whole mixing pool as higher risk anyway and flag those deposits with exchanges, even if they can't trace it.

Is having your coins flagged by an exchange for using privacy features convenient?

Exactly, people freak out when companies look at public data on an open, permissionless network. What did you expect?

The really short answer is that you should not have an expectation of privacy when sending public transfers. Even in the best case that mixers protect your privacy, your transactions will be flagged by exchanges and services as relating to mixing or another privacy feature. The really only way to have privacy without drawing suspicion is Monero. It sounds like shilling but it's true.

I spoke with Eric a few months ago to help give a few pointers when he was considering the idea for this movie. He saw some of the media surrounding "Monero Means Money," our film that we put together from idea to theaters in a week. I explained how I cold called theaters who were very willing to show unusual movies at this time while they have essentially no revenue.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgewky/how-a-random-guy-m...

For us, getting a movie on the charts was more of a logistics challenge than anything, and I assume it was the same for him. Congrats to Eric and everyone else involved for topping the charts!

This has apparently been in their policy since July 20, 2018: http://web.archive.org/web/20180721081756/http://www.century...

Thanks for being informed about some of the limitations! I highly appreciate having these conversations, and I look forward to working with you to improve Monero.