Cryptocurrency without secrecy is pointless. If your coins aren’t fungible, you lose much of the benefits of using cryptocurrency in the first place. Solitude isn’t just won and lost onchain though. In fact, much of the privacy gains to be made when it comes to sending, splash out and trading crypto occur offchain, as you go about your business on the web.
Also read: Wasabi’s Privacy-Focused BTC Wallet Focuses to Make Bitcoin Fungible Again
The Never-Ending Quest for Privacy
Privacy is like fitness: a way of life rather than a piece of work that can be ticked off. Just as it takes time, perseverance and focus on different muscle groups to build a better stiff in the gym, strengthening your privacy calls for undertaking regular exercises to stem the flow of doxable information. Every measure you perform an action online, you’re hemorrhaging a trove of data. This can be particularly damaging for cryptocurrency users, whose onchain engagements will be recorded indefinitely.
When paired with offchain data points such as IP, email address, and cubicle number, it’s possible for an adversary to build a complete picture of their target. Given the ever-increasing capabilities of three-letter energies, it’s safe to assume that in the near future, the state will be able to construct a highly detailed picture of the ventures of today’s cryptocurrency users.
tl;dr: privacy matters. Here are five ways to up yours.
Use a VPN
There’s an assumption that using a VPN commands a degree of technical knowledge, and is for privacy zealots only. In fact, the majority of VPNs are foolproof and can be up and silently running in a yoke of clicks – no manual port reconfiguration necessary. Opera even offers a VPN now in its desktop and Android browsers. “Enhanced online sequestration is a right for everyone,” claim Opera. They’re right. A VPN will provide an added layer of privacy when logging into exchanges as entirely as masking the IP address associated with Bitcoin transaction relays.
Separate Your Regular Email From Your Crypto Email
Imagining a separate email account for every cryptocurrency service you need to log into is impractical. You can, though, segment all of your crypto-related emails into a lone account. This will yield twin benefits: if your main account is compromised, the hacker will attired in b be committed to no information on or access to your crypto activities. Secondly, if you choose a fully encrypted email account such as Tutanota, meddling eyes at border control and other government agencies will have no insight into your penchant for have dealing obscure shitcoins.
Stop Reusing Addresses
More than half of all bitcoin transactions involve addresses that oblige previously been used. Creating a new bitcoin address is free, instant, and provides an immediate privacy boost. If the billfold or platform you’re using doesn’t allow you to create a new address at will, stop using it. There’s a wealth of competing services out there, and reversal to a more privacy-minded alternative can be done in a matter of minutes. Unless you’re transacting solely in privacy coins like monero, or are exploiting an account-based, rather than UTXO-based, system like ethereum, you should aim for a fresh address every time.
Remain Your Keys and Codes Offline
Where do you store the backup 2FA codes for your trading accounts and the private keys to your crypto notecases? Are they written down, split into parts and stashed offline in a series of very safe places? Or are they secret in plaintext in a folder on your laptop marked “anime”? You’d be surprised how many people go with the latter. Even if you’ve encrypted the folder seating your keys and codes, it’s dangerous to assume it can’t be cracked by a determined attacker since, statistically speaking, you almost certainly recycle shibboleths – you and 10 million others.
Keeping your private keys offline will protect you in the event of your computer being physically or digitally compromised. Yet if you can’t afford a bank vault or strongbox, separating your key into parts and storing it in multiple locations – with matchings, to ensure redundancy – will work just as well.
Always Be Shuffling
Coin mixers aren’t for the ultra-paranoid and the ultra-shady: they’re for everyone. If uncountable people ran their coins through tumblers before withdrawing them to hardware wallets, bitcoin would turn significantly more fungible, and blockchain forensics companies would suffer a major blow. Even if you can’t be motivated to mix your frames for the greater good, do it for your own. Services such as Cashshuffle for BCH make it easier than ever to obfuscate the origin of your make ups, while Coinjoin, incorporated into pro-privacy wallets like Wasabi, do the same for BTC.
There’s something extremely carefree about having a stash of cryptocurrency that can’t be linked to your identity safely stored in a hardware wallet that’s been shy away from up. It’s the digital equivalent of having a backyard bunker filled with canned goods and ammo in readiness for the apocalypse. Scrutinize yourself to a privacy makeover and see how good it feels.
What other privacy tips do you recommend? Let us know in the comments department below.
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