🔒 Bitcoin Privacy Guide

Coin mixing (also called tumbling) is a technique to break the traceability of Bitcoin transactions by combining your coins with those of other users. After mixing, the connection between your input address and output address is obscured on the blockchain. Popular mixing implementations include Wasabi Wallet (built-in CoinJoin), JoinMarket (decentralized mixing), and Whirlpool (Samourai Wallet). Always use mixing before depositing BTC to a darknet market.

For Bitcoin privacy, use an HD (Hierarchical Deterministic) wallet that generates a new address for each transaction — this prevents address reuse. Electrum is recommended for desktop use. Configure Electrum to connect through Tor (Settings → Network → Proxy → SOCKS5 localhost:9050). For maximum privacy, run your own Electrum server connected to your own full Bitcoin node. Avoid web wallets and custodial services that can see your transaction history.

CoinJoin is a specific coin-mixing protocol where multiple users combine their transaction inputs and outputs in a single Bitcoin transaction, making it cryptographically difficult to determine which input belongs to which output. Wasabi Wallet implements automatic CoinJoin with a minimum of 150 anonymity set. JoinMarket allows you to act as a maker (earn fees) or taker (pay fees for mixing). Run multiple rounds of CoinJoin for stronger privacy guarantees.