Oddbean new post about login | logout How does the swap leak privacy? There is literally no way for any third party looking at the chain to know Bitcoin moving from address A to address B was actually a swap for Monero. Impossible lol? Seems like you have never done it or don't know how because it is easy as shit. There are always users on either side of the trade. I just showed you several ways to go XMR <-> Bitcoin/crypto or XMR <-> fiat p2p. I can hand hold you thru the process if you really want. Yea, you can use fiat cash locally if you want and it is useful. But you can't use fiat cash digitally. And digital fiat, crypto, and Bitcoin aren't private. Monero is essentially the only thing that is digital and gives you strong privacy without compromising sovereignty.
When you swap bitcoin for monero, you have to send the bitcoin to an address on chain. That address is not going to look like a traditional bitcoin address (e.g. starts with bc1), so on chain it can be identified as a swap. Correct me if I’m wrong on that. But that’s what I mean about leaking privacy. If I own the bitcoin and Feds know I own it, they can reasonably assume that I swapped into monero. So even if I use bitcoin as savings and monero for spending, I still need to practice good privacy in Bitcoin. Plus I don’t know any online businesses that accept monero.
That's not so. It's literally just Bitcoin moving from [address A] to [address B] like any other Bitcoin transaction you see on chain. Impossible to know from someone observing the chain that it was actually a swap for Monero. How would the feds know you swapped your Bitcoin to Monero or vice versa? It would literally look the exact same way as above if they were monitoring the chain. They have no insight into the other side of the swap or why it is moving. Unless your peer doing the swap with you was a fed? Then ok, yes, but that's different. And if you were going from BTC -> XMR in that case it wouldn't matter to some extent if they were a fed because they couldn't trace the XMR they gave you. Thanks to stealth addresses they would have no clue where it really went. I'm just trying to give you the correct info. From there you can decide whatever you want to do. Use monero or don't use it. Up to you. Scroll down to "⭐WHERE CAN I SPEND MONERO?" Monerica directory has many options especially: https://pb.envs.net/?8c6e45d76a233681#GRCjqnVXPVMqzbZB9xjMAMTaMCrNGNRF5pYCKojtffjm
My understanding is that swap addresses look different from btc addresses. Since a swap has a function it has to complete and not just hold bitcoin. So swapping into monero would be somewhat identifiable on chain. What happens after that may be private but that seems very similar to liquid.
Ok, so if I'm trading you p2p on something like AgoraDesk or Bisq there isn't a special address on Bitcoin that is only used specifically for swaps, so I'm not really sure what you mean. It's just me sending Bitcoin from my bc1 address to your bc1 address. Many even offer PGP to communicate so AgoraDesk has no clue on any details about the txn, unless a dispute arises you can reveal your conversation, but that is very rare. I've never had to do that and been using both for years. Even for atomic swaps, AFAIK, they might have metadata like a hash or something that might stand out more from average txns, but there is nothing that would tell you it was specifically for a Monero swap or a swap at all. I know specifically for BasicSwapDEX they go a step further and use adaptor signatures and Scriptless Scripts that work off-chain to hide what little there metadata there even is, but I can't tell you the specific details on how it works off the top of my head. Liquid only hides amounts. It's still traceable because senders and receivers aren't hidden. Custodial too. https://tlu.tarilabs.com/cryptography/introduction-to-scriptless-scripts