As you may already know, Wasabi protects your privacy with massive coinjoins that have hundreds of inputs and outputs, all coordinated in a zero-knowledge fashion with all communication going through Tor. But that’s not the only way Wasabi protects your privacy. Version 2.0.4 has introduced a comprehensive set of privacy warnings and suggestions that appear when you send funds.

The privacy Warnings have three levels of severity, and suggestions are actions you can take to keep your privacy intact. 

In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into what each of these warnings and suggestions mean, and how you can leverage them to maximize your privacy when using Wasabi.

Privacy Warnings Explained

Wasabi categorizes its warnings into three levels of severity: Critical, Warning, and Informational. Here are the 6 privacy warnings that Wasabi may give you when you send bitcoin. 

Transaction Interlinks Labels (Critical)

When you use Wasabi, you’ll be prompted to add labels to receiving and to destination addresses. 

When a coin reaches full privacy (anonymity score goal), the label is automatically removed because its traceability is broken. However, if you’re spending non-private or semi-private coins, you’ll be warned about their labels when you send them.  

This is what a warning might look like:

In addition, when you hover over it, a tooltip appears with more information.

 “Those entities know this is your transaction. Coinjoin more or use the label management tool to carefully select who would know that this transaction is yours.“

To resolve this, simply continue coinjoining to achieve full privacy for all your coins. 

Transaction Uses Non-Private Coins (Critical)

This critical warning is raised when your transaction spends coins that have not gone through Wasabi’s coinjoin, meaning they are easily traceable on the blockchain.

“Some entities can deanonymize this transaction because it spends coins with no privacy. Coinjoin more to have enough private coins for this transaction.” – Wasabi’s Tooltip

Transaction Uses Semi-Private Coins (Warning)

While better than non-private coins, this warning indicates that your transaction is spending coins that were part of a coinjoin but have not yet reached Wasabi’s anonymity score target.

“This transaction is not private enough because it spends not fully private coins. Coinjoin more to have enough private coins for this transaction.“

Consolidates Over 10 Coins (Warning)

It’s always better to avoid consolidating any coins, even fully-private ones, as it can only hurt their anonymity score. That said, if you only combine a few mixed coins, you may not reveal your pre-coinjoin transaction history, especially if you have done several re-mixes. 

Wasabi warns you about extreme cases such as consolidating (spending) more than 10 inputs in a single transaction, as this may allow observers to link your transaction history and negate the benefits of coinjoin mixing.

Transaction Uses Unconfirmed Funds (Info)

This warning appears when you attempt to spend coins that have not yet been confirmed on the blockchain, which carries many risks.

“This may cause your transaction to be rejected, or delay its confirmation, or cost more than needed to get it confirmed within the desired time. Wait for a confirmation to only use confirmed coins.“

Transaction Uses CoinJoining Funds (Info)

If your funds are currently part of a coinjoin, it’s better to be patient and to wait for it to complete before sending funds. 

“This may cause your transaction to be replaced by the coinjoin. Consider waiting for the current coinjoin to be finished before sending this transaction.” />

Transaction Creates Change (Info)

Creating change outputs in a transaction can potentially compromise your future privacy, although the impact isn’t immediate.

“Change can be used to link this transaction with the next transaction that will use it. Use the change avoidance suggestion to send a little more or less if this is OK for the receiver, or coinjoin the change later.”

This brings us to the next part, Wasabi’s Privacy Suggestions. 

Improve your Privacy with Wasabi’s Suggestions

In addition to warnings, Wasabi provides suggestions to help you make your transactions more private. Suggestions appear when there is room for improvement, such as when sending 10% less would avoid creating change. 

Everyone’s favorite part is that suggestions are clickable, they’re easy to implement. Let’s take a look.  

Better Privacy

If sending a little less would avoid using non-private coins, this suggestion will appear. 

Full Privacy

If sending a little less would avoid using non-private and semi-private coins, this suggestion will appear. 

Change Avoidance

Change avoidance works both ways, you can either send less or send more to avoid creating change.

Label Management

When you have interlinked labels, you’ll be able to choose the labels you want to link with this transaction. 

Conclusion

As you can see, Wasabi’s warnings and suggestions provide a wealth of information to help you create truly private bitcoin transactions. 

Pay close attention to the critical and important warnings, as they indicate potential privacy risks, and easily resolve privacy warnings by clicking on the suggestions. 

Download Wasabi Wallet.