David A. Harding on Nostr: I disagree about there not being any privacy benefit. Every Wasabi instance that's ...
I disagree about there not being any privacy benefit. Every Wasabi instance that's paired with a local node performs exactly the same non-coinjoin/non-broadcasting network operations, making it impossible to use network activity to determine which instance received which transaction outputs. (This is called information theoretic perfect privacy.)
Wasabi instances that use BIP157/8 compact block filters each perform different network operations depending on their transaction history. These operations are performed over Tor, with Wasabi frequently rotating network identities, which defeats simple attacks---but is still far from perfect. If the threat model includes global passive surveillance, record-now-decrypt-when-post-quantum surveillance, crypto or protocol vulnerabilities in Tor or Wasabi, or other threats, then it may be possible to identify the IP address of a wallet controlling a certain address.
More importantly "it only saves a bit of bandwidth and storage" ignores what is, to me, the primary benefit of running a full node: the assurance that the bitcoins you receive have all the characteristics necessary to make them easy to sell in the future, specifically that every previous transfer of those bitcoins was valid according to the consensus rules and that all of those transfers are documented on the block chain currently known to have the most proof of work.
Wasabi instances that use BIP157/8 compact block filters each perform different network operations depending on their transaction history. These operations are performed over Tor, with Wasabi frequently rotating network identities, which defeats simple attacks---but is still far from perfect. If the threat model includes global passive surveillance, record-now-decrypt-when-post-quantum surveillance, crypto or protocol vulnerabilities in Tor or Wasabi, or other threats, then it may be possible to identify the IP address of a wallet controlling a certain address.
More importantly "it only saves a bit of bandwidth and storage" ignores what is, to me, the primary benefit of running a full node: the assurance that the bitcoins you receive have all the characteristics necessary to make them easy to sell in the future, specifically that every previous transfer of those bitcoins was valid according to the consensus rules and that all of those transfers are documented on the block chain currently known to have the most proof of work.