Storing your own Bitcoin brings many advantages. Your wealth cannot be inflated away, taken from you with arbitrary regulations, or restricted to certain jurisdictions.
However, it is also a responsibility that needs to be taken seriously. Since Bitcoin is not anonymous, can we still protect our privacy?
The best way to do this is to educate yourself. Understanding the tradeoffs of different approaches can significantly reduce your risk and improve your financial freedom.
It is an unfortunate truth that Bitcoin’s inherent privacy guarantees are poor. While the use of Bitcoin itself is pseudonymous, most users buy or sell Bitcoin using an exchange that keeps a record of their identity, along with all deposits and withdrawals.
Further, several common heuristics can be applied to analyze the Bitcoin blockchain and make it possible to determine the ownership of funds.
Craig Raw is the man behind Sparrow, a desktop Bitcoin (BTC) wallet emphasizing security, privacy, and usability. Sparrow does not hide information from you – on the contrary, it attempts to provide as much detail as possible about your transactions and UTXOs, but in a manageable and usable way.
I had the opportunity to meet and sit with Craig Raw backstage at the Guns N’ Bitcoin event in Miami after he spoke about BTC wallet best practices.
“Sparrow is unique in that it contains a fully featured transaction editor that also functions as a blockchain explorer,” Craig told me. “This feature allows editing of all transaction fields and easy inspection of the transaction bytes before broadcasting.”
In my discussion with Craig Raw, we covered everything from Bitcoin’s fungibility problem, whirlpool, and atomic swaps with Monero (XMR), to more broad topics such as privacy and the BTC community.
During our interview, Craig shared some unique insights about mitigation and using CoinJoin and other tools to increase confidentiality with Bitcoin (BTC). We also discussed decentralization, major concerns with Lightning Network, Wasabi wallet failures, and the pros and cons of crypto hardware wallets.
Did you know some Bitcoin companies work with blockchain analysis firms that trace transactions for governments?
Check out the full interview here:
Watch on: Odysee | Rumble | YouTube | BitChute | Vigilante.TV
Sparrow strongly supports privacy and aims to be a wallet that takes users on a journey from using public servers to using cold storage techniques on private servers.
At The Crypto Vigilante (SUBSCRIBE), we have no business relationship with Sparrow Wallet – or any other company or crypto project. I appreciate any effort to help people become more sovereign.
Meanwhile, more people are discovering that anyone who needs strong privacy guarantees should simply use Monero.
Follow me on Twitter @VamosVigilante, and you can follow Craig @CraigRaw.
Download our free Crypto Privacy Guide: https://CryptoVigilante.io/convoy
Don’t get rekt! TCV WORKSHOP: Crypto Basics videos available at TCVworkshop.com
The Crypto Vigilante (SUBSCRIBE) is the premier financial newsletter specializing in crypto-asset markets. Follow TCV on BitChute, Facebook, Flote, Gab, Instagram, Medium, MeWe, Minds, Odysee, Rumble, Streamanity, Substack, TikTok, Twetch, Twitter, Vigilante.tv and YouTube.
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