Diego Salazar & Luke Szramowski are working to build Cypher Space: a privacy & sovereignty company. In this episode, they compare + rate the privacy of Bitcoin, Monero, Zcash, Firo, Mimble Wimble (Litecoin, Grin), Zano & Beam.

Time stamps:

(00:00:59) Introducing Diego Salazar & Luke Szramowski

(00:02:04) Tribalism and Privacy Protocols in Crypto

(00:03:55) Why Privacy Matters & Personal Motivations

(00:04:58) Diego’s Background and Cypher Stack

(00:06:58) Luke’s Background and Mathematical Perspective

(00:08:40) CoinJoin and the Limits of Bitcoin Privacy

(00:09:10) Threat Models and Privacy Tool Selection

(00:12:22) CoinJoin’s Effectiveness and Metadata Attacks

(00:14:18) Comparing CoinJoin to Tor/VPN Usage

(00:17:26) Overconfidence and Under-Researched Privacy Claims

(00:19:52) Levels of Privacy and User Education

(00:24:31) Defining Adversaries in Privacy Research

(00:26:10) CoinJoin’s Real-World Threats and Research Gaps

(00:27:17) Social Media, Nuance, and Privacy Debates

(00:29:11) CoinJoin as “Add-On” Privacy and Side-Channel Attacks

(00:31:46) Underestimating Adversaries and Attack Tools

(00:38:37) Sponsor Plugs and Criteria for Privacy Evaluation

(00:42:47) Scoring CoinJoin on Privacy Criteria

(00:51:09) WabiSabi and Wasabi Wallet Improvements

(00:59:29) Other Bitcoin Privacy Tools: BIP47 & Silent Payments

(01:06:19) Human Error and Privacy Tool Usability

(01:08:51) The Limits of Privacy Ratings and the Need for Nuance

(01:12:19) Tribalism, Community Research, and Productive Debate

(01:15:33) Non-Interactive Proofs and Security Assumptions

(01:16:27) Bitcoin Maximalism and the Limits of Debate

(01:17:34) Academic Rigor and the Need for More Research

(01:20:01) Bitcoin’s Privacy Risks if Mainstream Adoption Happens

(01:21:44) The State of Bitcoin Privacy Research and Funding

(01:34:03) Bitcoin’s Missed Privacy Opportunities

(01:37:14) Monero’s History and Privacy Technologies

(01:41:03) Monero’s Anonymity Set and Privacy Trade-Offs

(01:46:52) Monero’s Current Weaknesses and Upcoming FCMP

(01:55:24) Monero’s Privacy Scores and Scalability

(02:27:50) Zcash: History, Community, and Technology

(03:00:29) Zcash’s Privacy Model and Accumulator Approach

(03:05:56) Zero-Knowledge Proofs Explained

(03:20:08) Zcash’s Privacy Scores and Tachyon Scalability

(03:35:12) Firo (formerly Zcoin) and Spark Protocol

(03:44:45) Firo’s Privacy Scores and Future Upgrades

(03:52:06) Litecoin MWEB and Mimblewimble

(04:01:32) MWEB Privacy Scores and Limitations

(04:07:03) Other Privacy Projects: Zano, Beam, Salvium

(04:10:02) Toxicity, Community, and the Human Element

(04:17:00) Philosophy of Privacy and Human Nature

(04:24:28) Fungibility, Bitcoin, and Social Realities

(04:44:15) Summary and Chart of Privacy Scores

(04:57:52) Resources for Privacy Research and Final Thoughts