If it’s true that the mission of Incognito Network is to make privacy easy, then I think @Jaques makes a valid point above.
This project could be misleading folks that are not privacy savvy by giving them a false sense of security.
@Mike_Wagner has laid out some excellent ways that we can use Incognito to protect our privacy by manually adding transaction complexity. But for the average novice user, I do not seem them jumping through all those hoops. There is the risk that might just assume Incognito is safe and private by default.
So, this got me , could this be an opportunity for the Core Dev team to build in to the Incognito app some automation that adds in transaction complexity?
What if there was a process where by complexity (in other words, added privacy) could be “opted-in” by the user.
Users that want more privacy would pay a small additional fee in PRV for having complexity added. This would recoup development costs as more people use the feature it would also provide an easier way for novice privacy users.
Let me explain how this might work, bare with me this is a longish post…
The complexity of the transaction would only be added during the withdrawal of funds out of the Incognito Network as that is when amounts and destination addresses are recorded on the public blockchains (visible by ChainAnalysis software etc)
I envisage adding simple 5 step slider bar on the Withdrawal screen.
On the far left would be
“Low privacy, low complexity, fast transfer”
and on the far right,
“Highest privacy, high complexity, 3 weeks for final deposit”.
EXAMPLE:
Let’s say an Incognito user wishes to withdraw $500 worth of BTC to USDC wallet.
And the user wants Maximum privacy, so they slide the slider to the very far right.
Based on where slider lands, the level of complexity is determined and additional questions appear in the app (these are just my ideas for types of questions to add complexity)
-
Select which coin you want to use for intermediary mixer transaction (default: XMR)
-
Confirm the split amounts (default: 3 payouts 50%, 30% & 20% of total withdrawal amount) this aims to split up transaction into smaller differentiated amounts, however the amounts could be overrided with common denominations E.g. $300 + $150 + $50
-
Enter the 3 destination USDC wallet addresses. As Mike pointed out, it’s best to have different “never used” (virgin) addresses.
Once the above Metadata is entered, a chain of transaction events are created (like a smart contract) that carries out :-
A) mixing from source wallet (BTC) to XMR
B) splits the amount of XMR in to 3 different USDC parcels
C) Sends USDC to the 3 destination addresses on 3 different randomly selected dates within the 3 week period.
Important thing to note. Due to price fluctuations, the incognito app will need to lockup source BTC funds with some additional BTC to allows for price slippage in the price between BTC-XMR-USDC.
Also by locking up the BTC this will prevent the user from over spending BTC.
Once the 3 week period has passed the remaining balance is sent back to the BTC wallet once all transactions are completed successfully.
So, in a nutshell, the level of privacy would be determined by the user and the complexity of the transaction would be created by the Incognito App.
Sorry, I’m not a developer so I’m not sure if this is possible.
What’s are other’s thoughts on this idea? Feel free to add your thoughts and criticisms.
P.S. Thanks @Jared for bringing this post to my attention via a different thread comment that you answered.