> This means any anonymity service requires a large population of participating users, ideally with different adversaries, so that one can’t simply assume all coins passing out of the mixing service are “tainted”<p>This is why something like DarkWallet [1] is so important. We need a wallet that automatically and trustlessly mixes your coins in the background (via CoinJoin [2]), when you're not using them.<p>The wallet needs a very user friendly UI and solid integration to reach a wide and disparate audience. With mass adoption of wallets like these, it will add anonymity for everyone. With very little work on the users end.<p><a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/at/darkwallet" rel="nofollow">http://www.indiegogo.com/at/darkwallet</a><p><a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0" rel="nofollow">https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0</a>
Can anyone explain on a conceptual level how mixing can possibly work? I'm not thinking about implementation details, but more like boot prints in the snow. You can stamp a big mess in the snow, but no matter how much you stamp about, there is still one set of your tracks entering and one set leaving. When all the transactions are clear to see in the blockchain, all the boot prints are right there.
I don't understand the practical need for Bitcoin mixers vs. simply mixing via existing exchanges. If Bitcoin goes into an exchange and Litecoin leaves a week later, nothing in either the Bitcoin or Litecoin blockchain would link the transactions together, especially if the funds are chopped up and sent to multiple wallets so the totals are never comparable. If the worry is that the exchange itself might be subpoenaed, one can just hop through many exchanges in many different countries. It's only necessary that one exchange be opaque for the mix to be secure.