Until Bitcoin improves its privacy-preserving techniques via Bitcoin Improvement Proposals or Layer-2 solutions, Wasabi is on the bleeding-edge when it comes to eliminating as many privacy-leaking loopholes that exist in a user’s interaction with the Bitcoin network as possible.



Today it achieves that using features such as address labeling, integrated-Tor, in-built CoinJoins, and such. Tomorrow it could be different — for instance, if Bitcoin implements something like the MimbleWimble protocol down the lane, most of the features that exist in Wasabi today would be useless, and for good.

However, if privacy is a fundamental human right, why isn’t every Bitcoin user using Wasabi right now?

That comes down to the users of Wasabi. As with every technology, the first set of users who adopt it are those who desperately need it. With Wasabi, the first set of users who require such strong privacy-oriented features are those who desperately need to anonymize their footprint on the Bitcoin network (similar to why one of the first user-base on Tor network came for illegal pornography and the Silk Road market).

The second user-base of Wasabi is comprised of people who really care about their privacy and don’t necessarily have “something to hide”. However, this subset of users is technologically literate enough to understand two things in-depth — #1 the need for digital privacy, and #2 privacy shortcomings of the Bitcoin network. As you might have guessed, this subset is really small.



That said, I firmly believe that now is the time to bring the third set of users to Wasabi, which is by far the largest and the most important — the average Bitcoin user, because for the Bitcoin network to truly succeed in its original intention of being “a peer-to-peer electronic CASH system” — as Satoshi titled the Bitcoin whitepaper — privacy-by-default is the only way forward.

And thus, Wasabi as the de-facto Bitcoin wallet, instead of the most private wallet for Bitcoin geeks, has a much brighter future not just for itself, but for the humanity (or at least the crypto-humanity).

So how do we get there?

One can argue that the way to get there would be through education and awareness, shifting the people from the third-set (the average Bitcoin user) to the second-set (those who understand the need of digital privacy and privacy-shortcomings of the Bitcoin network). I don’t disagree with that, and in-fact initiatives such as Wasabi’s new documentation are already doing a stellar job at it!

While the argument itself is correct, education tends to work only if there’s enough curiosity in the subject on an individual level (unless its enforced education like in schools). That’s why your dad is not interested to learn the benefits of using a VPN, and happily uses unencrypted chat applications.

Education alone is not enough.

I believe that confidence in using the Wasabi Wallet application, achieved via user-centric experience design, is the key to bring the third-set of Bitcoin users to Wasabi.