walletbeat

📨 New wallet attribute: 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗲𝗿𝘀

You wouldn't publish your bank statements online for all to see.
Yet crypto payments today reveal just as much.

Walletbeat now checks if wallets integrate privacy tech for token transfers by default.

Raising the bar.

The only wallets that implement such tech today call themselves "privacy wallets".

But as @vitalik.eth states, you shouldn't have to download a "privacy wallet" to get privacy.

Privacy is a human right.
Privacy is normal.
Privacy should be the default everywhere.

Contributor @ /walletbeat.

Censorship resistance requires privacy.

"Privacy wallets" are not a thing. They are just wallets.

It is the other wallets that are "non-private wallets".

Would you walk around with one of these?

The lack of onchain privacy has hampered mainstream adoption, as it's below even web2 levels.

It is also a physical safety issue. If paying a merchant reveals your balance to them while you're in their store, you're exposing yourself to the perfect setup to get wrench-attacked.

Walletbeat therefore checks not just that you can transfer tokens privately, but that 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝗰𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗮𝘂𝗹𝘁.
As it is for non-crypto payments. And as it ought to be.

Walletbeat currently only looks at ERC-5564 stealth address support.

Future iterations will consider other privacy tech, but here's how the ERC-5564 checks work:

Walletbeat checks if you can privately 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗱, 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝘃𝗲, and 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱 private balances.

For sending, it checks that no one learns who you are or who you are sending to.

Balance lookups are quite difficult to implement in a truly privacy-preserving way for stealth addresses due to metadata privacy.

If you look up all your stealth addresses' balance at once, you may not have published an onchain link between them, but your RPC provider knows it.

Walletbeat also checks that you can safely separate your stealth addresses into separate pools that never mix funds with one another.

Otherwise, you could accidentally create links between your stealth addresses if spending from more than one of them at a time.

Future iterations will consider other privacy tech such as @railgun, @0xbowio, @aztecnetwork, and more.

The goal is to be very inclusive here. Onchain privacy has a long way to go, so tent should be wide.

Same principle: Privately 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗱, 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝘃𝗲, and 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱.

"Why only token transfers? Why not privacy for other types of transactions?"

Small steps. Privacy for plain crypto payments is a clear baseline, and it should be uncontroversially obvious that this level of privacy is necessary.

Once ubiquitous, other transaction types will follow.

This attribute and all others are now visible at https://beta.walletbeat.eth.limo

Yes, it's red everywhere. None of the wallets currently tracked implement private token transfers.

Interested in helping? Join /walletbeat 🫡

Credits to @elistonberg for image generation!

Boosts on X appreciated:
https://x.com/polymutex/status/1928656901601923290

Software developer, crypto tinkerer, buidler with the BuidlGuidl, follower of Jesus

🫡

Privacy is near and dear to my heart, and the one where there's the most work to do in wallet-land.

Glad you are adding this. This is the best way to begin to make privacy an expectation in most wallets.