Anonymous bitcoin wallets typically combine two security measures: never use bitcoin address more than once, and hide an IP address by routing transactions through VPN or Tor network. Let us look at the best anonymous bitcoin wallets you can get.
Unfortunately, bitcoin is not anonymous. The bitcoin’s public ledger, known as the blockchain, stores information about every bitcoin transaction. Even though the blockchain does not store names, e-mail addresses, or other personal information, every bitcoin can be traced back to your wallet. And, if the bitcoin address is ever linked to your real-world identity, all the past bitcoin transactions could be traced back to you.
To protect your privacy, you should buy and use bitcoin anonymously.
Use bitcoin anonymously
Never re-use the bitcoin address since it allows other users to see how much funds you have received. Instead, use a new receiving address for each bitcoin transaction.
When making bitcoin transactions, conceal your IP address. You can use a VPN service or utilize a dedicated privacy operating system Tails, that routes your entire traffic through the Tor network.
Anonymous bitcoin wallets
Anonymous bitcoin wallet typically combines both security measures named above: no address re-use and concealing of an IP address. Some anonymous bitcoin wallets go even further with features such as bitcoin mixing, hidden wallets, or an emergency PIN to wipe all user data.
There are dozens of anonymous bitcoin wallets—both installable and web-based. In this article, we’ll mention only the most popular installable ones. Let’s get started.
Your existing wallet
If you are looking for anonymity but want to keep your existing wallet, then we recommend you use Whir. Whir lets you send bitcoin anonymously without installing and using a third party bitcoin wallets. Simply, go to whir.to and enter recipient address and amount. The bitcoin you send from your wallet to the recipient will be delivered privately.
Electrum on Tails operating system
Electrum is one of the earliest and most trusted bitcoin wallets, first released in 2011. It is an open-source bitcoin wallet distributed under the terms of the MIT license.
Tails is a dedicated privacy operating system that routes all of its incoming and outgoing traffic through the anonymous Tor network.
By itself, Electrum is not an anonymous bitcoin wallet. However, when used through the Tails, Electrum becomes an entirely private bitcoin wallet.
As far as its features go, Electrum is a pretty lightweight bitcoin wallet. It does not have any special security features other crypto wallets have. However, you don’t need these. Electrum on Tails does all you need. It provides you with the seed, takes no personal information, and executes all bitcoin transactions through the Tor network.
Electrum supports cold storage, hardware bitcoin wallets such as Ledger or Trezor, and multi-signature features.
Electrum is available for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and Android. However, if you want to protect your privacy, use Electrum with Tails OS exclusively.
Wasabi Wallet
Wasabi Wallet is a relatively new, anonymous bitcoin wallet introduced in 2018. Wasabi Wallet is an open-source, privacy-focused bitcoin wallet with an integrated coin-shuffling.
Wasabi Wallet uses CoinJoin—a mechanism by which multiple participants combine their coins into one large transaction with multiple inputs and outputs. An observer cannot determine which output belongs to which input, and neither can the participants themselves. This makes it difficult to trace where a particular coin originated and where it was sent.
In simple terms, CoinJoin means: “when you want to make a transaction, find someone else who also wants to make a transaction and make a joint transaction together.”
To increase privacy, Wasabi Wallet routes all of its transactions through the Tor network by default.
Wasabi Wallet is available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Unfortunately, there is no Android or iOS version available.
Samourai Wallet
Samourai Wallet is an open-source, anonymous bitcoin wallet released in 2016. As stated on Samourai’s website, it keeps your transactions private, your identity masked, and your funds secure.
Samourai Wallet makes sure you that never re-use the same bitcoin address. Additionally, it routes all transactions through the Tor network or an anonymous VPN, concealing your IP address.
Samourai Wallet uses Stonewall protection that makes it more difficult for outside parties to trace your transactions. A recently released bitcoin mixing feature based on CoinJoin is also available for beta testing.
When sending funds to a third party exchange or service such as Coinbase, Gemini, ShapeShift, or Localbitcoins, you can use a handy feature called Ricochet. This feature adds extra hops of history to your transaction, reducing the risk of unjustified account closure by these services.
An optional feature lets you remotely wipe or recover your wallet over SMS in case of a lost or stolen device.
The only disadvantage of the Wasabi Wallet is its limited availability for Android devices only.
Best anonymous bitcoin wallet
So, what is the best bitcoin wallet for darknet?
If you’re looking for the most anonymous wallet and don’t have difficulties to install a new operating system, use Electrum with Tails OS. It’s not the most comfortable option, but the most secure one.
If you’re not a tech-savvy person, then you might try either the Wasabi and Samourai wallets that are easy to install and offer a host of handy features.
However, if you don’t want to change your existing wallet and need privacy when sending bitcoin, then use Whir.
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