Cashfusion Far More Practical Than Other Coinjoin Protocols, Says Data Analyst
On January 29, data analyst James Waugh decided to test and see if the Cashfusion protocol was really anonymous. After testing Cashfusion, Waugh explained he sifted through a number of transaction inputs and outputs and realized that it’s “not possible to establish a concrete link” between them.
Also read: How to Obscure Bitcoin Cash Transaction Data by Leveraging Cashfusion Cashfusion Tests Prove the Protocol’s Anonymity Set Is Greater Than Traditional Coinjoin Transactions
This week Bitcoin Cash supporters were pleased to see that Cashfusion passed rigorous testing when data analyst James Waugh decided to comb through a slew of Cashfusion transaction inputs and outputs. Following the experimentation, Waugh wrote a blog post on Medium called “Is Cashfusion Really Anonymous?” “A newer Coinjoin protocol called Cashfusion doesn’t enforce the requirement of equal payment amounts and instead purports anonymity due to the high number of participants in a transaction,” Waugh said. The data analyst decided to see if the Cashfusion developers’ claims were true. He added: Some [individuals] in the cryptocurrency community are skeptical of these claims. I set out to try to crack Cashfusion by linking inputs and outputs together and then proving that they had to be the true transaction.
Cashfusion is an extension of the Cashshuffle mixing application that launched last year and the protocol improves upon Cashshuffle by allowing people to fuse coins without the requirement of equal payment amounts. Cashfusion is getting lots of attention from BCH users. The privacy enhancing protocol was cast into the limelight even more so after the Wasabi wallet creator complimented the concept.
Bitcoin Magazine’s technical writer Aaron van Wirdum wrote an editorial about the subject as well. When Waugh tested Cashfusion, he leveraged an integer programming solver to try and find some matches. “After repeating this process for all the inputs and outputs in the original candidate match above, we find that there is no way for us to know if the candidate match we found is the true transaction,” the analyst stressed. Waugh added: It’s not possible to establish a concrete link between these inputs and outputs since it’s more likely that these inputs & outputs are linked by pure coincidence than it is that they are verifiably linked by their payment amounts. A candidate matched set of transaction inputs and outputs shown in Waugh’s Cashfusion review. An Indication That the Cashfusion Developers’ Claims Are True
Waugh then asked himself if other matched subsets can be verified as the true payments and explained the answer is “no.” “I have repeated this process across thousands of matched subsets, none can be mathematically proven to be the true transactions,” Waugh remarked. “So to sum up (excuse the pun), we have somewhat verified the Cashfusion’s developers’ claims that even if someone could link inputs and outputs such that they balance, due to the high number of inputs and outputs it’s impossible to determine the true way that inputs and outputs truly relate (since there are multiple possible combinations of ways of getting the inputs and outputs to balance),” Waugh concluded. Imagine dedicating a lot of effort to break #CashFusion and then remember that, with #Schnorr signatures, you can have multiple parties involved in each input.
If #CashFusion gains traction that"s a possibility that cannot be ignored.
— Cláudio Gil (@m4ktub2) January 30, 2020
The analyst further stated that the testing results were “encouraging for Cashfusion users” and emphasized that “Cashfusion is far more practical than other Coinjoin protocols that require users to send equal transaction amounts.” The news follows the recent 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5) and FATF guidelines that are being enforced this year throughout the U.S. and across Europe.
Because of the regulatory climate, cryptocurrency exchanges in these regions have ramped up identification and KYC processes. Moreover, the testing results also follow the recent Paxos Global customer ‘Ronaldmchodled’ tweeting about the exchange giving him issues because they thought he was sending to a mixing service. Despite exchanges like Binance and Paxos discouraging crypto mixing, protocols like Cashfusion are improving crypto privacy a great deal.
What do you think about data analyst James Waugh’s review of Cashfusion? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, bitcoin mixing wallets or companies. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the mentioned software. The Cashfusion software mentioned in the article above is in its alpha stage.Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Cashfusion, Twitter, James Waugh, Pixabay, Fair Use, and Wiki Commons.
Did you know you can buy and sell BCH privately using our noncustodial, peer-to-peer Local Bitcoin Cash trading platform? The local.Bitcoin.commarketplace has thousands of participants from all around the world trading BCH right now. And if you need a bitcoin wallet to securely store your coins, you can download one from us here. Share this story: Tags in this story 5AMLD, Anonymity, BCH, BCH Privacy, Bitcoin, bitcoin cash, bitcoin privacy, Blog Post, BTC, Cashfusion, Cashfusion Developers, Cashshuffle, CF, CoinJoin, Cryptocurrency, Data Analyst, Equal Amounts, expirement, fatf, Fusing, Fusing Transactions, Governments, James Waugh, Non equal amounts, Privacy, Research, Testing, Wasabi Developer Related Another Crypto Exchange Discourages the Use of Bitcoin Mixing Services PRIVACY | Jamie Redman
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Jamie Redman is a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open source code, and decentralized applications. Redman has written thousands of articles for news.Bitcoin.com about the disruptive protocols emerging today. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.