In response to a recent observation that raised privacy concerns, Mishaboar, a vocal member of the Dogecoin community, echoed the principles laid out by Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin.
In response to a recent observation that raised privacy concerns, Mishaboar, a vocal member of the Dogecoin community, echoed the principles laid out by Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin.
As described in the original white paper published in 2008, Satoshi envisioned privacy, which relates to the idea of decentralization.
While the Bitcoin blockchain is transparent, Satoshi recognized the need for privacy and suggested that users could maintain anonymity by keeping their public keys secret.
Satoshi wrote that the traditional banking model achieves a level of privacy by limiting access to information to the parties involved and the trusted third party.
The opposite is true on the Bitcoin network, where all transactions are publicly announced; However, Satoshi maintains that privacy can still be maintained by disrupting the flow of information elsewhere: by keeping public keys anonymous. The public can see that someone is sending an amount to another person, but there is no information linking the transaction to anyone.
Satoshi proposes that, as an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each transaction to prevent them from being linked to a common owner.
What happened
In a recent cheep, Dogecoin community member Mishaboar draws the community’s attention to something obvious but often overlooked: self-custody equals privacy. He stated that most blockchains, including Bitcoin and Dogecoin, are completely transparent, with a public ledger open to all, allowing anyone to view and track transactions.
Mishaboar explained that in the original Bitcoin whitepaper, Satoshi Nakamoto suggested ways to protect privacy, including preventing address reuse. However, this requires wallet apps to be developed with this in mind.
Vocal Dogecoin community member cited one example: privacy-oriented wallets discourage users from reusing addresses and incorporate easy-to-use coin control features. However, this does not seem to be the case, as many wallet apps still push users towards using a single address.
