Bitcoin with illegal roots to be flagged and blacklisted by Wasabi Wallet

Bitcoin has been known to be used for illegal means on many occasions and this has been a major concern for regulatory authorities in recent years. It is important to note the United States President Joe Biden has partnered with leaders from over 30 nations to bring down the illicit use of cryptocurrencies. 

In such a time, CoinJoin, a popular Bitcoin (BTC) mixing tool, revealed that it will block any and all transactions related to illicit use of BTC. Moreover, the announcement came from the official Wasabi Wallet Twitter which is a part of CoinJoin tool. 

Putting an halt to illicit use of Bitcoin

The illicit use of Bitcoin has troubled governments around the world and as per the official Twitter account of Wasabi Wallet, CoinJoin will start putting a halt to certain unspent transaction outputs or (UTXOs) from registering with CoinJoin using the zkSNACKs coordinator. 

The zkSNACKs coordinator will start refusing certain UTXOs from registering to coinjoins. pic.twitter.com/X3kBuQwieO

— Wasabi Wallet (@wasabiwallet) March 13, 2022

For those who don’t know about a zkSNACKs coordinator, it is a virtual machine used to mix the origin of the transactions. This means that these tools are designed to maintain the privacy of transactions via Bitcoin mixing. 

Bowing down to law?

The decision taken by CoinJoin and Wasabi Wallet’s announcement was not received on a positive note by the Twitter community as the Bitcoin enthusiasts and wallet users claimed that the founders bowed down to law enforcement. It is important to note that the founder of Wasabi Wallet, Adam Fiscor, confirmed that “blacklisting arrived to CoinJoins” and also said that “it is a major setback to Bitcoin’s fungibility.”

On the other hand, the Wasabi developer, “Rafe” said that the restrictions only adhere to the users of zkSNACKs coordinators and that other coordinators can still be used if users have privacy issues.