It’s a common misconception that signing up for Bitcoin means your wallet and transactions are completely anonymous. In fact, Bitcoin works more like a pseudonym. Levels of anonymity can be achieved if you know how to work the rods and cones correctly, but a digital money trail can usually be traced back to your wallet and thus, your identity.
Dark Wallet is looking to change that – and is willing to go quite far to achieve their aims.
Dark Wallet is spearheaded by a group of Libertarian coders known as unSYSTEM, led by Cody Wilson and developer Amir Taaki. Wilson is most famous for creating the Liberator, the first working gun that can be created by a 3D printer, back in 2013. The State Department eventually removed the online designs for the gun, but not before it was downloaded around 100,000 times.
Amid government regulations and the IRS defining what cryptocurrency is, the Dark Wallet is a not-so-subtle middle finger to regulators, even daring the government to try to cross this “line in the sand.” As Wilson sees it, “if Bitcoin represents anything to us, it’s the ability to forbid the government. DarkWallet is your way of locking out the State, flipping the channel to one beyond observation.”
DarkWallet expects to achieve this lockout by using the CoinJoin feature. This method mixes coins from multiple bitcoiners in one “master transaction,” which will be distributed to respective outputs given by those who provided the input. Thus, this “mixing” of coins and addresses makes it virtually impossible to tell who sent bitcoins to what address, and thus ensuring anonymity.
Taaki also explained that anonymity will be achieved with a tweak of the “announcement” of transactions. Usually the Bitcoin network makes these announcements on a tell-tale IP address. Dark Wallet will relay its message via a proxy address or over the Tor network, which will provide further security.