Transactions made with Trezor hardware wallets will soon be able to have anonymity options, thanks to a partnership with the Wasabi wallet. What will these new features look like?
Anonymous transactions coming to Trezor
Wasabi wallet uses CoinJoin technology, which allows coins to be “shuffled” to obfuscate the origin of funds. Unlike an anonymous cryptocurrency such as Monero (XMR), which hides all elements of a transaction, CoinJoin allows for blurring on the way out, but the transactions remain visible on the blockchain.
It is this service that will now be associated with Trezor. Wasabi has indeed confirmed its partnership with the hardware wallet manufacturer on Twitter:
BREAKING: Hardware wallet coinjoins are coming next year with our friends at @Trezor pic.twitter.com/2RFCgM9wK2
– Wasabi Wallet (@wasabiwallet) September 4, 2022
To learn more about Trezor, read our presentation of the Trezor Model T portfolio.
This advance will be made possible thanks to WabiSabi, a new CoinJoin protocol. Users will be able to access the service directly from the Trezor Suite application. This represents a small revolution: it is the first time that a wallet manufacturer of this type has integrated an external anonymisation solution. The company has confirmed that the service should be available to Trezor wallet holders from early 2023.
Anonymity at the heart of debate in the crypto community
The arrival of this service at a hardware wallet manufacturer as important as Trezor is particularly symbolic, at a time when the cryptocurrency ecosystem is under increased scrutiny. It should be recalled that the European Union recently planned to monitor transactions between service providers and self-hosted wallets. This includes wallets such as Trezor, Ledger, etc.
Moreover, the recent Tornado Cash affair has shown that anonymisation tools are now on the radar of regulators. The latter do not see “blenders” as a necessity in terms of privacy, but exclusively as a means of laundering dirty money.
While these services remain decentralised, the companies that interact with them are subject to the regulations of their place of operation. With sometimes strong limitations, as we have seen with Tornado Cash. This will therefore be one of the sectors of cryptocurrencies that will certainly have to withstand the onslaught of policymakers the most in the coming years.
