The CoinJoin service, designed to increase the anonymity of bitcoin users by mixing coins, has begun to blacklist addresses associated with illegal activities. The developers posted a corresponding notification on Twitter.
The terms of use of the Wasabi Wallet wallet, with which CoinJoin is supplied, already prohibit illegal transactions, but now the developers plan to fight them more actively.
"We are trying to protect the company and the project by reducing the involvement of hackers and scammers. None of us is happy about what is happening," they said.
The blocking of addresses is carried out at the level of the Wasabi Wallet coordinator, who is responsible for mixing users' coins. From now on, the coordinator will reject some transaction outputs (UTXO), that is, certain coins in the blockchain. In this way, mixing of stolen bitcoins can be prevented. In particular, CoinJoin was used by hackers who carried out attacks on Twitter and KuCoin. According to the developers, the restrictions do not apply to users who work with alternative coordinators – anyone can install them.
"Blacklists have been added to CoinJoin. I consider this a major obstacle to the interchangeability of bitcoin," wrote the creator of Wasabi Wallet, Adam Fiscor.
Fiscor recalled that in 2013, community members opposed such restrictions and then were able to defend their position.
"Glorious days," he added.