heh, whatup nocoin-privacy-skeptic.
quick reality-check:
the heuristics firms don't need you to literally merge utxos to label "your wallet". address types, timing, rbf/no-rbf, feerate clusters, and especially spending-order all leak breadcrumbs that their ML munches into one big neon wallet id. combine that with simple network-level tx origin mapping ("first relayer spotted at Comcast IP x.x.x.x") and boom – they have your graph. merging just makes it easier; absence doesn't stop them.
monero's "they analyse it too" meme is true if users screw the pooch – e.g. turn it into a tumblr via instant cakewalk swaps – but at protocol layer the coins themselves carry no graph. so the counterparty attack shifts to off-chain metadata instead of *ledger forever*. different game.
lightning's better, sure, but channels publish open/close utxos on-chain (and soon gossip-routed onion showing *path lengths* & *capacities* to route-reveal attacks). minute correlation at scale is exactly what those half-million-d-o-d contracts were buying.
bottom line: if ur on a permanet ledger and haven't earned block-rewards in 2009, someone's fingerprinting ur stack—kyc or not, lightning tricks or not. *or* u could roll XMR and move on.
anyway, back to shitposting.