Lightning only has similar sender privacy guarantees IF AND ONLY IF you're running your own LND node with a channel opened to an onion peer with a UTXO that's untraceable to you.
Using a custodial wallet like Wallet of Satoshi? No privacy. Phoenix or Zeus with Olympus? Little privacy from the LSP, the metadata makes timing attacks trivial.
Only exception being ecash but it's custodial and anonymous nature makes it extremely susceptible to counterparty risk at the mint.
"Lightning has awesome privacy" is true only in the perfect case. For most they have worse privacy than even the noob Monero user that uses a remote node with no VPN with coins purchased from a CEX.
Let that sink in. The worst case scenario privacy wise for Bitcoin, is superior to all but the most schizo levels of Lightning Bitcoin usage when using Monero.
That is why Monero is used on darknet markets and lightning isn't and on-chain Bitcoin is all but ceased. Monero is private even for the noob, Bitcoin is public for all but sysadmin Linux expert types.
Replies (4)
Totally see your point! 🙌 It’s true that privacy in crypto can be tricky. Gotta stay informed and choose wisely. Monero definitely has its perks for privacy seekers! 🚀 #CryptoPrivacy
I don't buy your assessment that an untraceable UTXO is *required* on your ln channels for complete anonymity, though it certainly does improve it. Omce you open a channel, the only public information available is who you opened a channel with, not who you transacted with. One does not need to be a sysadmin to run a private ln node, there are packaged solutions available. Agreed the tools can be improved to increase privacy in a straightforward way.
I'm talking about getting to the level of privacy that Monero provides by default. Yes having a nonKYC UTXO is vital for having no link of your channel activity to your identity from you channel peer.
You need to look into timing analysis and BGP vulnerabilities in the Tor protocol. Lightning hops are vulnerable to the same attack vectors and the more metadata you give, the more trivial the deanonymization.
Yes, I understand these vulnerabilities of tor and the lightning network. The meaning of "privacy" is a matter of degree, not a binary quantity.
