Use of Wasabi

General

How do I start using Wasabi?

  1. Download & Install Wasabi (like with any other software) from the official websiteopen in new window.
  2. Create a new wallet or use an already existing one, by importing or recovering your own wallet.
  3. Receive some bitcoin.
  4. Wait, and let the wallet do some coinjoins. Your wallet's privacy progress % will increase.
  5. Enjoy your private bitcoin funds! Spend some, send to your hardware wallet (for cold storage) or leave them in Wasabi for a while.

How do I generate a new wallet?

You can generate as many new wallets as you'd like, for no extra cost and without asking for permission.

Click the Add Wallet button in the bottom left corner of the main view or in the searchbar.

Add new wallet in Wasabi

Click Create a new wallet.

Create a new wallet in Wasabi

As with everything in Wasabi, you are required to label this new wallet. Make sure that you are precise so that you know what this wallet is for and click Continue.

Name a new wallet in Wasabi

Now you will see the 12 recovery words. This is the mnemonic seed that you should back up, together with the password you create in the next phase, in order to recover your wallet. When you've backed everything up, click Continue.

Wasabi Wallet recovery words

In this page you should confirm the words, as a check that you've written down your mnemonic seed in the correct order. Once you're done, click Continue.

Confirm recovery words

Add a password. It is used to encrypt the private key (extracted from the extended private key) on the computer and needed to open the wallet and to recovered it in the future. Make sure that you properly back up and write down this password.

Confirm the password and click Continue.

Add a password in Wasabi

Careful!!

Without knowledge of the password, you CANNOT spend your bitcoin!!

Make sure, and triple-check that you have done a proper backup of BOTH the password AND the mnemonic. If you only have the recovery words, but not the password, then you will NOT be able to open your wallet or to recover it.

In order to protect your backup, consider storing the password and recovery words in different locations.

Now you get to choose your wallets coinjoin strategy. Select one and click Continue.

Wasabi Wallet coinjoin strategies

Can I rename my Wallet?

Yes. A wallet can be renamed at the Wallet Settings.

Alternatively, the wallet file can be manually renamed by doing the following: Type Wallet Folder in the search bar at the top of the main view to access the Wallets folder and rename the .json wallet file. Or you can navigate to the Wallets folder (inside the Wasabi data folder) and rename the .json wallet file. Then go to WalletBackups folder (inside the Wasabi data folder) and rename the .json wallet file.

TIP

You need to mark the “show hidden files” setting to see the Wasabi data folder.

WARNING

To avoid problems, make sure you close Wasabi Wallet before proceeding to rename any of your wallets.

What is the password used for?

The password you set is used:

Wasabi stores only the BIP38 encrypted blob, so you'll need to type in the password to open the wallet and to spend from Wasabi.

DANGER

The password will unlock your bitcoin to anyone who has access to the recovery words backup or the computer! If your backup gets compromised, this password is the only thing protecting your precious sats.

What password should I use?

DANGER

It is VERY important to use a random and long password.

Since it is very difficult for humans to generate true randomness, it is good to use a tool to help find a strong password. This can be the Diceware english wordlistopen in new window for true off-line password generation. A secure password manager software might also be used, but be careful here.

Where can I find the Wasabi data folder?

You can easily reach it from inside Wasabi by typing Data Folder in the search bar at the top of the main view.

Or you can manually navigate to it (depending on which OS you have):

  • Windows: /Users/{your username}/AppData/Roaming/WalletWasabi/Client
  • Linux: /home/{your username}/.walletwasabi/client
  • macOS: /Users/{your username}/.walletwasabi/client

TIP

You need to mark the “show hidden files” setting to see it.

Can I spend my bitcoin without the password?

DANGER

NO!!! Without knowledge of your password, even when you have the wallet file and recovery words, you CANNOT spend your bitcoin!

When creating a new wallet, after labeling it properly, the next step is to select a long and random password. Every time you want to spend your coins from Wasabi, you MUST provide this password. So even if you have these words securely engraved in metal, without the password, you cannot restore the backup of your wallet.

TIP

Always back up your mnemonic recovery words, and your password in two separate secure locations.

Why BIP 38?

BIP 38open in new window is a good standard, a well-tested and very secure way to encrypt a private key. It is also implemented in the NBitcoin libraryopen in new window, which is used by Wasabi. Additionally, there is no standard way (BIP) to encrypt HD wallets. Take into account that it is not only encryption what BIP 38 provides but also a brute-force protection.

What are the terms and conditions?

The most important parts of the legal documents are summarized in the following points:

  • The service is open-source under the MIT license.
  • The service is provided on a non-custodial basis. Safekeeping of keys are the sole responsibility of the user.
  • The user is solely responsible to act according to their local laws and regulations.
  • We do not store any personally identifiable information. Moreover, our trustless software architecture prevents us from gathering this information in the first place.
  • A transaction fee is only charged by the service provider for CoinJoin transactions.
  • We only provide written support, and NEVER ask for recovery words, passwords or similar security critical information.

Read the whole document of terms and conditions, privacy policy, and legal statement hereopen in new window

Can I import a watch-only extended public key?

Yes, but not yet in the GUI, you will need to manually create a new wallet file.

Open a text editor and paste the following wallet structure:

{
  "EncryptedSecret": null,
  "ChainCode": null,
  "MasterFingerprint": null,
  "ExtPubKey": "",
  "TaprootExtPubKey": "",
  "PasswordVerified": true,
  "MinGapLimit": 21,
  "AccountKeyPath": "84'/0'/0'",
  "TaprootAccountKeyPath": "86'/0'/0'",
  "BlockchainState": {
    "Network": "Main",
    "Height": "0"
  },
  "HdPubKeys": [
  ]
}

Then paste your SegWit Extended Account Public Key in-between the quotes of the field "ExtPubKey": "paste segwit xpub here", and your Taproot Extended Account Public Key in-between the quotes of the field TaprootExtPubKey": "paste taproot xpub here",

You can also change the derivation path fields if you want to import a different derivation path. But this is only for advanced usage. Notice that Wasabi only works with SegWit v0 bech32, and SegWit v1 bech32m (Taproot) addresses.

Save this file in your Wallets data folder as a json file like this: WalletName.json. The WalletName will be displayed in the GUI.

Then start Wasabi and load the wallet to synchronize it.

For watch only wallets, the Send button is disabled.

What does the privacy progress mean?

The privacy progress tile represents the percentage of how private the wallet is. It considers the anonymity score weighted amounts instead of just amounts that reached the anonymity score threshold. The private value is the total amount that reached the anonscore threshold.

Why does the privacy progress change if I select a different coinjoin strategy?

The privacy progress is influenced by the anonymity score target. If the coinjoin strategy is changed to one with a different anonnymity score target, this will cause the privacy progress to increase or decrease.

What does the bar with the colored segments mean?

The colored segments make up the Privacy Bar. The Privacy Bar is supposed to give the user an easy overview of the wallet's coins and it's privacy progress. The color of each segment indicates the private coins (dark green), semi-private coins (light green), or non-private coins (grey).

Wasabi Wallet Privacy Bar

How can I display the fee in sats?

By default, the wallet displays all fees in BTC (mining fees, coinjoin fees etc.). This can be changed to sats in the Settings. Go to Settings -> General -> Fee display unit and change it to sats.

Wasabi Wallet Fee Display Unit

What is the box (music box) at the bottom of the wallet's main view?

This box (a.k.a. musicbox) is used for the coinjoins. It can be used to manually start, pause and stop coinjoining. It also shows some information about the current coinjoin round.

Wasabi Wallet Music Box

Does Wasabi support Taproot?

Wasabi supports Taproot, except that the user cannot generate Taproot addresses.

While the user cannot generate a Taproot address in the GUI, his wallet might have Taproot coins (from coinjoin, or change output from a single user transaction).

Synchronization

What are BIP-158 block filters?

A BIP-158 block filteropen in new window is a data structure that contains a hash of all the addresses referenced in a block. It is much smaller than the whole block itself. The Wasabi coordinator generates these block filters, and sends them out to any wallet that requests them. A wallet client checks locally if the block filter matches any of the addresses in the wallet. If not, then the filter is stored for later reference and for syncing new wallets. If yes, then the wallet connects to a random Bitcoin peer-to-peer full node over Tor to request this entire block.

How does Wasabi download a relevant block?

There are two ways Wasabi can get a block:

  1. If you are connected to your own full node then it will fetch the block from there.

  2. By default from a random Bitcoin P2P node, connected through a new Tor identity only for this one download request.

Read more here.

How do I know if the synchronization is finished?

Once Tor and backend are properly connected and you have peers, you will see a checkmark at the bottom right corner of the main view. The timer of the loading wallet page runs out when all the block filters and all the relevant blocks are downloaded and the wallet is synchronized.

Wasabi Wallet Status Bar

Why does the Tor status have a warning triangle icon?

If the Tor network is having issuesopen in new window, Wasabi notifies this and displays a warning triangle icon. For example, when Tor is experiencing a DDoS attack. Hover over the icon with the cursor to display more information.

Tor Status Warning Icon

How long does the initial, and a subsequent synchronization take?

It usually only takes a couple of seconds to scan the block filters, and to download and parse the blocks. However, for large wallets with many transactions, this synchronization can take up to several hours. The speed and reliability of the loading process is constantly improved. For especially old wallets, it might be worth considering to generate a new wallet with a shorter transaction history.

Can I shutdown my computer while a wallet is synchronizing?

Yes. If you shutdown your computer or kill Wasabi while a wallet is synchronizing then the synchronization will continue where it left off or it will start again, the next time you open that wallet.

How do I resync (rescan) my wallet?

You can rescan an existing Wasabi wallet by editing the Height in the wallet file.

  • Start Wasabi.
  • Type Wallet Folder in the search bar and open it.
  • Close Wasabi.
  • Open the wallet file in your favorite text editor.
  • Set the Height to 0.
  • Set the TurboSyncHeight to 0.
{ // only relevant parts are shown
  "AccountKeyPath": "84'/0'/0'",
  "TaprootAccountKeyPath": "86'/0'/0'",
  "BlockchainState": {
    "Network": "Main",
    "Height": "0",
    "TurboSyncHeight": "0"

  }
}
  • Save the file with the changes.
  • Start Wasabi again, open your wallet and wait for the synchronization.

TIP

Changing the Height and TurboSyncHeight to 0 will trigger a full resync of your wallet, and that can take some time depending on the size of your wallet (how many transactions it had).

For example if the problem happened 3 days ago then you can go back a week or so to resync the wallet:

new_height = current_height - (7 * 144)

TurboSyncHeight and Height should always be set to the same value.

TIP

If you are doing a re-synchronization because you expect some missing funds, but after resync you still think your balance is not correct then try to increase the gap limit of the wallet.

Can Wasabi work with a pruned bitcoin node?

No. Wasabi client doesn't work with pruned nodes.

Can I run a Wasabi headless daemon?

Yes. See this chapter for more details.

Receive

Why is it bad to re-use addresses?

Bitcoin is designed so that for every payment you can use a new address that is not tied to any of your previous addresses. When you use a new address for every coin, then it becomes much much more difficult to find out that these coins are yours. However, when you use the same address for every coin, then everyone knows that all coins can be spent by one individual who has the private key - you! Thus, when someone finds out that you control this address, maybe you published it in your social media profile for donations, or you sent a coin to another peer who knows you, then he knows also how many bitcoin you have in that same address. Take good care to whom you tell your addresses, and every time use a different address.

Every time a coin is received, the address is removed from the GUI so that you are not tempted to use it again.

Wasabi uses BIP 44 multi-account hierarchy for deterministic walletsopen in new window so that you can generate countless addresses and have them all securely backed-up in the 12 recovery words.

DANGER

NEVER RE-USE ADDRESSES

How do I generate a new receiving address?

You can generate a new bech32 address in the Receive dialog of Wasabi Wallet. First you must set a label for it, so that you later know who knows that this address is yours. Be precise in the label of the observers who know this address is yours, as this is an important part of good coin selection privacy best practices. Do not write anything else on the label exept the name of the entities that know this address belongs to you. Then you can click on Continue which will now show you the address, and you can copy it to the clipboard. After a coin has been sent to this address, it is removed from the GUI. This is a good feature to help protect you against address reuse.

Wasabi Wallet Known By label

Where can I find previously generated addresses?

Generated addresses which haven't received any funds yet, are displayed at the Addresses Awaiting Payment list. Click on the Receive button > Addresses Awaiting Payment

Addresses Awaiting Payment

What is the gap limit?

The gap limit is the maximum number of consecutive unused addresses that your wallet will generate when recovering it. Wasabi automatically increases this value if needed when you generate new receiving addresses. When you import the wallet file into a new Wasabi client, then it will use this MinGapLimit to find your coins in the wallet.

How do I change the gap limit of a wallet?

You can change the gap limit of an already existing Wasabi wallet by editing the wallet file. Open the wallet folder by typing Wallet Folder in the search bar. Then, open the wallet file in your favourite text editor.

Close Wasabi and edit the MinGapLimit setting (which is 21 by default) in the wallet file. The value depends on the settings of other tools that use the wallet too (e.g. use 100 for BTCPay Serveropen in new window).

You might also need to reset the height of your wallet, so that it gets reindexed. This can be done by setting the BlockchainState->Height to 0:

{ // only relevant parts are shown
  "MinGapLimit": 100,
  "BlockchainState": {
    "Network": "Main",
    "Height": "0"
  }
}

Save and then start Wasabi again, open the wallet and wait for the synchronization. You should see all your transactions and the correct balance.

If you are recovering a wallet with the 12 recovery words, then in the advanced section you can increase the gap limit from a default of 100.

Why do I have to label my address?

Bitcoin addresses look like cyphertext, they are not easily remembered and it's not clear how they were used previously. When you do not label all your addresses, there is no meta-data for you to understand the context of your coins. Thus receiving addresses and sending transactions should be carefully labeled with the observers who know that this address belongs to you. This helps you know where your coins came from so that you can judge whether there are privacy concerns when sending a specific coin to a specific receiver.

Wasabi Wallet known by label

When labeling a newly generated address or a sending transaction you should ask yourself: "Who knows this address is mine?" or "Whom will I share this address with?" or "From whom am I receiving bitcoin?" or "To whom am I sending bitcoin?". Labels should contain the comma-separated names of people/entities that may be aware of the transaction and could follow its trail like:

Name of the sender or the receiver, name of the exchange, name of the payment processor

So, a good label could be:

Alice, <name of KYC exchange>, BTCPay Server

or:

Alice & Bob (This is one entity which is not the same as Alice, Bob as they are multiple entities and thus separated by a comma)

How can I change the label of my receive address?

You can change the label of your Address Awaiting Payment by clicking on the edit icon. This is useful when you have generated a receiving address with a specific label, but then the sender (anyone that knows this address is yours) has changed. Take care with whom you have shared this address, because if you send it to several people, they all know this address belongs to you, and they might all send many coins to the same address. This is very bad for your privacy because of address reuse, and it confuses you with the labeling of each unique coin.

Edit Address Label

How can I edit the labels of my address after a transaction has gone through?

To date there is no possibility to change the label of an address after it has sent or received bitcoins.

Are there privacy concerns regarding whom I send my address?

Yes. Whomever you send your address, he knows that this address, and any coin sent to it, belongs to you. Thus it is important to have labeled receiving addresses with their observers, so that you know which address is known by whom. It is important that you avoid sending the same address to several different individuals. There is a risk that both of them send coins to this same destination, thus unnecessarily linking the payments.

DANGER

It is especially important to NEVER send your extended public key to any third party (anyone). This is a complete de-anonymization of your entire wallet!!

Why does Wasabi only use SegWit bech32 addresses?

Wasabi was created after the activation of SegWit, and it makes sense to support the most advanced address type, which has numerous benefits. For example, the malleability fix and the large savings on mining fees for SegWit transactions.

Why do some third party services say the Wasabi address is invalid?

Some wallets/exchanges do not yet support native SegWit bech32 addresses and may give an error message (e.g. "unknown bitcoin address"). Please contact these services to upgrade their infrastructure to support the latest industry standards. Wasabi cannot generate non-SegWit addresses, so one solution is to manage your funds with a wallet which does support legacy addresses. To check Bech32 adoption and wallets/exchanges support you can follow the Bitcoin Wikiopen in new window and Bitcoin Optechopen in new window.

Where can I find my address QR code?

When a new address is generated the QR code, address and label are displayed. The QR code of an already generated address can be found at the Addresses Awaiting Payment list. Click on the QR code icon at the Addresses Awaiting Payment.

QR code icon

The QR Code is displayed and can be saved as a png file by clicking on the Save icon, which appears on hover.

Address Awaiting Payment

What derivation paths does Wasabi use?

Wasabi follows BIP 84: Derivation scheme for P2WPKH Based Accountsopen in new window (m/84'/0'/0') and BIP 86: Key Derivation for Single Key P2TR Outputsopen in new window (m/86'/0'/0').

Note that Wasabi is currently not generating external taproot addresses yet so the main path is m/84'/0'/0'.

On TestNet Wasabi uses the paths m/84'/1'/0' and m/86'/1'/0'. On RegTest it uses m/84'/0'/0' and m/86'/0'/0', and not the standard m/84'/1'/0' and m/86'/1'/0' paths. Due to the coinjoin implementation, the key depth can be rather large, thus when recovering, the gap limit should be elevated to at least 100.

Can I generate a multi signature script?

No.

Multi signature scripts define that there need to be m-of-n signatures provided in order to spend this UTXO. For example in a 2-of-3, Alice alone cannot spend the sats, she needs the collaboration of either Bob or Charlie. In current implementations, a legacy and SegWit v0 multisig address is clearly distinguishable, there are three public keys and two signatures, and not one single public key and signature. This means that your anonymity set, the crowd you hide in, gets a lot smaller. If some one knows that you use a multisig wallet, then they can narrow down their search for your coins. Thus, use of multisig decreases your privacy, and Wasabi is not implementing tools that degrade your privacy.

Yet multisig is a popular feature, and many Wasabikas do request it for extra security, willing to trade-off some privacy. Electrum Walletopen in new window is a fantastic wallet with many features, but only private if you connect to your own Electrum server full node. Electrum can be used to create different types of m-of-n multisig scripts, including the use of hardware wallets.

Schnorr key and signature aggregation with MuSig increase privacy of multisig wallets, since only one public key, not n, are committed on the blockchain. On November 14th, 2021 at block 709632, Taproot was activated in the Bitcoin consensus layer so there are no major privacy concerns standing in the way of Wasabi multisig anymore. At the moment, it is still not available as of yet.

How does Wasabi know of incoming transactions to the mempool?

When Wasabi is running, it connects to random Bitcoin peer to peer nodes and listens for their gossip of all transactions on the network. Based on this information Wasabi builds its own local mempool of unconfirmed transactions. So when you have Wasabi running, you will be notified about an incoming receiving transaction as soon as it is gossiped on the network. But when Wasabi is offline, it does not listen to the network and it will not know about your unconfirmed transaction when you next launch Wasabi. In this case you have to wait until your transaction is confirmed in a block, and based on the BIP 158 block filtersopen in new window, Wasabi will download that whole block including your transaction from a random P2P node.

Can I export all my receive addresses?

Wasabi doesn't provide a way to export all generated addresses (used and unused), however they are listed by using the listkeys RPC command.

It is not possible to view previously used addresses in the GUI, as here only unused addresses are shown.

Send

How do I set a destination address?

In the Send dialog, there is a box called To, enter here the bitcoin address or PayJoin URL. If you have an address in the clipboard, then it can be pasted by using the paste button or right click. You can also type in the address manually, there is a checksum to help you identify typos. Be careful and double-check the address, there is no way to revert this transaction and change the destination. So make sure that the coins get into the right hands.

Send To Field

How do I set the payment amount?

At the Send dialog, enter the bitcoin or dollar amount in the Amount field.

Send Amount

Dollar amounts are approximately

When entering a dollar amount, Wasabi calculates the bitcoin amount according to the current BTC/USD exchange rate. This dollar amount can differ a bit compared to other wallets/exchanges.

Can I pay to many addresses?

Unfortunately pay to many is not yet implemented in the GUI. However, you can use the RPC server send call and specify multiple destination addresses.

Can I set a custom change address?

No. That is currently not possible.

Does Wasabi support sending RBF?

All send transactions signal RBF by default. A pending transaction may be bumped (with RBF) by using the Speed Up Transaction feature.

Why does Wasabi choose a new random node every time I send a transaction?

When you broadcast a transaction from a full node, that transaction is flooded onto the network. Essentially, all nearby nodes are passed your transaction, and those nodes will pass to all of their nearby nodes, etc. However, if a malicious adversary were to get enough relay nodes in the network, they could pretty easily connect the initial location of a transaction by simply observing from which node the transaction appeared first. For this reason, broadcasting transaction through your own node may reveal your IP address.

So to fix this, Wasabi broadcasts your transaction to a random node over Tor, so this node cannot detect your IP address. When you want to send another transaction, Wasabi destroys the original Tor circuit and establishes a new Tor identity and connection with a brand new node. This reduces the risk of a passive bystander being able to link two transactions together that appear from the same location.

What fee should I select?

Wasabi uses the smartfeeopen in new window estimation algorithm provided by bitcoind. This integrates both data from recent blocks, as well as the local mempool to estimate the current and future demand for blockspace. The lower the fee is, the longer the estimated wait; and the higher the fee, the faster the confirmation will come. There are several different confidence levels, each of them gives an educated guess how soon the transaction will confirm. But the provided time frames are only a rough estimation, and not at all a precise metric.

Wasabi Wallet mining fee settings

Because confirmation fee estimation is more an art than a science, you can also set the fee manually. Then you can go after your gut feeling, mempool analysisopen in new window, or just putting the minimum of 1 sat/vByte.

For a transaction to yourself, for example from your hot coinjoin wallet to your hardware wallet, you don't need to have fast confirmation, so you can set a relatively low fee. But to send from the hot coinjoin wallet to the coffee shop, you might want to get faster confirmation, thus paying a higher fee. This really depends on your own time preference in every unique moment.

Remember

These sats are precious, so don't overpay on fees!

How do I set custom fee rate?

At the Preview Transaction dialog, click on the icon Change transaction fee or confirmation time.

Send Fee Icon

At the transaction fee slider dialog, click on Advanced and manually type the fee rate (sat/vByte) you want.

Wasabi Wallet custom fee rate

How does Wasabi select which coins to send?

If the user has coins with the same label as the recipient of the outgoing transaction (coins received in the past from the same recipient), then Wasabi automatically selects these coins. If they are not enough, then Wasabi will also select private and semi private coins if necessary. If there are not enough private and semi-private coins for this transaction, then Wasabi will select non-private coins also. The user can change which non-private coins will be used, based on the labelling system.

How is the transaction broadcast?

Wasabi connects only to Bitcoin nodes that provide a Tor onion service, so end-to-end encryption is enforced between the peers, without involving any exit node. Each peer is connected to through a different Tor stream. Transactions are broadcast to only one random peer over Tor and immediately after that this peer is disconnected.

If for some reason this fails, and a local Bitcoin full node is connected, then this is used to broadcast the transaction. By default it is gossiped to 8 peers over clearnet, but this depends on how the full node is configured by the user.

If this too fails, Wasabi will (in the last resort) send the transaction through a new Tor identity to the coordinator backend for broadcasting.

Once a transaction is sent, Wasabi will always open a new Tor circuit with a new random node on the network, in order to avoid giving away too much information to one party. When you send two consecutive transactions via Wasabi, you can be sure that they appear in two very different places on the network.

Wasabi might implement BIP 156open in new window the Dandelion protocol for transaction broadcasting when the Bitcoin network adopts it.

What is the cluster history?

Clusters are a property of a Bitcoin wallet with mandatory labeling. When you use Wasabi, you must label every coin that you receive with the observers. The reason why this is important, is that your "wallet" is really just a collection of coins (similar to a physical wallet, not to a bank account). When you receive coins from somewhere to a labeled address, Wasabi will store the label locally on your device, for example:

----> 0.65 BTC (Bob)

Now if you receive money from Alice who uses an exchange, then your label would look like this:

----> 2.1 BTC (Alice, exchange)

Now here is where things can be a bit tricky for folks unfamiliar with Bitcoin. Suppose you wanted to send all of your coins to a hardware wallet. So you think to yourself "What's the harm in sending my money to one address?"

This is how the transaction will look like:

0.65 BTC (Bob)           ----->  2.75 BTC (Bob, Alice, exchange)
2.1 BTC (Alice, exchange)

The problem with this transaction, is Bob knows you, and knows that the 0.65 BTC is in your possession, and can monitor your transaction behavior. But when you combine (consolidate) your coins in this way, you reveal to Bob that you also have 2.1 BTC from somewhere else, and you reveal to the exchange that you have 0.65 bitcoin from somewhere else.

When you CoinJoin coins with Wasabi, you actually de-link the trail from Bob/exchange, to the coins in your wallet. Those specific coins will be private after coinjoining. They can now be spent without having to worry about your boss or the exchange tracking your behavior.

So the idea around clusters is to make it easier for users to follow the transaction graph. The transaction graph is the history of where a coin has been, and is important if different histories need to be separated. For example, if you buy coins anonymously in a P2P way, you should try to avoid mixing those coins with coins you got in a public way (donation, exchange, etc.).

Why Wasabi did not send some of my selected coins?

Because they were not necessary for the transaction. Wasabi Wallet will use only the necessary coins to make the transaction.

Example: If you select 10 coins with total value of 2 btc and you want to send 1 btc but the sum of 4 coins is enough to make the transaction, then Wasabi will use only those 4 coins.

This is good for privacy, and also saves you some transaction fees.

How can I bump the transaction fee with child pays for parent (CPFP)?

Since Wasabi version 2.0.4open in new window this FAQ is now obsolete because of the new Speed Up Transaction feature that can be used.

How can I speed up a pending/unconfirmed transaction (CPFP/RBF)?

A pending (unconfirmed) transaction can be speeded up by using the Speed Up Transaction feature which will send a new transaction with a higher fee rate to replace the current one.

To speed up a transaction:

  • Right click on the pending transaction in the wallet history and click Speed Up Transaction.

Speed Up Tx History

  • Confirm you want to pay the additional fee for speeding it up.

Speed Up Tx Confirm

  • Enter your Password to send the new transaction.
  • Transaction succesfully speeded up!

Read more here.

The Speed Up Transaction tool is not available for coinjoins, or when using a hardware wallet.

WARNING

Wasabi currently doesn't take into account if the transaction contains unconfirmed coinjoin outputs and that the speeding up will have little to no effect.

How can I cancel a pending/unconfirmed transaction?

A pending (unconfirmed) transaction can be cancelled by using the Cancel Transaction feature which will send a new transaction with a higher fee rate to replace the current one. The replacement transaction is sent to a new address of the user himself, so the bitcoin comes back to the user's wallet and the transaction can be considered "cancelled".

To cancel a transaction:

  • Right click on the pending transaction in the wallet history and click Cancel Transaction.

Cancel Tx History

  • Confirm you want to pay the additional fee for cancelling it.

Cancel Tx Confirm

  • Enter your Password to send the new transaction.
  • Transaction cancelled!

Read more here.

The Cancel Transaction tool is not available for coinjoins, or when using a hardware wallet.

Why is there no Send button, only the Receive button is displayed?

When the wallet has a balance of 0.00000000 BTC, the Send button is hidden because there is no bitcoin to send. So this happens when a new wallet has just been generated and it hasn't received any bitcoin yet. Receive some bitcoin and then the Send button will automatically be displayed.

There is also no Send button with watch-only wallets.

Can I send (privately) from my wallet when the privacy progress is below 100%?

Yes, you can always send from your wallet. However, a best practice is to only send private funds. Making your wallet 100% private takes some time, but in the mean time you can always send the (private) funds.

So when your wallet is partially private (between 0 and 100% privacy progress) it is a best practice to only use the available private funds, to preserve your privacy. In the privacy progress tile, PRIVATE shows the currently available private BTC amount. So that is the amount (minus the mining fees) which can be sent privately, even if the privacy progress is not yet 100%. When sending, the wallet automatically selects the private funds first.

For example:

When PRIVATE is 0.01120153 BTC, that means that I can send less than that privately. Even when the Privacy Progress is below 100%. So when sending, less than 0.01120153 BTC (to cover the mining fees) should be entered as the Amount in order to only use the private funds.

Wasabi Wallet Privacy Progress Tile

Use the Privacy Suggestions

Since Wasabi version 2.0.4open in new window, there are privacy suggestions to only send private or semi-private coins.

Read more here.

CoinJoin

USA: On May 9, 2019, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an interpretive guidance that stated the following in section 4.5.1(b):

An anonymizing software provider is not a money transmitter. FinCEN regulations exempt from the definition of money transmitter those persons providing "the delivery, communication, or network access services used by a money transmitter to support money transmission services."

Wasabi is an Anonymizing software provider so it is not a money transmitter, thus not under Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) regulations. Basically we can continue to operate like now and it is compliant.

Here's a great explanation about it:

Watch the videoopen in new window

What is the minimum amount required to coinjoin?

The minimum amount of bitcoin per coinjoin round is 0.00005000 BTC (5000 sats) + mining fees.

The minimum amount can be higher than 5000 sats when mining fees are relatively high, to not create uneconomical outputs. The minimum amount for the current coinjoin round(s) is displayed on the https://stats.wasabiwallet.io/ page at the Coinjoin main net lobbies section. (The Min input amount excludes the additionally required mining fee)

What is the maximum amount I can coinjoin?

The maximum possible amount is 43000 BTC per coin per coinjoin round. If the user has a coin of more than 43000 BTC, then it must be broken down into smaller parts to be able to coinjoin.

What are the fees for the coinjoin?

Coinjoin fees are composed of coordination fees and mining (network) fees. Coins (UTXOs) with a value above 0.01 BTC pay 0.3% as a coordination fee + mining fees. Coins of 0.01 BTC or below don't pay coordination fees. Remixes, even after one transaction, also don't pay coordination fees. Thus, a payment made with coinjoined funds allows the sender and the recipient to remix their coins without paying any coordination fees.

> 0.01 BTC0.01 BTC and less
Fresh input0.3% coordination fee + mining feesmining fees
Remix*mining feesmining fees

Remix includes a 1 hop transaction

What is the anonymity set?

The anonymity set is effectively the size of the group you are hiding in.

If 3 people take part in a CoinJoin (with equal size inputs) and there are 3 outputs then each of those output coins has an anonymity set of 3.

0.1 BTC (Alice)       0.1 BTC (Anon set 3)
0.3 BTC (Bob)     ->  0.1 BTC (Anon set 3)
0.4 BTC (Charlie)     0.1 BTC (Anon set 3)
                      0.2 BTC (Change Coin Bob)
                      0.3 BTC (Change Coin Charlie)

There is no way to know which of the anon set output coins are owned by which of the input owners.

All an observer knows is that a specific anon set output coin is owned by one of the owners of one of the input coins, that is 3 people - hence an anonymity set of 3.

Your Wasabi software has limited information on what the actually achieved anonymity set is, so the anonymity set that the software presents you is just an estimation, not an accurate value. With Wasabi we are trying to do lower estimations, rather than higher ones.

What is the anonymity score?

The anonymity score is a way to estimate the level of entropy of a UTXO in an unequal-but-highly-composable output value coinjoin.

It is different than anonymity set. For example, if the outputs are [1, 1, 1, 1, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.4, 0.4, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1] then, even when each of those 1s have anonscore 4, there are still lots of combinations of outputs that sum up to 1, so the anonset should be much higher but the anonscore is extremely conservative and takes into account many other things.

What is the difference between anonymity set and anonymity score?

The anonscore evolved into existence from the anonset, but with some differences. What differs is the kind of coinjoins they are applied to, where anonset was for Wasabi 1 and anonscore is for current Wasabi 2. In Wasabi 1 coinjoins there are unequal inputs, some equal outputs, and change coins. In Wasabi 2 coinjoins there are many equal inputs, many equal outputs, and (sometimes) some unique value outputs, that are not necessarily change coins. In fact most of the times they are well mixed coins.

Basically the anonymity score is an extremely conservative anonymity set calculation.

What are the equal denominations created in a coinjoin round?

The standard denominations are: 5000, 6561, 8192, 10000, 13122, 16384, 19683, 20000, 32768, 39366, 50000, 59049, 65536, 100000, 118098, 131072, 177147, 200000, 262144, 354294, 500000, 524288, 531441, 1000000, 1048576, 1062882, 1594323, 2000000, 2097152, 3188646, 4194304, 4782969, 5000000, 8388608, 9565938, 10000000, 14348907, 16777216, 20000000, 28697814, 33554432, 43046721, 50000000, 67108864, 86093442, 100000000, 129140163, 134217728, 200000000, 258280326, 268435456, 387420489, 500000000, 536870912, 774840978, 1000000000, 1073741824, 1162261467, 2000000000, 2147483648, 2324522934, 3486784401, 4294967296, 5000000000, 6973568802, 8589934592, 10000000000, 10460353203, 17179869184, 20000000000, 20920706406, 31381059609, 34359738368, 50000000000, 62762119218, 68719476736, 94143178827, 100000000000, 137438953472 sats.

So, there are 79 denominations from 0.00005000 BTC up to 1374.38953472 BTC.

What is happening in the input registration phase?

During this phase the client selects which coin(s) will be registered for coinjoin. Wasabi then generates the related input proofs. After that, a unique Tor identity will be generated for each input, which will be used to send the input ownership proof to the coordinator.

The coordinator now verifies that this input is allowed to register (i.e. there is still room for more inputs, the coin is confirmed, the input proof is valid etc.). If all checks are valid, the coordinator creates and sends back the credentials.

Since the goal is to have at least 150 inputs in one round, the input registration phase can fail if too few participants registered in the available time frame.

What is happening in the connection confirmation phase?

Because the input registration phase takes some time, the coordinator needs to ensure that everyone is still online and ready to continue. So in the connection confirmation phase every Alice sends a signal to the coordinator that she is still online, and when all Alices do so, or after a timeout and the number of online Alices is still larger than the minimum number of inputs, this phase ends.

What is happening in the output registration phase?

In this phase, every client needs to change the value of their credentials to the desired output values. For example, the client presents to the coordinator two old credentials and two newly created ones. The two pairs sum up to the exact same value, which the coordinator can verify, without knowing the amount value of the credentials. This process may repeat multiple times.

The client now creates a new Tor identity called Bob, which is not tied to Alice. Bob now sends the coordinator an unblinded credential (signed by the coordinator) and a bitcoin address.

What is happening in the signing phase?

After all inputs and outputs are registered, the coordinator has all the information to build the coinjoin transaction. This raw (unsigned) transaction is sent to all Alices, each of them verifies that the transaction is valid and then signs it. The signatures are sent back to the coordinator who accumulates all of them. The singing phase is concluded when the coordinator receives all the valid signatures for all registered inputs.

What is happening during the blame round?

If the signing phase fails from becoming successful due to some Alices disrupting the round, then a blame round will be created with the successful Alices. In the blame round a new coinjoin will be constructed by repeating the coinjoin phases. All Alices have to sign this new transaction and send their signature to the coordinator.

What is happening in the broadcasting phase?

In the broadcasting phase the coordinator sends the signed final CoinJoin transaction to several random Bitcoin peer to peer nodes, and it is gossiped throughout the network to the miners.

Is there any additional anonymity using multiple wallets for CoinJoins?

You'd gain 1 less anonymity set than if you'd only mix with one wallet (and Wasabi doesn't display that). On the other hand, the systemic anonymity is slightly improved if a few people are mixing with multiple wallets, because that removes the certainty on this Blockchain analysis assumption.

How is the anonymity set target determined for CoinJoins?

2*2 = 4 and 3*3 = 9. 2->3: 50% increase, 4->9:125% increase. So remixing with larger anonsets is exponentially more effective than smaller anonsets. Regarding why do we want 100 number, is among some other reasons, because that was our calculation to be that would make rounds happen in every 2-5 minutes, considering the liquidity of some custodial mixers. Regarding DoS attack, right now our DoS configuration is set to be pretty permissive and this seems to be sufficient for the time being. If a DoS attack would happen, Wasabi team would just harden it in the config file and would kick the bad actors out. Now if even that would fail, then we can start thinking about lowering the required peers and also other methods.

I'd like to experience coinjoin but I'm not comfortable using real Bitcoin. What can I do?

You can try to make a coinjoin via Wasabi on the Bitcoin TestNet (an alternative Bitcoin network, to be used for testing). Go to Settings > Bitcoin and change the network to TestNet. Then restart your Wasabi and create a new wallet, this is needed because Wasabi differentiates between "Main wallets" and "TestNet wallets". This wallet will synchronize for the TestNet, and generate TestNet addresses. You can get tBTC from faucets like: coinfaucet.eu/en/btc-testnetopen in new window or bitcoinfaucet.uo1.netopen in new window

Does Wasabi have to stay on during coinjoin?

Yes, Wasabi needs to stay on during coinjoins, you cannot be offline and still participate in coinjoins.

A coinjoin transaction is different from a normal transaction (where you are the only person signing), as it requires multiple participants to sign the same transaction.

Here is how Wasabi handles different scenarios:

During input registration phaseAfter input registration phase
You close WasabiYour registered coins are automatically dequeuedWasabi will make you wait until the round finishes
Wasabi goes offlineYour registered coins are automatically timed out by the coordinator after 1 minuteThe coin(s) that disrupted the round will be banned for 6h from participating in another coinjoin. (This is to prevent DoS attacksopen in new window)

What if there's a power outage during CoinJoin? Do I lose my coins?

No you don't. CoinJoins are atomic, they either happen or they don't. If your wallet crashes or your computer goes offline during CoinJoin you simply don't participate in this CoinJoin, look at table here for more info.

How much anonymity set do I need?

The amount of privacy needed depends on your individual threat model, who is trying to deanonymize you? It is commonly said that an anonymity set of 50 is sufficient to evade low-level blockchain forensics analysis, but it might not protect you against large adversaries. At least one round to re-mix your coins can increase your privacy drastically. With Wasabi this can be achieved in a matter of hours.

How does my wallet communicate with the Wasabi coordinator server?

Wasabi communicates in many ways to the coordinator server, and it is always over the Tor network.

First of all, Wasabi uses BIP 158 block filtersopen in new window to ensure network level privacy. You can follow these FAQs to have a full explanation on the theme:

Then, there are five different phases in a CoinJoin. You can follow these links to have a full explanation on that:

  1. Input registration phase
  2. Connection confirmation phase
  3. Output registration phase
  4. Signing phase
  5. Broadcasting phase

The backend server also sends you information about the current mempool for fee estimation as well as the US Dollar exchange rate.

What is the address of the coordinator?

The coordinator possibly gets paid in every coinjoin. Wasabi is using a fresh unused coordinator address for every coinjoin round.

What is the maximum number of coins that can be registered in a coinjoin?

Wasabi Wallet's default client is configured to register 1 up to 10 inputs per coinjoin round. However, as the coordinator cannot enforce this, a custom client could use a different configuration.

How many coins/outputs do I get from a coinjoin?

Wasabi Wallet's default client is configured to register 1 up to 10 outputs per coinjoin round. However, as the coordinator cannot enforce this, a custom client could use a different configuration.

Can I manually select which coins to register for coinjoin?

No, that is currently not possible. The automatic coinjoin robot registers the coins, based on multiple factors.

TIP

You can enable the red coin isolation setting, in case you want to prevent possible input heuristics (from outside observers) of anonscore 1 coins into the same coinjoin round.

How long does it take to make my wallet 100% private?

Depending on many factors, like the Anonymity score target, the coinjoin strategy, and the amount of bitcoin, it can take from a couple hours to multiple days.

What coinjoin strategy should I select?

There is no answer for all, or a "best" strategy, it depends on the user's privacy needs. The coinjoin strategy should be selected according to the user's preference: Do you want to Minimize costs, Maximize speed, or Maximize privacy? Or the user can create their own Custom strategy.

Wasabi Coinjoin Strategy

The default coinjoin strategy is `Maximize Speed`

This strategy is sufficient for most users

What is the coinjoin strategy?

A coinjoin strategy has specific pre-configured coinjoin settings.

There are multiple coinjoin settings which the user is able to configure according to their own prefence. Each coinjoin strategy has different specific settings for optimal performance. After a coinjoin strategy is selected, its settings are applied. It is supposed to make it easy for the user to select their preference, without having to know about the specific settings and how to configure them themselves.

Read more here.

What are the differences/settings per coinjoin strategy?

Minimize CostsMaximize SpeedMaximize Privacy
Anonymity score target55random between 27 and 75
Coinjoin time preferenceweekshourshours
Red coin isolationnot enablednot enabledenabled

What does the Auto-start coinjoin threshold mean in the coinjoin settings?

It is the amount at which your funds will automatically participate in coinjoin in the background. If the non-private wallet balance is less than this amount coinjoin will not automatically start. A use case is that it might not be economical to coinjoin with this non-private amount (fee amount compared to coinjoin amount).

For example, if the non-private balance is 0.005 BTC and the Auto-start coinjoin threshold is 0.01 BTC, the user will have to manually press Play to start coinjoining. The default Auto-start coinjoin threshold is 0.01 BTC.

Auto-start coinjoin threshold

What does the Red coin isolation mean in the coinjoin settings?

When the Red coin isolation is enabled, only a single coin with anonymity score 1 will be allowed into the coinjoin registration. To prevent possible coinjoin input heuristics from outside observers. The Red coin isolation is enabled by default when the Maximize Privacy coinjoin strategy is selected.

Red Coin Isolation

Do coinjoin transactions signal RBF?

No. Coinjoin transactions do not signal RBF.

Why do my coins occasionally get banned from participating in CoinJoin?

A CoinJoin consists of multiple users registering inputs (coins) and blinded outputs. Once the appropriate number of participants have registered, the actual transaction (the CoinJoin) is constructed by the coordinator, and given to all participants in the span of about 60 seconds. At this point, all registered participants must sign off on the CoinJoin, and if a single one of the participants fails to sign their input, the entire CoinJoin must be restarted.

So this introduces a problem, or an attack vector - a malicious user could purposefully register coins, only to wait for the signing phase and not sign. This would halt the entire CoinJoin process for all other participants and Wasabi would no longer work. This is also known as denial of service attackopen in new window.

So a simple solution looks like this - the coordinator could collect signatures from all inputs, and if one or more input refuses to sign, the coordinator could record that input and temporarily (or even permanently) ban that coin from participation. This is a nice solution, as it mitigates a single coin from ruining all CoinJoins, but it too comes with trade-offs.

For example, most of the time, users fail to sign a CoinJoin for non-malicious reasons. Perhaps their Tor connection went down in precisely that moment, or perhaps their WiFi had a temporary flicker at the wrong time. Further, some users don't even realize that the signing phase is happening, and sometimes shut down their computer at exactly the wrong moment. All of these things hinder a successful CoinJoin for all other participants, but by pure accident.

If you are one of the victims of this temporary banning then simply wait for the ban to expire and try again. The best thing you can do to avoid the issue is to have a strong internet connection and keep your computer online throughout the whole process.

Note:

Banning does not mean freezing. You can send banned coins to anyone you want. This is a temporary ban on your coins in participation of the CoinJoin.

Backup and Recovery

How do I back up my mnemonic words?

TIP

Write down your recovery words!

Wasabi uses BIP 39: mnemonic code for generating deterministic keysopen in new window to enable easy backups of all private keys in the wallet. The mnemonic is displayed as 12 recovery words that are only shown once during the wallet generation.

Wasabi Wallet recovery words

DANGER

In order to restore a wallet, you need BOTH the recovery words AND the password!

It is a good idea to keep the two in separate analog backups, such as a laminated paper written with pencil. In order to defend against nature destroying fragile paper, you can consider stamping the words into metal. Use two different backups and locations for the mnemonic and password, because whoever has both [including a physical attacker] has full access to your sats. Find a secure physical location to store the backups, maybe a home safe, or an expert security deposit box.

Please see Backup Best Practices for more information about backups.

How do I back up my wallet file?

Although you can back up your private keys with the mnemonic words and password, this is only a last resort recovery. If you want to also secure your address labels, the anonscore and additional metadata, then you can do a digital backup. Simply copy the WalletBackups folder with the wallet.json files from your Wasabi data folder onto suitable hardware, for example an encrypted USB stick. Note that this file has the encrypted private key (extracted from the extended private key), meaning that you only need the password to spend the bitcoin. This also contains the extended public key, the public keys, and the address labels, meaning that it completely links all the coins, both pre and post mix, with clear proof.

WARNING

Make sure to back up your password separately because it is necessary to spend your bitcoin.

TIP

The wallet file backup is sensitive, in terms of privacy, but not critical in terms of loss of funds (if a password was used when generating the wallet). So it is good advice to encrypt this wallet file.

What do I need to recover my wallet?

To recover your wallet you need either your Recovery Words + Password, or the Wallet File + Password, as shown in the table below.

Recovery WordsWallet FilePassword
Recovery Words✔️
Wallet File✔️
Password✔️✔️

TIP

If no password was entered at the wallet creation, then the Recovery Words or Wallet File alone are enough to recover the wallet.

Can I recover my wallet without the password?

No. The password you set is used as a 13th word (passphrase) as described in BIP39, you should back it up when you generate a wallet. It is necessary to spend your bitcoin or to recover your wallet, as shown in this table.

What should I do if I forget my password?

Try to use the Password Finder Tool to find your password. Having a close guess of what the password is increases the possibility that you get your password.

I lost the recovery words but I still have the .json file and the password. Is my wallet still recoverable?

Yes, but in this case it is advisable to create a new wallet and back up the new recovery words and the password, then move your bitcoin there.

The .json file contains the encrypted secret that requires the password to derive your private keys. That gives you access to your bitcoin.

Can I verify the Recovery Words of an existing wallet?

Yes. Go to Wallet Settings > Verify Recovery Words. Type in your recovery words in the correct order, click on Verify and it will show you if they are correct or not.

Wasabi Wallet Verify Recovery Words

Hardware Wallet

Watch the videoopen in new window

Watch the videoopen in new window

Watch the videoopen in new window

What hardware wallets does Wasabi support?

Wasabi uses the Bitcoin Core Hardware Wallet Interface (HWI)open in new window which allows it to support a variety of hardware wallets. For the complete list of all the officially supported hardware wallets, click hereopen in new window.

Why does Wasabi use the Hardware Wallet Interface?

Wasabi uses the Bitcoin Core Hardware Wallet Interface [HWI]open in new window, a python library tool for proper integration of off-line signing devices. It provides a standard way for any software wallet to communicate with any hardware wallet without needing any device specific drivers. HWI was developed and carefully reviewed over several years, with outstanding contributions by Andrew Chowopen in new window. Wasabi implements C# code that executes the HWI tool. Wasabi uses this powerful tool because there are no other dependencies necessary to support all the existing and future hardware wallets.

Does Wasabi support the hidden wallets of hardware wallets?

Partially. Only device side passphrase is supported. PC side passphrase is not. This means that the hidden wallet feature can be used with Trezor T, Ledger Nano S, Nano S Plus, Nano X and ColdCard. After the 12 or 24 words, enter the passphrase as the 13th or 25th word on the hardware wallet. It’s part of BIP 39open in new window.

How can I generate a Wasabi skeleton wallet file in ColdCard?

On the ColdCard you go to Advanced > MicroSD Card > Export Wallet > Wasabi Wallet and it will save a skeleton json-file to the MicroSD card in the hardware wallet.

Read more here.

How can I import the Wasabi skeleton wallet file?

Take the MicroSD card from the ColdCard and plug it in the computer with the Wasabi Wallet software. In Wasabi Wallet go to Add Wallet and select Import a wallet. Now select the Wasabi skeleton json-file from the MicroSD card, if this fails you can manually enter the file location in Wasabi Wallet window and load the file.

Read more here.

How can I generate a receiving address of my hardware wallet?

In Wasabi Wallet you load your previously imported wallet (from Wasabi skeleton, or USB detection) and go to the Receive dialog, here you enter a label for the observers of the incoming transaction and click Continue. In the receive dialog, previously generated addresses (which haven't received any funds yet) can be viewed and copied at Addresses Awaiting Payment.

Read more here.

How can I sign a transaction with a USB connected hardware wallet?

To send a transaction you will need to connect your hardware wallet and unlock the device (using PIN or password).

  • Go to Send, enter the address to send to and the amount of bitcoin to spend.
  • Enter the label of whom you are sending to.
  • At the Preview Transaction screen, check if all the information is correct.
  • After you have checked that everything is correct, click Send Now to sign it with the connected hardware wallet and broadcast the transaction to the network.

Read more here.

How can I build and export a transaction to ColdCard?

  • Enable PSBT workflow in the Wallet Settings.
  • Go to Send and enter the destination address and amount.
  • Click Continue.
  • Enter the label of whom you are sending to.
  • At the Preview Transaction screen, check that everything is correct.
  • Click on Save PSBT file and save the file to the MicroSD card.
  • You can then insert the MicroSD card (containing the PSBT) in the Coldcard for manual verification and signing.

Read more here.

How can I sign a transaction on the ColdCard?

On the ColdCard (Mk2, firmware 2.1.1 and up) you enter the PIN code to unlock the hardware wallet and press Ready To Sign with the MicroSD card containing the previously generated transaction or PSBT-file. Verify the address and amount and the ColdCard will then create a signed.psbt and final.txn file on the MicroSD card. The finalized transaction (xxx-final.txn) can now be broadcast by Wasabi Wallet with the Broadcaster tool, or even a radio or satellite dish if someone is listening!

Read more here.

How can I import and broadcast a final transaction from ColdCard?

In the top search bar, go to Broadcaster and then select Import Transaction, now you can select the previously finalized (and signed) transaction file from the MicroSD card. If this fails you can manually type the path to this file in Wasabi Wallet to load the transaction. Now click Broadcast Transaction to send it off over Tor to a random Bitcoin node so it can flood over to the miners for confirmation in a block.

Read more here.

TIP

A Broadcast button will be displayed next to the Send button, when PSBT workflow is enabled, for an easier workflow.

Can I coinjoin bitcoins on my hardware wallet?

No, that is currently not possible. A coinjoin is a multi round interactive process, and requires fast signing by the participants, thus the keys need to be on a hot computer. Thus currently you have to send the bitcoins from your hardware wallet to a hot Wasabi Wallet, do the coinjoin and then send them back to a new address on the Hardware wallet for cold-storage.

Read more here.

TIP

Trezor now supports coinjoin with the Trezor Suite, using same rounds as Wasabi Wallet users. Read more hereopen in new window.

Does Ledger Live send my public keys and addresses to a third party server?

Only if you add your accounts in the app, but not if you update your device firmware or install apps. When using the Ledger Live software wallet to manage your coins, you send all of your used, and 20 unused addresses to Ledger's nodes. Sourceopen in new window

Your extended public key, however, is not shared with Ledger's node, but rather stored encrypted on your local machine.

Read more hereopen in new window.

Ledger could potentially analyze information from API calls to their nodes to link addresses to individual users, though Ledger says no logs are kept during normal operation.

To avoid any privacy leak, you can use a Ledger hardware wallet in combination with Wasabi as a software interface, and because Wasabi does not leak your addresses, your transaction history is not shared with anyone.

After I coinjoined my coins and reached 100% privacy, I sent them to my hardware wallet and now the coins have anonscore 1. Why?

Everything is working as expected.

The anonymity score (number) is tied to your wallet that you used to coinjoin, if you send a coinjoined coin to another Wasabi Wallet of yours (hardware wallet or normal wallet) it will have an anonscore of 1 because this wallet doesn't know all of the coinjoin history.

You should put a meaningful label when you generate a receive address in your hardware wallet, e.g. "private UTXO" (something that reminds you that you got this UTXO from your Wasabi Wallet and that it was coinjoined).

Can I use Trezor One with Wasabi?

No. Unfortunately, Trezor One is not supported by Wasabi Wallet. For the complete list of all the officially supported hardware wallets, click hereopen in new window.

Can I use BitBox with Wasabi?

No. Unfortunately, BitBox is not supported by Wasabi Wallet. For the complete list of all the officially supported hardware wallets, click hereopen in new window.

How can I type in the passphrase of my Trezor T?

After connecting the Trezor T to your computer and upon trying to load your wallet, you get a message on the Trezor T to choose where to type your passphrase, on the device or the host (computer), choose the first option (device) then enter the passprase using the touchscreen of your Trezor T. Wasabi wallet will now load this passphrase protected wallet.

I have coinjoined with a Trezor device on Trezor Suite, but in Wasabi I cannot see my coins?

Trezor uses only Taproot for coinjoin, with a non-standard derivation path. So Wasabi does not know about the existence of the Trezor Suite coinjoin coins.

How can I use Hardware Wallets on Linux (udev rules)?

On Linux, you need to create a set of udev rules for the hardware wallet to be reachable.

Udev rules instructions can be found hereopen in new window.

History

How can I check the transactions history?

The wallet's main page displays the history of all transactions made with this specific wallet. It includes receiving, sending, and coinjoin transactions.

Wasabi Wallet History

How can I see coinjoins in the history list?

Coinjoin transactions are indicated with a shield icon:

History Coinjoin

When the wallet has made multiple coinjoins, the coinjoins will be clustered. Coinjoin clusters are indicated with a double shield icon. To see the individual coinjoins, the cluster can be expanded by clicking the arrow on the left:

History Coinjoin Expanded

A coinjoin is a payment within the same wallet, thus it only shows the coordination fee (if any) and mining fee leaving the wallet.

Can I sort the history items?

Yes, the history items can be sorted by clicking on the column title:

Sort Date Column

Can I search for a transaction ID in the history?

Yes. This can be done by pasting the transaction ID into the search bar or by manually typing part of the transaction ID. After clicking the result, the transaction will be highlighted in the history.

SearchBar Search TX

TIP

It will only show results of the wallets which are currently open.

Can I export a list of transactions?

There is currently no convenient way to export a list with transaction details inside the GUI. However, you can see the wallet.json files inside the WalletBackups folder (you can find it in your Wasabi data folder) which contains all the public keys, labels and anonset.

You can use the Wasabi RPC server gethistory call to get a list of all transactions, including date, block height, amount, label and tx id.

Settings

How do I connect my own full node to Wasabi?

There are three different ways of using your Bitcoin full node with Wasabi:

  • If you have a full node already running on the same computer as Wasabi, it will automatically be detected and used by default.
  • If you have a full node on a remote computer, then you can connect to it by specifying the local network IP address or Tor onion service in the Wasabi Settings tab.

Wasabi Wallet Remote P2P Bitcoin Endpoint full node

  • If you are not yet running a full node, Wasabi has the bitcoind binaries included, and with one click in the Settings, you can start Bitcoin Knots together with Wasabi.

Wasabi Wallet local Bitcoin Knots full node integration

Watch the videoopen in new window

How can I turn off Tor?

You can turn off Network anonymization (Tor) in the Settings. Note that this is a privacy concern, especially when you coinjoin and when you broadcast a transaction. In the first case, the coordinator would know the links between your inputs and outputs based on your IP address. In the second case, if you happen to broadcast a transaction of yours to a full node that is spying on you, it will know the link between your transaction and your IP address.

DANGER

It is recommended to always use Tor! The setting to turn it off is only intended for debugging and trouble shooting.

How can I change the anonymity score target?

The anonscore target is a wallet specific setting which is determined by the Coinjoin Strategy, but can also be manually changed in the Coinjoin Settings dialog.

On the main view click the three dots on the top right corner after loading the wallet. Choose Coinjoin Settings, click Change (Coinjoin strategy), click Customize. Move the Anonymity score target slider to the desired value and click Done.

Coinjoin Settings Anonymity score target

Alternatively, you can change the anonymity score target by editing the wallet file. Go to the SearchBar and click Wallet Folder and open the wallet json file and edit the AnonScoreTarget value.

"AnonScoreTarget": 5,

What is the dust threshold?

Dust can mean a lot of thingsopen in new window, depending on how you look at it. It can be a non-economical input, that is a UTXO that has less value than the fees it would cost to spend this coin. A dust attack is actually about forced address reuseopen in new window, the malicious actor sends very small amounts into old addresses and consolidation of these dust UTXOs can link several coins in a wallet cluster.

Specifically in the context of Wasabi, with the dust threshold settings you can limit the value of spam coins shown in the GUI. Coins that you receive from other wallets (so no self-spend) which are less than the dust threshold in value and are received on an already used address are not shown. For example: When it is set to 0.0000 5000 BTC, and you receive a coin worth 0.0000 4000 BTC from a different wallet to an already used address, then this transaction and the coin in the coin list will not be shown.

Wasabi Wallet Dust threshold settings

Where can I find the logs?

In the SearchBar you can see there are several logs available.

  • The Logs shows the general log information about Wasabi Wallet.
  • The Tor Logs shows the Tor specific logs.

Wasabi Wallet SearchBar Help&Support and Open

Alternatively, you can find the logs inside your Wasabi data folder.

How to activate/deactivate discreet mode?

You can activate/deactivate Discreet Mode by clicking the Discreet Mode icon in the bottom left corner of the main view.

Read more here.

Discreet Mode Icon

How can I change to the white theme?

You can change from the default dark to the white theme by disabling Dark Mode in the Settings. Alternatively, you can switch to Dark Mode in the .walletwasabi/client/UIConfig.json data folder. Open the UIConfig.json file and change the line from "DarkModeEnabled": true to "DarkModeEnabled": false. Save the file and restart Wasabi. Please note that Wasabi is designed for the dark theme, and some color schemes might not look beautiful in the white mode.

Wasabi Wallet white theme

Coin Control Best Practices

What are coins?

Bitcoin uses a system of inputs and outputs to keep track of who owns how many sats. Every transaction specifies one or more inputs, the chunk of bitcoin being spent, and one or more outputs, the destination of who receives the bitcoin. A coin is also called an unspent transaction output (UTXO), meaning that this output has not been used as the input of a new transaction - it is yet to be spent. In order to spend a UTXO, the valid signature and script has to be provided in the transaction. This ensures that only with knowledge of the correct private key can this coin be sent to a new address. This chain of links between inputs being spent and outputs being generated is verified by every full node, and stored on the blockchain.

How can I enable (manual) coin control?

The default send workflow uses the automatic coin selection algorithm, which is optimized in a way that "traditional" coin control is obsolete. However, the user can review which coins are selected, or select different coins using the (manual) coin control. This can be done by pressing and holding the keystroke alt (or option on mac device) at the Preview Transaction screen, which will bring up the Review coins button to click on.

Send Review Coins

This is a developer feature

Do NOT use the manual coin control if you do not know what you are doing. Misusing it can have seriously bad privacy consequences.

How do I select coins for spending?

In the normal send workflow, Wasabi automatically selects which coins to send.

To send a specific coin, the user can use the Wallet Coins dialog (a.k.a coinlist). The coinlist can be brought up by pressing the keyboard combination CTRL + C + D simultaneously on the main view or via the search bar.

This is for advanced usage only

Users should stick to the default send workflow. Misusing the coinlist for sending can result in critical privacy risks.

Wallet Coins Send Selected Coins

This is not full coin control

You can only send coins in full. There is no possiblity to enter a bitcoin amount or receive change.

Can I consolidate anonset coins?

It is advisable to limit the recombining of mixed coins because it can only decrease the privacy of these coins. This reveals that all the consolidated UTXOs are controlled by one entity, which was not known before the consolidation. That said, if you combine only a couple of mixed coins, you might not reveal your pre-coinjoin transaction history, especially when you did several re-mixes. So consolidating some private coins is OK to do.

Take great care!

Never consolidate non-private coins with private (mixed) coins, as this negates the privacy benefits of the coinjoin.

Watch the videoopen in new window

How can I send my anonset coins to my hardware wallet?

Most hardware wallets communicate with servers to provide you with your balance. This reveals your public key to the server, which damages your privacy - the hardware wallet company can now link together all your addresses. As a result it is not recommended that you send your mixed coins to an address associated with your hardware wallet unless you are confident that you have set up your hardware wallet in a way that it does not communicate with a 3rd party server (see below).

You can, however, manage your hardware wallet with the Wasabi interface. Alternatively, you can use your hardware wallet with Electrum, and in order to not leak any information to third-party servers run your own Electrum Personal Serveropen in new window, ElectrumXopen in new window or Electrsopen in new window.

What can I do with small change?

There are no hard and fast rules for what to do with the change. Generally try to avoid having change by using the change avoidance suggestions when sending. Generally change should be coinjoined, Wasabi automatically coinjoins the change if possible (if the change is more than the coinjoin minimum).

You should treat change as a kind of toxic waste (handled with great care). You can spend the change to the same entity as the initial transaction, without loosing much privacy. Only spend the change to another entity, if these two won't make you trouble knowing you interact with both of them. If needed, you can consolidate several change coins, but we advise you to do it in a coinjoin. In JoinMarket you can specify the exact amount of coinjoin, so it can be exactly the amount of the change. Or open a new Lightning Network node (not your main Lightning node), create a channel to a random peer on the network and route the funds back to you.

TIP

For more information, see this dedicated chapter.

Music Box

What does Awaiting cheaper coinjoins mean?

It means your wallet is waiting to participate in a cheaper coinjoin round(s) because the fee rate of the current coinjoin(s) is higher than the median of the selected Coinjoin time preference.

What does Awaiting the blame round mean?

If some other participant disrupted the round by failing to sign the coinjoin transaction, this message briefly appears before a new coinjoin, known as the blame round, is created with the responsive participants from the failed round.

What does Insufficient funds eligible for coinjoin mean?

This message is displayed when some coins cannot coinjoin, for example when they are unconfirmed or below the minimum coinjoin amount.

What does Some funds are rejected from coinjoining mean?

If an input has failed to sign during a previous round it registered to, it will be temporarily banned to prevent denial of service attacks. Coinjoin coordinators may also reject funds for risk management purposes. You can view the ban time at the Wallet Coins dialog via the search bar or with the keyboard shortcut “CTRL + C + D”.

Buy Anything Button

What is the Buy Anything Button?

The Buy Anything button was introduced in Wasabi version 2.0.5 which can be used to make purchases directly with Bitcoin. The button is an integration using Shopinbit'sopen in new window premium concierge service and travel booking services which are now conveniently accessible from your wallet. You can Buy Anything because ShopinBit has a team of experts that handle your customized orders, whether it's electronics, cars, flights, or hotels. There is currently a $1,000 minimum purchase limit for this service.

How does the Buy Anything Button work?

When clicking on the Buy Anything Button, the user communicates with ShopinBit over a new Tor identity (unless Tor is disabled in the Settings). The user gets asked some questions, like what he wants to buy, and some follow-up questions needed for the order. After the details are confirmed in the chat, a bitcoin address gets displayed to pay the invoice. Once ShopinBit has received the bitcoin on the address with a confirmation, they will start processing the order. The processing time depends on what has been bought. For example, a physical product may take weeks to deliver but a spontaneous travel booking can be arranged within days.

Does the Buy Anything Button hurt my privacy?

The Buy Anything Button does not compromise your wallet's privacy. Things like the wallet balance and history are still private. However, when providing some personal details like e-mail and shipping address for the order, then ShopinBit is aware of these, the same as when ordering directly from them or any other merchant. They are aware of this and that's why they ask for the minimal required info possible to complete the order. Your wallet information is never connected to the information used for ordering anything.

But of course, make sure to use private coins when sending them/anyone your bitcoin!

What can I order and for whom is this available?

ShopinBit can get you anything that is legal in Poland. Some services may or may not be available depending on the jurisdiction. Their Terms and Conditions are displayed and required to be accepted before ordering. For (legal) information and questions, please refer to the Shopinbit websiteopen in new window.

Advanced Usage

Can I change the default ports for the Wasabi's bundled Tor?

Yes. Since Wasabi version 2.0.6open in new window it is possible to specify the Tor SOCKS5 and the Tor control ports. This can be done by specifying the port(s) at startup with the startup parameters.

Where does the BTC exchange rate come from?

Wasabi fetches the BTC/USD exchange rate from one of these exchanges: blockchain.com, Bitstamp, CoinGecko, Coinbase, Gemini and Coingate. It first tries to fetch the exchange rate from blockchain.com, if that's not possible it will try to fetch it from the next exchange in the listed order (and so on, until success).