On Monday, Wasabi Wallet and the open-source bitcoin payment processor Btcpay announced a new plugin for the Btcpay server. The plugin implements Wasabi’s Wabisabi coinjoin coordination protocol, allowing merchants to benefit from privacy enhancement. By activating the newly launched plugin, all the funds that merchants receive and send will be coinjoined, or mixed together with other bitcoin transactions.
New Btcpay Server Plugin Aims to Bolster Bitcoin Privacy
According to an announcement from the privacy-centric bitcoin wallet platform Wasabi Wallet and the bitcoin payment processor Btcpay, merchants now have the ability to obfuscate their incoming and outgoing bitcoin (BTC) transactions.
The technology comes in the form of a new plugin for Btcpay, which was developed by Andrew Camilleri and based on Wasabi Wallet’s Wabisabi coinjoin coordination protocol. The Btcpay plugin’s scheme “protects the privacy of all their incoming and outgoing transactions by preventing sensitive information about their store’s payment history from leaking to unconcerned parties,” Wasabi explained in a summary sent to Bitcoin.com News.
“Btcpay Server was created to empower individuals and businesses to regain their financial sovereignty,” said Kukks, the developer of the Btcpay Coinjoin Plugin, in a statement. “The Wasabi Wallet team and I are proud to offer even more privacy protection with this new coinjoin feature. I believe that financial privacy is a fundamental human right, this feature is my contribution to that cause.”
The announcement details that all Btcpay Server merchants can utilize the coinjoin process with a liquid coordinator provided by Zksnacks, the firm behind Wasabi Wallet. Moreover, Btcpay Server administrators can start their own coinjoin coordinators on their own terms if they choose not to use the Zksnacks coordinator. The two firms further mentioned that the new coinjoin service also provides a payment batching feature that saves block space.
“It only made sense that it would include an optional coinjoin plugin with the most sophisticated privacy-enhancing tool for bitcoin,” Max Hillebrand, Wasabi Wallet contributor and the CEO at Zksnacks said. “As a coinjoin protocol, Wabisabi has been designed with merchants in mind, enabling payments inside coinjoin and optimizing block space usage to save on fees.”
Btcpay is not the only company that has collaborated with Wasabi and introduced the privacy-enhancing coinjoin technology. In September 2022, Trezor announced that it was adding a coinjoin implementation into the firm’s hardware wallet.
What do you think about the new Btcpay Server plugin and its potential impact on enhancing bitcoin privacy for merchants? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.