Going further on privacy
The optional privacy tools
There is a layer above the everyday privacy habits: a small number of tools that change what the chain reveals about you. This is that layer, honestly described — including which of these we would tell most readers to walk straight past. You are not behind if you skip all of this.
The two things that do most of the work are a fresh receiving address every single time, and never being publicly known as a holder. They are free, they need no software, and together they defeat more than anything on this page. The privacy lesson teaches both, and it is the page to read first — nothing here is an upgrade on it, and one of the three below is a fix for a case where the habit simply cannot be applied.
The three, in the order we would consider them
Cheapest first, not most interesting first. Ordering these by how much has been written about them would put the heaviest one at the top and quietly recommend it — so the one that costs you nothing and helps a little leads, and the one that costs money, time and ongoing care comes last, with the reasons attached.
- PayJoin BIP-78 (2020), superseded by BIP-77 (2025) An ordinary-looking payment that quietly breaks the analyst’s core assumption.
- Fixes
- The assumption that everything paying into one transaction belongs to one person.
- For
- Anyone spending on-chain, whenever the other side offers it.
- Costs
- Almost nothing — a slightly bigger transaction fee, and a few seconds.
- Silent Payments BIP-352, finalised 2023–2024 One address you can publish anywhere, which is never actually reused.
- Fixes
- Needing a payment address in public — the one habit this guide asks you not to have.
- For
- Anyone who genuinely needs to publish an address.
- Costs
- Nothing, if your wallet supports it. Your wallet does more work; you do none.
- CoinJoin Proposed by Greg Maxwell in 2013 Many people’s coins through one transaction, so no output can be tied to an input.
- Fixes
- Coins whose history you want to stop travelling with them.
- For
- A small number of readers with a specific reason. Most likely not you.
- Costs
- Fees, time, permanent discipline, a visible mark on the coins, and genuine legal uncertainty.
What none of them fix
Worth having in front of you before you spend anything on this layer, because all three are sometimes sold as if they did:
- The history you already have. Every one of these protects you forwards, never backwards.
- The identity checks attached to coins you bought on an exchange. That record exists off the chain and stays there.
- Anything already leaked by other means — a screenshot, a conversation, a breach at a company you handed your address to.
That is not an argument against any of them. It is the difference between improving your position from today and undoing a position you already have — and only one of those is on offer.
Where this sits in the course
Nothing on these pages is needed to hold Bitcoin safely, and nothing here is part of the course. The privacy lesson is where the habits are taught, and the lesson on running your own node is where the one habit these tools sit on top of — being able to see and choose which of your coins you spend — stops being abstract. Read those first. These will still be here.
✓ Last verified: August 5, 2026