Wasabi Wallet

Wasabi Wallet is a non-custodial, privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet whose primary feature is built-in CoinJoin — a technique that mixes your Bitcoin transactions with other users' transactions to break the chain of ownership visible on the public blockchain. Bitcoin transactions are fully transparent by default: anyone with a block explorer can trace exactly which addresses sent funds to which other addresses. Wasabi Wallet disrupts this traceability by automatically coordinating CoinJoin rounds that make it practically impossible to determine which inputs correspond to which outputs.

For crisis privacy, Wasabi addresses a critical vulnerability in Bitcoin: its public ledger. If you acquired Bitcoin through a KYC exchange or received it from a known source, that connection is visible to any blockchain analyst. Chain analysis companies like Chainalysis sell this tracing capability to governments worldwide. Wasabi Wallet's CoinJoin implementation severs these links, giving you Bitcoin that cannot be traced back to its origin. This is essential if you need to move value without it being tracked.

Wasabi Wallet is designed for people who already hold Bitcoin and need to improve its privacy before using it. It pairs well with Bisq for no-KYC acquisition and with Cake Wallet for converting mixed Bitcoin to Monero for even stronger privacy. If Bitcoin is your preferred store of value, Wasabi Wallet is the most effective tool for making it difficult to trace.

Wasabi Wallet stores all wallet data locally on your machine, encrypted with your wallet password. Private keys never leave your device. The wallet uses BIP-84 (native SegWit) address derivation by default, generating a new address for each transaction to prevent address reuse — a basic but essential privacy practice.

The CoinJoin protocol is where Wasabi's cryptographic innovation lies. Wasabi Wallet 2.0 uses the WabiSabi protocol, a next-generation CoinJoin coordination mechanism that allows variable output amounts (unlike the original fixed-denomination ZeroLink protocol). WabiSabi uses keyed-verification anonymous credentials — a cryptographic construction where the coordinator can verify that outputs are valid without learning which user owns which output. The coordinator facilitates the transaction but is cryptographically prevented from determining the mapping between inputs and outputs. This is a significant improvement over earlier CoinJoin implementations where the coordinator was a potential privacy leak.

Wasabi Wallet requires no registration, no email, no phone number, and no identity verification. You download the application, create a wallet with a password, and receive a 12-word seed phrase. Your identity on the network is a Tor circuit — all Wasabi network traffic is routed through Tor by default, including connections to the Bitcoin network and to the CoinJoin coordinator.

The CoinJoin coordinator run by zkSNACKs (the company behind Wasabi) does see your transaction inputs during the coordination process, but the WabiSabi protocol ensures it cannot link inputs to outputs. Wasabi also supports connecting to your own Bitcoin full node over Tor, which eliminates even the coordinator's view of your transactions outside of the CoinJoin rounds. For maximum anonymity, run your own node and use Wasabi exclusively over Tor.

Wasabi Wallet is fully open source under the MIT license. The complete codebase — including the WabiSabi CoinJoin protocol, the wallet logic, and the Tor integration — is published on GitHub. The project has a substantial contributor base and is one of the most actively reviewed privacy projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

The WabiSabi protocol was published as a research paper and presented at cryptocurrency conferences. Multiple independent security researchers have reviewed the protocol and its implementation. Wasabi has also undergone formal security audits. The open-source nature means that any change to the CoinJoin protocol or the wallet's behavior is publicly visible and subject to community scrutiny. The project maintains detailed documentation of its privacy model and its limitations.

zkSNACKs Ltd., the company behind Wasabi Wallet, is incorporated in Gibraltar. Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory with its own regulatory framework that is generally business-friendly. It is not a Five Eyes member itself, but its relationship with the UK creates some jurisdictional ambiguity. In 2024, zkSNACKs announced that the CoinJoin coordinator would begin filtering certain UTXOs (unspent transaction outputs) associated with sanctioned addresses, citing regulatory pressure.

This filtering decision was controversial in the privacy community and demonstrated that the centralized coordinator is a potential point of regulatory pressure. However, because Wasabi is open source, third-party coordinators have emerged that do not implement these filters. Users can configure Wasabi to connect to alternative coordinators, and the open protocol specification means anyone can run a coordinator. The wallet itself — as local software — is not subject to any jurisdiction's control.

Wasabi Wallet has been operational since 2018 and has processed billions of dollars in CoinJoin volume. The original ZeroLink implementation (Wasabi 1.0) was a breakthrough in practical Bitcoin privacy, and the WabiSabi upgrade (Wasabi 2.0, launched in 2022) represented a significant advancement in CoinJoin technology.

The 2024 UTXO filtering controversy was the most significant trust event in Wasabi's history. The privacy community was divided — some viewed the filtering as a pragmatic response to regulatory reality, while others saw it as a fundamental betrayal of the privacy mission. The emergence of alternative coordinators (including the community-run Ginger Wallet fork) demonstrated that the open-source architecture provides resilience even when the primary coordinator makes unpopular decisions. The broader trust picture remains strong: the wallet has never been compromised, no user funds have been lost, and the CoinJoin protocol has withstood years of analysis.

Wasabi Wallet 2.0 significantly improved usability over the original version. CoinJoin now happens automatically in the background — you simply send Bitcoin to your Wasabi wallet, and the wallet automatically begins mixing it through CoinJoin rounds. The "privacy score" indicator shows the anonymity level of each UTXO in your wallet, with a target of reaching "private" status before you spend.

The interface is clean but still more complex than a standard Bitcoin wallet. Users need to understand concepts like UTXOs, privacy scores, and remix frequency to use Wasabi optimally. The wallet's insistence on privacy (e.g., waiting for CoinJoin completion before allowing sends) can be frustrating for users who want to send funds immediately. Documentation is thorough, and the Wasabi community on platforms like Reddit and GitHub is responsive to questions. For non-technical users, there is a moderate learning curve.

Wasabi Wallet is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux as a desktop application. There is no mobile app and no web interface. Like Bisq, this is a deliberate design decision — running Tor hidden services and managing CoinJoin coordination requires desktop-class resources and security.

The application performs consistently across all three desktop platforms. All features — wallet management, CoinJoin, coin control, node connection — are available on every platform. The lack of mobile support is a limitation for people who primarily use their phone, but for a tool whose primary function is long-running CoinJoin mixing, desktop-only operation is a reasonable tradeoff.

Wasabi Wallet is completely free to download and use for basic wallet functionality. CoinJoin coordination fees are charged by the coordinator — zkSNACKs charges a coordination fee of 0.3% per CoinJoin round for fresh inputs. Remixes (subsequent CoinJoin rounds with already-mixed UTXOs) are free, encouraging users to achieve higher anonymity levels.

Since the software is free and open source, there is no payment required to download or use it. The CoinJoin fees are deducted automatically from your Bitcoin within the CoinJoin transaction — no credit card, bank account, or identity-linked payment is needed. Alternative third-party coordinators may have different fee structures, including zero-fee options. The economic model is designed so that the cost of privacy is small, proportional, and paid in the same Bitcoin being mixed.

Download Wasabi Wallet from wasabiwallet.io — verify the PGP signature of the download against the keys published on the Wasabi GitHub repository. Install the application on your computer. On first launch, Wasabi will establish a Tor connection (this may take a minute). Create a new wallet and set a strong password. The wallet will display a 12-word recovery seed — write this on paper and store it securely, separate from your computer.

Fund your Wasabi wallet by sending Bitcoin to the receive address shown in the wallet. You can send from Bisq after a no-KYC purchase, from another wallet, or from any Bitcoin source. Once the Bitcoin arrives and is confirmed on the blockchain, Wasabi will automatically begin the CoinJoin process. The wallet will show your funds' privacy score increasing as they pass through CoinJoin rounds. Wait until your funds reach the "private" threshold (indicated by a green shield icon) before spending them.

To spend mixed Bitcoin privately, use the "Send" tab and enter the recipient address and amount. Wasabi will select UTXOs with sufficient privacy scores and construct the transaction. For maximum privacy, avoid spending mixed and unmixed UTXOs in the same transaction — this can undo the privacy benefits of CoinJoin. If you plan to convert your mixed Bitcoin to Monero for stronger ongoing privacy, send from Wasabi to your Cake Wallet's Bitcoin address and use the built-in exchange feature to swap to Monero. The combination of Bisq acquisition, Wasabi mixing, and Monero conversion provides one of the strongest financial privacy chains available.