Austin Griffith Builds 'Shield' App Using Railgun for ETH Privacy, Analyzes Withdrawal Patterns
Austin Griffith is building a 'Shield' app into slop.computer that uses Railgun's kohaku-cli for private ETH transactions. His analysis of on-chain data reveals that 100 recent withdrawals of exactly 0.009975 ETH (0.01 minus 0.25% fee) form a common pattern, suggesting a safe withdrawal amount to avoid linking deposits and withdrawals.
To disappear into a crowd, you have to move like the crowd. I'm building a "Shield" app into http://slop.computer It runs ETH through Railgun using @kassandraETH's kohaku-cli under the hood I'm thinking about sensible defaults to hide in the noise......
So I whaled on my local ETH node to look at railgun traffic...... Two things make a withdrawal amount safe: 1) lots of other people withdraw the same number 2) it doesn't arithmetic-map back to your specific deposit
And the data shows a clear winner... 2,627 ETH withdrawals in 30 days The single biggest cluster: 100 people who received exactly 0.009975 ETH. Weird number? It's 0.01 minus Railgun's 0.25% fee!!! (So it is best to deposit like 0.1 and then withdraw 0.009975 ETH!!!)
http://slop.computer's "Shield" copies what the biggest groups do: Don't withdraw a round number! Withdraw the number everyone else ends up with: A round amount minus Railgun's fee. (TIL: Aim for a clean 0.01 and you're actually a weirdo standing outside the crowd!!!)