In the beginning, cryptocurrency was meant to be about privacy and freedom, but these days everything is tracked, connected, and sold. Blockchains are forever public ledgers, exchanges require your ID, and analytics firms profit millions by connecting your wallet to your true identity.

The good news? You can still stay pretty damn private if you’re deliberate about it. You don’t need to go full tinfoil-hat, just follow some basic habits. Here are the tips that actually move the needle in 2025.

1. Stop reusing wallet addresses. Every time you receive money on the same address, you’re giving the world a perfect history of your transactions. Generate a new address for every single use or at least per relationship (one for salary, one for trading, one for DeFi, one for fun). Most good wallets do this automatically now — make sure it’s turned on.

2. Separate your identities like they’re exes. Have different wallets for different parts of your life:

• One “public” wallet you connect to Twitter/Discord (expect this one to get doxxed eventually);

• One “serious money” cold-storage wallet that never touches the internet or dApps;

• One or two “daily” hot wallets for trading/DeFi that you refill only when needed;

• Never move coins directly between them on-chain. Use a no-KYC exchange or Monero as a bridge if you must.

3. Avoid KYC exchanges for anything you want private. If you KYC on Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, etc., that wallet is now forever tied to your legal name. Use them only for on-ramps/off-ramps when you have no choice, then immediately move the coins to a private wallet and never bring them back to the same address. Better options in 2025:

• Bisq, Haveno (Monero), LocalMonero (while it lasts);

• NoOnes, Hodl Hodl, Peach Bitcoin (for BTC);

• SimpleSwap, ChangeNOW, FixedFloat (no-KYC swaps).

4. Use Monero for anything truly private. Bitcoin is not private. Ethereum is not private. Monero actually is (ring signatures + stealth addresses + RingCT). If you need to break the link between sender and receiver, convert to XMR, send it, convert back if needed. Yes, fees suck sometimes and liquidity isn’t perfect, but it still works better than anything else.

5. For Bitcoin: CoinJoin properly. Wasabi + CoinJoin or JoinMarket when you can. Samourai Wallet’s Whirlpool is dead post-2024 arrests, so Wasabi is basically the main game left for BTC. Do it before you consolidate UTXOs and after you buy. Don’t half-ass it with one small join — do multiple rounds.

6. For Ethereum: use privacy L2s or mixers (carefully). Tornado Cash is still sanctioned and risky in the US. Better current options:

• Railgun (shielded balances on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, BSC);

• Aztec (full privacy on Ethereum L2);

• Nightfall (Polygon’s privacy chain, still alive);

• Just use a fresh wallet + VPN + burn it after one session if you’re paranoid.

7. Always use a (good) VPN or Tor. Your IP address leaks everything. Never connect your wallet without a VPN. Paid VPNs you control the keys to are best (Mullvad, IVPN, Proton). Avoid free ones and avoid big names that keep logs (Express, Nord, Surfshark have all been caught lying).For maximum paranoia: Tor + bridges, or i2p, but that’s slow as hell for trading.

8. Browser hygiene matters more than you think:

• Separate browser profile (or whole browser) for crypto;

• Brave or Firefox with uBlock Origin, ClearURLs;

• Disable WebRTC;

• Never log into Google/Discord/Twitter in the same profile;

• Use temporary containers (Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension is gold).

9. Hardware wallet + airgap whenever possible. Ledger, Trezor, Keystone, GridPlus Lattice. Sign transactions offline. Never enter your seed into any website ever. If a site asks for your private key or seed, it’s 100% a scam.

10. Don’t brag on social media. Seriously. Posting your portfolio screenshot, your ENS name, your NFT flex — every single one is a data point for chain analysis companies. The moment you tweet “just aped 50 ETH into $PEPE” from the same account that has your real name, you’re done.

Bonus round — stuff that’s getting big in 2025:

• Stealth addresses are finally coming to Ethereum mainnet (ERC-5564 + ERC-6538). Start using wallets that support them.

• PayJoin (P2EP) for Bitcoin payments — makes surveillance harder even without CoinJoin.

You don’t have to do all of this to be “private enough” for most people. Just doing #1, #2, #3, and #7 gets you 90% of the way there. The perfect is the enemy of the good — start with the basics, then layer on more as you get comfortable.

Stay safe out there. The chains never forget, but you can make it really expensive for them to remember you!

If you want to support my work, please, consider donating me:

• 0x1191b7d163bde5f51d4d2c1ac969d514fb4f4c62 or officercia.eth — all supported EVM chains;

• 17Ydx9m7vrhnx4XjZPuGPMqrhw3sDviNTU or bc1q75zgp5jurtm96nltt9c9kzjnrt33uylr8uvdds — Bitcoin;

• BLyXANAw7ciS2Abd8SsN1Rc8J4QZZiJdBzkoyqEuvPAB — Solana;

• 0zk1qydq9pg9m5x9qpa7ecp3gjauczjcg52t9z0zk7hsegq8yzq5f35q3rv7j6fe3z53l7za0lc7yx9nr08pj83q0gjv4kkpkfzsdwx4gunl0pmr3q8dj82eudk5d5v — Railgun;

• TYWJoRenGB9JFD2QsdPSdrJtaT6CDoFQBN — TRX;

• 4AhpUrDtfVSWZMJcRMJkZoPwDSdVG6puYBE3ajQABQo6T533cVvx5vJRc5fX7sktJe67mXu1CcDmr7orn1CrGrqsT3ptfds — XMR;

• DQhux6WzyWb9MWWNTXKbHKAxBnAwDWa3iD — Doge;

• UQBIqIVSYt8jBS86ONHwTfXCLpeaAjgseT8t_hgOFg7u4umx — TON.

If you enjoy my content and want to help keep it ad-free, please consider supporting my work through donations. Your contributions will allow me to dedicate more time to crafting in-depth articles and sharing even more valuable insights.