Now I have a dedicated folder in my phone's photo album called 'For Redaction'.
There are dozens of screenshots stored inside, each one showing the same few interfaces, but the wallet address, amount, and timestamp are all blurred so that even my mom wouldn't recognize them. Every time I want to speak in the group, I have to dig out these screenshots, confirm three times that there are no unredacted areas, before daring to hit send.
My friends laugh at me for having some kind of paranoia. I said you don't understand, this is a lesson learned from buying back in May last year with 8000U.
That day, I casually shared a screenshot of my DeFi earnings in the group, forgetting to redact my wallet address. In less than half an hour, someone in the group had completely exposed my on-chain holdings—what obscure coins I bought, which address I transferred to, how much was left in my account, with screenshots flying out like public execution. The group teased me for several days, and my private messages flooded with hundreds of scam messages, and even now, one pops up from time to time.
The most ridiculous part is at the back. Those few contracts of mine were like being targeted by someone as soon as I opened them. The MEV bot precisely hit my point to attack; when I bought, it crashed, and when I sold, it pulled up, losing nearly 8000U. Later, I realized that everything on the chain is transparent; my positions and my stop-loss points are crystal clear to others. This isn’t trading; it’s like playing cards with your hand exposed.
A couple of days ago, I came across the annual privacy research from Midnight@MidnightNetwork , which said that last year, $1.22 trillion worth of transactions were completely exposed on-chain, and over 80% of users were scammed or targeted due to information leaks. I was stunned at a glance—I realized I wasn’t an isolated case; I was just one denominator in that $1.22 trillion.
Actually, I had already gone through the Midnight white paper long ago. At that time, when I saw their NIGHT+DUST dual-track design, I even complained to friends in the circle, saying isn’t this just pointless? Either be completely anonymous or completely public; what’s the use of being half-covered?
Looking back now, it’s that I didn’t understand what ordinary users really want. NIGHT is fully public and verifiable, meets regulatory requirements, and doesn’t cross the red line; when you really want to trade and don’t want your information exposed, use DUST, which completely hides your wallet address and transaction details. The best part is that DUST cannot be resold and has no price fluctuations, so gray industries can’t launder money with it, perfectly avoiding the regulatory pitfalls that are most easily triggered by completely anonymous projects.
I know someone is definitely going to say, 'Isn't this just pseudonymity?' But to be honest, I’ve been scared by those projects shouting about 'total anonymity' for a long time. Those things are not meant for ordinary users at all; they’ve become a breeding ground for gray industries. The research clearly states that over 70% of users don’t actually want complete anonymity; they just want their trading information not to be casually dug up by strangers.
These past two days, I opened a new address on the testnet and tried two DUST transactions. When I sent them out, I specially refreshed the browser several times to confirm that no associated information could be found. Finally, I don’t have to take screenshots and overlay three layers of codes until my eyes hurt.
For us ordinary players, what we want has never been some myth of anonymity that disrupts regulation. It’s just stable trading without the fear of being exposed or harassed, and that’s enough.