Privacy Recommendations and Question

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To preserve privacy when using MetaMask, it’s recommended (see Tornado Cash’s tips to remain anonymous) that you use a VPN and uninstall and reinstall MetaMask for each transaction. The issues are that MetaMask uses a consistent API token and reuses the same connections, TLS session tickets, etc for all the accounts in your wallet (so Infura, Etherscan, etc., know your accounts are linked; see Moxie Marlinspike’s first impressions of web 3).

I’m wondering if there’s a simpler solution, for addresses that you wanted to keep unlinked, than uninstalling and reinstalling MetaMask for each transaction. Would it be just as effective to use multiple installs of MetaMask in different browsers (e.g. Chrome and Firefox; as well as different IP addresses)? I gather that can create problems with nonces, but that shouldn’t be an issue if the different installs were using different addresses (though maybe the same seed phrase).

Some people advised me to run my own client. Don’t you still need some software like MetaMask to send transactions to the blockchain? If you do run your own client and use MetaMask with it, is there no API token or anything sent outside of your computer? I don’t want to run my own client, but I’d like to understand how it would work anyway.

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Hey @CaptainOfTheGate, welcome to the MetaMask community! :fox_face:

Can you clarify what you would like to accomplish in terms of your privacy? From my initial understanding, it seems you are trying to prevent your transactions, along with the addresses linked with them, from being public on the blockchain and being visible on block explorers like Etherscan.

You actually don’t need MetaMask to send transactions to the blockchain. You are correct in that this can be done locally with your own client, which can also work with MetaMask. Here is more information:

There is currently a lot of work being done to improve privacy on the blockchain, as you mentioned with Tornado Cash, along with other methods such as zero-knowledge roll ups. Here’s a good blog for a general overview:

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The objective is to keep different addresses from being linkable with each other.

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