[ConcernedCitizen]

This is a Public Service Announcement

There is a common misconception (and a very dangerous one at that) of Electrum and other wallets being anonymous and that you are inherently safe if you cannot be connected to that wallet with your real identity. This is not true. It is the complete opposite. You wouldn't believe it but this is also true for TAILS.

Remember:
Electrum has a list of several servers which it will ask in order to get the balance of the addresses that belong to your wallet. Law enforcement could easily set up such a server to collect information about when what IP address asks for the balance of what Bitcoin addresses. So Electrum is not bulletproof. However if you use Electrum on Tails, law enforcement only knows which addresses belong to that wallet (because the IP address of a Tor exit node suddenly request the balance of for example 20 specific addresses) but not the true IP address of the owner because Tails routes it's entire internet traffic through the Tor network.

You should always take the safe path: Bitcoin exchange -> normal wallet (e.g. Electrum on windows) -> Electrum on Tails -> destination market or wherever.
This is generally all you need but you can repeat the middle part (or use a tumbler but those are sometimes illegal in themselves). It's up to you. Your situations will vary from person to person and I'm not trying to force any one to use any method they aren't comfortable with or don't have the means to operate with. Anyway, it's not intended as advice, more a warning that just because you buy BTC using Kraken via USD, then send money to your wallet, that it means you're totally safe.

If you bought your BTC completely anonymously (e.g. on a BTC ATM which has no cameras and requires no phone number), you should go: source (e.g. BTC ATM) -> Electrum wallet on Tails -> destination. Otherwise you would unnecessarily reveal information with the 'normal wallet' in the default sending BTC path described above. If you want to be extra cautious you can go this path: source (e.g. BTC ATM) -> Electrum wallet #1 on Tails -> Electrum wallet #2 on Tails -> destination.

Hopefully I just saved some new users with their Bitcoin OPSEC.

[fritz]

You could also just use CoinJoin mixing with WasabiWallet for example

[ConcernedCitizen]

You could also just use CoinJoin mixing with WasabiWallet for example

That's not the method I prefer to use.

[fritz]

You could also just use CoinJoin mixing with WasabiWallet for example

That's not the method I prefer to use.

Just saying! It uses Tor by default also, I personally don't see many disadvantages

[ConcernedCitizen]

Just saying! It uses Tor by default also, I personally don't see many disadvantages

The advantage of not doing that is that my wallet can't be hacked unless someone is literally on my computer and knows all my logins to my user account, Tails, that user account, etc. I'll only ever use a hardware wallet like Ledger but you could use whatever you feel is best.

[fritz]

Just saying! It uses Tor by default also, I personally don't see many disadvantages

The advantage of not doing that is that my wallet can't be hacked unless someone is literally on my computer and knows all my logins to my user account, Tails, that user account, etc. I'll only ever use a hardware wallet like Ledger but you could use whatever you feel is best.

That doesn't make much sense, there's no link between being able to be hacked and your technique; you weren't even talking about hardware wallets but Electrum

[ConcernedCitizen]

That doesn't make much sense, there's no link between being able to be hacked and your technique; you weren't even talking about hardware wallets but Electrum

To clarify, I don't trust it.