Private sends

A private send pays from a shared pool instead of from your wallet, so people watching the chain can't easily tell whose money it was.

How it works

Add now, send later

If your private balance is short, the Confirm screen offers two choices:

• Add now, send later (recommended, and the default). X1 Pay adds the money to your private balance and sends nothing yet. Come back and send it later, ideally a few hours from now, while other people add money in the meantime. The form keeps the recipient and amount, so Send it now is one tap when you're ready.
• Add and send now (less private). A payment seconds after a deposit of almost the same amount points straight at your wallet. Anyone watching can tell you paid them, much like a regular send, and you still pay the private-send fees.

X1 Pay also rounds the amount it adds, so the deposit is harder to match to the payment. The bit left over stays in your private balance for next time.

The privacy meter

When you confirm a private send, X1 Pay shows about how many deposits in the pool could have paid it:

• 3 or more: "About N deposits in the pool could have paid this, so others can't easily tell which one did."
• Fewer than 3: a warning. Right now anyone watching can probably tell which deposit paid it, and so which wallet. On a quiet pool a regular send costs less and is about as private.

The count is an estimate, worked out from the pool's public activity the way an onlooker would. It counts your own deposits too, so it says "about". It gets better as more people use X1 Pay.

What stays visible

• The amount. Private hides who paid, not how much.
• You, to the person you pay. Every private send carries a receipt proving it came from your X1 Pay account. Nobody is anonymous to the person they pay.

Getting the most privacy

• Wait between adding money and sending. The longer, and the busier the pool, the better.
• Use round amounts. Unusual amounts are easier to match.
• Don't send the exact rest of a deposit. X1 Pay warns you when an amount plus fees equals one of your deposits, and Max never sends everything: it rounds down and leaves a little behind.
• One private send can use at most two of your deposits.

Withdrawing

• Withdraw to my wallet sends your private balance back to the wallet you're connected with, publicly. Because the withdrawal is the exact rest of what you added, anyone can work out how much you sent privately in between.
• Move private balance to another address (under More) sends it to an address you enter, also publicly. Sending it back to the wallet you added money from links the two.

Both pay the same fees as a private send. See Fees.