Status, last verified 7 November 2026. The original Whirlpool, run by Samourai Wallet, ended in April 2024, when US authorities seized Samourai’s servers and charged its founders. Sparrow Wallet removed its Whirlpool client in version 1.9.0 that same month. In June 2025 an independent project, Ashigaru, revived the Whirlpool design on new infrastructure, so you can mix with Whirlpool today in its desktop app, Ashigaru Terminal. The other CoinJoin tools that work in November 2026 are Wasabi Wallet with an independent coordinator, Ginger Wallet, and JoinMarket NG with the Jam 2.0 web interface (still in beta). The original JoinMarket software was archived in April 2026: its maintainers say not to use it, and never to send PayJoin payments with it. Our lesson CoinJoin in 2026 keeps the comparison of these tools up to date.
This guide explains how Whirlpool works, walks you through mixing with Ashigaru Terminal, and ends with the other tools.
What Whirlpool Is
Whirlpool is a CoinJoin design created by the Samourai Wallet team. A CoinJoin is one bitcoin transaction built together by several people. Each person brings their own coins, called UTXOs (unspent transaction outputs), and many of the outputs are the same amount, so an outsider cannot tell which of those equal outputs belongs to whom. In Whirlpool all the outputs are equal: it runs these rounds in pools, each with one fixed amount, and lets your mixed coins keep joining new rounds without paying again.
A server called the coordinator gathers the participants and assembles each round. It never holds your coins: your wallet checks the transaction and signs only its own input. You still rely on the coordinator in three ways. If it goes offline, mixing stops. A dishonest coordinator could try to learn which output is yours (see the trust model below). And it sets the rules and the fees. Samourai ran the original coordinator. The one you can use today is Ashigaru’s, which runs on new infrastructure and is not the seized service.
Why CoinJoin Matters
Bitcoin transactions are permanently public. Every time you buy bitcoin on an exchange that verified your identity (a KYC exchange, from “know your customer”) and withdraw to your wallet, that address is linked to your identity. When you spend from that address, the recipient can trace the funds backward to the exchange and infer your purchase history. Chain analysis companies like Chainalysis exploit these links to build financial profiles of Bitcoin users.
CoinJoin disrupts this surveillance by creating ambiguity. After mixing, your bitcoin’s on-chain history points to multiple possible origins instead of one definitive source. It restores the everyday financial privacy that traditional banking provides by default and Bitcoin’s transparent ledger does not. The chain analysis guide explains how tracking works in detail.
How Whirlpool Works
The Mix Structure
In a Whirlpool round, every output is exactly the pool’s amount and goes to a fresh address. Coins entering their first round are slightly larger than the pool amount, because they carry the round’s mining fee; coins coming back for another round (remixes) pay nothing. Most of Samourai’s rounds had five inputs and five outputs, and from May 2023 some larger rounds, called surge cycles, took up to eight of each. Ashigaru’s launch announcement says a first mix in its pools puts your coin among at least five equal outputs, and up to ten when a surge cycle runs. An observer sees a row of equal outputs and cannot match them to the inputs from the transaction alone.
Anonymity Set: How Big Is the Crowd?
Your anonymity set is the number of equal outputs your coin could be, from an outsider’s point of view. After one five-person round it is five. Each remix puts your coin in a new round with other coins, which widens the crowd, but the numbers do not simply multiply: meeting the same coins again adds little.
The crowd is also only as real as the people in it. If one party joins with many coins, a trick called a Sybil attack, your real crowd is smaller than it looks. Ashigaru calls its entry fee an anti-Sybil fee: the fee makes that trick expensive. Treat any anonymity-set figure as a rough guide, not a measurement.
Pool Sizes
Each pool has one fixed amount, counted in sats (a sat, or satoshi, is one hundred-millionth of a bitcoin). Samourai and Ashigaru offer different pools:
| Pool | Amount | Run by |
|---|---|---|
| 0.25 BTC | 25,000,000 sats | Ashigaru (since June 2025) |
| 0.025 BTC | 2,500,000 sats | Ashigaru (since June 2025) |
| 0.5 BTC | 50,000,000 sats | Samourai (ended April 2024) |
| 0.05 BTC | 5,000,000 sats | Samourai (ended April 2024) |
| 0.01 BTC | 1,000,000 sats | Samourai (ended April 2024) |
| 0.001 BTC | 100,000 sats | Samourai (ended April 2024) |
You pay a one-time entry fee when a coin enters a pool. After that, it can remix as many times as the coordinator picks it, at no extra cost. This rewards leaving coins in the pool, which also enlarges everyone’s crowd. Ashigaru’s pools are as of November 2026, and Ashigaru has said it may add more sizes; the costs section lists the fees.
Tx0: The Entry Transaction
Before entering a pool, a coin goes through Tx0 (“transaction zero”), a preparation transaction that splits it into pool-sized pieces and pays the entry fee. For example, if you send 0.1 BTC into Ashigaru’s 0.025 BTC pool, the Tx0 creates:
- 3 coins of slightly more than 0.025 BTC each, ready for their first mix (the extra pays that mix’s mining fee)
- 1 output paying the 125,000-sat entry fee
- 1 change output with what is left: a little under 2,375,000 sats, too little for a fourth pool-sized coin
One Tx0 can create up to 20 pool-sized coins. The change output is called toxic change because it is plainly linked to the coin you started with. Every CoinJoin tool with fixed amounts produces change like this. Ashigaru Terminal sends it to a separate account called Badbank, so it stays apart from your mixed coins.
Step by Step: Mixing With Ashigaru Terminal
Ashigaru Terminal is the app you mix with today. It is a desktop wallet for Windows, macOS and Linux with a text interface that runs in a terminal window, and Ashigaru describes it as forked from Sparrow Wallet. It only mixes: you spend the mixed coins from another wallet (step 7). Ashigaru’s coordinator accepts connections only over Tor, a network that hides your IP address. Before you start, decide whether a CoinJoin is worth it for these coins: for small amounts, or for coins that will go back to an exchange that knows you, it often is not. The CoinJoin lesson linked above helps you decide.
- Download and verify. Get Ashigaru Terminal only from its download page, ashigaru.rs/download, which asks you to open it in Tor Browser. Before installing, follow Ashigaru’s download-and-verify guide. It has you make two checks. First, check that the list of file hashes carries the developers’ PGP signature (a digital signature that proves who published the list). Then check that your file’s SHA-256 hash, a fingerprint of its exact contents, matches the one on that list. Install only if both checks pass. Never install old Samourai or Whirlpool software or visit old Samourai websites: abandoned infrastructure is a malware risk.
- Create or restore a wallet, and connect it to a server you control. Write your recovery words on paper and keep them offline. Ashigaru Terminal also requires a BIP39 passphrase, an extra phrase you choose that is added to the words: write it down exactly as well, because the words alone will not restore this wallet. Use a single-signature wallet: Ashigaru Whirlpool works with native SegWit addresses (the ones starting with bc1q). In the server settings, point the wallet at your own server. Ashigaru’s documentation covers its own wallet server, Dojo, and the Terminal also has settings for a private Electrum server. A wallet that asks someone else’s server about your addresses tells that server which coins are yours.
- Deposit and label. Send the coins you want to mix to the wallet’s Deposit account and label each one by where it came from, for example “KYC exchange”.
- Make the Tx0. Under Account, choose Deposit, then UTXOs. Select coins with the arrow keys and ENTER; each selected coin shows “(*)”. Coins selected together become inputs of one Tx0, which shows everyone they share an owner, so select together only coins with the same source label. Choose Mix Selected, review the Transaction Zero preview carefully, then choose Broadcast and check that the broadcast succeeded.
- Wait for the first mix. The new pool-sized coins appear under Premix as unconfirmed. After one confirmation they are ready for their first round, which the coordinator organises automatically when enough participants are available. Leave Ashigaru Terminal online. After the first mix, the coins arrive in your Postmix account.
- Let them remix. While the app keeps running, Postmix coins are picked at random for more rounds, with no further entry fee. Each remix widens your crowd.
- Spend one coin at a time, from another wallet. Ashigaru Terminal only mixes: it cannot send ordinary payments. To pay, restore the same recovery words and passphrase in a wallet that can open the Postmix account, such as Sparrow (add its Whirlpool accounts) or Ashigaru’s mobile wallet for Android, which includes tools for spending mixed coins. Spend each mixed coin on its own, over Tor, choosing it by hand (coin control). Never spend it together with Badbank change or unmixed coins. The rules after mixing below explain why this matters.
- Handle the change. Keep Badbank coins labelled and apart. If a Badbank coin is large enough for a pool, you can select it and start another Tx0.
Know what you are trusting. Ashigaru’s coordinator is a single server: if it stops, mixing stops, and it learns which coins enter its pools. In December 2024 a developer described ways a dishonest coordinator could trick clients built on the Whirlpool design into revealing which output is whose, and we have not found confirmation that current clients close them (details in the trust model). Its entry fee, 5% of the pool size as of November 2026, is also higher than the 3.5% Samourai charged on its two larger pools.
Worked Example: One Exchange Withdrawal Through the 0.025 BTC Pool
Here is one withdrawal from start to finish. The numbers are illustrative; mining fees depend on the day.
- Starting position. You have 0.1 BTC (10,000,000 sats) withdrawn from an exchange that knows your name and can see this coin on the blockchain. Label it “KYC”.
- Tx0. Into the 0.025 BTC pool: three pool-sized coins, the 125,000-sat entry fee, Tx0’s own mining fee, and a little under 2,375,000 sats of toxic change in Badbank.
- First mix. Each of the three coins joins a round when the coordinator has enough participants, and comes out as exactly 2,500,000 sats in Postmix.
- Remix. With the app online, the coins are picked for further rounds at no extra cost.
- Spend. To pay 1,000,000 sats, you spend one mixed coin on its own. The person you pay can see your 1,500,000 sats of change, so treat that change as a fresh coin they know about.
- Toxic change. At a little under 2,375,000 sats it is too small for this pool. It stays labelled “KYC change” and never touches the mixed coins.
Total cost: 125,000 sats plus a few mining fees, about 1.7% of the 7,500,000 sats that got mixed. A single 0.03 BTC coin would pay the same 125,000 sats for one pool-sized coin, about 5%, so entering with several pool-sized pieces at once lowers the percentage.
How Whirlpool Ran Until April 2024
Samourai ran the coordinator and the original pools. You mixed with Samourai’s own apps or, from Sparrow Wallet 1.5.0 (September 2021), on the desktop in Sparrow. The flow was the one above: a Tx0 into a pool, a Premix account waiting for the first round, a Postmix account where coins remixed for free, and toxic change kept apart. Samourai also published SCODEs, discount codes that cut the entry fee for a limited time.
Sparrow removed its Whirlpool client in version 1.9.0 on 25 April 2024, after the seizure, so its mixing panel is gone. Sparrow is still a good wallet for privacy: its coin control, labels, Tor support and connection to your own node all work as before.
Remix Strategy: How Many Rounds?
No exact number exists. Many Whirlpool users aimed for at least three mixes, and the common advice was simply to leave the client running and let remixes happen. More rounds widen the crowd, with diminishing returns, as the anonymity set section above explains. In Ashigaru Terminal remixes happen at random while the app is online, so the practical lever is keeping it running.
UTXO Management After Mixing
These rules apply to every CoinJoin tool. How you spend mixed coins decides whether you keep the privacy you paid for, and this is where most mistakes happen.
Rule 1: Never Merge Post-Mix UTXOs
If you combine two post-mix UTXOs in a single transaction, a blockchain analyst can infer they belong to the same owner. This is called the common input ownership heuristic, the assumption that all the inputs of a transaction belong to one person, and it partially undoes the mixing. Spend post-mix UTXOs individually whenever possible.
Rule 2: Never Merge Post-Mix With Unmixed UTXOs
Combining a mixed UTXO with a KYC-linked unmixed UTXO instantly re-links your mixed funds to your identity. This is the most common and most damaging mistake. Keep mixed and unmixed wallets completely separate.
Rule 3: Handle Toxic Change Carefully
Toxic change, the leftover output from a Tx0, is directly linked to your pre-mix identity. Options for handling it:
- Mix it again if it is large enough — In Ashigaru Terminal you can start a new Tx0 from the Badbank account; its pool-sized coins then mix like any others.
- Spend it on something non-sensitive — Use it for a purchase where identity linkage does not matter.
- Consolidate it only with coins from the same KYC source — The exchange already knows these coins belong to one customer, but outsiders usually cannot tell: merging them shows everyone watching the blockchain that they share an owner and what they add up to, so do it only if you accept that link. Never merge it with mixed coins.
For a comprehensive treatment of UTXO management strategies, the UTXO privacy management guide covers best practices in depth.
Rule 4: Use Coin Control for Every Spend
Coin control means choosing by hand which UTXO(s) pay in each transaction. Always use coin control when spending from any privacy-sensitive wallet. Never rely on automatic coin selection: it may merge UTXOs in ways that damage privacy. Sparrow’s coin control was unaffected by the removal of Whirlpool, and our Sparrow coin control guide shows how to use it.
Rule 5: Combine With Spending Tools
Sparrow can also make a single payment harder to read. When your wallet holds more than twice the payment, it can build a fake coinjoin from your own coins, also known as a Stonewall transaction. It can also send a PayJoin when you pay from a payment link or QR code that offers one. In a PayJoin the person you pay adds one of their own coins, so the payment breaks the common input ownership heuristic. These tools work alongside a CoinJoin; they do not replace the crowd it gives you.
Costs and Economics
Entry Fees
The coordinator charges a one-time entry fee per Tx0. The fee is fixed per pool, so the percentage falls when one Tx0 creates several pool-sized coins.
| Pool | Entry fee | Share of one pool-sized coin |
|---|---|---|
| Ashigaru 0.25 BTC | 1,250,000 sats | 5% |
| Ashigaru 0.025 BTC | 125,000 sats | 5% |
| Samourai 0.5 BTC | 1,750,000 sats | 3.5% |
| Samourai 0.05 BTC | 175,000 sats | 3.5% |
| Samourai 0.01 BTC | 50,000 sats | 5% |
| Samourai 0.001 BTC | 5,000 sats | 5% |
Ashigaru’s fees are as of November 2026, set at its June 2025 launch. Samourai’s are the schedule it set in March 2021. After the entry fee, remixes cost nothing.
Other tools charge differently, as of November 2026. Wasabi Wallet works only with coordinators that charge no coordination fee (since version 2.2, September 2024), so you pay mining fees. In rare cases a leftover of at most 10,000 sats per coinjoin also goes to the coordinator. Ginger Wallet adds a 0.3% coordinator fee on coins worth more than 0.03 BTC; smaller coins and remixes pay only mining fees. In JoinMarket NG the taker pays the makers’ fees. PayJoin adds nothing beyond ordinary mining fees.
Mining Fees
Every round is an on-chain transaction. In the Whirlpool design you pay the mining fee for your Tx0 and, through the small extra on each pool-sized coin, for its first mix; remixes are paid for by new entrants. When fees are high, it pays to wait for a quieter time before making a Tx0. Every CoinJoin tool carries some mining cost.
Privacy Considerations
Network-Level Privacy
On-chain mixing addresses transaction graph analysis but does not protect against network-level surveillance. If your Bitcoin node’s IP address is monitored, an observer can correlate transactions with your identity. Run your wallet over Tor, and if it uses your own node, set the node to connect only through Tor. This hides your IP address from other nodes, though an observer who can watch both your connection and the network may still match the timing. Ashigaru’s coordinator accepts only Tor connections, and Sparrow’s Tor support works for any transaction you build with it.
Coordinator Trust Model
Whirlpool uses blind signatures, a cryptographic technique in which the coordinator signs your output’s registration without seeing it, so that a coordinator that follows the protocol cannot link your input to your output. It still learns which coins are entering, and your IP address unless you connect over Tor.
The blinding only protects you if the coordinator plays fair. In December 2024, developer Yuval Kogman described on the bitcoin-dev mailing list how a dishonest coordinator could defeat it, for example by giving each input its own signing key, and so learn which output is whose; the same post covered Wasabi-family wallets. A central coordinator is also a single point of failure: the April 2024 seizure stopped Samourai’s rounds at once. That is why a tool with no central coordinator, such as JoinMarket NG, matters.
The April 2024 Seizure and What Came After
In April 2024 US authorities seized Samourai’s servers and charged its two founders with conspiracy to commit money laundering and with running an unlicensed money-transmitting business. In July 2025 they pleaded guilty to one count, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and in November 2025 they were sentenced to five years (Keonne Rodriguez) and four years (William Lonergan Hill) in prison. Samourai’s coordinator never returned. Separately, zkSNACKs, the company behind Wasabi Wallet’s default coordinator, switched that coordinator off on 1 June 2024.
CoinJoin itself carried on. Wasabi users now choose an independent coordinator, Ginger Wallet runs its own, and Ashigaru revived Whirlpool in June 2025. JoinMarket kept working without a coordinator; in April 2026 its original software was archived, and the independent JoinMarket NG keeps JoinMarket usable.
Other CoinJoin Tools That Work in November 2026
Whirlpool through Ashigaru is one option. These are the others, checked on 7 November 2026 against each project’s own pages. Status and fees change quickly, so check again before you use one.
- Wasabi Wallet 2.x — A desktop wallet whose round design, WabiSabi, lets each person put in and take out different amounts. Since zkSNACKs shut down, you choose an independent coordinator in its settings and trust that coordinator with availability and privacy. Since version 2.2 it works only with coordinators that charge no coordination fee.
- Ginger Wallet — A fork of Wasabi that comes set up with its own coordinator. It is simpler, but you accept that operator’s fees, its screening of coins, and its rule that the service is not available to US nationals or to anyone located in the US or its territories.
- JoinMarket NG, with Jam 2.0 — No central coordinator. Makers leave coins available and earn a small fee each time they are used; a taker starts a CoinJoin when needed and pays them. JoinMarket NG is an independent reimplementation of the JoinMarket protocol that joins the same market as the old software, so the makers are still there. It works with your own Bitcoin Core node or the lighter Neutrino backend, and its main interface is the command line. Jam, a separate web interface, runs on it from version 2.0, which is still in beta. Start with JoinMarket NG’s getting-started guide; if you have a wallet from the old software, follow its migration guide.
- The original JoinMarket (joinmarket-clientserver): do not use it. It was archived in April 2026, and its page now says “DO NOT USE THIS CODE”: it has known vulnerabilities that will not be fixed. On 4 November 2026 its maintainers added a warning that every release with PayJoin, v0.7.0 through v0.9.12, can lose the full value of the coins you spend when you send a PayJoin. Payments that already confirmed as expected were not affected. If a node app store offers you JoinMarket or Jam, check which backend it installs.
- PayJoin — A lighter step for a single payment: the person you pay adds one of their own coins, so the payment looks ordinary but breaks the common input ownership heuristic. The original version is defined in BIP78, one of the numbered Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) that describe Bitcoin standards. It needs the receiver to run a server that stays online, so it is mostly used by shops, and Sparrow can send it. A newer version, BIP77, replaces the receiver’s server with an untrusted relay, so an ordinary wallet can receive one. PayJoin itself works; only the original JoinMarket’s sender has the flaw above.
Alongside these, Silent Payments (BIP352) improve receiver privacy through static reusable addresses without any CoinJoin, and are complementary to the tools above; our Silent Payments guide explains them. The Bitcoin privacy techniques guide compares these approaches and when to use each.
Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
These errors partially or fully undo the privacy benefits of any CoinJoin tool:
- Sending private UTXOs back to a KYC exchange address. This re-links the coins to your identity. If you need to sell, use a peer-to-peer method that does not require identity verification.
- Consolidating small private UTXOs. Each consolidation partially degrades privacy. When possible, use multiple separate transactions instead of one consolidated spend.
- Not using Tor. Without Tor, your home IP address is visible to your Bitcoin node’s peers and to any coordinator or maker you interact with. Always connect through Tor when doing privacy-sensitive transactions.
- Mixing and immediately spending. Spending a coin minutes after it was mixed makes it easier to link the coin to you by timing alone. Leave mixed coins in the pool to remix, and spend them later.
- Installing old or unofficial software. Old Samourai and Whirlpool downloads and domains are abandoned and a malware risk. Get each tool from its project’s official site and verify the signature.
- Sending a PayJoin with the original JoinMarket. Its known flaw lets a malicious receiver take the full value of the coins you spend, not just the payment. Use JoinMarket NG for JoinMarket, and a maintained wallet such as Sparrow to send PayJoins.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CoinJoin legal?
A CoinJoin is a standard Bitcoin transaction. The Samourai case targeted the people running the coordination service: its founders pleaded guilty in July 2025 to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business and were sentenced in November 2025 to five and four years in prison. As an individual user, the risk you are most likely to meet is an exchange questioning, freezing or refusing coins with CoinJoin history. Rules differ by country, so check yours.
Can I still use Whirlpool?
Yes, through Ashigaru, though not the original. Samourai’s coordinator has not run since the April 2024 seizure, and Sparrow Wallet removed its Whirlpool client in version 1.9.0. In June 2025 the independent Ashigaru project revived the Whirlpool design with a new, Tor-only coordinator, and you mix with its desktop app, Ashigaru Terminal. As of November 2026 its pools are 0.025 and 0.25 BTC, with an entry fee of 5% of the pool size. It is still a single central coordinator, so weigh that. The other working options are Wasabi with an independent coordinator, Ginger Wallet and JoinMarket NG.
Will exchanges reject bitcoin with CoinJoin history?
They can. CoinJoins are usually easy to recognise on the blockchain, and some exchanges flag deposits with CoinJoin history, ask questions, freeze funds or close accounts. Keep coins you want private apart from your exchange coins, and if you need to sell them, prefer a peer-to-peer sale without KYC.
Can I mix directly from a hardware wallet?
Not directly. CoinJoin software signs each round automatically when the round is ready, so the coins being mixed sit in a hot wallet, one whose keys stay on an online computer. Ashigaru Terminal, Wasabi and JoinMarket NG all work this way. After mixing, you can send the coins to a hardware wallet for cold storage, but send each UTXO to a separate address and never consolidate them.
What is the minimum amount Whirlpool can mix?
In Ashigaru’s smallest pool, 0.025 BTC as of November 2026, the coins you select for one Tx0 must together cover the 2,500,000-sat pool amount, the 125,000-sat entry fee and mining fees, so a little over 2,625,000 sats; combining several coins in one Tx0 links them on-chain. Samourai’s smallest pool was 0.001 BTC (100,000 sats) with a 5,000-sat entry fee. JoinMarket NG has no fixed pools: each maker advertises the range of amounts it accepts.
Can I use Whirlpool on my phone?
You mix on a computer, with the desktop app Ashigaru Terminal. Ashigaru’s mobile wallet, for Android, includes tools for spending coins that have been through Whirlpool. The original paths, Samourai’s own apps and Sparrow’s desktop client, ended in April 2024.
