I think what the OP is doing here is taking advantage of the fact that when a node is shut down permanently, payment information gets deleted. They're only keeping the channel open long enough to move all the funds in it, so the nodes staying up long term isn't needed.

Right now LND (and CLN?) does not delete old routing information. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any way to delete old routing info at all. This is a big privacy problem as that routing data could be doxxed later, eg by warrantless requests for data held on LN nodes running in the cloud.

IMO the fact that LND doesn't expire old routing info regularly is really sketchy. Any other privacy application wouldn't even keep such data at all.

Nope. The OP is quite successfully preventing Phoenix from learning where his funds came from. Acinq is definitely not seeing every LN TX – they have no idea where funds are ultimately coming from even at the LN level, let alone when you add the coinjoin's to the mix.

Lots of steps. The coinjoin costs money due to transaction fes and mixing fees (actually not sure if the kruw coordinator charges fees; Wasabi did when they were running one). It's important that coinjoin's have a cost to discourage attacks from chainalysis firms flooding the mixes.

Transferring the funds from wasabi to LN costs a transaction fee too. I wish there was a way to deposit from a Wasabi mix right into my LN wallet!

Opening the channel again costs a transaction fee. Again, I wish there was a way to open a lightning channel directly from a coinjoin. But that sounds hard.

Transferring the funds over Lightning costs fees too. In fact, it's common on Lightning for large transfers to cost more money in fees than on-chain. The financials of a Lightning channel mean the cost of a transaction is mainly related to the total amount transferred, as channel capacity ties up money.

Closing the channel costs a transaction fee too. And I often donate the 1% or so remaining to charity. But charity is an important part of my faith, so I'm ok with that! You could also say that me doing all this is a charity for others: I frankly am getting more privacy than I really need. But you need everyone getting privacy so the people who *really need it have a k-anonymity set of other people doing what they're doing.

I guess you could say all these steps have a cost for my time. But it's fun to play with cool tech that I don't get to play with at work!

Oh, yes, I mean that.

(not the op)

You absolutely could do the same without mixing first. Doing both adds a layer of protection in case you end up depositing your funds to a Lightning node that violates your privacy. None of these things are perfect you know. It's always possible that a privacy protection will fail. So layering them makes it less likely that all the layers fail at once. I think this is the reason why the OP suggested doing this via Tor and/or a VPN (ivpn.net accepts lightning!).

Also I think coinjoining the funds first is a good courtesy if your funds are potentially coming from sketchy sources. Like it or not "hot" coins are a potential issue. Coinjoining first means you aren't potentially giving someone a UTXO that could maybe cause them problems. They're kinda choosing to accept that possibility by accepting incoming transactions. But still, diffusion is good.

If I were running an LN node, I'd rather people give me coinjoined funds. I don't want to know where their money is coming from!

When nodes open a new channel with the UTXO of an old channel, analysis can apply heuristics that reveal which node funded the new channel. It can also label the closing balances of the old channel.

This degrades the privacy of your node and your peers. Even if your node uses coinjoin, a peer can still harm your privacy this way.

(not OP)

If you're doing that aren't you giving information on your txs to Amboss? I don't trust them. They're into AML/KYC bullshit.

Yes. In Wasabi coordinators are for the most part, not trusted, and multiple third parties are running them. The OP provided the URL of what's probably the most common third party coordinator.

Indeed

The hero we need, but don’t deserve

Thanks! I know it's kinda technical. But maybe someone can make a wallet that automates all this in an easy-to-use package?