I’ve heard that since I tied my sparrow wallet to Start9, my node is verifying my transaction which increases my privacy. Is that true and if so, how do I confirm?
Bitcoin Core (or Knots, whichever you have installed) is verifying every transaction, not just yours. Each block that your node hears about from peers is checked against the rules stored locally as to what the bitcoin protocol is, then either accepted or rejected.
This verification has nothing to do with privacy, but security. It means you have a source of truth that you can trust, and you’re not confirming your transactions based on what some random node is telling you, and you’re not relying on a third party to broadcast the transaction you want to make.
1 Like
To add to what StuPleb said, there is a privacy aspect to broadcasting transactions through your own node. If your wallet is connected to a node you don’t control, that node operator will see your out-going transactions, and the IP address you connect to the node from. Furthermore, if your node is set to tor only, it’s extremely difficult to tell where your transactions are coming from, as they’ll propagate from seemingly random locations on the network.
As far as, “how do I confirm?” A simple way to confirm that you are actually using your own node, is to stop the Bitcoin service on your StartOS server, and then attempt to send a transaction from Sparrow. Or send a transaction to your Sparrow wallet from another wallet that is not using your node. Sparrow will likely complain, and will be unable to send a transaction. The transaction you send to your Sparrow wallet will not be seen in sparrow, until you start the Bitcoin service on your StartOS server again, and let it sync with the blockchain.
1 Like
Thank you both kindly, that makes sense. One thing I want to mention is that my Sparrow wallet inside of Start9 would not accept QR codes when using my Jade wallet so I had to download Sparrow as an app on my Mac to utilize the QR feature. I did copy over the server information to the app version so am confident it’s linked. If the developer for the Sparrow Start9 option ever gets the camera to work, I will use that instead of the Mac App. (My first thread here was on that problem saying it was a java issue). I just purchased a System 76 machine and when it arrives, I will retry the Start9 Sparrow.