Hidden / decoy wallets in Monero GUI (or elsewhere)

Hi guys,

Is there a way to have hidden wallets in Monero GUI? In Trezor Suite, all wallets are hidden, so you could have 5 decoy wallets and one “real” one, so you could get a reasonable chance to survive the infamous $5 wrench attack. In Monero GUI, however, and AFAIK, I can see all the wallets from the menu (and I think they can be found on the computer itself, but not sure). If I had a lot of Moneros (which I don’t, for now), anyone could come to my place with a gun and force me to open all my wallets. With Bitcoin on Trezor Suite, they can’t know how many wallets I have; with Monero GUI it’s plain there in open view.

Is there a way to make them hidden so I could only access them with a passphrase like in Trezor, or some other way?

If Monero is to gain traction, at some point people will trade with people around them, and not all of those are good people. Having multiple decoy wallets seems like a good way to prevent trouble…

I like Monero a lot, and people in the community keep saying that Monero is better than Bitcoin because with Bitcoin any bad actor can trace your wallets, but I still can’t see how we can really be safe unless we are able to have safe multiple hidden decoy wallets.

Can it be done? If so, can it be done in Monero GUI? Any other way? How to get maximum protection against such an attack, considering that at some point people should be able to trade with people they know in “real” life?

Thanks!

AFAIK not, maybe this will help:

  1. Airgapped wallet

anonero.io onion link

  1. Paperwallet:
    Create a wallet in the Monero GUI, transfer Monero, then place the seed in a vault and delete the wallet.

  2. Plausible Deniable VM:
    On The Nihilism Blog you will find instructions for Whonix VMs in a Veracrypt Hidden Volume.

2 Likes

Thanks, those are good ideas… I like the Veracrypt idea, but I’d like to run Monero CLI from outside of it, because the file gets really big if CLI is on it (especially if there is a hidden part of it). Is it possible to run CLI from the computer and point to the Veracrypt folder where only the keys would be stored? I tried, but so far no luck; CLI was not able to get access to the Veracrypt folder.

Also… not sure what’s the advantage of running Whonix VM instead of simply storying everything in Veracrypt and running it.

If someone does come to your residence, they are not going to be happy to leave empty-handed. You’d want nerves of steel show them an empty wallet and tell them to ‘do their worst’. Especially if you have the trappings of wealth eg. Car, electronics, nice apartment.

I’d probably, at that stage, just empty my Monero wallet for them. If you are worried about people you know coming to your house with a gun. Then stop trading locally? Go to the next big city, do your xmr / fiat in-person trades there instead by appointment.

You’re playing a losing game here. 100%.