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Privacy practices for STEEM trades

Steem (STEEM) launched in 2016 as a blockchain for social posts and rewards; Hive and Blurt split off from it. Named accounts instead of addresses, elected witnesses, 3-second blocks, no transfer fees. In May 2020 a Steem hard fork took about 23.6 million STEEM from 64 accounts — a reminder that a chain run by elected witnesses can, with a fork, move anyone's coins. The chain is fully public and account-based: every transfer to or from your account, with its amount and memo, is visible to anyone, for good. Steem has no opt-in privacy technology. The practices below cover what you can control.

Use a fresh address every trade

This chain is account-based — your account name is your address. Fresh-account-per-trade is not practical (each new account costs chain resources). Accept that this asset has the highest amount-correlation risk on Morphit. For high-value trades, consider using an alt-account dedicated to that trade.

Universal practices

**Use a fresh receive address for every trade.** Your wallet should support this; if it doesn't, look for one that does. Address reuse is the single biggest leak.

**Practice coin control when spending.** When sending coins later, avoid combining the trade output with coins from another source — that combines their address histories permanently.

**Broadcast through Tor or your wallet's privacy mode.** Your home IP address sees the transaction first; nodes near your IP can correlate it to you. A Tor-aware wallet broadcasts through Tor by default.

**Avoid sending trade coins to or from KYC exchanges.** Once trade coins touch a KYC exchange, the trade becomes legally identifiable by combining exchange records with chain data. If you need to bridge to fiat, route through a self-custodied intermediate step.

What to avoid

  • Do not paste your same receive address into multiple trades.
  • Do not send the exact amount listed on the order — Morphit's amount-randomizer toggle (the "🔐 Randomize amount" checkbox in the address-share modal) breaks this; leave it ON.
  • Do not combine the trade output with coins from a different source when you later spend it.
  • Do not broadcast from your home IP via a non-private wallet — use Tor.

⚠ Caveats specific to this asset

STEEM is account-based and transparent, like BLURT. - **Your account name is your address.** You can't rotate it the way a Bitcoin wallet rotates addresses: every payment you receive lands on the same public account. A separate account just for trading keeps your trades apart from your posts, but funding it from your main account links the two. - **Memos are public.** A transfer's memo is visible to all unless it is encrypted (it starts with `#`), and even then who paid whom, how much and when stay public. Morphit's memo is a short random code that says nothing about your order; don't add order details to it. - **Never share an exchange deposit account.** An exchange credits a deposit only by its own memo, and the trade's memo takes its place. - **Check the coin.** The same account name can belong to someone else on Blurt, Hive or BitShares. - **The payment check asks public nodes.** To show a payment arriving in the chat, the site's server (never your browser) asks Steem API nodes about its transaction ID, the account it paid and the trade's memo, all public on the chain once paid. - **Network-layer privacy still matters.** The API node your wallet talks to sees your IP and every transaction you sign; Tor keeps your home IP off its view.

Morphit does NOT recommend specific wallet software. Even reputable wallets have been compromised or have had hidden flaws. The privacy techniques here are protocol standards, not endorsements — your wallet, your responsibility.