Bitcoin is not Anonymous - page 3. | Bitcointalksearch.org

Velkro

legendary

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Quote from: Cutekittens21 on July 24, 2017, 07:11:46 AM

I thought one of bitcoins big selling points was anonymity. Yet I've read some articles about people who have either stolen or embezzled bitcoin and they were later tracked down and arrested. I'm glad they were caught don't get me wrong but how were they caught if bitcoin is supposed to be anonymous?

I thought the same long time ago. Now i know its not anonymous at all.
Transactions are public, balances are public, u need to only track it to real name user, which is not that hard after all.
Many selling points of bitcoin are not true in time. For example cheap transactions (almost free). Not here anymore.

NeuroticFish

legendary

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The fact that everybody can see everybody's wallet and transaction is a bad start. One can start trying to track the path of the money.
And if you start selling that Bitcoin you need to give your ID; or you may have bought Bitcoin with your ID and sent to that wallet.
It's a start. They work with probabilities and habits checking. And with more and more businesses asking you to reveal your identity it's hard to hide.

Bitcoin is not anonymous. Not really. It was more anonymous before, when everybody used only core wallet, but many reuse now the same address many use vanity address, light wallets and the anonymity decreases even more.

Maybe it's better this way. Bitcoin is not the best cover for shady people and this may count in the future.

"Lately" quite a number of anonymous coins have arise. Some are better, some are worse; they are not as mature as Bitcoin, obviously. Some may have quite an interesting future, but I can bet that the authorities will not like them

TryNinja

legendary

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Bitcoin itself can be pretty anonymous.

But from the moment you gave your ID and address to an third party like Coinbase or Bitstamp, you are giving away part of this anonymity in exchange for the convenience of selling those coins for physical cash, that are controlled by your government. If you want to live only of Bitcoin, buying groceries and coffe with your digital wallet, you can. And you will be "anonymous" for that. But unfortunately, it's still not that easy.

ikilledcobain

sr. member

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Merit: 252

Bitcoin's strength is not really anonymity. Granted there are ways to make it harder to trace the transactions, but it can be done.

There are a number of other coins/tokens whose primary focus is on anonymity. If that's your concern, I would take a look at some of those.

Cutekittens21

full member

Activity: 140

Merit: 100

I thought one of bitcoins big selling points was anonymity. Yet I've read some articles about people who have either stolen or embezzled bitcoin and they were later tracked down and arrested. I'm glad they were caught don't get me wrong but how were they caught if bitcoin is supposed to be anonymous?

Topic: Bitcoin is not Anonymous - page 3. (Read 1435 times)