Topic: Bitcoin should never become fully anonymous- don't fool yourself (Read 1527 times)

I believe "there's consensus", and "needs a hard fork" will never happen in Bitcoin in my opinion.


Yes, like the Lightning network, the big blockers hate it. Or CounterParty, the Core developers hate it.

Thanks for your response on this.  I had heard that it was originally from Andreas Antonopoulos.  He was doing one of his ask and answer youtube sessions and spend that particular video answering most of the questions on LN.  I guess I'm kind of glad to hear this as I've used LN and it truly is insanely fast. 

The only time when majority will be a true factor, is when the majority of the citizens of countries start voting for a government that accept Bitcoin as it is. Bitcoin was only supposed to be pseudo-anonymous... not 100% anonymous.

If your goal is to be 100% anonymous, then buy some of the 100% anonymous Alt coins like Monero. Remember, when something is 100% anonymous, criminals will be drawn to it and following that would be the government regulations to stop them.

So we will have to sacrifice 100% anonymity for the government not to over regulate it....  

What about, an idea of a hybrid use of bitcoin? There are times that we want to transact fully anonymous and bitcoin isn't restricting us to have this kind of transaction using mixers. There are times that we want to withdraw our funds and in that sense, we could have a wallet from a local exchange that we can use for local transactions. For transactions that are private, we can have a separate address to make sure that there's no way others will recognize us.

This is just for private matters and not for an illegal purpose there's just some people that don't want their transactions to be known publicly.

An important point.  Because privacy has the potential to be somewhat contentious, it's difficult to say how many privacy-oriented features will find their way into the base protocol.  There are many opinions, but we'll have to wait and see what rules users choose to enforce.  Some people have also speculated in the past about "privacy layers" that can be built separately and users can opt in to those if they desire more anonymity.  These could potentially exist even if others disagree with them.

It would if there's consensus, but you are free to your opinion.


? You're confused.

The "government" cannot do anything about Bitcoin consensus. They're not part of the network.


They're not, but what can they do to stop the actual network?


You're a financial advisor? Educate yourself on the basics.

Bitcoin economy is widely open economy, a free market where governments have no ability to control prices and total supply of dollars. I don't think that Bitcoin will work as closed loop thing since it still require electricity to secure the network. There is no possibility to use electricity without having to pay governments. It is really hard to predict how governments will react when they realized that bitcoin is not just a toy for geeks. They will try to undermine the network in some way, ban mining, increase electricity bills to make mining not profitable, they have enough of printed money to sustain 51% attack long enough to discredit the network, etc. Will they do that? Will they all collude to destroy the network? I don't think so, each government pursues its own goals, some will allow mining to exist and bitcoin economy to grow. When anti-bitcoin governments see bitcoin governments thriving, they might change their minds and switch to bitcoin standard or they will collude to conquer thriving economy, you never know.

I agree on the first part that Bitcoin shouldn't become fully anonymous because governments need to take taxes from businesses small or large.
But the second part that governments could kill it through exchanges is not possible because other exchange are not in just one country making it hard to stop Bitcoin.

First of all, not all exchanges will disappear FYI.
Another thing, such exchanges which disappeared still have your KYC on their servers and they can, at any point of time, either misuse or just sell your data (grouped into a zip file) through darkweb and even earn through it no matter how the opposite party uses our data. So don't just think that if it's wiped out on your end after the exchange being vanished, the exchange also wiped it out at their end.

It used to be when you were able to mine but then you weren't able to really spend it because the acceptance was so low.

I think that the best time to anonymously spend was when all those now defunct exchanges like BTCe were running. You could really use Bitcoin and then get all the information wiped when the exchanges disappeared.

You can still avoid KYC if you want but most people prefer to associate their real ID with their exchange account through the middle man (bank).

Bitcoin was maybe fully anonimous at the begininig and now it's not. With time Bitcoin has lost a great deal of anonimity and transactions become more traceable. To.think today that Bitcoin is anonimus it would be foolish thing to do and it's not only because of KYC. At the end, although we all like our privacy, we need to give up a part of our anonimity for the protection and safety.

Sorry, what will be Blockchain?
And yes, I do understand that Governments need taxes in order to maintain the country well, but then, they are also just giving our hard earned money that we pay as taxes - to big venture capitalists and business tycoons who just scam and run away and what do we get? Hopes, and nothing else.

Well it is clear that the OP is confused between anonymous and pseudonymous. This has been discussed for many times, I think this has to stop and should just re-up the old threads like this.

Based on the whitepaper, Satoshi made it peer-to-peer transaction without the use of middlemen obviously the government agencies and third party services like banks so most likely he is trying to do what is beneficial for the people, but then with our society structure our taxes is just as important as everyone's lives because it is not the money of the government only but to our public servants. It will be blockchain in the end.

@OP,
I believe you are already overthinking the situation here. When you already know and see that Bitcoin is at pseudonymous state currently, then this debate doesn't make any sense. I truly believe that Satoshi made Bitcoins to keep our finances in our hands and stop the loot that Governments are running on us since ages through their shit currencies, by printing enormous amount of money and going under huge debt already. I believe BTC can be traced via Blockchain and there are almost 95% of the users who either don't mix their coins at any cost or just have their traces findable through many sources online.

I think that's the biggest unanswered question in the future. If the Bitcoin economy becomes largely a closed loop how will governments react? I've not to far off reached it myself. I'd rather sell stuff for BTC and I spend plenty of it too. There'll always be a need for some people to get back into fiat but if a big percentage of anyone's earnings or spending never leave what are they going to do?

It's a piece of piss when everyone's tied to fiat or still wants it, vastly less so when fiat is treated like a pain up the arse rather than the end goal. Will we wind up with government registered wallets?

     If you look closely, you will understand that the creator of Bitcoin didn't want it to be anonymous. Although it may have some anonymity to an extent in the eyes of a lazy person, one cannot say it if mainly for anonymity purposes. If anonymity is the main goal, then leave Bitcoin out of it. Because there clearly are better choices out there if you want anonymity.

     Now, talking about bitcoin being mainstream, it is highly possible. The thing is though, is that a lot of businesses will be losing a lot of money if this currency really does go mainstream. And the reasons as to why are pretty obvious. But then again, who knows? It may or may not happen. All we can do for now is to wait and see what happens in the future.

Bitcoin might be decentralized, but that doesn't make it non-bannable. It's as simple as declaring any Bitcoin tx a crime (or however it'd be called). Imagine a private network created by & for drug dealers - would it be left alone by intel because it's decentralized?

You could give me Tor as an counter-example, but how many of those using Tor do you think are really using it the right way leaving no identity trace behind? Most of those downloading it are using JavaScript and logging into their personal accounts through it. Now comparing Tor with a private network created by drug dealers, we're talking about the average Joe who is unconsciously accessing illegal sites (or falls in CIA's trap by paying for some "red rooms" or "hitman" fake services created by them to catch criminals) with drug dealers who obviously learn how to properly use the private network not to get caught.

Every little backdoor we leave makes it easier for the authorities to find out who you are and what's your business. I highly doubt that at least one intel agency from US doesn't have some software that makes identifying BTC users an easier job - something like an AI-powered blockchain analysis.. They have tech decades more advanced than us, this could be as easy as 1-2-3 if they right now own the perfect tool to do this.

Monero is the best example you could've given: it's starting to lose ground, isn't it? It's a quite hot topic right now that Monero is getting delisted from big exchanges and I doubt it's a decision taken by the exchanges' will. Look at what happens when you use CoinJoin and then place your money on an exchange - you get your funds locked, don't you?

It's because using these features the right way makes you an almost invincible target for the intel agencies willing to see what's up with you.

Id thats happen then i Mixing services will be in demand?because thats the only way that we can at least hide our identity and continues to be anonymous?


i think Those Leading country won't be bother pertaining our anonymity because they will only focus on their People and not the whole world.

and just like what i have said above that it is the mixing services will be used more .

When we get more decentralized options to facilitate our daily exchanges, it will be easier for non-criminal people to avoid any KYC, AML, CFT banking procedures. Governments will need to find other ways to fight criminals without having to exclude half of the humanity from financial system. It will also depend on grade of adoption of cryptocurrencies in our life. If there is no necessity to exchange bitcoin or monero to fiat money, then these cryptocurrencies might get any level of anonymity they need. People should have a right to transact anonymously like it has always been in cash transactions. We almost lost this right when decided to switch to a cashless world in which all transactions are intermediated.

Majority is the keyword for me here. There will always be some people ready to exchange it for you without asking for your ID.

Even with KYC there are some limits. Many exchanges allow you to skip KYC if you don't go above 5000 dollars or something like that. For me that's fine because I usually exchange less than 1000 at a time.

Like gentlemand said wven when they all restrict it there will be someone ready to go against the majority.

People might be exchange Bitcoin right now anonymously but just like Monero it will be harder to do it in the future once a full enforcement of regulation will happen which is inevitable. Majority of the governments who are willing to accept cryptocurrencies are always pointing about the regulations the industry will undergo in order for it to be accepted. Since the characteristic of it only digitally existing their KYC process and enforcement are always round the clock due to AML compliances, the enforcement might not be strict in your country now but once the crypto industry becomes popular in your country I would expect anonymous transactions happening in the internet would be less and less likely to happen.

I think that's totally inevitability myself. Anyone not planning for it is a bit of a silly sausage. The day is coming.

But that doesn't mean the death of it by any means. There'll always be exchanges on the fringes happy to deal with it and at some point there'll be robust and decent decentralised options with some volume.

You say it is not anonymous but in a way it is, as long as you've never submitted KYC.
If I were to do a p2p transaction to get cash with BTC that I've acquired in 2014, that would pretty much be an anonymous transaction.
Say I wanted to take my BTC to a store that accepts such payments and bought a new computer. That would be an anonymous transaction.
I have anonymously exchanged Bitcoin for cash in the past. It's not very easy but it's possible.

Monero is being harder and harder to exchange every year. What if it becomes delisted from 90% of exchanges one day?

I guess there were some trouble understanding between anonymous and pseudonymous. Based on these terms, bitcoin will actually fall under the pseudonym since our names are being assumed as the addresses that we have. It is just like our pen name on the blockchain. Being anonymous is a complete blank entity, you know nothing about it but the appearance of it plus the transactions are being published publicly so how can that be an anonymous.

If bitcoin has to offer us complete anonymity on the internet, then government will shut it down coz that it'd be the most movement under their radar.

I agree, privacy and anonymity are broken when people convert Bitcoin to cash.  It is true that the network itself is quite good with privacy with the help of TOR. Whether it is a centralized or decentralized exchange, once the transaction goes out of the Bitcoin Network (Bitcoin to Cash) this privacy thing is nullified.  Though they say there are ways to Cash out Bitcoin anonymously through Local Bitcoins, Withdraw using Cash or buy it gift cards.  But the question is, are they really 100% true?  ATM have surveillance camera,  users need to register to Local Bitcoin and I read KYC is needed for that exchange now, and Coinbase? Lol, that is one of the reasons why a torrent site owner was arrested. Stated in this article Coinbase Helps FBI Shut Down KickAssTorrents


Exchanges can be ban but the Bitcoin network can't be banned.  Just like torrent sites.

A "ban" could be put in place, but it's unlikely to be an effective ban.  Unless you're getting your coins mixed up again, maybe?  Usage of BSV would be comparatively easier to restrict by a government than usage of BTC.  BSV has fewer nodes, limited infrastructure, weak decentralisation, etc.  Not to mention the so-called leadership's stance on regulatory compliance.  You'll put your hands up and surrender when you're told to. 

I disagree. It could be banned.

Conversely, I could ask who are the madmen in government who think they can fight a branch of mathematics?  How do you practically and viably ban numbers?  That's all we're using here.  Large, nigh-impossible-to-calculate numbers.

Also, the game theory doesn't work out well on their end.  Many people have commented in the past that if they make crypto illegal, that would likely only drive it underground.  So they need to play nice and employ their usual "nudge theory tactics" (be on the lookout for those), or they risk crypto users choosing to play hardball and becoming more militant about what we do.  At the moment, I think it's safe to say most of us would describe ourselves as "enthusiasts" or "hobbyists", but if someone told me I couldn't do this stuff anymore, I'll be giving 'em the ol' middle finger and finding ways to flout whatever legislation they opt to put in place.

I agree that bitcoin is not completely anonymous, because we can still track bitcoin transactions. Therefore many bitcoin mixer products
to help anonymous bitcoin transactions, if you really want to use crypto full anonymous, you can use privacy coins. Like monero, dash,
zcoin, bytecoin and others as its. Since it was created bitcoin was not designed as a privacy coin, So it is natural that bitcoin cannot be
completely anonymous.

i disagree. it may be a tiny part of the reason but the main reason is because bitcoin is decentralized and can not be banned. not to mention that bitcoin's main usage has never been for anything illegal. if it were any other way then truly anonymous coins such as Monero would have been banned already, which is obviously not happening.

If the FBI, CIA & NSA could've never traced a Bitcoin tx since they heard of it, I bet it would've been banned long ago. Bitcoin serves us as the financial freedom we need in a semi authority-compliant way and that's enough - for anonymity, as others said before me too, there are other coins out there that you can use.

But as we can see, anonymity is one step closer to extinction every day. If even prepaid cards are going to require an ID in all of the EU, then I don't know how someone could expect privacy coins not to have a bit of trouble sooner or later. On the other hand though, they do serve an amazing purpose and OTC trading will still be a thing if you're a privacy seeker.

The top pro when it comes to cryptocurrencies is that you have a choice. I mean, you have way more choices than you should've had but you do have reliable coins to cover +90% of your purposes with.

Bitcoin shouldn't be fully anonymous because the anonymity wasn't in its white paper. If Satoshi had wanted to make Bitcoin 100% untraceable, it would be private now. But the lack of anonymity won't help with Bitcoin mass adoption. 

We have seen exchanges to delist pribacy coins. Houbi and Okex Korea has done it couple of months ago. At some point, every centralized services like exchange, or other legal service providor will not allow privacy coin anymore because of the regulations govt will put to stop money laundering and illegal activities.
But as above said, this coins will still be existed because they have the usage. Privacy coin like Monero will be used for untraceable transaction and govt can not stop it at all.

What is genuine for fully ano paying? You ll never be able proof real ownership... so what u receive is always confiscatable. Exchange of goods / services for money is always a legal relevant contract. Not possible ano

Not just governments, banks too. Coinbase lost their UK banking relationship with Barclays. Their new provider made dropping Zcash a condition of doing business with them.

The future of proper anon coins is likely to be non existent on approved exchanges. No doubt they'll do fine elsewhere as they provide a genuine use case.

I ask myself the following:

Some people want anonymous coins (which I also think is good if the person does not use to commit crimes), but exchanges (which have owners) will always have to ask for KYC, even though at that moment there are exchanges that do not ask for KYC in the future all exchanges will be forced to ask their customers to do KYC. Which government will allow anonymous currencies? So do we have to fight governments until they accept anonymous coins? man who is the madman who thinks he can fight the government? It is already a very good thing that governments accept bitcoin, asking for more than that is the same as fighting in a fight where there is only a 0.1% chance of winning

In a world where there was no need to use fiat or deal with a centralised entity Bitcoin would do exactly what it was intended to do. And indeed it does. It's the hangover from ye olde system that's introducing all of the problems people moan about.

It was never going to magically create its own economy. It has to transition from the old one and that's still a possible outcome.

As for OP's original question, if one day we woke up and Bitcoin had converted into another Monero authorities everywhere would start pumping out kittens. It would be straight back into the shadows in most places.

Bitcoin's subtle progress around the edges is one of its greatest assets. I don't know enough about LNs or any other second layer but it's possible you will be able to opt in to proper privacy using a layer on top while the base layer remains snoopable.

We shouldn't listen much about the government mates, the governments know that they can't ban bitcoin and can't stop it spread either. Bitcoin was created for anonymous transaction and making it non anonymous will defeat it purpose and goal of creation. Listening to what the government has to say shouldn't be an issue, let them try it ban and watch the next move from Bitcoin. For creating another layer and making Bitcoin non anonymous can equally harm Bitcoin reputation and adoption.

LN is not that much of anonymous as it is expected. Afaik, LN payments can be traced although it will be hell lot of works. Either way, if BTC becomes anonymous, it will barely survive in the market.
Like you said, most countries don't have freedom of speech etc. In case of financial activity privacy, all countries are more strict and in such case, BTC would never be legalized.

I think that Bitcoin is meant to provide some privacy, but also transparency as no non-cryptos offer. Those who want to make sure nobody ever learns about their transactions and identity can use coins like Monero, but that's not what Bitcoin is about.
As for exchanges, I believe it raises the question of KYC. Again, there are ways to exchange without revealing identity. But I think it's fair to impose KYC when big sums of money are moving because fighting money laundering is important. Then again, the same limits should be introduced to cash payments in this case.

It is not that Bitcoin "should never" become fully anonymous, it is that Bitcoin is not fully anonymous.

It is not all about Bitcoin not going to become what it is supposed to become as designed and planned, it is about Bitcoin being what it is. Bitcoin is not straying intentionally away from its grand design because of the constraints brought by the governments and the banks and all the systems. Bitcoin is just being true to itself, which is not fully anonymous.

This Forbes headline is as click bait bullshit as they come, but this is what I was referring to.  This was right before the coronavirus pandemic and it might be on the back burner, but it’s still something that’s with out question coming, how strict or open they’ll be , remains a mystery. Knowing this scumbag, my hopes are not up - https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/02/16/blow-to-bitcoin-as-significant-us-crackdown-suddenly-revealed/amp/

I have searched and found no recent news about Treasury Secretary Mnuchin talking about Bitcoin.
Only two articles in dates of 02/13/2020 and 03/02/2020.

https://news.bitcoin.com/mnuchin-cryptocurrency/

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm926

In both articles he highlights the duty of the treasury department to prevent the misuse of virtual currencies including Bitcoin and stablecoins.

"The US welcomes responsible innovation, including new technologies that may improve the efficiency of the financial system," said Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. "We must ensure that we balance innovation with the need to protect our national security and maintain the integrity of our financial system. "

But I think that once Bitcoin is legal in the countries. Governments will levy a tax for those who make use of it and they would have to pay these taxes. We are already seeing it in some countries that are doing it and therefore Bitcoin would not become full anonymous.

What about Monero? I sure hope my Signal app is too     Quantum would agree with your statement though, however we are a ways off.

Would I agree w/that? Of course not.  I am all about privacy especially from the governments prying eyes.  I just know OTC  / Decentralized exchanges and say maybe .onion exchanges ( not sure if these even exist yet or are possible ) will not bring bitcoin to mainstream use. 

I'm not saying any of the Devs are, I'm speaking more towards those pushing for it, which is a WIDE range of users in the community. 

How about L.N....can anyone say with any certainly if this is truly anonymous or not?  If it is, or is much more so than BTC, and it is used on the main layer ( vs a secondary layer which is probably more likely from what I've read ) then that makes BTC anonymous? ( not an expert here, throwing out a hypothetical ).

Privacy coins have had some issues - https://cointelegraph.com/news/privacy-focused-cryptos-hunted-down-by-forensics-and-exchanges

Likely will have more- https://invezz.com/news/2020/04/10/john-mcafee-claims-governments-will-ban-privacy-coins/

Apart from the over the counter that you have mentioned, you're forgetting that there are decentralized exchanges (DEX), and I do not think the government anywhere has access to any of those websites. They can only regulate Centralized exchanges such as Coinbase, and maybe Binance, and others that are similar to them, but they can't do that to exchanges that are decentralized.

As for being anonymous, that's not something that I worry about. I just make use of Bitcoin because I like the fact that I am able to quickly send and receive money to anyone around the world and also at a cheaper rate (fees). I do not really bother myself whether it is anonymous or not. I have not seen the need to; probably I might make some considerable amount of bitcoin saving. I guess bitcoin whales are the actual people who care about the anonymity the most right now.

I don't know about never.

Basically what you're saying is that it shouldn't be anonymous to prevent it from being banned or attacked by governments.

However, if (or when) Bitcoin achieves dominance over fiat currencies, it won't be possible for governments to simply take it down, since the economy would be built around Bitcoin.

Once that happens, it would be completely fine for it to switch on an anonymity update, since by that point it's not going anywhere anyway.

That said, I don't see the need when BTC is easily interchangeable with Monero, and preventing address reuse and using a proxy is enough to prevent most tracking anyway.

We dont know if its intentional to be created that way on where its pseudo-anonymous or just totally being cracked on that it isnt really that fully anonymous at all? I agree that this kind of feature will
surely kill out the main purpose of full adoption since we do know that government would always be on the top of the chain which means if things is out of their control then they will surely
make a step to oppose it. Just like what happened on Monero where its being delisted on some exchange and we know that these platforms are following legal protocols which is already
signifying that they do consider out XRM anonymity and they do like to get rid of it.

Blockchain is not actually something that will hide your identity, plus Bitcoins is based on this very amazing idea .One can easily verify it because all the data is uploaded and at the same time due to* Consensus * , you do have the opportunity to actually find out stuff about people.

This is why many people do believe that it would battle corruption in the government very effectively.

The thing is , until and unless you are not all set on changing your addresses, using tons of things to make sure your identity stays hidden , Bitcoins is more like a transparent currency  , the thing is ,it is giving people Independence but at the same time it is giving us the opportunity to track how it's being used .

I also do happen to Belive that , It is perfect the way it is .Plus it's applications in the general government is actually disregarded , it can serve as a great tool against the situations we are facing right now .

Only 10% of Bitcoins is being used for inappropriate purposes , Mandatory KYC in most exchanges have even enabled government to track the addresses and pin it down faster .

It is way more transparent than Fiat I would say .

Bitcoin is already good as it is, I don't think we still need any more anonymity, it's just good as it is and it provides anonymity but to a certain level. The op is right about what he said here, the government will be against Bitcoin if it's 100% anonymous. And apart from that, I have my own reasons why I wouldn't want Bitcoin to be hundred percent anonymous. If it does, there will be people who would want to make use of that advantage in the wrong way.

Even with this little level of anonymity, people are still people to commit some crime using Bitcoin and escape with it. But that kind of people are not new to this society as they are into such activities for years. So, bitcoin is being pseudo-anonymous is always having its own advantages and governments also must be liking it.

I understand your opinion, but I don't agree with it. You are basically asking BTC to give up the very feature it has been famous for all these years. Just doesn't make any sense.

Do you really believe that the governments will embrace and help BTC go mainstream if we get rid of the anonymity aspect? In that case, they would simply point out how there are far more superior alternatives in comparison.

It's a fact that BTC transactions are not 100% anonymous and can be traced depending on how the user executes them. However, as long as the user is careful (Mixers etc), no one will be able to trace the transactions.

Crypto is basically a strategy to rebel against the current world order. The anonymity aspect is basically the light-saber of BTC. Can a Jedi or Sith fight without their light-sabers?

Right

We see it any day what crappy our actual internet works.

There is only crime wanting anonymous money... average Joe doesn't care, but reguator s duty is to protect him

They're welcome to try and control/ban/censor Bitcoin -- Bitcoin not being fully anonymous has never stopped states from trying to control/ban/censor it. Hasn't worked out for them. Most wisen up and lift their bans eventually.


In the end, it's how people use money that will determine how private their transactions are. You could actually use fiat systems much better to stay anonymous (and this is why it's still the favourite laundering currency of crime). And you can always use certain methods and additional tec to existing Bitcoin tech to make your transactions more private -- CoinJoin comes to mind.

I heard the US government are working on cryptocurrency but it not deliberately stop bitcoin and others cryptocurrencies but to create their own national cryptocurrency.
Meanwhile, there's no reason to be scared of bitcoin anonymity level cause it will only make the government to move their focus on privacy coins.

The government wont kill exchange sites and the only worse things they can do is implementing Vat,KYC and AML and very exchange site that applied those features will fully operate.

And I don't even know why people crave anonymity so bad when other aspect of their everyday life is not anonymous! People go to hospitals, schools and other social gatherings with their identification, they don't seem to have problem with this, but they want a digital currency to be fully anonymous and the government should be okey with this, I always wonder how that idea will be generally accepted.

So you think the appropriate response is to bow to the pressure and allow the tyrants to have it all their own way?  Maybe my outlook is just generally more subversive than average, but I'd never think that way.  All the things you mentioned are concepts that need to be challenged and anything that helps put power back in the hands of normal people is another step towards those in authority realising they aren't as "in control" as they thought.

//EDIT:  And while it's a post responding to a completely different thread, I feel like this response applies aptly here as well:

We can't walk on eggshells here. 

---

I still believe exchanges in their present, fundamentally misused, format are on borrowed time.  I hope there will come a point where we simply won't do that sort of thing anymore, because it definitely wasn't part of the design concept to have these entities holding the keys to vast tranches of BTC.  The very concept of a centralised exchange is inherently weak and vulnerable to pressure from authorities.  It's no coincidence that  regulators so easily identified the choke point they could squeeze.  We're bound to come up with something better at some point.  I'm just hoping the rate of technological development will continue to outpace the legal framework designed to contain it.

I believe the reason why Satoshi didn't make bitcoin a total anonymous is because he wants bitcoin to be used in a diverse way and that's the reading why we have to conjoin supported wallets and bitcoin tumbler site for the purpose of those that want to make anonymous payments.


I guess some people never understand that one of the reasons the institutions and governments were unable to stop bitcoin while some law firms supported it is because of benefit and it is not anonymous or else we won't have seen any of them legalizing bitcoin.

Maybe not completely anonymous but would you agree that bitcoin transactions should be more private? Developments like Schnorr and Taproot to improve scalability and privacy is underway and may go live this year. Then there's another called Coinswap which was proposed recently as posted by @dkbit98 - Bitcoin Privacy Improvement with new CoinSwap


It could potentially destroy mixing/coinjoin services too.

People should be anonymous if they are engaging or if they are doing transactions using cryptocurrency. Being anonymous doesn't mean that you're not supporting the use of cryptocurrency in your country, it is just for a privacy purposes that's why you need to hide your identity. The government are somehow benefiting the use of cryptocurrency and help the economy to grow and become stable.

Keeping your privacy is really necessary if there are platform that involves money. Although people are anonymously accessing it, we can still help promote the use of bitcoin in many platforms, like social media. There are a lot of ways that we can improve the mass adoption of cryptocurrency even if we are hiding ourselves because the true factor that will make people become interested in using bitcoin is its benefits in the market and economy.

It's interesting.

I don't mind if the government want to control or regulated bitcoin or altcoin by using KYC for every exchange. But don't forget, we have a thousand ways to protect ourselves from the government.

The scenario would be, we can use the mixer to send the bitcoin from the exchanges to another wallet, whether it's an online wallet or offline wallet, or we can transform it into an altcoin. After that, we can send it to the exchanges which don't use KYC, change again into bitcoin, and send it into another wallet. The process will be so many ways, but that is what we should do if we don't want the government to find out about ourselves.

The government needs to know people who use bitcoin or altcoin so they can get the data on how popular bitcoin among their citizen so they can regulate something related to the tax (maybe) or another thing.

For me, bitcoin still anonymous. As long as we can keep a huge amount in a secret wallet and not tell other people about the wallet, we can be safe. We can only use some amount which is not too big at the exchanges, so if the government investigate or tracking our income, they will found that we don't use so much money.

There will be your way to figure out the problem if you still want to become anonymous, and with the internet, I am sure we can get one or more ways to keep anonymous.

Governments will always want to have control especially in the economic environment.
They will never allow an anonymous system to be established and let people transfer anonymously money to each other. This is not going to be transparent in their eyes.

It is hard to say now whether that was an conscious decision  or not. What we know for sure is that Satoshi came up with the idea on how to solve a problem of having to rely on central server to control digital transactions. It was done very well and bitcoin has been working for more than 10 years so far. Without interruptions.

If Satoshi wanted bitcoin to be "electronic cash" then it is quite understandable why bitcoin is not fully anonymous. Physical cash is traceble to some extent, it has serial number so if needed it can be tracked. When doing physical cash transactions, we can clearly see that balance is changing upon trading between seller and buyer. It is not possible with anonymous currency since we don't know balances, addresses, persons whom we are dealing with. That is not how cash works.

Having a fully anonymous bitcoin will only make things worse because this will be a very good bridge for illegal activities, if you support this complete then you support money laundering and other illegal activities because that is what full anonymity will enable, I do not support full anonymity but having the privacy of users to the extent that the government can intervene is a better thing. Plus, this compromise will help in paving a way for bitcoin to be injected into mainstream finance. In the first place, why would you support full anonymity in bitcoin when you know that you are not doing something illegal, this elitism in bitcoin community is making the progress of the cryptocurrency regress and move backwards, and I find frustrating and sad because there are members of this community that are consciously excluding people and they do not want other people to know about this, they do not want others to learn in short. I know that many will disagree and others will be livid with my statement but I will stand with I say and I am open to criticism.

I think Bitcoin shouldn't focus on being fully anonymous BUT if one day there is a technology that it can adopt to become anonymous, I don't see why not. Allow people to be able to choose to make their coins more private or more anonymous, that should be the way. Everything boils down to private choice in the end right?

I doubt it was a conscious decision by Satoshi. He probably did know how to implement privacy similar to what XMR did later, or more likely just did think it would be a problem, because he assumed that addresses won't be reused much and that chain analysis will be difficult. And maybe he is still right to some extent, because chain analysis is difficult if mixing is involved, which is why criminals go unpunished, despite Bitcoin's supposed weak privacy.

Well these already exist, so we're all good in that front. Plenty of people use both Bitcoin along with Monero/Dash. I don't think I ever see anyone push for full anonymity in Bitcoin either -- they mostly ask why it isn't, considering its reputation brought about by pop culture.

Just to be clear, I don't mind whether Bitcoin is fully anonymous or not. What I take issue with is going out of our way just to please the government. It works out in this case because Bitcoin was never meant to be fully anonymous to begin with, but if that had been in the development roadmap and was scrapped just because of regulatory threats, then it would become a problem.

So yeah, I understand the OP's reasoning and what he said certainly made sense, but IMO the reason why Bitcoin should never be anonymous is because it doesn't have to, nor was it ever intended to be; dodging regulatory measures just happened to line up conveniently with that, not vice-versa.

In my opinion, it was a very clever decision to make bitcoin not fully anonymous by default. The reason why that was so is because it helps bitcoin to be money of people. When we talk about cryptocurrency, we often mention that it helps to provide financial sovereignety and freedom. Freedom itself means people should have a choice. People should make transactions and control their money in a way they want. People's money belongs only to people. If they want transact in an open manner, they can do that without additional actions. If they want some anonymity (bitcoin can provide a decent level of anonymity if properly used) they can do that as well. It is merely matter of freedom and choice. I want to use my money as freely as possible. Everything that takes out that  variability makes money very ineffective in terms of freedom of choice.

for someone who talks about bitcoin "goal" you seem to now know what it actually is.
the main bitcoin goal has always been to create a decentralized currency that nobody can censor. that means you should not care one bit what the government says about bitcoin. in fact bitcoin was created because of the government and banking system severe corruption. of course they won't "allow" it and it has nothing to do with anonymity.
the fact that most governments have accepted bitcoin is because they know they can't stop it.

P.S. bitcoin will never be fully anonymous and it has nothing to do with what people want or don't want. it is because of its design.

Who is trying to make Bitcoin fully anonymous?Can you mention a few BTC developers,that are currently working on this?
Is there an upcoming Bitcoin hardfork,that is aiming at more anonymity? I don't know about such hardfork.
Basically you are a discussing a possibility that might never happen.
I don't see any logic in the "if bitcoin becomes more anonymous,governments will destroy it" hypothesis.
Monero is more anonymous than Bitcoin,but no government had destroyed Monero so far.It's still alive.
The governments might try to destroy Bitcoin not because it's more or less anonymous,but because it is an alternative to the fiat financial system.

@ChiBitCTy. The government agrees with your statement hehehe.

In any case, I read this new article. This might be relevant to the thread on having anonymity and privacy without changing anything.



Chris Belcher, an independent developer whose Github’s history shows hundreds of commits across various Bitcoin-centric applications, released his new implementation proposal for CoinSwap last week.

Belcher’s approach builds on CoinSwap’s earlier solution — that of utilizing a “swap” method to conduct transactions. At the time, the framework relied on conducting transactions via an intermediate wallet instead of a direct transfer, causing wallet addresses to be “masked,” effectively.

But the protocol proved to be difficult to implement and never came to fruition, notes Belcher. A relevant Bitcointalk thread has not shown activity since 2016, meaning the project was, indeed, left abandoned.

However, the Bitcoin developer noted CoinSwap holds “great promise,” and is the “next step for on-chain bitcoin privacy.”

Meanwhile; Belcher noted the approach may look similar to the Lightning network but features several improvements over the latter. One is presenting better liquidity for users, with Belcher stating “it’s hard to imagine the Lightning Network will ever reliably” route a 200 Bitcoin transfer to any node in the Bitcoin protocol.

Read in full https://cryptoslate.com/this-bitcoin-developer-is-using-swaps-to-solve-btcs-long-running-pseudonymous-privacy-issue/

Source https://gist.github.com/chris-belcher/9144bd57a91c194e332fb5ca371d0964

Personally, I don't mind using a pseudonymous currency. I am quite contented with it. But, indeed, what if the rest of the people do not want to settle with it?

Or can we just consider pseudonymous as the middle and acceptable ground between anonymous and identified currency? A sort of a demilitarized zone between two countries trying to annihilate one another.

Otherwise, you could actually develop a fully anonymous currency which is going to be banned and will never ever reach full adoption for being such or try to tone down the feature a bit and perhaps gain acceptance.

As we can see the bitcoin becomes popular from the previous years and it is not anonymous let's say the creator it's self because he doesn't want to show himself right now because it is a huge responsibility to taken the coin which is not going good to get more attraction but the creation of it the bitcoin becomes public for over a year's which is a good thing we have. There are a lot of people using this kind of coin even the altcoins because they see the potential of this coin to make more profit on them also even this coin is going to the public the transaction on itself is in a private, all of the transactions are secured with a cipher and decoder also with the help of the blockchain technology this kind of innovation becomes safer because it is not prone to hackers all of the information are going to encrypt into a new block which is create a piece of new information and another cryptography even this is secured the transaction are still transparent which the users can see the outcome of this coin of there is some confirmation happening or now.


Becomes a decentralized use of the bitcoin the government restricts this kind of method of payment and transaction so they create a platform that the user can now securely using the KYC to identify and limit the transactions becomes now centralized.

I don't disagree, but this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It effectively means Bitcoin's development is going to be limited by what governments dictate. Sure some of us can live with just a pseudonymus Bitcoin, but what if they go after something else? With this reasoning, lawmakers are going to be able to mold Bitcoin into what they want with legislation, and we all lose out for it.

I mean, it's cool in this case because there are workarounds in mixers, layers, it was never designed to be fully anonymous to begin with, etc., but IMO future laws should never be a consideration in mapping out development.

Intrinsically, bitcoin provides anonymity support, most of the time, people need to transact, and sometimes they didn't notice that this intrinsic anonymity is fading because of some transactions. One of which that I encountered is when you wish to withdraw funds from your BTC address, you undergo KYC from your local exchange and there, you provide your identity or personal information such as Name, Address, Birthday, which is crucial to remove your anonymity. Whenever someone wants to trace you, you aren't anonymous at all.

The network itself is still quite good for privacy to some extent. It is impossible to expect the government would allow any asset or any exchange to accept users without any KYC, they're doing some business and need to hold some responsibility. The AML thing and so on is almost guaranteed to be mandatory when you use a centralized service. So, the solution would be don't use them. It's your call.

Let me quote the man himself:


And ten years after, Bitcoin is at the heel of government, they are now enforcing exchanges for KYC and anything that can identify us.

International bodies like  Financial Stability Board (FSB), Financial Action Task Force FATF are already pushing a regulatory framework on Bitcoin and crypto in general.

https://www.fatf-gafi.org/documents/documents/virtual-currency-definitions-aml-cft-risk.html

By its nature, bitcoin is not anonymous and can't help someone being anonymous while making a paiement.
Fully anonymous. Maybe it's technically possible;
I remember reading about the possibility to conbine between blockchain for bitcoin and Mimble Wimble protocole. This should help make a fully anonymous transactions without a single trace about the persons behind it. So unless you use an exchange, the use of bitcoin can remain private and anonymous.
Conservative dictatorships can't forbidden people from using a btc wallet connected directly (without a third part) to the blockchain network or just written in a paper wallet. I think that by the growth of use cases for bitcoin, the anonymous concept can be realised.

I look into the moment will come that Bitcoin and its transactions are no longer anonymous. It probably will come sooner as the government will try to regulate and legalize the use of crypto, everything wanted to be controlled and much more to stop illegal activities which some of them are using cryptocurrency.

As to the fact that our address and its transaction already have a blockchain record and traceable enough, I feel this a start of losing our goal to keep anonymous. At this point, we're still unknown but sooner, it can't be anymore especially when the leading country has taken an action to that.

BTCitcoin is not designed by Satoshi to be anonymous, if you are able to get the database of every UTXO then you are not truly anonymous unless you tweak some things. I do accept the fact that government will not allow any anonymous currency to thrive and i always wonder how these anonymous currencies will survive when the regulations becomes strict for every exchange.

The countries you are referring to might be living before a century than you and i are living, i do understand the countries you are referring to and i have visited Saudi where they had restrictions but now they are trying to liberate women rights because the new king wants to give liberation for women and they allowed woman to get driving license as well as open movie theater which is a big deal and  the main land Iran where i have seen restrictions for woman even though you can enjoy but it is not legal but they have Kish Island where woman enjoy the most without any restrictions.

What i am trying to tell is, it is possible to have a liberal currency with BTCitcoin as we will have some countries accepting BTCitcoin.

Bitcoin provides anonymity but to a certain extent. Since all transactions are available on a publicly viewable ledger, transactions can still be traced but will require extra digging work. That's one of the major reasons why Bitcoin users patronize the services of Bitcoin Mixers.  Whole other altcoins like Monero and Zcash are privacy-centric, people still tend to use bitcoin with Mixers for their transactions.

The number of Bitcoin users that use Bitcoin Mixers continues to grow: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/65771/use-of-bitcoin-mixers-by-darknet-entities-is-on-the-rise-new-report-reveals

One thing I often hear is how bitcoin should become a fully anonymous cryptocurrency.  No, it shouldn't.  If people want bitcoin to truly become mainstream then making bitcoin fully anonymous would destroy that goal.  I believe in these types of currencies, such as with Monero whom I support fully.

Here's why- the governments wont allow it.  Right now the U.S. government is working on bitcoin/cryptocurrency legislation that Steve Mnuchin (Secretary of the US Treasury) is putting together and recently said should release soon. I'm fearful of what's to come and bitcoin isn't even anonymous at the moment.  Governments can kill the exchanges.  Sure there's always over the counter, but that's not going to bring this to the heights we all hope it's headed.

Think of it this way.  How many countries still don't allow for women to vote or even show their face in public, how many countries don't allow for freedom of speech, how many countries still don't allow freedom of press...and you think they'l be okay with a massive global currency they can't control what so ever?  Not a chance.

I hope LN is something that stays on another layer and is used for anonymous transaction or something else is created so that bitcoin has both options..but making it fully anonymous wont work out well.  As a financial advisor this is something seemingly obvious to me after spending over a decade in finance and seeing how this kind of stuff is received by governments. 

Would love to be wrong or hear how it could still work.