Topic: More reason you should protect your privacy and anonymity as a Bitcoin holder. - page 2. (Read 313 times)

I'm not a miner, but I suspect this activity requires a lot of electricity. So many. Further, how can a person engaged in mining maintain confidentiality while simultaneously using large amounts of electricity? In my country, this is very clearly visible; if there is an oversupply, the question of where and why there is so much will arise, and there will also be a simple check that will show all the expenses.
I don’t know what happened to that guy; perhaps he was very talkative, but even if he tried to maintain confidentiality, he, as a miner in Russia, would not succeed. I regularly see in the news that one or another mining farm has been discovered that uses electricity from someone else’s enterprise.
Therefore, talking about anonymity or confidentiality is appropriate when you first see the Internet and have not yet written anything there.
But yes, you can try to be anonymous. But this requires a lot of experience and knowledge. I’m not sure that many people here, having social networks, fully understand how “confidential” they are.

i remember a case where a bitcoin holder from china was murdered in my area while he was on holiday with his girlfriend. the killer actually just wanted to ask for his private key and didn't intend to kill him, but because he resisted, he ended up being killed and his girlfriend fell into a coma.

from this we can learn the lesson that it is important to remain anonymous and humble when owning bitcoin because we don't know who is targeting us when we tell how many assets we hold or when we flex for being a bitcoin investor to other people.

BIP39 Passphrases designed to reduce risk in the event you are exposed to a physical threat, you can give them your wallet seed or HW pin code. They will enter it and find your balance, but you will leave a small amount as a balance. Once they are gone and you know you are safe, you can enter your wallet seed + passphrase here and you can access all your funds safely.

Therefore, instead of losing all your money or not giving them your wallet seed, you can make them believe that all you have is $100 or a little more while your entire balance is hidden by passphrase.

I have always wanted it live a simple life in which nobody will know how much I am worth. This is why I am fascinated by Bitcoin because the currency gives me such privilege. All I need to do is to avoid centralised platforms and my privacy will be intact. Using fiat for daily transactions is normal but keeping your investment in fiat or these centralised exchanges is dangerous very dangerous. Some criminals have spies and informants who work in most of these centralized platforms and give out individual information to criminals. These corrupt bank or exchange staff know how much you are worth, so they can arrange to kidnap or rob these individuals.

Let's say someone bought ASICs or other mining rigs, do you think what the person will doing with that stuff?

Well he could be a reseller, but since it's related to mining, other people would think if he's someone who rich and have a lot coins. That's why it's risky to buy a stuff related to cryptocurrency, you need to find a way to not share your information too much.

You need to distinguish between the place where you live and the place of your mining farm that protected by few security.

Let's say you have a wallet without passphrase that contain 0.005 BTC (dummy wallet).

You can create a new wallet by using additional passphrase from your dummy wallet, this is your main wallet where you hold most of your coins.

In case you get kidnapped, just show the dummy wallet seed phrase, they might think it's all the coins you have.

If you can invest in cryptocurrency, trade it at home, or if you can hide what you do when you are going to public places with public Wifi, Internet connection, you already do a good prevention for your privacy and safety.

I don't get your idea here.

"Hide money", what's it?

If I have a cryptocurrency wallet, non custodial, I will store it at home but if I have to use a hot wallet, go around, I will only store small money in my hot wallet and use password to encrypt it.

I also will try to open and log in that wallet as much as possible when I am at public locations. It is a preventive hide step because if they don't know I have a wallet in the phone, laptop, they will less pay attention on me.

[GUIDE] How to Create a Strong/Secure Password
Modest privacy protection proposal

How can privacy be protected in this case? From what I understood, he is a miner, that is, someone who runs a Bitcoin mining farm. This farm may be large (due to the ransom amount) and it is difficult or impossible to hide it. This crime may not be related to cryptocurrencies, and it was not mentioned they demanded the ransom in Bitcoin or Monero.

What I'm trying to say is that privacy is important and you should be careful that the public does not know your crypto assets and using passphrase may be useful in avoiding situations where you cannot hide your money.

The bad thing is that we see more and more steps in that direction, and we don't see steps back. If things continue like this, in the end it will make more sense for bitcoins to be held by a bank than by you in a HW, which may even prohibit them in the future, or force KYC to buy them. All very different from the idea for which it was created but it seems that we are heading towards it.

Well mixers are banned here probably soon it will be done to main action on these platforms. Its getting tougher to remain anonymous if we dont put that to work. I mean most people or into crypto trading are oblige to do KYC already especially on Binance and other major exchanges. Is there a known info or data that provides such anonymity tally or percrntage whose users arent yet dox completely?

Bitcoin physical attacks.

People must hide their identities as much as possible, for privacy, safety of their life and their coins. Unfortunately, in reality they do oppositely. They want to be recognized, want to be famous and they show their faces everywhere. By wanting to be known, they take risk which is not only for their bitcoins but also for their life and even family members's security.

Yes, this isn't new in crypto, we heard different sad stories in crypto that happened to our fellow crypto enthusiasts because they didn't care about their privacy.  But there's nothing we can do about this get learn from their mistakes.  We should value our Bitcoin like real money and I think, this kidnap and ransom not only happen on Bitcoin but is usually common in fiat.

So to avoid this, we should be cautious about sharing information that could be used to predict our actions, especially posting it on social media.
Most especially those habit of displaying expensive belongings in public or on social media.

Well, another situation where a person is in danger because of his/her identity, personal information is not hidden or doesn't have privacy. There are some people who really didn't care about their privacy until they become victim just like the one you shared. Even though I don't have lots of money but I still care for my privacy as we don't know that there's someone or a group of people who are planning to do something bad and then ask for money when it will happen. We don't know when it will/might happen but the only thing we can so is to do our best to prevent it from happening.

The thing you need to understand here is that bitcoin transactions are stored or recorded publicly on the blockchain as long as it’s an on-chain transaction. So now let’s say you have a CEX which is KYCed and also a DEX where you keep your coins which is entirely bad you don’t keep coins on exchanges but wallets. When you move your coins from either the KYCed centralized exchange to your Decentralized , or even the other way round, with the CEX having your identities it is easier to just connect every transaction from and into that CEX address to you because the transaction is public. This is one of the reasons why even re-use of an address is not advisable because it will just weaken by our privacy.

It seems am lost here. when talking about government not having right to a our fund keep me confuse/wondering what are you really trying to say about government and monetary control or kyc, I need a clarity on what you really mean.

Because as far as I know kyc doesn't mean they have total access to your fund. Rather only makes them control CEX and not DEX. which your total fund can be in decentralized exchange while you can decide to sell the amount you want to sell from sending from Dex to cex for exchange. So I see no total control about that. If I am wrong you correct me about that.

Then why don't you go back to using fiat and trusting your money with banks or centralized systems who makes profits of you. If you really care about how Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are been used to commit crimes which wasn't part of their creations purpose then you should reconsider and let the government have total control of your funds.

Government Doesn't deserve the right to any peny you worked hard for mate I want you to know that. You have full rights as a citizen to your earned money. And who cares if the governments funds are stolen? They are even worse than the criminals we talk about.

For long, criminals have deviced new ways to steal and reap people of their hard earned money and most time it's out of ignorance that gives them these chances.

I think you used the word control wrongly, do you think government having control will actually take away the crime’s conducted using it? No, the only control the government want is that which will enable them to manipulate the price and not to protect you from anything that they say. If it is about protection wouldn’t issue laundry involving would have been reduced by now?. Bitcoin doesn’t even gives total anonymity of transactions its transactions are public or let me say it’s a pseudonymous currency but the government wants more because they just wish to monitor your everyday transactions. If the government gets control of this currency then kiss bye some decentralized functions like it been a store of value. Everyone deserves privacy and freedom if they want it

In as much as we talk about cryptocurrencyBTC investment and the importance, there is also a need For government to have control also. A total anonymity of crypto transaction gives room for fraudulent activities like money laundering and becoming a room for scammers Hide out, and this is the more reason why cryptocurrency is a threat to government Because of the decentralized nature that can't be controlled. Government of any entity deserves the right to have access to any monitery system even if it's not %100 but at least %60 or %70. Despite important of crypto currency, I think it has a high risk and we should not neglect that fact. because if it is not regulated properly a good hacker can move the entire government reserved bitcoin and criple government bitcoin reserved.  

There are been many sad stories on the internet of crypto enthusiasts who got killed or rubbed of their assets because they stupidly compromised their privacy by their choice of lifestyle. The truth is, just as people keep making silly mistakes with their wallet security, so will naive users keep endangering themselves by flaunting their wealth online. We cannot actually control people's lifestyle but we can hope they get well informed and make better choices.

It's not new that Bitcoin, a decentralized system, offers users more privacy compared to other cryptocurrencies. Many people choose to invest in Bitcoin for this reason. Privacy is not just about keeping our identity from the public or government; there are other benefits. In a recent incident, a Russian miner was kidnapped and demanded a ransom of 15 million rubles ($166,000). A very large amount right?

Over the years, criminals have been targeting and holding more crypto holders, posing threats not only to individuals but also to large crypto firms. Many people lack awareness of how to protect their privacy online, merging their crypto and social lives. Some enthusiasts share their Bitcoin holdings publicly, putting themselves at even more risk. Privacy in Bitcoin and the crypto space is crucial to avoid attracting unwanted attention from the underworld(criminals).

While newcomers or those with small Bitcoin holdings may think they have nothing to hide, the increasing popularity of Bitcoin makes everyone a potential target. Sharing too much information can lead to danger, as seen in incidents like the Russian miner's kidnapping.
Maintaining privacy as a Bitcoin holder involves setting clear boundaries between your social life and online activities. This helps reduce the risk of attention from hackers and criminals.

Unfortunately, privacy has been compromised with the introduction of KYC requirements by major exchanges and other centralized systems working with Bitcoin.

Anonymity is no longer guaranteed, as our data is now in the hands of the government. Despite the government's right to inquire about personal financial matters, their overzealous actions towards Bitcoin holders and investors have raised concerns. To avoid unnecessary drama, staying anonymous and protecting your privacy is crucial within the Bitcoin community. Wise consideration of the reasons behind privacy and anonymity in Bitcoin is essential for every one, including the newbies who thinks they have nothing to loss.