Topic: Privacy vs. anonymity (Read 887 times)

I agree with you, when I want privacy and anonymity but I still exchange coins on Binance or Luno, at the same time I lose that privacy and anonymity because when I register on one of these exchanges, I have to KYC.
So if we want privacy and anonymity, it's best not to buy goods or exchange coins, as these can be tracked.

It depends on you.

There can be certain part of you that will deal with noncustododial exchanges, noncustododial wallets with coin control, address freeze, using different wallets (which can be of the same wallet name) for addresses not to be linked, and Tor relay circute changing or best running full node and try all best to maintain and retain privacy or anonymity by also making use of coinjoin and mixers.

Also there can be other part of you that make use of centralized services and making sure your decentralized part is not linked to centralized part. No 100% privacy or anonymity but the part you choose for it can be very possible and effective.

I think today's crypto world cannot maintain our anonymity and privacy, this is because we use exchanges that are legal in our respective countries and exchanges that are legal in a country require users to provide KYC, so that each of our transactions will be recorded on the exchange. . we cannot continue to hide our identity and privacy if we are in the crypto world using a centralized exchange, if we want anonymity we have to use a decentralized or peer-to-peer exchange to transact crypto.

actually, people know about tracking, and the other thing that relate with privacy and anonymous.
this thing can be felt if someone never show who is he. you can cover identity with many mask you want, and when you show it, your anonymity will disappear, though is just one person. sometime, privacy following the system made, but we can easily show it because the system not perfect as we want. and the fact, shadow will always track your privacy and we dont have any power to hide it

I do care alot about both anonymousity and privacy but I think I have none since my exchange is completely centralized and for me to do reasonable transaction my KYC has to be verified. Just like Op I just wish my online life will just reboot so I can decide on how to shy away from any centralized platform

Umm, everywhere? With the globalization of the internet and the rapid growth of technology (due to the former), the governments have found their way to enter our lives and violate our privacy. You want to have a smart phone? A smart TV? A smart car? This epoch of having everything digitally is nevertheless helping mankind in a lot of sectors, but I can't deny that we're constantly transforming into objects of operation from large companies.

The problem lies on the oligopoly that's prevailing currently. World-ruling companies such as Google, Facebook etc. have obtained so much information about everyone that, besides it's economically unhealthy, it is anti-democratic. We've already seen what can they do if their information is demanded.

I don't want to be pessimistic, but I repeat;

Talking about "smart cars" which track your every move and record everything which is said inside your car, smart appliances and smart homes are the next biggest things I think. TVs which know what you watch, doorbells which know who is visiting you and when, fridges which know what you buy, ovens which know what you cook, any audio assistant such as Alexa or Google which knows literally everything that is said inside your house, and so on. Some of these devices even boast that they will "learn your schedule/routine" automatically, as if having some anonymous AI somewhere knowing your every move inside your own home is somehow a good thing.

If this is really your thing, then are open source alternatives such as https://www.home-assistant.io/. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to just open my door rather than answer it from my fridge (https://www.samsung.com/us/connected-living/familyhub-doorbell-bundle/).

Therefore, in cryptocurrency, we can count on a certain confidentiality of the individual, since this is a basic right of every person. However, with an increase in the level of regulation of the circulation of cryptocurrency in society, our anonymity will continue to fall and I do not know what will remain of it in the end. States in general are against cryptocurrency anonymity. Where cryptocurrency comes into contact with fiat, states will establish such rules so that there is no anonymity at all.

Drifting a bit from when I started this a few weeks ago but I really find it funny (or perhaps a bit sad) that you have people on this forum who are screaming about privacy this and privacy that. Followed by, "When Te$la starts taking BTC again I am going to get myself one"
So you care about privacy but you are getting a vehicle that phones home and stores more data then Apple, Google and Microsoft combined.

One of many articles about it:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

So outside of the crypto / finance / phone / PC areas of life, where else are we compromising our privacy and anonymity?
I'm starting to like my old motorcycle with the technology of a brick more and more.

-Dave

This is exactly what happens in the extreme scenario where every government behaves autocratically. There's no respect to human rights.

Any sensible person would agree that if a law renders honest people defending their rights criminals, there must be something wrong with that law itself, not people.

Maybe.

So, you're telling me that, in a global crackdown on all cryptocurrencies, you would use monero even if it was illegal? That you'd rather being a criminal to retain your privacy?

Because I'm talking about different scenarios:

1 - Global adoption of a cryptocurrency, likely governments will only allow it if they can monitor the majority of users. Most likely to be bitcoin, and as long as there are still tools and methods available for me individually to protect my privacy and not trust third parties, then I'm still happy to use it.

2 - Global crackdown on all cryptocurrencies, widespread bans, making anything except centralized and KYCed use illegal, requiring third party intermediaries. Then I'm going to the cryptocurrency most likely to allow me to avoid all that, which is monero.

Which brings me back to this question;

They'll have much more control with a CBDC and no need for chain analysis.

I don't think I was clear enough. You can remain private as long as you transact with monero, yeah. But, what happens when it's forbidden for the merchants to accept it? Isn't it useless? You said it before;


As I wrote, you contradict yourself.

Such is the nature of compromise. If I wanted to be really private, I'd quit my job, take a hammer to all my electronic devices, cut ties with everyone I know, and go live in a hut in the woods and hunt my own food. As long as I can obtain a level of privacy I am comfortable with while still using bitcoin and while bitcoin continues to grow, then I'm happy.

What's the point of governments allowing people to use it? So they can tax it and use it as another tool to spy on their citizens, in a way that cash transactions have never let them do before.

I'm sure they would try, but monero is inherently more censorship resistant than bitcoin, and therefore more resistant to these kinds of actions. Good luck censoring transactions when you can't see the sending address, the receiving address, or the amount being sent.

There are some things I don't understand of you.

You support privacy to the bone, but you're also in favor of using a currency that is broadly accepted. For instance, at the moment, you prefer using bitcoin rather than monero, because its adoption isn't significant.

You thought of an example where the governments have made it impossible to use bitcoin privately. In order for such thing to happen, they must behave completely autocratically, especially for shutting down mixers, P2P marketplaces etc. And I'm just saying: What's the purpose of adopting globally this anarchic type of currency if you're going to have this behavior?

There's no reason. Just force me to use your digital currency; that's clear. Why forcing me to use a currency whose purpose is to replace the middleman when I can't use it that way?

I tried to examine your sayings, but the following doesn't make any sense;

And here's my question, again:  What makes you think that monero will be your salvation if the governments behave so autocratically towards bitcoin? They'll shut down mixers, P2P marketplaces, they may even censor the transactions that are mined and thus, the ones who confirm them... And they won't deal with monero? They'll make it practically impossible to use it.

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You're viewing the government as an absolute entity. That's fine, but I'm just saying that both bitcoin and monero are meaningless that way.

Because I'm considering privacy here and not whether or not a coin can become a global payment solution.

If you want bitcoin to become a global payment solution, then it must be done with the tacit approval of governments worldwide. As much as I hate that that is true, that is the situation we find ourselves in. I don't think governments would ever allow an anonymous coin like monero to become a global payment solution, and will only allow it to happen for bitcoin provided they can continue to spy on the vast majority of bitcoin users through centralized exchanges, KYC, blockchain analysis, etc.

Now, if it ever becomes impossible to use bitcoin privately, it will be because governments around the world have shut down every mixer, shut down every P2P marketplace, shut down every merchant who accepts non-KYC payments, and so on. Sure, they can't stop me from owning bitcoin or running a node or buying and selling peer to peer, but they can make it near impossible for me to use it as a currency to buy my groceries or whatever without buying in to their KYC nonsense, and they can use a lot of resources to deanonymize me and monitor my transactions. At that point, bitcoin will have failed in its objective to be a peer to peer currency without any third party intermediaries. And so I'll switch to monero. I don't think monero will never be a global payment solution, but more importantly, I'll be able to use it privately.

They're not the same thing, but a global adoption of an asset you've bought early will increase your passive income. We all want global adoption firstly to be able to use it as a currency everywhere and secondly to be wealthier.

If it ever becomes impossible to use bitcoin privately, what makes you think Monero will be the solution? Based on what we've said, you should never take Monero seriously.

I think you're falling into your own contradictions.

Although Bitcoin is anonymous it's not private and I think it's better that way. The whole idea was to decentralize the currency while keeping it transparent.

Without transparency, Bitcoin would be the underground token of 'criminals' like the majority of unaware perceive it.

Global adoption and wealth are not necessarily the same thing. However, I'm going to choose privacy, and I've said as much before:


So I'm happy to continue using bitcoin while I can be private and not trust third parties while doing so. I don't think that is going change and I think there will always be a way to use bitcoin privately, but if it does become impossible to use bitcoin without third parties sticking their noses in and telling me what I can and cannot spend my own money on, then for me bitcoin will have failed in what it set out to do. I would like to see some more privacy built in to the protocol - taproot gives a little more once people start using it en masse, Lightning also helps - but going for complete privacy like Monero will simply result in governments everywhere banning bitcoin or making it illegal to use outside an approved custodial third party or similar.

But, according to what we've said, privacy ≠ global adoption. So, for the sake of our wealth, should we make privacy techniques mandatory or is it too daring?

These things are all much easier to do than retaining your privacy when using bitcoin. If you can't delete Facebook, then just have an account to follow your friends and don't share anything. Easy. An OS like Linux Mint is so similar to Windows that it can be used by any Windows user pretty much immediately, comes with wide support for pretty much everything, and anything which needs Windows can be ran on Wine or similar. Easy. Switching from Chrome to Firefox is almost trivial, since Firefox will import all your bookmarks, saved passwords, etc., with a few clicks. Very easy!

Compare this to only using DEXs and peer to peer trading, mixing or coinjoining everything, running your own node over Tor, and all the other things you need to do to remain private with bitcoin. If you can't be bothered to switch your browser away from Chrome for the sake of privacy, then you definitely can't be bothered to run your own node.

I agree with you here. Any privacy enhancing techniques need to stop being optional, since we know from experience that the vast majority of people just won't use them, which decreases the privacy for the people who do. It took almost 4 years for segwit to break 50%. I suspect it will take significantly longer for taproot, since most users don't have the same incentive (greatly reduced fees) to switch. If we want privacy, it needs to be built in to the protocol, as it is with XMR.

They may not become interested in retaining their privacy, but they may do it, unconsciously. Your analogies with Facebook, Windows and Chrome aren't the same when it comes to a currency and here's why.

Yeah, if you want to have Facebook since your relatives/coworkers do, you're most likely to lose a good proportion of it. You can't really convince me to switch to Linux as the entire world works on Windows, even if it's a spyware. Same goes for Chrome, although chromium is open-source. (AFAIK)

But, when privacy is retained on a protocol level, then the project protects the users' privacy without needing them do it for their good. For instance, with the LN, you can't trace what I do, especially if I run my own node. I haven't read much about Taproot and Schnorr signatures, but I know it's going to help for large transactions.

I'm just saying that Bitcoin doesn't have that many privacy issues as a currency where each citizen's transaction is known. And by all these features, I can't comprehend why a government would accept its usage, officially.

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I have a feeling that a privacy crisis will outburst in the late 20's and people will trade their digital currencies for Monero (& Bitcoin).

I think that anonymity has been said goodbye to on cex exchanges for a long time, KYC is introduced everywhere, even on binance they recently made it a mandatory action, I am sure that exchanges transmit information to third parties or they are hacked and our data is leaked in an unknown direction.

Sure, but XMR isn't being used a currency - it is being used a surrogate mixer effectively. BTC is the currency in this scenario.

I'm sure governments will push for their CBDCs relentlessly, but I'm also sure that bitcoin will continue to become more popular over time.

We already do, and yet Windows is the most popular OS despite being spyware, Chrome is the most popular browser despite being spyware, and Facebook is the most popular social media site despite being spyware. What makes you think the masses will suddenly become interested in privacy when they start using bitcoin?

Yes, you can't. As long as the government says no, you're forbidden to accept it as a payment method in your store. But, you still can use it as you said. Trading BTC for XMR, XMR for BTC, back and forth. It still hides your footprints and can't be prevented from a government.

So, if you (as a government) decide to accept Bitcoin in your country, you ought to ensure there's no easy way for your citizens to bypass your traceability. Do you still think that having Bitcoin globally adopted instead of a CBDC is a possibility? I highly doubt it.

Still, there's a decent percentage of people who have found ways to retain it. With a CBDC, you've covered those too. Besides, if it's possible to retain privacy, what makes you think the world won't start educating each other?

Bitcoin as a currency, is nothing, but a threat for the government. They'll find their way to introduce a far more regulated currency for the sake of the children no matter the demand it'll have. As you said;

Depends what you mean by 'centralized exchange' to convert to fiat to cash / cash equivalent then more then likely you do have to go through KYC.
Just to trade alts and move money in and out of a stable coin to do it. Then no, there are still some left that you just need an email address to use with low but usable withdrawal limits.

There is risk, obviously of using a exchange, but to 100% say that you are giving away PII is not fair.

-Dave

Sure, but here's the difference: Let's say the US government makes Tor illegal. I can hide the fact that I am using Tor altogether using pluggable transports and Tor bridges and all the rest of it, and continue to fully use Tor to access any and every website I want to. Now, let's say the US government makes Monero illegal. I can hide the fact that I am using Monero by running my own node over Tor and not linking it to my real life identity and all the rest of it, but what can I do with my Monero? No merchant accepts it. I can't use it to buy goods or services. I can maybe trade it peer to peer for bitcoin or fiat, but I can't use it as a currency.

As I said above, the vast majority do not retain their privacy. Even on here, a bitcoin forum which is supposed to be built on the principles of not trusting third parties, we frequently see people more than happy to send their private information to complete strangers to claim some scam airdrop, and we frequently see people (even some senior members) state something along the lines of anyone that is trying to mix or otherwise obfuscate their transaction history is obviously trying to hide something illegal and should instead just let the government stick their noses in and monitor their entire bitcoin history. If that is the general feeling of bitcoin enthusiasts, then what do you think the general feeling would be among the wider population?

As I said above, the government don't ban Tor because so few people use it that their mass surveillance programs still give them the data they want. They don't need to ban bitcoin because so few people use it privately that their blockchain analysis still gives them the data they want.

I mean, that's the route we are going. Pretty much every major government will introduce their own CBDC in the coming years.

So lets say I buy $10k of BTC on Coinbase, send it to Binance to trade some shitcoins, and then instead of cashing out from Binance, I just sell my shitcoins to BTC, transfer the BTC to Coinbase, and cash out from Coinbase. My fiat bank sees money leave to Coinbase and come back in from Coinbase.

Seems a trivial work around for this particular issue, although if you are using centralized exchanges then the IRS have all your details anyway, so the whole process is pretty irrelevant at the end of the day.

when i created account in the forum, if first one year i tried to remain anonymous but when i see my local board here i got acquainted with some people and i meet them,

even now i using a few centralized exchanges also here i completed kyc,

so now i think my identity a bit public, i can't be called anonymous now.

thats because in fiat world. when you buy shares from broker X those shares stay in broker X's portfolio service. and when you sell its from the same portfolio/broker so when withdrawing the fiat its easy to show tracability your your bank to not flag it as new income.

however fiat going to one exchange account and then randomly another allotment enters you bank account from another exchange does flag as new income.

this is why for the last decade some banks have been freezing accounts that show linkages to exchanges and why in some countries people get contacted by the IRS

i know that users playing with their sums dont see it from the same prospective. because they can see their movements. but get out of the box and see it from the banks prospective of what they cannot see and how they would perceive it

I wasn't referring to these phenomena. Yeah, life's cruel, I understand that. What I want to mean is that if something's useful, no matter how much you try, no matter how strict you're towards your people, in the end, you can't be hiding it forever. The better always stands out.

Just like you can't prevent me from browsing through Tor, you can't prevent me from using Monero. You may dictate that if I do so, I'll have my head taken off, but that's just a temporary solution. You can't intimidate everyone likewise. You have to admit that a better form of currency exists and get along with it.

And just because you can't stop me from using it, you can't stop me from recommending it to my acquaintances. Thus, another revolution may begin by that thinking which reminds of this quote that was written from a forum member and I think it has a lot of point:

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I'm neither foolish to believe that we'll walk around with Monero wallets and feel happy about it. This is never going to happen, but the reason I replied above wasn't meant to support such statement. I wanted to remind you that the same words were said about Bitcoin not long ago and we're now talking about global adoption and other facetious facts.

I'm still confused by yours and Kevin's sayings, so please enlighten me. Governments have to regulate a currency in order to adopt it. Bitcoin transactions can be traced by chain analysis companies whether you're careful or not. However, we have a solution for this; atomic swaps. That way, we can leave much fewer footprints as we'll keep most of our balances in XMR and will convert them to BTC whenever we'll want to make a purchase.

Don't you find it hard, or at least a pain in the ass, to trace every citizen if they have so many options to retain their privacy? Why would a government accept a currency which makes traceability so difficult to be achieved instead of introducing an e-euro which is fully centralized and controlled by them?

Maybe we don't have to use or support a currency whose position is going to be global; significant advantages of it may be sacrificed.

People constantly ask not to go bankrupt from healthcare bills or for a wage they can actually live on. The government don't care.

Some governments have banned bitcoin, and most of the ones which haven't are trying to regulate it to oblivion. The same and worse is happening to Monero, for example the IRS offering a bounty of $1.25 million (initially $625,000, but they doubled it when no one could claim it) to anyone who can track and de-anonymize Monero transactions.

Look, if the whole world decided to adopt Bitcoin and Monero as global currencies, I couldn't be happier, and I will continue to use both in the most private possible ways. But I am not naive enough to think governments like those of the US or China are going to let their citizens use a currency which they absolutely cannot trace. The need for privacy is only going to grow over time, as is the government's desire to invade it.

But, you're a miniature of how the world could operate if they'd want to. Yes, the government would never accept everyone in a country on using an untraceable currency, but what if the people started to constantly asking for it?

Didn't Bitcoin survive the same way? Most of the governments were justifiably against a so anarchic currency from the very beginning. Weren't we reading FUDs that they'll turn it down, ban it, make it illegal? And here we are, eleven years later and it seems like it's succeeding more than ever. Why? Obviously, the people want it.

And they want it, not only due to these speculations, but because it'll provide them financial sovereignty in the long run. Because, it has the properties of the best store of value asset they've ever witnessed. Because, they prefer owning money that do not lose value every year. Because, they like the idea of distinguishing money from the state.

There may be need for privacy in the future. I'll let that sink.

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Besides, aren't LN and taproot privacy improvements in the protocol? Did we ever ask ourselves, what the government thinks of it? No, because we're the rulers after all.

There's the distinction. If you know what you are doing you can make a good effort to hide your traces, but even then it might not be enough for blockchain analysis companies.

Mass surveillance isn't about stopping terrorism or catching criminals, and indeed, there is no good evidence that mass surveillance has ever been the thing which thwarted a terrorist plot. Mass surveillance is about control of the population. If >99% of people don't mix or coinjoin their bitcoin or otherwise try to maintain their privacy, and of the 1% who do the majority do it poorly or incompletely or slip up or make a mistake, etc., then that's good enough for the government. Just as mass surveillance can't track everyone who uses Tails and Tor and PGP and disposable email address and so on, but that's OK because it can track the vast majority of people.

If Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Edge, etc., all came out in unison and said they would all implement mandatory Tor routing which you couldn't turn off, you can guarantee the government would start screaming about terrorism and "Won't someone think of the children!" For the same reason, they would never accept global use of XMR.

There is a difference between me using Monero and the government accepting everyone in the country using Monero.

Privacy is indeed a pretty good thing to do, because in addition to protecting ourselves from the disclosure of personal data to the public, this will also be useful so that our data is not used by irresponsible people.
but you made the right thread and maybe even now especially when it's still on track as it is now we can't continue to maintain our privacy because the longer we are in a scope like crypto the more updates will go wrong one is that it requires us to do KYC because until now there are many platforms or that support us in cryptocurrency, not a few of which require us to do KYC which incidentally is one of the common distributions of privacy data for now.

I think that once you have used the internet, you already have given up your privacy whether you like it or not, because somewhere on the internet you have put your address or name for some reason or another or you search for something and the next thing you know you are flooded with ads about it, the world over the past few years has gotten more and more connected because of the internet but we have paid the price of this by giving up our information, so we are no longer anonymous, even if you didn't personally give that information some of your friends or family unwillingly did, but this is not because of using bitcoin itself, bitcoin and its transactions are still made in an anonymous way its just the purpose of using it that makes using it anonymous, you are still identified by an address and no one is gonna go out of their way to identify you unless they have a reason to, and even then that is way difficult, and if you are using it to buy things that are shipped to your address that is the nature of how things work and there is no way around it, but bitcoin is still way more secure and somewhat private than fiat and to me that is enough.

This is actually entertaining to read.

Weren't the same discussions made about Bitcoin few years ago? Weren't the people arguing that it'll never be accepted by the government? That it's used mostly by criminals? A holy grail for privacy and anonymity. A currency that if you knew what you were doin', you could incommode your traceability. And here we are, 2021, a country made it legal tender.

The governments obviously want to trace you, but they periodically seem to apply based on the people wants; same thing happens with authoritarianism, it gets blunted. There were times when if you found your husband/wife unfaithful, they were executed. Now, unfaithfulness is a right. Times when slavery was a common phenomenon; services for the government and the rich. Now, that's a crime. Wasn't cryptography illegal in past times?

The governments always had this alibi, that whatever they're doing, they do it to protect you, such as against terrorism. Whoever vilifies that Monero is linked to crime or admits that the governments would never accept its widespread usage should also consider to stop using Tor as it invades the governments' business and makes harder for them to trace us. They should also propone http and believe that https is for those who have something to hide.

I thought we were supporting privacy. No? Half-ass jobs?

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Anyway, in my opinion, in the next few years, there is going to be a cataclysm of CBDCs which will replace our fungible cash with a highly-censored and anti-private currency. I don't believe we'll ever experience a scenario where everyone will use Bitcoin or Monero unless they're disgustingly KYC-ed.

That, I believe, is the most relevant aspect of this discussion anyway. Even using TOR isn't safe, it just raises the probability of not getting identified. Just have a malicious entry or exit node by operated by the NSA (which is definitely happening) and there you go. So people who use TOR think that that is the ultimate measure to take when it comes to staying anonymous, but it is not.

Would be interesting to ask the best security expert in the world: What should I do (online, but even offline) today to make sure that actions in the digital / physical realm can't be tied to my identity in ten years from now?

Ten years is deliberately chosen here because that would have been a question for someone who joined crypto in its very early days.

This is a good point. Almost everyone new to this space does not appreciate the privacy implications of their actions until well down the line, and it is significantly harder to regain lost privacy than it is to not lose it in the first place. There comes a point once you've KYCed on multiple exchanges and revealed your wallet addresses to multiple blockchain analysis companies, that nothing short of sending all your coins back to the exchanges you bought them from, selling them, withdrawing the fiat, closing all your accounts, and then starting again from scratch with DEXs, will be enough to claw back some of your privacy. Almost every newbie guide or "How to buy bitcoin for beginners" encourages people to go straight to Coinbase or some other privacy invading CEX and send all their documents immediately, without so much as a second thought. Only individuals who are already very privacy conscious are likely to search for and find other methods to get involved in bitcoin.

Does this happen in practice? Having never used centralized exchanges, I'm out of the loop on this one. If you deposited $10k (or £10k since I think you are UK based?) to Coinbase, and then next month transferred the same amount from Binance back to the same bank account, would you be flagged up as money laundering and get threatening letters from tax agencies and law enforcement? I've never heard of that happening.

Or, use Signal and you can just download the desktop app. No phone needed. Also, WhatsApp is closed source and owned by Facebook - the antithesis of privacy.

Privacy can be kept when we hide things that we do. Let's take an example of our ISP, they do know what we surf and where we go, even with the use of a basic VPN, we still can't stop them from knowing what we are doing. So, privacy is not that easily possible.

Now let's come to anonymity. The way you said you can do everything, you missed out on a few things. If you are doing everything with a specific smartphone, then they also get your details like IMEI number, Mac ID, sim card carrier, phone's model number, etc. Though it's not easy to crack our location, but if those secret agencies smell anything suspicious and would start looking for us, it won't be any hard for them to reach us. Where is anonymity?

We all speak a lot about both privacy and anonymity, but all these things are very very limited in our real lives compared to the talks we had about. From centralised exchanges to going for kyc on any sites, to knowing people and letting them know about us that we hold crypto, most identities are already under the radar who have already opened up about both BTC and themselves being in crypto.

I think that having Bitcoin is still useful even with an user-friendly XMR - BTC atomic swap system existing. There are just so many people who link privacy to crime. They would probably never like the idea of Monero and automatically think of criminals when hearing about it. Atomic swaps come into help here: you can pay with BTC at a XMR-accepting store and you can pay wkth XMR at a BTC-accepting store. You can use swaps for trustless trading. You can use them to trigger from privacy to public and back.

The idea of having privacy as a default in BTC is good for us, privacy advocates, but you can only imagine how much oppression there would instantly be from the governments. They love Bitcoin currently because they have Chainalysis and a lot of people who don't give a damn about their own privacy. It's the paradise of surveillance right now. Should we get default privacy with BTC, things would change drastically. I bet.

Also, living the life without a smartphone is very possible. In fact, living without one is so much better. Ditch your smartphone for a week and see for yourself. You can always have a smartphone without a SIM card in it that you only use for WhatsApp or so and never take it with you outside.

"mixing coins" has no law or regulation against it. you are correct. but the vocal conversation of wanting to launder value (in any currency) is a AML flag(its why some exchanges blacklist coins with such taint by default)

changing fiat to say poker chips.. and then swapping different casino chips with friends in some basement. is not unlawful. but the act of starting with fiat deposited at casino #1 and ending up with fiat from casino #3+#5 would flag up as a AML flag that a bank seen $10k->#1    and then a few days later #3+#5-> $10k fiat

so although the act of casino chipping is not regulated/monitored. . the bank(fiat) will show a discrepensy of deposit-withdrawal from different places and ofcourse an investigation would occur. not just for AML. but just to ensure about tax into on the magical $10k the bank account later received that cant be explained. thus treated too simply as new income of $10k. rather than just a refund of an earlier $10k spend

EG the situation could have been seen as going to las vegas with $10k. and just spending it. hotel, hotdogs, tours, entertainment.. money gone. poof.  then a month later a strange new $10k appeared elsewhere.

so by admitting it was not a spend of $10k and then a refund of $10k (net zero profit). questions then arise as to how money went into one business but came out of another business

again. fiat regulations dont/mostly cant look at all the movements of crypto..
but if they see $10k go into one exchange.. and $10k come out of another exchange. it can light up some flags
then there are the exchanges own policies to keep them regulated on their fiat side by KNOWING more about the btc side to protect their fiat licences... they may see some coin deposits in and out that look suspect so they make a report themselves. which linked with the bank accounts flag draws more attention to the person.

i know i know you have been hearing rhetoric from certain devs that want 'mixing' to be normalised soo much that it becomes part of standard currency fungibility. but what a dev wishes society to be is not how the banking/government regulate society and investigate society

When you say that you took privacy and anonymity very seriously when you started with crypto, that also implies that you fully understood how privacy and anonymity in the crypto context really plays out! I would argue that most of the people getting into crypto, even those who joined pretty early, didn't 100% certainly know how this sector would develop and what is required to really, really stay anonymous and leave zero trails.

When I thought about that topic, I frequently asked myself: "What is required to really stay anonymous in this game?". The fact alone that this answer has changed over time, clearly reveals that I would have fucked up in the beginning anyway if I intended to stay anonymous back then. I learned so much new stuff so quickly and realized again and again that staying anonymous forever is almost impossible for literally everyone. Nobody really knew in 2011 that obfuscation protocols would show up soon. Mixers were around pretty early, but it seems that some of them can be cracked by Chainalysis and so on and so forth. I am just saying that staying anonymous with steps required today doesn't mean that measures taken today also ensure anonymity in the technological context of tomorrow.

Those who can anticipate even that and understand how the future most likely plays out with technological advancements in relation to certain capabilities of protocols, seriously, that is a very very small number people being able to pull that off.

These two opinions are mutually exclusive. As soon as you complete KYC, you are no longer anonymous.

Your trust is misplaced, since Binance (and companies they own such as CoinMarketCap) have been hacked on multiple occasions for user information.

Mixing coins does not mean you are money laundering, nor is mixing coins a crime (unless there is some UK law of which I am unaware).

If we ever reach a stage where BTC is globally adopted, then governments will likely only permit its use precisely because it is an open ledger, despite some users taking steps to obfuscate their transaction and history. No government would ever accept widespread use of a completely untraceable coin like XMR.

I'll assume it someday becomes easy to swap BTC for XMR instantly and that bitcoin is globally adopted. What's the purpose of doing that? What is the purpose of having BTC instead of XMR in the first place? I find it unlikely, but lots of developers may start switching to a more privacy-oriented cryptocurrency. Don't they say the good is beaten by the better?

Maybe in the long run, the CryptoNote protocol becomes more wide-spread. Bitcoin has the uniqueness of being the one we've all agreed, but it doesn't have this usefulness.

And it's not just that. You may be careful and coinjoin, mix, use coin-control etc., but if they just exclude those who aren't careful, they're closer to identify you. The key is to force everyone; it is to make privacy achievable in a protocol level, not in a user level.

Including a smart phone. Can you live without a smart phone?

if your really care about your privacy then used a dummy email when it comes exchanges.. And if it's possible to covert your crypto into real fiat probably much better, so that when you're buying any stuff online you don't need to worry.
Actually that's what I'm doing everytime i earned crypto here in forum and with the help of my digital wallet "coins.ph" it's so easy to convert crypto to fiat within the wallet. But I'm not using the same wallet for making transactions online such buying stuff.. Wherein i used another digital wallet for it and that's where my money always out everytime i need some cash,  no more worries.  

That's exactly what I mean when I say that separating my private life from the public one was the way to go for me. I think that preserving your anonymity or privacy means restarting from zero every time you make a mistake.

It's safe to assume that my account's history would get you to a lot of quite personal information about me. The languages I speak, the country I'm from, the sig campaigns I've been part of, the addresses I've used etc. However, by creating a new lifestyle, you can now not link my account history to my private life anymore. The governments know I'm using crypto anyway right now, so abandoning this account is useless really. I chose to still enjoy the forum on my original account.

This is what privacy & anonymity is about, I believe. It's about learning from mistakes and resetting every time you make one. Acknowledging your mistakes and continuing to get better at it. Am I then to be called a "privacy advocate"? Or an anonymous user? The forum account maybe not, but I do have.. let's say "a separate face" that has nothing to do with my current account.

anonimity is about not associating WHO to a bitcoin payment
privacy is about not associating WHAT that bitcoin payment is for

lets take the previous poster who says anonimity is mandatory to him..(blatchcorn)
yet in 30 seconds
i have associated these addresses to him
bc1q9mks3l560y3tsauc0n4w4ym4nr0v6450tv6x7e
1J4ZCUuarqFTRRUtcQAaUJ4oLAVhx75bM6
^2 addresses of poster just publicly admitting his addresses

v over a dozen addresses using same wallet as the 1j4Z address
14ZveSen3Gmrmy3Acgq74UY1BMxRPPaT5j
1DzxpCB1i6j1JZygnhiqfTiL4hA3q5RYmr
1tm98b3uyngMaVUKpqKMgkB1QNm8r8DJL
1BUEPSa4q7dpedGrgpdTfKhkfmLBeLq2DQ
1NAb9qsmZ64pL6GA1DnkGktCtHTCFJvmVu
162QxHMPExaaYYX8jZtfB6mebu4N6WDZZh
139W3wAhtC3fqLLNvrPHxqDqyXUStL29aC
1HcWrqwmRHj1LXB8jh7Ls96zkZqwVuZeKZ
1KE27MdwfuCX7bSmBY4pfxP29fUAxVP5gR
1KutFw96EppvJUz4ed6ep1MKEUNzzANjCy
1GM4qUkP7eCwjJdR88S15yBMdegNjKyDXx
1HHu7BzFfZfxLq8sV19JTzjeiPrRejiMQC
1PauCQiDZXP3CfmHM73ysk48K4vDJAvv9t

oh, and he is from UK. and atleast 6 years ago lived in birmingham

and he has admitted and associated addresses have shown proof of his use of mixers. meaning he has admitted to a crime of laundering.

so 30 seconds has found enough info for UK police to spend more time on someone that confessed to a crime

oh and his binance hotwallet deposit address seems to be
bc1qdlue5pymx4hx8nlsgqsyllk8w9dexnac402uwh

..
just saying. its kinda easy to get info just by clicking a few buttons from a novice that doesnt even have all the analysis tools that some have

Pardon me if I am not on track, I am writing in best of my understanding about this post and after reading o_e_l_e_o comment.
To me remain anonymous is mandatory because of crypto regulations in my country. So it's not a choice rather compulsion. While privacy is not an issue, as long as I m dealing in other countries. I don't mind giving my email n I'd to binance for kyc. Since I trust them that it won't go in bad hands.
These are just my few satoshis.

A funny thing about privacy and anonymity. You can take all the precautions you want, never submit KYC to any centralized entity dealing with cryptocurrencies, and make sure there are no connections to your entire Bitcoin portfolio. But if you walk into a store and purchase something with Bitcoin, there is at least one camera recording you while you do it. The cameras see you come in and go out. It's the same thing when you walk around your town. Cameras with face recognition technology record your movements. A face can get tied to a signature and a fingerprint. If someone (the government) wanted to retrace your steps, they could.

The government: Oh look, John Johnson just bought something with Bitcoin. Let's use our mass surveillance technology to find other instances where he used Bitcoin. Interesting, he has been buying goods for the past 7 years all around town. How does he have it, where does it come from, have we taxed it? Let's get him...

I am exaggerating, of course. Privacy and anonymity can be preserved so that the Average Joe doesn't find out who you are. But if you become a person of interest for someone higher up on the food chain than you are, not so much. They will take your life apart. 

In my opinion, your set up should be designed so that one mistake cannot compromise the entire thing, be that for security, privacy, etc.

When it comes to securing coins, most of us will use multiple wallets with multiple different seed phrases. Some of us will go a step further and use one or more passphrases on one or more of those wallets. Some of us will go a step further still and have multi-sig set ups. In my case, the only thing which someone could steal by me making a single mistake would be my mobile hot wallet, which holds trivial amounts of coins. I would have to make multiple mistakes to reveal multiple seed phrases and passphrases for someone to compromise one of my main wallets, and even then, my other wallet would still be protected.

A similar thing applies to privacy. I keep coins from different sources in different wallets which I access on different devices. I mix, coinjoin, and swap all my coins. I am meticulous about where my change ends up. If I was to accidentally consolidate some change outputs together that I didn't mean to, then worst case scenario the guy I buy coffee from will also see that I bought something from the farmers' market. I would have to make multiple mistakes of creating and transferring a PSBT between wallets to accidentally link coins together which would significantly compromise my privacy.

You should design your set up so you that a single accidental click on the "Send all" or "Max" button will not compromise everything.

XMR uses subaddresses for this very reason.

As for me privacy and anonymity means almost the same when nobody knows about your capital. I used to think that crypto is anonymous when I only got acquainted with it, but then I understand that I can track all wallets and get to know how many tokens are hold on them. Everything is put in  blockchain so it is possible to follow any transaction so the only way to get privacy is to use coins such as Monero or platforms such as Tornado cash.

Great topic, Dave. I seem to care about both equally. I care about my privacy as much as I care about my anonymity. I did indeed make a lot of mistakes in the past and I am still making them, but I am getting better at it overall and this is the best part.

I have separated my "public" life from my private one. I've done big changes in my lifestyle to accommodate with my private way of living. This means getting rid of many accounts and platforms people typically use, carefully choosing specific smartphones and the software & OS I'm running on them (same goes for laptops and PCs), taking cameras and mics out of my devices, preferring to pay more rather than share my data with strangers and so on.

One perfect example I'd like to give is getting rid of "discount cards". Pharmacies, stores etc here in Romania have certain "discount" or "loyalty" cards that we can use to buy stuff for cheaper. But this data is almost every time linked to very personal information of yours such as ID, driver's license etc. I can now create a card within 2 minutes and buy stuff for up to 70% cheaper - but is it worth the discount? Is my personal data worth a 70% discount at a supermarket? In my opinion, it is not. It's worth much more. So I ditched my cards and now I'm paying much more money for everyday stuff. But my local pharmacy doesn't know anymore what kind of treatments I take, what kind of condoms I buy, whether I prefer cash or card and which card do I use for certain products.

Now let's go back to BTC. I think that if you care about privacy or anonymity, Bitcoin is for now a bad choice. That is until BTC <-> XMR atomic swaps become easy to use (and widely used) and are tested well enough for bugs to be extremely rare or inexistent (which I think is impossible since, AFAIK, any code has a flaw - you just need to find it).

Also, that is until Bitcoin adopts a more private way to go. Perhaps Schnorr signatures are the first good step. I don't know - the point I'm trying to make is, Bitcoin is still a transparent ledger and no matter how much you try to be private, one mistake could reveal your entire history. That is very, very bad - almost as if you robbed 100 banks, got caught for one but they linked all 100 to you. That makes everything so much worse for you legally. Sorry for the example - I never really link privacy to bad stuff since privacy is NOT being a criminal, but this is the best one I could think of.

On the other hand, even XMR isn't good if you're inexperienced. Use the same address on multiple websites while shopping and you're about to get some of your financial history linked together.

Now let's see what you can do about it.
- Make your BTC private or use XMR. When shopping, try to avoid online shopping as much as possible so that the address & name issue is avoided.
- Use Coin Control for Bitcoin. Use disposable seeds/addresses for XMR or BTC. Use disposable SIM cards. Use disposable, $10 mobile phones. Dispose of anything you can afford to dispose if you want to keep your tracks limited and harder to link.
- If you create a ProtonMail account, use Tor. Pay with private Bitcoin and then mix your coins again. Yes, you pay for an account creation, but if the Switzerland ever gets ProtonMail to share your e-mail's logged IPs, your home IP will never appear there. Do the same for a BitcoinTalk account. Try to keep your traces as limited as possible.
- Use DEXs instead of centralized exchanges. This is one of the best ways to keep everything private.

Living a private life is expensive, so I have to miss out on a lot of stuff to live mine that way. Sure, it's expensive, but at the end of the day you feel so much safer knowing there's no camera watching you, no mic listening to you, nobody tracking your pharmaceutical purchases and, ultimately, having no stranger in your private bubble.

The two are in completely different leagues. If I withdraw coins from a centralized exchange, then the exchange knows my real name and address and has copies of my ID, knows my bitcoin address I am withdrawing to, will use blockchain analysis to track that withdrawal to make sure I don't do anything illegal with it, and will share all that information with third parties and governments. If I buy bitcoin on a DEX, then a single person knows my bitcoin address, and might know my name depending on the fiat method we use. A DEX is far more private, and even has the potential to be anonymous depending on how you use it. A CEX is neither.

The best DEXs don't require accounts.

It is incredibly easy given the current situation to almost completely cover your face and not appear at all out of place. Or if you really need to be anonymous you could use an anonymous money order, cash in the mail to a PO box, cash drop off, etc.

We can always try to have some level of both, to keep away from prying eyes, in my case, all my social media accounts are not by my real name so there is hardly any connection to my real identity, since am not a social media person, I don't share personal photos or stuffs like that which can reveal any real identity, my emails are not by my real name except for my yahoo mail which I don't use online,
Yes I do have accounts with few exchanges that I have done kyc with which can definitely trace back to me if the need arises, but I try not to expose myself too much, it is not easy to do stuff that can make you completely private and anonymous in this present world because that will mean complete isolation.

Well, I would simply consider Privacy as something that belongs or is known to you alone.
I typically see Anonymity as part of Privacy. If a user prefers to be anonymous, he doesn't want his name/identity to be public. He probably just wants to keep the information private.

So, I would go for Privacy because it covers anonymity. Ofcourse, we can't have 100% privacy, but it's important to claim the Right and make it a rule so that whoever is violating it will be owing you a debt the law could compel him/her to settle.  There is also the likelihood of  lawless non-human entity going through your private stuff

It doesn't only apply to centralized exchanges, i mean that your transaction history will be literally public forever on the blockchain when you use dex. Then it's only matter of doxxing the account, and in any point you need to change it to cash, it will be a weak point what comes to your ID, even if you would do it face to face, some people will see your face.

Sometimes we have to compromise. I have a job which pays in fiat. I need that job to pay my mortgage and support my family. That job will not pay me in bitcoin nor in cash, and so I must have a bank account in order to live. If I could self host my own wallet and be paid directly in to it without any third parties as I can with bitcoin, then believe me I would. I have a mortgage, I have insurance, I have utility bills, etc., as does everyone. It is impossible to operate within modern society anonymously. If you want to be completely anonymous, then you have to go live in the woods and scavenge or grow your own food. A bank account is a necessary evil for working within the fiat system. If we ever reach a stage where I can be paid and pay all my bills from my own bitcoin wallet, then I'll be the first one to wave goodbye to my fiat bank.

There are some points people don't get it.

There is information you agree to share and there is information you really want private. Privacy is not only about your name, address, IP,... (Data mining can teach you a lot of things.)
Since we all have different lifestyles, we have different expectations
 

You may find it acceptable to give out your phone number or address if you're supposed to receive an item. The delivery man needs your address of course. If you don't find it acceptable then go out yourself and go to the shop to buy it, or use deliveries boxes, etc...
On the other side, you may refuse to give your phone numbers to some persons ( a very ugly woman for example).

Since a lot of people use Youtube... You may find it acceptable to be "tracked" if you want to receive tailored recommendations. Do you know what I mean? The videos on the right or on the homepage. By the way, even when you watch TV and your national channels you're tracked. Surprised? You shouldn't, it's old

There are some things you absolutely don't want to be private or anonymous.
Who is interested to be anonymous with his insurance car How will they refund you if it was possible? Oh, we have to replace the car of Mr X but we don't know who's he...

There is information you agree that your wife is aware of and the one you don't want at any cost.

People criticize centralized exchanges (including me) but yet they use banks LOL. Do you see the irony? I don't even remember the last time I used a CEX but I can tell you since I stopped I'm feeling much better. I do some trades on a decentralized P2P plateform (and a real one, I mean not a hybrid like Binance or Localbitcoin) Yes I do need to send my personal information, but like I said there is information you agree to share and others not. The funny thing is I feel safer sending my information to a stranger on Bisq than knowing my information is stored on a company server that can be hacked at any time.

We have an alternative for almost anything to stay private but let's be honest. We are either lazy or don't find the alternatives efficient.

I remember someone saying something like:
Decades ago, we were ready to pay a high amount to get information public. Nowadays, we are ready to pay a high amount to get information private

(great topic by the way, hopefully it stays clean)

Being anonymous sometimes is actually needed, not because we do suspicious things but because the platform itself demands us to be anonymous, and leaking your real identity on a place like this can really mess things up, it's very risky and it makes you alone prone on getting hacked or even have these hackers trace your wallets, or even rob you. Privacy on the other hand is much more essential, you need to protect your data or else you'll have a bunch of strangers reaching you out on social medai platforms.

This is actually a great comparison between anonymity and privacy, both seems to be interconnected in my opinon, in this forum, if the real identity is discovered, you're basically not anonymous anymore and there goes your privacy as well since strangers can easily track you just by your name, both being anonymous and your personal data can be compromised just because of your identity IRL.

First of all, since I am using a centralized cryptocurrency exchange means my anonymity and privacy have been gone. To the exchange, I am not anonymous at all and since I am not using mixer means all the funds I am earning from signature or from anywhere sending to the exchange. Because without exchange I am not able to cash out. Again, even I do not use centralized exchange and intend to sell my Bitcoin then I have to sell in the local market and it is quite impossible to stay anonymous. When I will sell on the local market then the Fiat will be transferred on account or mobile banking. So basically I can't stay anonymous, but yes we can try to reduce privacy issues. For example, funds coming from where, how much I have the balance we can prevent that. But we need to spend more extra fees and time as well.

Yes you can.

And if all they see is every output going straight in to a coinjoin or a mixer, then the trail stops there.

Then don't use services which require KYC. It's more inconvenient, sure, but it is not impossible by any means. (As an aside, no one should ever use a wallet which demands KYC.)

I'm sure they are trying, but their success depends on how much information you give them.

There are people who go to great lengths to increase their privacy, for example:
1. Using a new address everytime.
2. Using Bitcoin mixing services.
3. Some super rich people using virgin coins.
Etc.
But at the end of the day it's not practically possible for someone who is regularly involved on the forum perse. You cannot ask every now and then to change your address, plus it's blockchain we are talking about, your whole data is stored and can be viewed by anyone, therefore anyone who might wanna pry, can copy your address and look for the transactions.
Therefore I do believe you did rightly say how it's not just hard but impossible to achieve privacy for most cases. But about being anonymous, I do think that is achievable. But then again when you are supposed to submit your ID, documents, address proof for most exchanges and wallets connected to your bank account, would that be a correct statement?? Aren't we all already being tracked by the government?? Centralized exchanges are taking away that part of anonymity but then again, they are important and sometimes the only option as well in many regions. Therefore bitcoins can be decentralized and anonymous in theory but more it's getting big, the more it's being legalized, the more laws are being created and that centralization is affecting the practical approach to that matter.

That's an interesting point of view. Indeed, centralized exchanges have this downside in which they know when you want to sell or buy. They can approach what the majority wants and take advantage of it. They don't just hold your coins; they hold your interests.

I don't trade, but if I ever want to buy a cryptocurrency, I'll use a decentralized exchange instead. I highly doubt the majority will do either, but at least I'll feel alright with myself.

Excellent writeup!

Thanks for the notification - I might have missed this thread otherwise.

Some general thoughts first. I think most people know that I take my privacy very seriously, far more so than most, even though I am not doing, not have I ever done, anything illegal with bitcoin. I reject governments, Facebook, Google, exchanges, marketing agencies, and who knows what other third parties spying on me. They have no right and no requirement to do so, and mass surveillance will inevitably affect the way you live your life. I'll leave one of my favorite quotes regarding privacy at the bottom of this post.

Having said all that, it is nearly impossible to use the internet anonymously, especially if you are cultivating a continued online presence such as a user on a forum such as this one, and doubly so if you are trading, buying, or selling anything. There are people and businesses out there who know I use bitcoin. I have bought things online with bitcoin giving my real name and address for shipping, and I have traded with people peer to peer with bitcoin, attaching my real name to the fiat transfer method we chose. The way to keep your privacy in such scenarios is by disconnecting different parts of your life or online presence. For example, no one who knows my real identity knows I use this forum, and vice versa.

So my presence on this forum is pretty close to anonymous. I've never met anyone, never given out any identifiable information, never connected from an IP address linked to me, etc. But I receive coins to bitcoin addresses linked to this account, which I will obviously want to be able to spend. So I mix and coinjoin and swap for Monero and swap back and various other things. Now I spend these coins on goods and services, I trade them peer to peer, I buy things online to be shipped to my house, I spend them in person letting people see my face, and so on. I am absolutely not anonymous doing any of these things. But I still maintain good privacy, because no one on this forum knows how or where I spend my coins, and the people I'm spending my coins with can't see my entire bitcoin holdings or where else I am spending my coins. I don't have a centralized exchange or payment processor demanding my KYC and monitoring all my transactions.

I know that I am an outlier when it comes to this stuff though. Most people have completed KYC on at least one exchange. Most people use Google or Facebook products. Most people don't use Tor. It is convenient to do these things. The cost of maintaining your privacy is inconvenience, but I firmly believe it is worth it.

---

Assuming that you're talking about the government, then you still have to rely on each of their suppliers reporting back to the government... Without those information, it'll be extremely hard to trace those back to you and find out where you got those gift cards from.

• Let's assume for a second that all of their suppliers report to the government ^{[it still depends on the type of information that they'd give]}:
  • The government in question should still probe both of the above platforms and in most cases, they're not going to that "unless there's a reason for it".
    ^{- There's nothing to worry about if you stay within the limits [unless I missed something].}
    
    
    Quote from: DaveF on October 17, 2021, 03:44:18 PM
    But what about you? Do you care more about privacy or anonymity or both equally?
    
    I only care about protecting my privacy, but as you already know, it's easier said than done!
    
    
    Quote from: DaveF on October 17, 2021, 03:44:18 PM
    And how much will you be willing to deal with to maintain it.
    
    Unfortunately, not enough ^{[e.g. convenience]}... I do know it may sound contradictory, but that's the reality.

Hmmm, I'd reckon I'd choose Privacy over anonymity in this case? I don't particularly mind that people know I use BTC really, I'm more concerned about the fact that they could know what I've bought with the BTC I have or well, wherever I actually used it. It's not really that big of a problem since I'm not doing anything wrong but hey, who the hell likes it when everyone knows what you do right? I'd reckon no one does unless you're a show-off.

Though honestly, I think Privacy was thrown out the window ever since I started using the internet and doing KYC stuff all over the place. Though it's mostly because it's a bloody requirement, I've never been one to show off my personal life even on social media after all.

Can't wait to see what o_e_l_e_o has to say on this matter.

Interesting. In my case, I do not aspire to anonymity. I think it's a matter of balance and being a bit cautious to achieve a high degree of privacy. That it is not a thing easily ascertainable if you have Bitcoin and how much you have, especially for criminals.

In the case of absolute anonymity, moreover, I think that whoever gets it will surely be in illegality, because it is incompatible absolute anonymity and paying taxes to your government for the transactions in Bitcoin you do.

I have neither been meticulously private nor anonymous all my life. It seemed I had nothing or my life is not that big of a deal to be kept private or anonymous. I am just one ordinary person, after all. In a way, my life has always been an open book.

It's just in the past decade or so when I became more and more immersed in the online world that I decided to keep my personal information to myself as much as possible. The online world is much more dangerous than the real world in terms of personal information. There's just too many predators online. Somebody could create a verified account in whatever site with your information without your knowing it. It only takes a single instance of providing your email address or your mobile number before you will be bombarded with all kinds of ads and promotions and notifications and even calls.

I couldn't handle all the hassles that's why I decided to somehow protect what little privacy and anonymity I have left.

I think all of us know the answer, whether we only think about anonymity or privacy or even both. We should realize that when we have bitcoin and want to cash out that bitcoin, we need exchange which some of them need us to verify ourselves. We, as crypto users, have options, whether we want to use DEX or CEX and we can decide which exchange can give a comfortable feeling because once we can get that feeling, we will be willing to do anything just to fills what we want.

I think it is no problem if we want to use CEX and do KYC, as long as we know the company and they are listed on the regulatory office and can not do something that can put their customer in danger.

I never try to use gift cards or something like that because I always sell my bitcoin in the exchange but I use the other services to send the money to my bank account. In this growing technology, we can find other help to solve our problem, which will depend on how we can do that.

In "real life," people just talk about privacy & anonymity. Still, they do not realize what it is and they break their own anonymity and privacy coincidentally in the other chance.

Mr. @DaveF you are right, maybe it feels like we or I personally are not sure that my privacy is being maintained until this moment. With so many interactions and various exchanges with various policies, we never escape our true identity. However, as long as our identity in Bitcoin transactions is not detected being used to commit crimes, maybe we are still lucky so far. Out there KYC actions that open privacy and all submitted data have almost repeatedly indicated criminal acts of data theft.

I doubt US citizens will be able to do that except he uses decentralized exchange or P2P means.

If you already have your private BTC, then any trace made cannot be linked to your forum Identity (Dave), You can use a mixer between transactions to make them untraceable. I can see how making a purchase at this point could affect your privacy as you'll very likely have to reveal some sort of identity to claim your purchase.

You could possibly use a non KYC exchange, convert your BTC to fiat, withdraw cash and spend that as a was to conserve your privacy.

---

I believe the idea is not to be a total masked man or woman on the internet, but to reduce to a minimum the amount of public exposure you have.

Anonymity is a pipe dream imho, i mean best we have not is pseudonymity anyway. Privacy on the other hand is something that big players want. They want it so bots can't front run their buys/sells, and they want it because it sells, way more then transparent transactions on the chain

I'll leave uncommented the above nonsensical and senseless post above me and focus on Dave's question.

I'll speak for privacy since I consider it a more significant right than anonymity. I do, but I can't explain why I'm annoyed by the uncontrollable way some corporations keep sending me the next cleanser which kills 101% of the bacteria. I just feel, you know... not free?

Isn't privacy required to preserve democracy? We saw what happened with Trump and Facebook few years ago. That's surely something to be annoyed with. Anyway, there's no privacy in the internet nowadays, truth be told. That's not a reason to give it up, though. Do your best and hide your activity as much as you can from those corporations and surveillance agencies.

Do it and enjoy the few squares of your privacy that're left.

I'd like to admit that when I first got started with crypto, I was big on the whole privacy and anonymity thing but over time, I think that took another direction. I mean, I've a couple of jobs that required me to do a video call with people and a couple of other thing that revealed a thing or two about me. I think many people got into crypto for privacy but everything changes at some point. I know those people that were big on privacy projects have, at some point,compromised themselves too.

So I was thinking. There seems to be constant struggle for 'bitcoin privacy' but is it privacy we want or anonymity or both?
For me for a lot of things I do privacy is just not going to happen. I am US based, use regulated exchanges, and am part of a signature campaign that has a public spreadsheet.

I am also not anonymous since I have met at least 5 or 6 people from here, more have one of my phone numbers and dozens more had my old work address from when I bough stuff.

In the 'real world' people keep talking what privacy & anonymity really are. But isn't it more perceived privacy & anonymity.

Lets think about it. If I had not met anyone, never bought or sold anything here, only connected though a VPN so even the staff here had no idea who or where I was, in theory I was just a name here on the board. That would be anonymous.

But would it be private? That gets a little more deep and I guess depends on your view.
 
If I took the BTC from the signature campaign (chipmixer) and sent it to an exchange that just required an email address and converted it to a cryptonight coin then withdrew it to my wallet, sent it to another wallet and then to another exchange that once again just required an email address I think we can all say that the ability to trace anything at that point would probably be impossible. Now I have my private BTC. What do I do with it? The second I buy anything that requires shipping well there goes privacy. Yes you can drop ship someplace but unless you go to the 'we don't ask' mailbox location there is still a trace. OK, lets not buy stuff that needs to be shipped. How about gift cards from bitrefill or coinsbee? Well if you get a chipolte card get a burrito with it, they know something about you and where you got your gift card and where you used it. And so on.

With many of the users here, looking at this post and screaming and pulling their hair going 'What is wrong with Dave?" I will admit here and now that my privacy &  anonymity are gone and are not coming back unless I do a total drop off and reboot of my online life. That's not gonna happen.

But what about you? Do you care more about privacy or anonymity or both equally? And how much will you be willing to deal with to maintain it. And, if you really really really stepped far back and took a look with a critical eye, how much did you mess up over time that may of comprised it?

Just something to think about.

-Dave