Author

Topic: Question about traceability (Read 727 times)

hero member
Activity: 490
Merit: 500
November 24, 2013, 03:15:36 AM
#7
In theory yes, in practice not so likely

In general, btc gives you plausible deniability rather than true anonymity...
sr. member
Activity: 252
Merit: 250
November 24, 2013, 03:11:00 AM
#6
Yeah but the government may request those informations from the site that uses the shared wallet as well.

This is quite true.  But a mixer site located in a country outside the government's jurisdiction would be doable.  Sending them bitcoins should be extremely easy, since bitcoins are easy by definition to send.  And if it's a trusted mixer site, there's no way the government can see how many bitcoins, if any, you withdrew from them.

I 'm not sure about jurisdictions if the mixer is doing business with you anyway.

I've never used a mixer site, but if the gov saw that you sent 10 btc to a known mixer site, I know that at least here in the US they would be able to class it as money laundering and arrest/fine you. Or are the mixer sites usually disguised as regular sites?

Every site with a shared hot wallet like gambling sites might be used as a mixer
501
newbie
Activity: 28
Merit: 0
November 24, 2013, 02:45:26 AM
#5
However, there are ways to stop the trace. For example: I buy 10 btc on Bitstamp, send it to my personal wallet and then to any website that uses a shared wallet system. At irregular intervals I withdraw different fractions of my 10 btc from the site. Since they use a shared wallet, these withdrawals won't come from the deposit address I used. So here the trace stops. Anyone investigating the blockchain will see my deposit of 10 btc to the site and then my withdrawals are mixed in with everyone elses and since the addresses used are not linked to the address I originally had my coins on, there's no way to link them to me.

There are dedicated services that do just this, called mixers, but with a careful withdrawal plan, most shared-wallet sites work almost as well.

Yeah but the government may request those informations from the site that uses the shared wallet as well.

This is quite true.  But a mixer site located in a country outside the government's jurisdiction would be doable.  Sending them bitcoins should be extremely easy, since bitcoins are easy by definition to send.  And if it's a trusted mixer site, there's no way the government can see how many bitcoins, if any, you withdrew from them.

I've never used a mixer site, but if the gov saw that you sent 10 btc to a known mixer site, I know that at least here in the US they would be able to class it as money laundering and arrest/fine you. Or are the mixer sites usually disguised as regular sites?

I thought it would work best if you did it with a gambling site, then withdrew the coins to another address and you could just say you gambled them all away. But I thought even those sites had separate addresses for each user (so they know who the funds/deposits are coming from)
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 10
November 24, 2013, 02:37:41 AM
#4
However, there are ways to stop the trace. For example: I buy 10 btc on Bitstamp, send it to my personal wallet and then to any website that uses a shared wallet system. At irregular intervals I withdraw different fractions of my 10 btc from the site. Since they use a shared wallet, these withdrawals won't come from the deposit address I used. So here the trace stops. Anyone investigating the blockchain will see my deposit of 10 btc to the site and then my withdrawals are mixed in with everyone elses and since the addresses used are not linked to the address I originally had my coins on, there's no way to link them to me.

There are dedicated services that do just this, called mixers, but with a careful withdrawal plan, most shared-wallet sites work almost as well.

Yeah but the government may request those informations from the site that uses the shared wallet as well.

This is quite true.  But a mixer site located in a country outside the government's jurisdiction would be doable.  Sending them bitcoins should be extremely easy, since bitcoins are easy by definition to send.  And if it's a trusted mixer site, there's no way the government can see how many bitcoins, if any, you withdrew from them.
sr. member
Activity: 252
Merit: 250
November 24, 2013, 02:13:14 AM
#3
However, there are ways to stop the trace. For example: I buy 10 btc on Bitstamp, send it to my personal wallet and then to any website that uses a shared wallet system. At irregular intervals I withdraw different fractions of my 10 btc from the site. Since they use a shared wallet, these withdrawals won't come from the deposit address I used. So here the trace stops. Anyone investigating the blockchain will see my deposit of 10 btc to the site and then my withdrawals are mixed in with everyone elses and since the addresses used are not linked to the address I originally had my coins on, there's no way to link them to me.

There are dedicated services that do just this, called mixers, but with a careful withdrawal plan, most shared-wallet sites work almost as well.

Yeah but the government may request those informations from the site that uses the shared wallet as well.
hero member
Activity: 728
Merit: 500
November 24, 2013, 02:08:00 AM
#2
If someone buys bitcoins on an exchange (assuming it's an exchange with KYC and you submit real docs), does that mean that your gov can now keep track of how many coins you have? Since every transaction is in the blockchain, they can just see that you bought 10 btc on bitstamp, then you transferred 10 btc to another address and then 10 btc from that address to another address, etc. So they will always know generally how many btc you are in possession of and what addresses they are on? Even if you split them between many different addresses, it will be obvious which addresses are throwaways based on their other transactions, and the btc can always be tracked.

Note: I'm not trying to do anything illegal, just interested in this topic, since "untraceability" is always something that bitcoin promoters talk about.

In theory, your story can happen if the exchange shares this information with the government (I doubt they do this by default, but KYC stuff can make them do it on request by the government).

However, there are ways to stop the trace. For example: I buy 10 btc on Bitstamp, send it to my personal wallet and then to any website that uses a shared wallet system. At irregular intervals I withdraw different fractions of my 10 btc from the site. Since they use a shared wallet, these withdrawals won't come from the deposit address I used. So here the trace stops. Anyone investigating the blockchain will see my deposit of 10 btc to the site and then my withdrawals are mixed in with everyone elses and since the addresses used are not linked to the address I originally had my coins on, there's no way to link them to me.

There are dedicated services that do just this, called mixers, but with a careful withdrawal plan, most shared-wallet sites work almost as well.
501
newbie
Activity: 28
Merit: 0
November 24, 2013, 01:55:34 AM
#1
If someone buys bitcoins on an exchange (assuming it's an exchange with KYC and you submit real docs), does that mean that your gov can now keep track of how many coins you have? Since every transaction is in the blockchain, they can just see that you bought 10 btc on bitstamp, then you transferred 10 btc to another address and then 10 btc from that address to another address, etc. So they will always know generally how many btc you are in possession of and what addresses they are on? Even if you split them between many different addresses, it will be obvious which addresses are throwaways based on their other transactions, and the btc can always be tracked.

Note: I'm not trying to do anything illegal, just interested in this topic, since "untraceability" is always something that bitcoin promoters talk about.
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