Topic: What will happen with bitcoin mixers, etc. if bitcoin becomes truly anonymous? (Read 1338 times)

Not much will change or happen to Bitcoin mixers if Bitcoin becomes anonymous. It already somewhat is. You just need to us a ton of addresses.

Technically, there is nothing stopping a normal user from being anonymous. It is not the nature of the crypto, it is the nature of what is being done with it.  Use an anonymous computer, synced wallet and never use those coins for anything that requires an exchange of information.  It is when a person needs to exchange to hard currency or drops that address on something like this forum(nothing against the forum), that is when the anonymity leaves. If the markets, dark or not, become more prevalent, where the need to exchange is then gone, that is when there will be nothing to even think about.

Of course, on the other side of that coin, if the bitcoin begins to truly replace something like the USD, then the anonymity is again lost.  Your paycheck will go to bitcoin and you will start spending bitcoins instead of money at places where you information is stored or at least available.  Even buying a soda at the corner store will have your face associated with that wallet address.  At that point, to have an anonymous side of you, you would have to literally exist as two people.  One person that uses the common wallet address and buys things and another that keeps an address secret and uses that address for less than upfront purchases.  And, of course, never exchange funds from the secret wallet to the public wallet or it would all be lost.

Eventually the need for mixers will decrease.

Just look at an average joe. Why would he use a mixer and pay extra fees to buy a shirt? It makes no sense.

The small group of users will probably invent a dedicated service they managed and control.

I think he means that same what official bitcoin webitse's FAQ says:

https://bitcoin.org/en/faq#is-bitcoin-anonymous


Above is partial FAQ answer. For more read the full FAQ. Other resources about bitconis anonymity can be found here as well: http://www.bitcoinisnotanonymous.com/

Right. I wanted to write the same. There are ways to go anonym.
And what exchange and identity? If you buy and sell p2p via localbitcoins or any other local markets there is no identity you have to give to anyone.
If you know how to use certain services you can go completely anonym with Bitcoin.

Every service has it's role in the system and contribute and add to it's weaknesses. The pseudo anonymity of bitcoin were being addressed with mixers and some people are using it,

to fulfill a need for total anonymity. I am not saying mixers give these users full anonymity, but it's a step towards that goal. If some feature are included into the Bitcoin protocol to

fulfill that need, I would say these services would eventually become obsolete or people will use them as a added layer to their anonymity. You get some users for example using

more than one anti-virus software or firewall... so these "extra" services will still have a place in Bitcoin. 

In answer to the OP if bitcoin ever became truly anonymous then the bitcoin mixer companies would obviously have zero purpose and would no longer exist. 

I don't however think that this will happen as the more bitcoin becomes accepted in the mainstream the more information people need to give to companies such as Coinbase etc in order to legitimately withdraw their bitcoin to fiat.

Bitcoin can not be truly anonymous, because all Blockchain transactions are public  If Blockchain will develop new technology for transfers, then yes, may be BTC mixers will loose their market niche 

Well, i still can't figure it out with what Vijay Michalik says, True anonymity in Bitcoin is only a myth.

What does he mean with anonymity. Is that anonymity is 'invisible'??

I think our expert Vijay Michalik confused some terms here, or maybe did not explain it properly. Bitcoin CAN be anonymous but is not private, by any means.
Your transaction can be viewed by anyone, and if your address will be exposed or found your every financial record will be public.

Bitcoin will never be truly anonymous. For bitcoin to be anonymous we need to rely in other apps that insures anonymity to the users. If bitcoin was an anonymous crypto it would have no need for mixers

Unless it is a p2p distributed mixer behind the TOR, an official mixer would be heavily regulated like all other financial institutions

Bitcoin mixers will remain in internet till the bitcoin dies. Bitcoin mixers will always be needed for extra security and anonymity.

These Bitcoin mixers don't work that well anyways and are far away from 100% reliability. So what will happen to them, I don't really give a damn! I never have used one and most probably will never use it in the future!

You still get a txid ofcourse and you still know to where you send the coins... It only is difficult for others to trace the movement of specific coins around the blockchain as they get shuffled before arriving.

It can't be a 100% anonymous.

How else would you track down your transactions that have been made.

And this is supposed to be good? Centralized bitcoin and tracking users. That's why ct or zerocash would be welcome addition, to stop it from happening.

well this is avoidable, i'll use a vpn or something, or i create my own vpn with a vm and vps

how they can track me then if they do not take the log from the vpn?

I think that this will not happen, every new bitcoin startup/business  is trying to centralized the bitcoin to track their users where do they spend their money like coinbase which tracks their users, i think that these mixer will be in the market for a long time.

Confidencial Transactions might happen on sidechains, making an actual change like that to Bitcoin at this point might be hard and will probably be quite controversial as there are so many different people and businesses now involved.