Bitcoin Forum

Hello bitcointalk,
is it possible to stay (online) 100% anonymous with bitcoin?
I heard about bitcoin mixers but how can I see that it is really impossible for everyone to track the coins?
Read a couple things about the blockchain taint analysis but is there no other way to get the original origin?
Btw. I'm really sorry for my bad english it's not my mother tongue.

No, it is not. The ledger is transparent and everyone can keep the record of ALL transactions. It is almost possible to stay anonymous as long as nobody knows that Person X is using Address Y. Mixers are not anonymous, but they are used mostly to make it harder for someone to track you. This means that they can still track you but it is harder. However, proceed with caution. There have been a number of mixers that were scams.

So you mean for example if I buy the bitcoins with my bank account and then send it through an bitcoin mixer to a completely new address and then withdraw this mixed coins to my wife's bank account. It is possible that somebody could track the money from my wife's bank account back to it's origin (my bank account)? I know it's not the best example but hope you understand what I mean.

Well this example isn't simple either. You have this:
Bank Account ->exchange (or whatever service is used) -> BTC Address > Mixer > Wife's address > exchange > Wife's bank account.

For someone to be able to trace this, they would need to know WHO you and your wife are, and what your addresses are. Obviously using the same exchange (that stores) information isn't helpful either. However, if you are not doing anything illegal and have not publicly stated that you own address XXX, I doubt that anyone will look into this.

The way i understand it, a mixer will accept your coins, and after a given interval, they will send different coins of an equal value (-fee) to one or more of your addresses...

If you use a big mixer (having a lot of coins), use TOR or a trustworthy VPN, and they do not keep logs, it is more or less anonymous...

You would have to trust both the VPN and the mixing service tough... But if they do an honest job, it'll be pretty hard to track you down...


There are other ways: using multiple mixers, buying altcoins with extra anonimity functions, depositing and withdrawing on dice sites,.... Everything while using a VPN/Tor offcourse... It would take some planning and carefull review, because making a mistake would make you exposed...

But, this is only my understanding... I can be wrong, don't take my post as a foolproof guide to stay anonymous...

Thanks for the quick replies!
And how I know that nobody can track my bitcoins back?
Any other way then the "simple taint check"?
"Simple taint check" = taint analysis of the wallet which received the bitcoins through an bitcoin mixer and then simply press Strg+F and type my origin wallet in the mask. And if there is no listing of my origin wallet in this taint analysis I'm "anonymous" (if my VPN Provider & the mixing service both not logging)

You can't really know that. You can not know who is looking into your addresses just as you can't know e.g. if someone is searching your name on a search engine. Bitcoin is not anonymous because of the transparent ledger. It is pseudo-anonymous, i.e. if used properly. The other poster pretty much showed you additional ways of making it much harder to track you. Start by using a good VPN (so that no service knows your real IP).

A combination of coins that offer better anonymity (e.g. Monero, DASH, etc.) in addition to depositing and withdrawing on random sites that do not require you to register should help a lot.

not yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd5NZvsyAfw

maybe in the future with Sidechains.

yeah you can remain anonymous with Bitcoin as long as you Follow the Traits of Anony..
Even on Tor you can be Caught if you don't abide their rule .

Bixers are good options But some of them are Scam as they run away with big amounts.

Well, theoretically if you use the money received trough the reward of mining a block, you're totally anonymous since it will be the first transaction.
But in pratic this is impossible, people can try mixers, sending money to sites and them withdraw it, but none of those options will help you out of getting 100% anonymous of Bitcoin if people know your address.
You can search around, a few thiefs and scammers got "caught" only by reading the blockchain by knowing the address where the stealed money was sent(but still needs a lot of time to do it).

The main problem is that the blockchain (as designed) will exist publicly forever. That means analysis tools will get more and more sophisticated and any leaks of information will be immediately aggregated and used to identify controllers of addresses. I predict that in the future as these tools get better most mixed transactions from the past will be completely transparent.

If I meet someone at a meetup and hand him $1000 cash and he sends 4 coins to my address, then nothing links me to those coins. However once I spend them and gain value (goods, services, etc) then any little bit of leakage of data (e.g. a shipping address, etc) will immediately link me to that original 4 bitcoin transaction.

Im curios too if we can able to find out if we are being tracked or we are to be tracked, im using a vpn but im not sure if its doing a good job for me currently bluevpn but i have tried many vpns around the internet but i dont know which of them is best for anonymity.

With the transparency offer by the bitcoin blockchain. Its hard to say that anyone can stay 100% anonymous. I guess you wont need that percent value if you are just paranoid with some hacks. Unless you wanted to do something  ;D 

Unless they are freshly mined bitcoins.

There are quite a number of coin mixers around and one of them is in my signature. On the site it explains well on the rational why mixing can help to make traceability gets harder.

I could almost declare your post to be off-topic. You didn't even read my post before replying. How would you know if someone is searching your name on various search engines? Unless e.g. Google keeps track of each request and you could get that information from them you would not know. The same applies for your Bitcoin Address. You can't really know if someone is watching it or not. Unless you're doing something illegal, I doubt that anyone will track you (Bitcoin-wise).

Any VPN that uses strong encryption and does not keep logs should be good enough.

Yes, and no. Once you get change from a transaction, you could use for example a Dice website to deposit and withdraw (after a period of time!) to a newly generated address.

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Update:
No, it is not.

With the use of mixing websites that is possible.

if you will use mixer  there will be no taint..
you will send your bitcoin in there address and they will send it to you from diffirent address..

You personally can remain anon. For example nobody knows who satoshi really is but they can see a lot of his transactions but can't trace them to his real world identity. You can also use mixers to mask where your coins are going.

That is a very bad example. You can't use a person who hasn't used Bitcoin for years as a example. A person (if it is one) that did his best to hide his identity from the start. The average user does not fit this description. Someone who is actively using Bitcoin on a few services can not hide his identity. The services (i.e. ones that require ID) keep records of money transferred in and out, in addition to the addresses that you've used. A worse scenario would be if one of those services got hacked and all the information got leaked.

Because the ledger is transparent and permanent, one has to think ahead. If someone gets information in 2020, they can trace it all back to the begging easily (especially considering that there will be advanced tools by then).

I don't think it's a bad example. Satoshi is proof that you can do it. The average user doesn't want to remain a ghost but I'm sure there are many people on here or on the darknet that remain unknown in every or most aspects. If you want to remain anoymous from the start then I don't really think it's that difficult as long as you have a little knowledge on what you need to do. Use tor or proxies and do cash transactions or use exchanges that don't require ID and you shouldnt have much problems.

It is definitely possible to get pseudonym but not anonymity. You can try to reduce taint by using a mixer such as bitmixer.io. Even though they claim not to keep logs, they may very well be supplying the logs to the government. It is hard to trust anyone. Alternatively, you can also buy from a miner. It is ultimately one of the more secure ways provided that the miner do not reveal your identity to others. It is actually possible to track people using a mixer even though it would very much be significantly harder. To reduce this, delays are introduced in many mixers.

The only way to get anonymous Bitcoins 100% would be to mine them, because they are freshly minted and have no past transaction history.
The second tier of anonymity would be to get paid in Bitcoin directly (never due a 3rd party payment system such as Bitwage, Bitpay and whatnot)
The third tier would be an IRL exchange of Bitcoin for cash
Beyond this tier I think it's useless to talk about anonymity.

I read in the internet that send your coins to BTC-e and then withdraw BTC-e coins to a large trusted gambling site like PrimeDice.com or Just-Dice.com. Withdraw gambling site coins to blockchain.info. At this point your coins have over 85% chance of broken links to the original coins.

But I have a question - XAPO uses dynamic addresses each time to send and receive. So if we send coins to xapo and withdraw means is it going be completely anonymous or not?

Well but there will be recorded log of you buying BTC in BTC-e so it's not a 100% anonymous movement. I think the only way to do 100% anonymous buy of bitcoin is localbitcoin with a person for cash and hope the person is not some sort of undercover or whistleblower.

BTC-e don't require personal information but they could be recording your transactions and they might keep logs of it. Just-dice.com doesn't offer Bitcoin. Primedice is okay but still, they can keep logs.

Xapo requires some personal information for me (at least) to use it. Dynamic address are fine as long as it doesn't send the coins directly from your deposit to withdrawal address. Xapo is a registered business so there is a good chance that they need to comply with the regulations and release customer's informations.

I think most people think Bitcoin is anonymous, even if they they use Tor... but they might be surprised how much information is transmitted without you even knowing it.

You should watch this recent video for more information on the topic... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd5NZvsyAfw

These agencies have very skilled people and resources to identify you, if they really want to do it. Just keep everything legal and you would be fine.  ;)

If you buy bitcoins for cash from a person you trust that will never reveal your identity (or you buy coins with a sock over your face so this person don't see your face while handing them cash) and you spend them online, let's say from public hot-spots or public Wi-Fi with watching that your real identity
 never gets connected to the certain address, let's say 1tazauaZS...

This is for me only way to stay anonymous, well at least anonymous with your real world identity since you will be always identifiable by your Bitcoin address.

In everything else I don't trust.

it would be very simple if you never exchange your coins, for dirty fiat money, even if they could track back you, address by address...

then how they can say that those addresses belong to you if you didn't use them to purchase anything and therefore your name does not appear to be connected with any of them? impossible

another possible way I read somewhere on forum today is buy newly generated bitcoins from someone
like buy a complete new generated block of 25BTC from someone by paying them some premium, these coins don't have any transaction history

its not easy to solo mine a complete block, or find a guy who solo mine a complete block
most blocks are mined by pools and they divide that money to their miners

I don't think 100% anonymity is possible.
It's possible to reach 99% anonymity by either using self-mined blocks or cracked insecure private keys, operating from a public toilet seat in a crowded environment using their non-mandatory-registration wifi connection with a MAC address changed client booted from a live OS distribution, finally chaining the proxies after the wifi entry point.

Sometimes, you can legally crack private keys and take all the funds by solving puzzles. If you're seeking for legal anonymous coins to crack, follow this internal link. That's your chance (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1144807)  ;)

I don't need 99% anonymity. This is why my best practice is to do the buying&selling through face-to-face meetings, then paying my VPN using VPN prior to every expiration, which still sustains me good amount of anonymity.


If the govs thinks that it's relevant, they'll just do a house search which is displeasing enough for making efforts avoiding. Some countries also have mandatory password disclosure laws which brings you in danger by possibly finding illegal data by chance after decrypting your storage. For example, you could get in big trouble if you possess data which was perfectly legal when you acquired it but was being outlawed by the govs after some laws got tightend, possibly leaving you in possession of illegal data without even knowing.

I don't know if this is 100% true, and might be considered off topic... But I'm pretty sure if you take btc and switch them out for another coin with more anonymity features like cryptonote currencies, such as monero, you can be anonymous that way... The only risk you have is if monero loses its value over time, and the fact you would have to find merchants who would accept xmr as well..

But then again I'm not quite positive about that as well, because shapeshift might keep logs of the addresses you used, etc.

This is off topic. You're talking about holding an altcoin. OP is asking about being able to use/transact Bitcoin 100% anonymously. P.S. Don't promote Monero here.

It is a bad example. Satoshi is a special status user (or group). You don't even know that he is a single person, and you try to make a example as he was a user. Stop calling out on him for reference to everything. 

Encrypted VPN(s) that do not keep logs are better in my opinion. Tor helps but it has it's own problems.

There was a project called Mint (currently on hold) from Blocktrail. Their plan was to sell a limited supply of coins directly from a miner.

It is not and it is not necessary. Nobody will invest a lot of money to track a random user without a good reason.

You need to convert your Bitcoin for dirty fiat money if you want to pay bills with your Bitcoin, and you can't do anything with your Bitcoin but small purchases that don't raise any alarms. You can't unfortunately buy a car or a house with Bitcoin and don't expect the IRS to knock on your door.
That's why a lot of people is holding. They don't know what to do with the BTC they make for example in here. They know they are limited to small purchases, or else you'll need to get it taxed..

Possible with true solo mining.  This way, only you have 'new' coins since those coins are new to the network.

There are ways to track the bitcoins, but that doesn't mean that it can be easy at all. Don't reuse addresses, use mixers, don't tie addresses to real world information.

you can to use JUMBLR:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1179305.msg12407691#msg12407691 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1179305.msg12407691#msg12407691)

https://nxtforum.org/nxtservices-releases/jumblr-decentralized-bitcoin-mixer-seeking-marketing-lead-and-also-gui-dev/msg193934/#msg193934 (https://nxtforum.org/nxtservices-releases/jumblr-decentralized-bitcoin-mixer-seeking-marketing-lead-and-also-gui-dev/msg193934/#msg193934)

Currently there is no GUI, so the usage is still a bit cumbersome, but it works.

The funds remain 100% under your control at all times, and there is no central party involved.

JUMBLR operates on the SuperNET platform.

well that's is clear, buying big thing is out of question, no matter what you use to pay for thing like an house, it will be known by your gov/taxman

but i'm sure OP is talking about other type of thing to buy, or he want to hide his transfer of money

You just send your coins to XAPO account and again send back to your main account from XAPO. This means the transactions chain has broken right? Becasue they use dynamic ip to receive and send so difficult to trace back the transaction.

I would like to compare that REDLISTING debate to the following:

Invention of a chemical that dissolves Dollar bills that have been in contact with drugs.

At some random checkpoints, your Dollar bills will be swabbed with said chemical, and if they have been in contact with drugs, they shrivel and turn to mush.

The fact that you did not do anything illegal with those bills, be it drugs are anything else, is irrelevant, because at that particular point in time, that particular bill was in your possession.

So you are to be expropriated of that tainted currency note, because it is imperative that it be destroyed.

Am I the only one to whom this sounds insane?
 

What you said doesn't make sense. So first, you shouldn't be sending and receiving Bitcoin from the same address. Doing so would provide absolutely no anonymity. As I said, they could easily send the coins from your deposit address hence the taint would still be there. It is still traceable as they could very well be logging all the IPs and addresses.