Bitcoin Forum

I was just reading this article:
Anonymity Recognized as Serious Problem with Bitcoin
https://coinreport.net/anonymity-recognized-serious-problem-bitcoin/

It says, among other things:



I wonder why so many people worry about this? It is rather known fact that bitcoin is not anonymous, but only pseudo-anonymous (http://www.bitcoinisnotanonymous.com/). And what will happen with Bitcoin if CT or Zerocoin or some other technology will be incorporated to bitcoin, to make it truly anonymous?

It is hard for government to track the coins as addresses are pseudonymous means that they can't identity illegal fundings and money laundering. It is a slight problem since places like localbitcoins doesn't require ID and does not need to comply with the local policies. Even with regulated exchanges, people can still do trades underground and thus pose a problem for money laundering concerns.

Yes it is correct. Because of this anonymity many governments are not ready to accept/support bitcoin as a payment processor officially. If one really want to hide their transaction then no one can find who has send that money so many governments worry. There are many options for you to buy bitcoins without any ID proofs not only localbitcoins.

So should CT or zerocoin be added to bitcoin, to make it even more anonymous? If governments worry about bitcoin pseudo-anonymity now, what will they say when it will be fully anonymous?

Lol at the fears on anonymity. Only those who wanted control fear it  e.g. the government. For us who wanted more freedom on our money and our spending, it is nit a problem, really. If the governments are really sincere on taking care of people's interest, they should focus more on their problems and care less on bitcoin's pseudo-anonymous nature. Money laundering and illegal fundings might be an issue, but do governments know that only a tiny--microscopic--portion of that funds came from bitcoin and the rest are on fiat?

I bet their real problem with Bitcoin is not anonymity. Their real problem is that they dont control it, cant reverse transactions and cant print more when they need more money.

Its not hard. They can do it very well actually.

The anonymity is only being directed as a "wrapping paper" in order for banks and competing services to lobby against bitcoin,
while the anonymity as a real problem doesn't even exist. Every satoshi can be traced all the way back to block it was generated from.

What do you mean by they? Governments? NSA? Exchanges?

It is only a problem for them, if they lose out on tax opportunities AND if they cannot control the flow of the currency out of the country. Some government employees even use it to receive bribes or they steal it, when it is seized from the public. <Silkroad>

It is all about the control of the monetary system and the reluctance to sacrifice the power they have over it. If only they could offset that negative side with all the positive things < Job creation / Tax income >  ::)

Regulation is not the problem; it is education
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/law-enforcement-and-regulators-agree-bitcoin-not-useful-for-terrorists-already-regulated-appropriately-1448316076

They can still take your coins from you by invading your house and taking all your belongings there.

Just look at what happened to BurtW. IF they want to, they can make your life as hard as with fiat.

it's the central autorithy of any country, bank have also the same importance basically

and like it was said the terrorist need to dump at some point and when they dump for fiat they are traceable, moving big funds of bitcoin  is not easy to link with terrorist but they are useless in the end

All of this is bunch of BS quite honestly! Cash is 10 times more anonymous than Bitcoin. Truth of the matter is that if you really want to be completely anonymous with Bitcoin, you have to take many precautions that are not at all easy to take. And if you make just one mistake along the way, there goes your anonymity! And everything is so easily followed online and via the blockchain.

These so called experts are just talking out of their a**es !

The governments fear is the anonymity that revolves around bitcoin. They can't track everyone's personal info down plus they don't gain anything from bitcoin.

Yes. but cash can be printed by the government. bitcoin cant. Thus, governments dont worry about cash too much, i think, as they control its supply.

Re: Is bitcoin's anonymity really a problem for the governments and regulations?

It's a big problem for the type of governments that what to spy and log and track everything you ever do. Unless you go out of your way to hide your activity by using proxies and mixers etc they'll still likely be easily able to find out what bitcoins belong to you anyway.


But it can be anonymous if you want it to be regardless of what people might think. If one bag guy wants to send money to another bad guy then they can do that without revealing their true identities if they're careful and there's nothing someone can do about it. This is a problem for govs but it's something they're going to have to deal with and it's no different from cash transactions that they can't really trace. Bitcoin isn't going anywhere at the end of the day regardless of the problems it causes for the powers that be.

In the end they are taking fees anyways, a lot of people still exchange bitcoins to cash because you can't buy a lot of things with bitcoins so they end  up taking fees when you withdraw the money to your bank, obviously not as many fees. In the end taxes are needed, it's not like we pay taxes for nothing.

If they tap into exchanges or any online shop database your are using bitcoins with your real name or address, they could track your bitcoin. Bitcoin is only pseduo-anonymous, thus if your id is link with your address(es), tracking becomes is relatively easy with resource governments or feds have.

I think i don't have problem if government took fees for my transaction, it's for develop our country.

But the real problem is when other country took fees from our transaction and no contribution for my country, that was what i dislike.

If it's trackable then why are all these countries banning or making bitcoin illegal?

It is traceable: "its pretty blib and dumb to do a lot of illegal transactions on bitcoin when it's so easily traceable" - Jeff Garzik [http://www.bitcoinisnotanonymous.com/#bitcoins-are-traceable]

That's the point of this thread. Why governments are afraid of bitcoin? Bitcoin is pseduo-anonymous, not anonymous. Maybe if governments and politicians understood this, they would not have so much objections regarding bitcoin. But as other's pointed out, there are many other possible reasons for this, which are more likely. For example, governments cant just print bitcoins whenever they like. They cant collect transactions fees, etc.

Bitcoin transactions are traceable but that doesn't mean you will be able to track down the person who is sending the bitcoins and you never will if the address is not associated to anything that could be related to that person.

it sure can become a problem since they can't place taxes on it to generate any revenue

This kind of anonymity makes a "hole" for terorist to keep bitcoin since it's difficult to track it down who the owner of the address.
At my country, still not have a law but it's still not legal as normal payment ( means : use bitcoin with own risk )

Most of the fees regarding transfer of money goes to the banks... So I don't think that's a big reason

Cash is more anonymous than Bitcoin, and if you have a massive amount of either you are faced with the same problem when you want to buy something worth a fortune legitimately. If you have Bitcoins they need converting to cash, then you have to deposit your massive amount of cash into a bank before buying something worth a fortune, and the bank will want to know where it came from.

You can't buy a mansion with cash, you have to go through the bank to buy it. There are a few companies selling lambos and mansions directly for Bitcoins, but you would still have to explain where they came from after buying your lambo and mansion. How many times have criminals had their lambos and mansions taken off them because they were suspected as being bought with proceeds of crime? Their source of cash was more anonymous than Bitcoin but they couldn't explain where it came from when they were asked about it.

Terrorists are not using bitcoin tho and almost no criminals either since bitcoin is so volatile it wouldn't make sense for terrorists to convert 100 million dollars to bitcoin, it would be impossible and extremely risky, it's not going to happen

All darknet markets where you can hire killers, buy drugs, weapons, etc, use bitcoin. So its a main currecy supporting criminal activity in the darknets. Thus why not terrorits? Maybe not good to sent 100 milion, but then to buy guns or probably bombs, require much less money, which can be paid by bitcoin.

I'm sure the big problem for them isn't anonymity but they cant control the bitcoin. We'll know how shit government is. But for our that wants freedom bitcoin is best choices  ;)

They want to be able to freeze funds, which is not possible with bitcoin. But similarly, they can not freeze the movement of cash either. So I guess eventually all the regulations for cash will be applied to bitcoin, before more strict address-based regulation is in place

Because terrorists have existed long before bitcoin and there is no point in switching to bitcoins, have you ever seen any news about big terrorist organizations using bitcoins? No, because they don't and never will if they can use normal currency.

I don't see it as a problem. In fact, I think it's more of a necessary feature for a currency that is not government controlled. I see financial privacy as a basic human right and I am not alone with that.

I'm with you but financial privacy can also violated even if you think BTC is anonymous.

With cash the government can still interfere and freeze accounts. But with bitcoin it is totally not possible, so there may be reason for government to dislike it

The main problem for governments is they can't tax it properly. Sure, the ledger is public and all that, but anyone that wants to can achieve a pretty decent level of anonymity. Of course it's not very user friendly and most people will not get into trouble trying to mix their coins and whatnot. In the future it will be way easier to do it so I guess governments are going to face a lot of problems controlling and taxing it even for the average joe.

I don't think it'll be too much of an issue but then I will notice some issues where anonymity has played a big part in criminal activity.

I think EU does not really agree that this is not a big issue:
https://news.bitcoin.com/european-union-seeking-ban-bitcoin-aftermath-paris-terrorist-attacks/

Off course they are bunch of idiots, but unfortunately they are making laws and regulations, not we. And this is a problem.

If you are curious and ask why they are concerned with bitcoin anonymity, I think the answer is because they do not have sufficient knowledge about bitcoin and problems, they need time to learn if they are ready to accept bitcoin.

...

My take is that the problem for most BTC users is that Bitcoin is pretty anonymous assuming the below re most users:

1)  You take some care to hide your tracks (mixing coins, using wallets only once for receiving (and then sending))

2)  You are not a BIG FISH (using large amounts of BTC)

3)  You stay away from illegal activity like Darknet drug purchases, etc.  Maybe DON'T become an loud activist either...

Governments have plenty of other things to worry about (and "Tax Donkeys" to go after) to worry about most of us.

Because governments want to stalk us...  ::)

I may sound like a total noob or dumbass, but, isn't cash held in your hand anonymous?

Cash would be generally anonymous if you had a bundle of 10's of something, i.e. USD Fiat

and not even reporting where that came from and you spent it on the local drug dealer or

c-store. Who's to know who the hell you are when using cash instead of debit/credit?

Supply of cash is control by governments and banks. They dont control bitcoin though. Thus its seems that "anonymity" is only excuse for them to squash something out of their control. 

in europe they want to ban cash altogether and we have the first examples: https://www.rt.com/business/173564-norway-cash-free-country/
france banned transactions over 1000 euro already.
the vision apparently is that every transaction will go through the banking system and thus be monitored - every account is verified by an ID. Higher transaction amounts are watched closely and questions will be asked if there is any sort of suspicion due to any reason.

When there is literally no other reason for them to be against it, they will go for absolutely anything they can. Since Bitcoin is overall "good" in its other aspects, they can only target the anonymity offered by it.

There is no other "bad" aspect to Bitcoin, at least aspects that affect the government.

Of course it is. They can't regulate anything or see money laundering.

Its not BTC anonymity that is the issue for governments - its encryption without back-doors.