Bitcoin Forum

I hear people talking about anonymity with various currencies, eg Monero, or DASH, but as most people seem to use exchanges, there really isn't any anonymity, because the exchange presumably knows each person's identity and therefore has a record of all transactions, whether they be for bitcoin, or any other "anonymous" currency. Is this right? It would seem that anonymity is a function of the exchange and not the currency (granted there are differences in currencies that impact anonymity as well).

If the above is true, are there any legitimate (I know this is subjective) exchanges that do not keep identities of their customers? I have heard of local meetups, but that does not seem very convenient and there are trust issues.

It really depends , most of the exchanges that only involves cryptocurrencies like Poloniex don't ask you for any kind of verification unless you want to raise your limits which you don't really need to because the daily limits are more then enough. I also agree that local meetups isn't a very convenient way to trade so I always go with trading with individuals on different forums with a currency exchange section for whatever payment method I want. That should make you bypass the need of verifying your documents.

If you go anywhere near crypto <--> fiat conversion, then you'd be met with verification, KYC, AML.
I don't even know which exchanges doesn't require documents now.

Personally, I'm not too concerned with anonymity. I use only 1 exchange (fully verified), it's the only place that I submitted my full docs to, so I conduct my buying/selling there.
Either choose one exchange or as MadGamer says, use the Currency Exchange section.

As for local meetups, I do not recommend it. I've never tried it and likely never will. Inconvenient and could be dangerous.

Some exchange only ask for email address and that's all you need to make transactions. A throwaway email can be used so long as you remember its password, you will be doing fine and you can go on with your daily lives without publishing your identity to them. If you are to buy BTC through them then you would be submitting your IDs, its the basics else money laundering would be easy for the criminals.

What about if you just want to sell to them? Do you still need to submit any ID to them in order to do so?
If you want to withdraw would any ID need to be necessary to do that as well?
If not which exchanges allow you to do that.
I am not talking about $1000's of dollars just $100's.

Its true that the anonymity surrounding the crypto world is gradually turning into a myth with no thanks to all these exchange sites forgetting that the basic principle crypo rests is the anonymity. I have been discouraged from going on with registration  whedn after giving all the names and addresses, they still ask for scanned international passport or national identity card, some will even add that you child it and take a picture with it.

The problem is that an exchange that follows the law is not going to be anonymous, and an exchange that is not following the law can't really be trusted.

It looks like the coinbitch.
http://www.coindesk.com/irs-delay-coinbase-bitcoin-dispute/

There's anonymity if you earn monero or you buy it with cash etc. Once you have monero and make transactions they are anonymous from your first transaction so you wouldn't have to worry about someone "following the money" as easily as with bitcoins.

Anonymity is eroding in the world and it is not a surprise the same is happening in the world of crypto but like always it depends on how anonymous you want to be, you could buy some bitcoin in an exchange and verify your identity  and then you could tumble your coins at that point no one knows those are your coins but someone looking at your transaction knows you bought some bitcoin.

You can only be anonymous with your bitcoin, other crypto-currency to a certain extent. Like once you want to go ahead and cash-out into the real world and use the bitcoins or whatever currency you have in your day to day life you kind of kill all the anoymity you had before.

That's how it works due to KYC laws along with fiat. I suppose you could still be anonymous by selling your bitcoin for gift cards or something along those lines but then you'd just be losing a certain percentage of your bitcoins (20%?)

You have to think, is it really worth it to be anonymous?

I don't get it why use altcoins when you can very easily send your bitcoins to a mixer(trusted&reputable) and get totally new coins in sets of addresses of your choice and then search google in your native language to use a domestic exchange instead of foreign one if you have no international identification paper or passport?
Let me ask you something logical: if you are not trying to do illegal activities then you shouldn't be worried about revealing your identity because no exchanges will ever give away your info and trying to contact you unless they receive court orders.
But still there are some tricky ways to manage to stay completely out of the radar but I wont discuss them in public nor in private :D :D.

not necessarily.
there are a lot of exchanges that don't require any information on their users. most altcoins exchanges are like this. you deposit bitcoin and buy any altcoin you want and apart from your IP (which can be hidden) and the bitcoin address you deposit from nothing else is going to be revealed.

and also it is the feature of those coins that allow more anonymity. I am not an expert in monero and those others but you can read their paper and ask around in their topic for more details about how they do it. but know that it is the coin itself.

all altcoin trading can anoymous without verified ID
but if you want trading bitcoin use fiat money, and can withdraw to youre bank account is nothing without verified all exchanger need everified ID
but if use online payment procesor you can get it in c-cex support perfectmoney, in btc-e support perfect money and okpay
or if you want USDT, bittrex and poloniex support USDT and without verified ID too

Are you sure there is any exchange asking for people identity? Because for me, I can easily trade coins without any type of verification.
However, when one need to sold Bitcoin to native currency then one need to provide his/her complete identity like bank account, etc. collectively known as KYC (Know your customer) due to Income Tax requirements but there is hardly any requirement on exchanges. This is true triumph of cryptocurrency

There are people who register on exchanges without providing true personal information, and many users use anonymous emails. There is also the possibility of using vpn, so that the exchange does not have your IP address.
I think the problem would be at the moment of converting the coins to fiat currency, and then making the withdrawal. However, I've heard that there are already services for anonymous Bitcoin debit cards.

There are many exchange site like c-cex or Poloniex that doesn't require identification. However, in some huge trading site, they'll ask to acquire your identification and it's true that some of them need your passport id number. Hence, you have an option if you want to be still anonymous. This is same as in forex, and I don't see any problem in revealing your identity as long as it's legal.

They ask for official ID and documents issued my the government. Most of the exchanges do. So providing fake information will get you caught and your request to get verified will be rejected. Using other peoples name to verify is against the law.

for what purpose do you want anonymity? i personally couldn't care less about it and almost everyone slips up somewhere along the line. there are too many holes for it not to leak out eventually.

It's not about revealing your identity to these exchange sites but many times these sites leak our information to either Government officials for tax-related purposes or if they turn out to be bankrupt or caught up in illegal services. There have been many trusted exchanges that have shut down due to these reasons and hence it's tough to decide which one operates legally and which doesn't.

@OP:Not all exchanges ask for identity proof and many have users who just use unverified or anonymous virtual credit/debit cards while buying and selling currency on the exchange websites. At the end, all transactions are anonymous as even if we sell bitcoins at exchanges, it's hard to track from where the bitcoins were received.

They are trying to minimize how much leaks its going give. There are a number of anon coins competing each other and many of them already had succeed like monero, zcash, sdc and cloak. I do think they are the future which are needed to be developed and has to be accepted by merchants as well. I think they are going to dominate the market, Monero even catches the eyes of FBI, it must be used by people in the blackmarket.

I don't think there is any complete anonymity but some exchanges don't need a lot of personal information. The tracking may come in more when you spend Bitcoins or cash out.

This :)  Why would someone need to hide his identity if he won't do any harm?  Same applies to services.  There is a possibility that this anon sites or services are just waiting for the right moment to run with the money.

They cannot run away like that. But yes, Exchanges will know who are you and how much money you have and transferred and received in the past.
But the concept of total anonymity is between sender and receiver, and that is still working properly with Bitcoin transactions.

It's more likely pseudonym, not really anonymous, your address and all of your transaction can be tracked it's proof you use a "nickname" called address, unless your transaction mixing with a service which can fading your transaction.
Mostly exchange have KYC (already have a legality). You can use a decentralized exchange like bitsquare or trade in localbitcoin, but you should selective to a person who you want to deal with and use an escrow.

I did not know there were reputable mixers. What is the cost of it? Also, aren't there issues with bitcoin mixers in terms of getting coins that are less valuable? Eg, if someone stole large amounts of bitcoin, they are going to want to use the mixer to exchange it with others, and people may be less interested in accepting such stolen money, when it is in the hands of someone that had nothing to do with stealing it.

For those of you asking about why would one want privacy if not doing anything illegal, this has been hashed out and discussed ad nauseum. Do some research on privacy and societal implications, or read some papers on the subject, or watch documentaries or TED talks. But as an example, political dissidents. Also plenty of people (in some countries more than others), have been detained, arrested, or even killed based on a suspicion of doing something illegal based on misinterpretation of data obtained in indiscriminate surveillance, when it was established later that the person was innocent. I'm not talking about people who are somehow "different" than others, but everyday people that the government got into their social media and other accounts and communications. As another example, think about various times through history when there have been episodes of national paranoia and what happened then.

I know about two exchanges if we can call them like that. First one is Whaleclub (http://www.bestbitcoinexchange.net/en/whale-club-scam-or-not/), a bit unusual exchange which accepts only BTC deposits and doesn't require any verification or other identity information. The second one is LocalBitcoins (http://www.bestbitcoinexchange.net/en/localbitcoins-com/), which at times isn't so great. 

Yes, indeed and I think poloniex and 4-5 more exchanges have high limits for monthly trading or daily trading and no one stops you from making multiple accounts and trade then.

But this might be dangerous too as the exchange can anytime catch you up and forfeit all your savings there. Rather than that it would be better if we trade on 5-6 exchanges with one account on each.

To date till now in my life I haven't given my documents or photo ID to anyone or any trading site. Because of the fact that bitcoin's main aim is to make transactions secure but ANONYMOUS and hence we all must respect that fact and never ask ID proof from anyone.

I often see that gambling sites too ask for some ID proofs and I really feel like upset because they are killing the main idea.

We cant do anything about it since they do still follow the traditional KYC back in the past which they implement too on bitcoin gambling sites and yes they are killing the idea but still you can still freely choose on which site you would like to play because there are still some gambling sites don't have strict terms or rules.If you don't like to give any documents then better choose what suits you.

Anonimity counts, I think it's important. Not because someone would like to hide something but we all have the right to privacy. Maybe I think this way because I'm from Europe and there is privacy very valuable. Many people started using Bitcoins because it ensured them privacy and not everyone could track and monitor their transaction but in the meantime that has changed a lot and Bitcoin has lost a great deal of anonimity.

Anonymity is not always to hide something bad that a person might do. In USA privacy is very valuable because if for example some bad person happens to know a few details of your life, your life may be compromised very badly. Bitcoin gave us all such freedom but it also attracted the attention of federal agencies so it is not as anonymous as it looks, don't rely too much on it's anonymity. If it is important to you , you can give a look to Monero or Zcash.

Afaik KYC and AML regulations only apply when a given cryptocurtency is traded for USD. In that case, people should really need to submit verification of identity in order for the trades to take place. However if it is for crypto pairs then there's no need to submit IDs and such. Also, anonymity is very subjective and broad. Yes, exchanges keep records of your trades but once you get your funds out of them, that is wherr your coin's anonymity features come to play.

Well giving ID proofs has a lot of problems because the government might anytime be informed that you are earning too much and you are using crypto which in some countries is now banned. And then there would be a truckload of legal issues on your head.

But yeah if crypto is allowed and you pay your taxes well then there is no need to hide your ID online.

Most of these exchanges don't ask for KML unless you are withdrawing huge amount of BTC, Poloniex for example we only has for more perssonal details about you if you are withdrawing more than $2000 per day.