Bitcoin Forum

I was just thinking after reading an article about how easy it is to trace bitcoin
back to where you bought it and who you are.
Say you buy 1btc from a website where you verify and send your id, bank account
details confirmed etc. etc. this is obviously not very anonymous, so potentially, could
you just make, say 5 different wallets, only 1 of which is connected to your account
on the exchange site, then just send your received bitcoin through all 5 leaving it in
the 5th one.
Surely this would mean it would be incredibly hard to trace back to the
first purchase? This is all theoretical, I don't even own bitcoins, but is just an interesting
idea, I'm sure it has been discussed before but I couldn't find anything. So do you think this
would work to make sure your bitcoins were always unassociated with you and anonymous?

It will help a bit, your transaction is still connected in a straight line with the others, someone having your data from the first address wouldn't know it's your address, but they could assume it.
Using a mixing service is way more effective.

hmm, interesting reading, thanks :)

What about transferring funds to a random Gambling account.  Then transfer internally from one gambling account to another (within the same site) then withdrawal to a different wallet.  Technically only the merchant would know that there was a transfer between accounts.

Depends on the inner workings of that gambling website. A lot of websites will mix up the coins anyway, e.g. inputs.io.