Bitcoin Forum

 hello one question,Is Bitcoin anonymous?

No its not

It is considered pseudo-anonymous. With casual usage, it is not very anonymous at all. Transactions occur between cryptographic addresses and anyone can create any number of these addresses. However, Bitcoin transactions can be traced back to your IP address

It can be considered as partially. You do not need verifications to create addresses and use them. You do not have to state your name or expose your private keys when making purchases. However, since all the transactions can be seen on the blockchain, if the address can be linked back to you by sources, people can monitor your activites. Using a new address for each purchase and using a mixing service can easily migrate this kind of risks.

Bitcoin transactions cannot be traced back to your IP address. Bitcoin transactions are broadcasted across nodes and only the node's IP address which first relays the transaction is displayed. They can be broadcasted using a shared wallet so the IP address is not accurate. Unless you state your IP address somewhere along with your address, no one can find out about your IP address. Also, if you are paranoid about this, you can always use tor to broadcast your transactions.

Good explanation in the FAQ of bitcoin.org

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

Bitcoin is designed to allow its users to send and receive payments with an acceptable level of privacy as well as any other form of money. However, Bitcoin is not anonymous and cannot offer the same level of privacy as cash. The use of Bitcoin leaves extensive public records. Various mechanisms exist to protect users' privacy, and more are in development. However, there is still work to be done before these features are used correctly by most Bitcoin users.

Some concerns have been raised that private transactions could be used for illegal purposes with Bitcoin. However, it is worth noting that Bitcoin will undoubtedly be subjected to similar regulations that are already in place inside existing financial systems. Bitcoin cannot be more anonymous than cash and it is not likely to prevent criminal investigations from being conducted. Additionally, Bitcoin is also designed to prevent a large range of financial crimes.

it is not anonymous as soon as you write your address in some place in the internet that address is not anonymous any more and linked transactions with that address may not be anonymous either

Not itself, depends on how you handle with your address (if you post your name and addy together, anonymity is gone).
Use pseudonyms and new addy for every transaction, that should give you certain level of anonymity.

And that's why you should never ever reuse your addresses if you want to have better privacy. :)

It is to a certain extent but once you use your address you no longer have the same amount of privacy that you had before which is why it is wise to use different addresses to keep your privacy if you wish to.

I would use XMR if you are looking for total anonimity tho

Bitcoin is anonymous is the fact that it's not a centralized currency like the other e-currencies and doesn't need any verification,But the transactions are public so its semi anonymous

Bitcoin is not anonymous, you can see all the transcations on blockchain.info. Monero is a truely anonymous coin.

Bitcoin transaction is public. Everyone can see it on the blockchain.
But if you do things right, it should be very hard to connect the bitcoin address to the person behind it.

Not entirely true.

Anonymity on bitcoin is largely depend on how you use it.

It's not. You still have the information written in a public ledger, called block chain.

It's partially anonimous, the transactions can be tracked through blockexplorer's websites but if someone use often the mixing services, it's really hard to follow their routes.

Even if mixed if he would go to spend it someone would know he is receiving item/service if you buy something.

My advice is if your that worried about what your spending it on you should rethink what your buying.

Bitcoin isn't anonymous, if you want to hide something maybe it's better to try some altcoins built with that in mind.

Why couldn't make they Bitcoin totally anonymous? this is kinda sucky. I dont want to know that i moved money to another country or some shit, no one wants that but thats the point of Bitcoin, so why not make it anonymous from the let go?

Bitcoin is not anonymous by default, but there are definitely ways to be more anonymous with it. I wouldn't say that it can't be anonymous. There are trustless mixers already, and there are lots of people working on other (trustless, and non-trustless) solutions to anonymity

Well, the core devs could change the code of the program, but unless the majority of bitcoin users support the change, it will just create a new hard-forked altcoin.

Use Blockchain's sharedcoin service for every transaction. It may not be perfect but its free and 100x more anonymous than regular bitcoin transactions

I wish all these solutions would be implemented by default.  :)

What's this sharedcoin thing? Is it on blockchain.info or something else?

It is a service provided by blockchain.info.
You can find it in the "Send Money" section after logging in your blockchain.info wallet (on the left hand side panel).

You can use it anonymously if you know exactly how to do it (hiding IP, using mixing addresses, ...).

Thanks for all !