Bitcoin Forum

Saw this today and think it sums up something I've thought for a long time that most bitcoiners didn't seem to get.


Think it's pretty relevant in light of the Ross Ulbricht.  Bitcoin is NOT anonymous.  And if one mistake is made in the future it can reveal all of your past.

Well, you are exaggerating but nobody disagrees that physical cash is more anonymous. It is also less useful.

More private yes, more transferrable no.

However, Bitcoin is more private than cash for larger volumes. It's very difficult to make a larger private transaction with cash. If you want to buy a house, how much volume does $250,000 in cash take up? A lot! But I can send a $250,000 equivalent of bitcoin easily, with low fees, and without the huge suitcase!

Also, in the US, if you withdraw $10,000 or more from a bank you have to fill out a special form, which allows the Government to track the withdrawal. No such requirement exists with Bitcoin!

What Possum said, its way more private and safe to transfer a big ass amount of money with BTC. The problem is it can raise alarms that such amount of money is being transfered.

But anyway this guy's problem was some stupid OpSec error as always, not the btc protocol's fault.

In any case, Monero is the way to go for true electronic cash. Get it with its cheap you freaks.

Traditional cash is always handy and it is called black money as well as there is no record of any transaction while there is in case of using bitcoins. However, bitcoin price always keeps fluctuating and I fear that in the near future it may not hold any value compared to traditional cash.

Well I really really doubt bitcoin is ever going to go below 1 dollar.

Yes, toilet paper is very anonymous. 

it doesnt hold its value over time. Bankers print that shit like toilet paper. They don't care about anonymity cause they own the judges. They are free to commit murder and all sorts of crimes. They are trying to make cash illegal.. Even if its a pipe dream, they do not like the anonymity of cash.

Bitcoin can be made to be incredibly private. Just don't be an idiot who buys drugs directly from Coinbase wallet..

The problem is that it is possible to track cash covertly can be tracked/traced. Additionally in large amounts, cash is not fungible as you will need to provide documentation as to your identity as well as the fact that you legitimately own the cash when you are dealing with large amounts of cash.

This is not the same with bitcoin

Yeah well there aren't thousands of atom bombs capable of destroying the planet & millions of man hours a year poured into technology for a military that insists toilet paper is worth something.

Also last time I checked.  Toilet paper has performed a hell of a lot better over the last several months than bitcoin.

Scott Toilet Paper:
https://i.imgur.com/ErnJGM2.jpg

Bitcoin:
https://i.imgur.com/z8u0HWU.jpg

Hm, I'm pretty sure you can get a DNA sample from a used piece of toilet paper.

Traditional cash works very well for in person transactions. It is when transacting over the Internet where the buyer and seller are thousands of km apart that one has to use a crypto currency to get any kind of privacy / fungibility / anonymity.  It is in the latter situation where Monero with ring signatures built right into the protocol really shines.

Cash is only anonymous for small transactions. You can however keep a bitcoin transaction anonymous for a big trade.

op is right, you can launder more money using cash than bitcoin,

oops then why are regulators trying to clamp down bitcoin by saying it's for illegal activities?

so it's actually the non bitcoiners that don't get it, not the bitcoiners

i thought it was unicornfacts for a moment

Traditional cash is not designed to be private. Each note is serialized and technically, banks, governments etc should have full knowledge of where every single dollar is. Sure bitcoin is publicly announced but when you consider how small a transaction is, how big the chain is, it would take some serious effort to point an address to a person.

If you wanted to exchange big numbers, generate an offline cold wallet and have funds sent to that.

There aren't a lot of situations I can think of where I would need total anonymity. I'm a law abiding, tax paying citizen. Trying to circumnavigate the system because I simply adhere to some high minded ideal of personal liberty is pointless for me. I do that kind of thing right out loud and in your face, consequences be damned.
I'm guessing most of the chest-beating anarcho capitalists here are just blowing smoke. If you really wanted to stay off the radar, why tout that here?
Be a f#%^ing grown up and pay your taxes

Paper bills feature serial numbers. They dont get scanned everywhere at the moment, but there is a webpage for tracking a paper bill's travel route available. Just like Trainspotting.

You're right, normally when everything in the world is fine, then there isn't a pressing reason for Average Joe to need strong anonymity.

But when history repeats itself again as it always does and another Hitler eventually rises to power, modern day Average Joe will be screwed without anonymity. They would have incredible control being able to know where Joe is in real time because Joe voluntarily carries around a trendy tracking device in their pocket, be able to hear/read everything Joe says, be able to know almost everything about Joe, his personality his interests, be able to know everybody Joe knows, be able to know where Joe normally goes on an average day, what Joe normally buys and be able to prevent Joe from buying stuff by cancelling his cards/bank, be able prevent Joe from leaving the country with border patrol, and ultimately be able prevent any kind of attempt at a revolt by Average Joe.

Cash money is only more private when you collect it in a box under your bed.

Too late. Already happened. If you really want out of the system you either have to make it work for you or abandon it completely.
Don't like GMOs? Throw out every peice of plastic you own. Don't like govt snooping? Never use telecommunications. Don't like big business? Never participate in consumer culture.
Real activism is hard. Going online and saying #freethepeople is easy. And it doesn't work.

Same thing for me. I have never actually used the advantage of anonymity, except for gambling maybe, because countries could be tapping into a lot of things.

Does it mean in addition to being pseudonomous it is pseudoprivate ?

I obviously understand the ease with which large sums can be transferred, but privacy ?? I think DarkCoin and some other clones are promising that. Maybe really private folks need to look there.

I'm just undecided as to the ethics of total anonymity.
On the one hand I enjoy my privacy.
On the other hand... Big money can use it to avoid their responsibilities.
It's a double edged sword.
How many billions are in numbered Swiss accounts and off-shore havens?
Privacy, even anonymity has always been available for a price.
"Free for those who can afford it, very expensive for those who can't."

See - I think this is the root of the issue.

As technology has evolved it has placed much more power in the hands of centralized power.  Either power that comes with wealth (avoid offshore taxes, hire lawyers, etc) or power that comes with actually being in power (NSA wire tapping, etc).

I watched a really good video by Gavin Wood who essentially said the idea of anonymity and privacy is not an "is" "is not" issue.  It's about making it cost prohibitive enough that the government is forced to pick their targets.  Not throw a blanket over an entire population.

I think the ancap is a completely failed idea.  As is libertarian (they are different).  Just look at the altcoin ann section.  THAT is ancap at it's finest.

I also feel democracy has failed.  So I'm not really sure where that leaves me.  But anyway.  I agree with you that the ethics of total anonymity are tricky.  But I think I lean towards the blockchain providing anonymity for all in the protocol to *try* to insulate the individual from the centralized powers that be.  This helps continue to level the playing fireld between the rich and the poor at the same time as far as functionality / what's available to them

You've been watching too many movies. Switzerland now shares all that information with the US: http://web.archive.org/web/20080611115027/http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/kd3795.htm
Not only that Swiss bank accounts were only popular among working class and not among the rich. Why? because if you are rich, you don't have to pay taxes.

Lets take Google as an example. I don't have any information on Google's "tax-evasion structure" in the US (however you can bet they have many tricks) however, outside of the US, Google is really called "Google Bermuda Unlimited", they are a company in Bermuda that doesn't have to publish any financials and has an office in Amsterdam (which has no employees and is a PO box), which is owned by Google Ireland in Dublin, where they have a datacenter that was pretty much paid for by the Irish government under a series of grants they got for "research".

The total amount of tax Google pays with this setup is only 2%! and they got a free datacenter. And it's completely legal, they didn't have to use any anonymity or off-shore bank accounts, just tactics and damn good lawyers who were able to convince tax authorities across the world that all of this makes total sense.

And don't forget the way taxes work is that you have to prove to them you don't owe more, they don't have to prove anything. The IRS will simply say "OK we think you made $1 million in Bitcoin that you didn't tell us about, prove you didn't or pay up".

Bitcoin is not anonymous, it's pseudonymous. But with the right precautions you can remain fairly anonymous using BTC, while paying cash requires physical presence, so not necessarily much anonymity here.


I ain't no expert, but it looks like a good time to buy  ;)

I tend to disagree. If you hold large amount of paper money for example like 100k, eventually you will need to involve banks. You can't just keep it in your house. And you can't carry that with you through airports. And if you deposit that amount there is every way to trace back where the money comes from. Tax collector will compile that piece of information. Whereas for bitcoin you can always make it more anonymous like for example mixing the coins around with other cryptos.