Bitcoin Forum

Since I registered as a member of this great forum, I discovered that almost every one in this Bitcointalk forum is Anonymous like each of our identity is hidden, age, location, country, and some other personal information.

Does it mean that our activities here just ends within the forum and doesn't extend to real life? And how do we cope with performing transactions with one another even when our identities are not known and in a case of fraudulent activities, how can the culprits be held responsible or accountable?

To start with, if you are talking about Bitcoin transactions, you obviously don't need to meet or know the person before you can carry out a transaction. All you need is a safe medium of communication which in this case is  Bitcoin talk.
For a more clear example, when you do p2p transactions on an exchange you don't have to know the seller or buyer personally. The idea of making yourself totally anonymous on this forum is smart move however it is not a command  as you can still share some of those info. The more you surf the forum you will definitely come across members with profiles updated with the data you made mention of above.

Not publishing your age, location, country, real name etc doesn't mean you're anonymous, the forum tracks your IP address. (https://bitcointalk.org/privacy.php) Even someone publicize those thing, they can fake it.

No, Silk Road was start in this forum (https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=3984.0), now he's in jail (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht)

If the scammer is big or popular, the administrators might handle it or they will give some information if the authority request to them.

The answer is very simple mate. This is a public forum. for all we know, there are different kinds of person surfing the forum as we speak. some are here to learn, some are here to make money, while some are here to steal from others. Exposing your personal information makes you completely vulnerable to these criminals amongst us. You may be blackmailed or even worse traced back to your home. Satoshi during his days spoke little about him self or his real identity that's what made him untraceable up until now. you can imagine how exposed he would have been if his real identity was known.

The admins has ways of countering such situations. But the truth is, the persons in real life can chose to go completely off the forum and if he have never disclosed a thing about his personal information, or rather links an address to a centralized body, nothing really can be done.  Most criminals, are easily caught using Centralized bodies like exchange since, you have to do the kyc upon creating of an account.

Yes the Bitcointalk community likes to keep their real identities separate from their forum account. Some users do not care about their privacy and may choose to share personal information here. Though it is not advisable, there is no rule against doing so.

Before you enter a trade with anyone on the forum, you should check their profile for their trust feedback. If you ignore this and get scammed by someone on the forum. The only action the community can take is to paint that account red but that’s it.

It depends, some people choose to end everything about the forum here in the forum. While some people from the forum connects with one another outside the forum base on their dealings or friendship, especially people from the same locality.

Trust mate...This forum relies on trust and that is why members here are doing their best to see that they build a good reputation for themselves.

There is no way that anyone can be held responsible for scamming a forum member, because he is anonymous and in a different location. That person account will only be tagged to render it useless, but the person walks away. This is why it is advisable to do business with high rank members with good reputation, who would not want to stain his account. However, there was a cold key scam was took place here in the forum from a reputable member, and all those he scam could not do anything.

No, i've seen few uses reveals their identity. Meetups (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=86.0) board also exist, although these days it's used to promote meetups with commercial/advertising aspect.


That is why using escrow is recommended. Although for "small" scale scam, it's definitely hard to held scammer responsible/accountable.

This is the same on virtually any forum on the internet.

I can only talk for myself, but I prefer to keep my real life away from Bitcointalk.

That's always a risk, but fraud happens in real life too.

To be anonymous, you need to use Tor anytime you want to visit this forum.

For trading and businesses, you can use escrow if the member you are dealing with is not reputed. If the member is reputed, signing a message with bitcoin address or proving you are the real person using PGP signature is important.

I would say it's the other way around. Our digital life is an "extension" of our real life in the physical world.


You can always decide to share your personal information with a select few, if the situation requires it. This does not mean that you have to share your identity with the general public.


Here's where personal responsibility and accountability comes in. Even with anonymity, there are still ways to encourage responsible behavior. Reputation systems can track a user's history of transactions, helping identify potential scammers. For higher-value transactions, you should only use trusted platforms and/or escrow services.

Yeah, the forum promotes anonymity because you don't need KYC to register or engage in discussion. But you also need to put some effort into promoting your privacy such as using Tor browser or other anonymity programs. However, some members know each other physically and this might be very common in local boards. Most members of local boards are closely knitted and might even come from the same community. I have read posts where members attest to meeting each other physically.

Most people use escrow services offered by reputable members of the forum to carryout financial transactions. The reputation of a member could also serve as a guarantee or collateral for financial transactions. This is why it is not advisable to engage in financial transactions with a newbie or a member without a reputation. Some members offer lending services and in most cases their collateral is the reputation of their account.

The punishment for engaging in fraudulent activities is negative trust. Suchmembers's accounts will become a trade or business risk and the red trust is a sign that warns people about trading or engaging in any financial transactions with such person. An account that has such negative trust will become worthless economically. This is why it is important to deal with high-ranking and trusted members because many of them will not want to destroy their accounts or reputations because of small financial transactions.

Many here earn some kind of money, through Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency. Of course, that money has an impact on real life.
For example, I spent a total of more than 220 days on this forum, that's 220 days of my life that I spent reading or participating in this forum instead of some real-life things.

Yes, perhaps most people like to keep there real life issues away from a public forum like this but that doesn't mean we are completely anonymous to each other.

Most time you can know someone's country, location, etc through rigorous observation and via local board visited etc but it's partially agreeable.

Yes partially, our activities ends here but if one commits a crime he or she can be tracked, hence it is being extended to real life.

since our IP address are been tracked, if one commits a crime, then he or she could be traced if the forum admins permits that. so one should be careful with what we do in the forum because we are not completely anonymous, it's only in our subjectivity that we feel anonymous whereas it's never so. here is a quote on the forum variations
So it's all on the forum admin if one should be held responsible for his or her crime.

To remain completely anonymous on the Internet, you need a good understanding of each action. But here on the forum, if you don’t want to talk about yourself, which sometimes happens, you may be recognized by other coincidences that you may not even suspect. In particular, your social networks or your telegram address. Did you know that it is possible to find out your IP address by clicking on a link sent to you by email or social network? According to your identical nicknames, which people out of habit can use on the Internet, doing something stupid and posting their photos and data. Therefore, if you want not to be associated with any part of life in your real life offline, always understand that once you leave information or photos here, the archives will remember everything, and perhaps those who need it will be able to track you.
Big Brother is always with us. :)

What about the IP address, you can be tracked on that occasion, but am not saying the forum will do such, but know this for future purpose, if you're also using a centralized exchange and still claim being anonymous, then it's better to tell the truth that nothing is hidden anymore about yourself.


5his forum is another community entirely different from the society you're used to, you choose who or what to become here by the virtue of your significance.


It's through p2p, that is more trusted and secured, but using a centralized exchange is not the best, they have your KYC with them, no one will be responsible for any untrusted interactions you made with anyone.

I'm impressed with the personal view of everyone that has responded to this thread so far and I say thank you all for giving your opinions and also helping me gain some knowledge and information about the forum, I'm overwhelmed by the responses I have gotten so far and I also look forward to having more experience and also sharing experience within my stay here in the forum.

Hmmm! Meaning everyone's activities here is under watch right? That's interesting and would even make the system more transparent and reliable since every users activities can be seen by all.

But do we have some police and probably FBI here? Lol and the judiciary as well to bring perpetrators of illegal and untrusted activities to book?

Bitcointalk is a public forum, and just like any other forum, one's details cannot unnecessarily be revealed, even for security and privacy reasons, it is forbidden, though the forum admin may know more about the user. Regardless, you may still make friends on the forum, but you need to be careful about it. People are making friends but anything that has to do with financial transactions must be thought through thoroughly before proceeding.

I've read people tagging users Red, Neutral and Green, which means that transactions with users here could be Bad, Ugly and Good respectively, it all depends on the person in question. But don't forget that no matter the outcome of what you transact here, you can't trace the person, period! This is why you should be more careful and it is not a must you transact with people here. But if you must do that, just do it with those with good reputations here and who are in good campaigns. By this, you can report them and hold them accountable, nonetheless, you must have verifiable and undeniable proof(s).

This is not exactly true, there are members who didn't hide their real life identity, for example Hal Finney, so I wouldn't say that everyone is anonymous.
Than everyone knows that member MemoryDealers is Roger Ver, and member gmaxwell is developer Gregory Maxwell, the guy who first came up with CoinJoin, and he is still active in forum to this day.

Bitcoin transactions doesn't have to do anything with your personal information, unless you are using fiat currencies or physical items for trading with your real life address.

Some users aren't entirely anonymous and that is mostly in the local boards, most of us in our local boards were introduced to this forum by brothers/friends that are already a member.


From my findings here in the forum and off forum it is said that even Satoshi the founder of Bitcoin has remained anonymous till date and I believe he designed the anonymity to allow users to protect their privacy and financial information. Personally I like the anonymity in this forum because it will allow more open and honest discussion without the fear of judgement or being criticized for your opinion.

I don't know the type of transaction you are taking about but I don't think Bitcoin transactions requires your personal information, I can see that most users are wearing signature campaign and they get paid through transaction without knowing the owner or manager of the campaign in real life (I stand to be corrected if am wrong)
Am sure you know that there are scammers amongst us, likewise real life, and they can only get to you if you choose to expose your personal or financial information.

Actually not everyone hides their identity in the forum. Some people have identified their gender, some people also do indicate their location (but rarely), we have known the age of some. Especially our 80+ user here. It is safe to say that bitcointalk values freedom. It is at your wish to expose or hide your info and as well as to browse with concealed IP or not

You can hang out to the people in your locals, there's nothing wrong about that. Also, bitcointalk reputation system plays a good role here.

It does not mean your activity here is under watch per se, but anything you do on the internet is somewhat public and if you give away too many details, it can be used by the relevant authorities to identify you. Mind you that the forum does not moderate scam and the system is not built to protect you, you have to protect yourself, so learn how to do that.

Having said that, as for if the FBI is here, who knows, anybody can register an account here and they do not have to make their identity public when doing so. Even if the FBI or police is here, they are not here to protect you, they can lurk around if they are trying to uncover a big scam or something related to a Bitcoin mixer.

if they are tracking illicit BTC transactions and they land here looking for the owner of the BTC address in the forum, they will be watching and i think they are already here watching. Ulbrich was tracked because of his posts here in the forum.  identifying users by their real names will still be difficult unless the user did something big and crazy crime. he will not get away with it.

i remember Theymos asked KYC to everyone as his April Fools prank, there were actually users sending their documents lol i bet if he do it again, there would be users going to send IDs still.

Our personal information can extend to real life as it is your own decision, whether you want to remain anonymous or want to share your personal information with someone else just to make some trades with other members. Well, your way of thinking is very straightforward but don't you think someone can copy your personal information that you will make public and can make another account to scam other members? This means personal information can't be used as a token of confirmation to make successful trades with other members.

You should first learn how the forum members are making trades with each other, there is trust system on this forum which will tells you whom to trust and whom to not. Well, besides that I suggest don't make trades with new members, make trades with old and trusted members. But the chance of getting scammed is still there. So, DYOR before making any trades with unknown member.

To become a trusted user - you just need to build your reputation well. Bitcoin user anonymity is a form of privacy that you may need to maintain even though some of the users here know each other in real life. You don't need to trust all the users you meet on forum - especially when it comes to money, there are always risks.

You might want to read this one: https://bitcointalk.org/privacy.php

You will notice that when FTX was destroyed from the market it took thousands of people's wealth. And the big whales are basically anonymous and (the anonymous ones aren't anonymous) will share their identity with you if you want to know their identity. Therefore, when big institutions are destroyed, it is definitely punished, this is the proof of Ross Ulbricht. Sam Backman Fried (SBF) currently serving a prison sentence.

SBF-Ross Ulbricht (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5436753.msg61653701#msg61653701)


Bitcoin forums can certainly know your identity by checking the IP, so that's the biggest proof.

When was this? 2021 or 2022? Because there's no way this is your first account. Look at your post history: sucking up to JJG, making lists of meritable posts, involving yourself in Reputational matters, making generic posts in Beginners & Help and then some Gambling section posts as you are readying yourself to one day apply for a casino sig spot. (For what is likely to be your 3rd or 4th account, if not more).


Unless you commit some kind of grand-scale federal crime, no your activities don't extend to real life. Unless you piss off a billionaire con artist and then he comes after you to smear your reputation across the internet I guess.


Use trustless options when available, 3rd party swappers or sales markets. Otherwise, trust is all you have. Even if you choose an escrow, you still have to trust them.

Just remember: nothing is as it appears, especially outside of this forum. If you get screwed making a deal off-forum, well that's totally on you. If you get screwed making a deal on-forum, well its probably your fault for being too trusting, but at least we can red paint the scammer.

Good points, and I'd say that in general bitcoin was created by and for people who value their privacy, and that's reflected in bitcointalk's membership.  This isn't a forum about cars or scuba diving, where members likely wouldn't give a second's thought about filling in their real age, gender, location, and whatever else in their profile.

Given how governments have been demonizing bitcoin (and really, cryptocurrency in general), it'd be a bad move to not try to stay as anonymous as you can here.  It's kind of like how nobody ever, ever mentions how much bitcoin they own, right?


Oh, I'm sure there are quite a few agencies that have members registered or at least lurking here.

I believe this as well. Probably a lot of alphabet soup within the boards of this forum. I would say a big IRS presence as the government always wants to get their piece of everyone's pie.

The mixers being gone might have calmed down some of the other alphabet soups presence.

I thought about this also. If these few agencies have eyes here, it should happen when chipmixer was seized and first time this forum was mentioned as where he advertised. Maybe agencies deemed it fit to track what is happening here after the incident.
Now mixers are no longer here, they shouldn't be watching nothing or casinos.

It depends. Some forum members created their accounts with real-life names but were still anonymous. You don't know anything about him except his name. If you care about your privacy, it is recommended not to share your personal information online. Create a virtual identity, contribute to this identity, and make it unique.

Some people haven't even shared their real names. They made their usernames so unique and valuable with their contributions that people imagine a character when they hear the username. For example, when I imagine the username LoyceV, I could imagine a thick-skinned guy with a lot of patience and technical knowledge—nothing fancy! I wrote his username as an example. But there are a lot more.

He's on my ignore list already, which usually isn't a good sign of being a quality poster. OP abandoned his topic the same day he created it. I guess because it failed to earn Merit.

If someone breaks a deal, knowing the real name of a guy on the other side of the planet isn't going to help you.

Seems like he abandoned the idea of trying to use the account altogether as he hasn't posted in 5 days. There's a large chance they are part of a multi-tentacled account farm -- their style of posting definitely looks familiar. He didn't even get any feedback yet: maybe he's already looking for a re-sale, lol.

True, indeed. But if someone wants to stay anonymous, they know what they should not reveal. Revealing the real or country name won't help them find someone. It depends on the person's level of anonymity and how he likes to create an image of himself. You and some other users created a character for your username in this forum, and you guys haven't publicly shared your real name. Some specific members may know your name if you share it privately. But, that isn't enough to break your privacy!

No, they will not.

Try and have any agency request information on the approx 6,000 BTC that OGNasty stole from the community.  Theymos has said he will only give out that information with a court order.   And even then, you'll need to contact witness sites (ninja, loyce) to verify what he releases.  

6,000 btc is big, and OGNasty was a popular escrow when he scammed. 

Bitcointalk is a website like any other and Theymos makes sure that we are as free and private as possible. Which we all appreciate very much. But if the feds come knocking, they will get your IP address and they will find out who you are. Theymos won't fight the feds and none of us would expect him to. But the question here would be: why are the feds after you in the first place? This forum is not a criminal haven. It is just a forum.

Scammers are just usually small fish and they won't get caught because of that. Now, if some big cartel boss would be using Bitcointalk to conduct his illegal business, that is a different story.

That is a false statement.   You only need to look at Theymos.   He paid OGNasty after the community caught OG stealing donated coins.   He has treated all donated coins as his own, setting up his buddies for life.   He ordered myself and others to remove negative trust against OG.   

I thought this forum was under investigation over a year ago, but it turned out to be a stall tactic.   Even Federal agents can be bribed if you have a billion dollars.  :)

I'm afraid they will have to  :)
Seems unlikely to me...but what you meant was that Theymos's action became detrimental at some point? Which is why he said this? That's the only thing that came into my mind when I read the bold part of your post.
I've been following this case for quite a long time now... Vod, how about filing a lawsuit for this case? ^{[and your website isn't ready just like we discussed via PMS]?}

I was already satisfied with the opinion of users here previously that is why I didn't pay much attention to this topic anymore and if you check the last comment on this post was made on 21-03-2024 and the thread became inactive before @Sceptical Chymist made comment on the 14th of April.

Sorry if I have gotten myself in your ignore list, I have been occupied with real life activities that is why I haven't been stable online or to respond to this thread. I assume seeking for knowledge shouldn't be misinterpreted as phishing for merit

Hope you un-ignore me in the future when my real life commitments become lesser and i become more active in the forum.

Here was my satisfactory response before i became inactive

In this case, if you are satisfied with the answers, and in order not to turn the topic into a mega thread, simply close it. Your question was relevant to you, but in order not to look like a person who opens a bunch of topics and then abandons them, know how to press the “lock topic” button on time.

Thanks for your suggestion and your opinion, will do just that ASAP.