Bitcoin anonymous or private?

[Zilon]

In the world of transaction it is believed that an anonymous transaction is one where the intermediary third party does not know the issuer and payer and a private transaction as one with hidden information on why a transaction was made, the date of the transaction and the amount sent.

if we take our decentralized coin (Bitcoin) for instance that is solely P2P, the amount of coin own on our respective wallet is limitless provided it is not centralized giving us complete privacy to how much of the coin we own. But in the case of its transaction the public ledger provides a timestamp to every transaction made on the blockchain with the respective addresses, amount and time sent.

If we say Bitcoin is anonymous how many Bitcoin users use DEXs. DEXs aside as long as identities are no where recorded on the blockchain we can say Bitcoin is anonymous. But how anonymous is bitcoin?
Since Bitcoin address owners need to reveal their identities during business when payment of goods and services are been made during transaction then it can't be said to be fully anonymous. OR is the anonymous nature of Bitcoin just restricted to third party intermediaries?

What will we say then is Bitcoin, anonymous or private?

[Charles-Tim]

Bitcoin transactions are not anonymous, it is pseudonymous (semi anonymous) because it can be in a way the sender and the receiver can be anonymous or have privacy, but the blockchain is completely available to the public.

Many people are using bitcoin in a way they can easily be traced as they are using SPV wallet which connects some wallet addresses together and also using it with IP address from service provider which can be easily traced to their real identity.

But to be anonymous, it is good to use Tor with SPV wallet. Anonymous because central server can still connect many addresses of the same wallet together, but Tor will make it very difficult to trace the transactions connected to the addresses to the owner's real identity.

For privacy, run your own node, like use Bitcoin Core or any other full client wallet with Tor.

But most people are using bitcoin in a way they can neither have privacy nor to be anonymous, example is when they sychronized their wallet with IP address connection, when shopping online (the shopping site used can link their transaction to their real identity for service or item ordered for delivery) etc.

[Upgrade00]

if we take our decentralized coin (Bitcoin) for instance that is solely P2P, the amount of coin own on our respective wallet is limitless provided it is not centralized giving us complete privacy to how much of the coin we own.

You actually do not have complete privacy to how much of a coin you own on a particular address. All addresses are publicly verifiable, especially when sending out a transaction and the amounts on it can be checked through a blockchain explorer. What an explorer cannot do, is tell you who owns the address, hence the pseudo anonymity.

Since Bitcoin address owners need to reveal their identities during business when payment of goods and services are been made during transaction then it can't be said to be fully anonymous. OR is the anonymous nature of Bitcoin just restricted to third party intermediaries?

If I reveal an address for a transaction, let's say on the forum, it has to be posted publicly for a third party to link it to me, so I'm not fully de-anonymized. Also, the 2nd party who I'm revealing my address to, does not know of any other addresses I own.

What will we say then is Bitcoin, anonymous or private?

Pseudo anonymous, and public.

[Dunamisx]

If we say Bitcoin is anonymous how many Bitcoin users use DEXs

To the best of my knowledge, bitcoin isn't stored o the wallets or types of wallets used, it is stored on the blockchain, both the centralized exchanges and decentralized exchange uses the same blockchain distributed ledger to store our coins, the only difference is on who posses the keys to access those coins in question, another good example is everyone here on the forum is believed to have come from different countries and it's of no use to begin a research on every user's location as route of entry here, on blockchain technology, all user's data remains private and immutable even though it's render for public view but no alteration is permitted.

[nakamura12]

Bitcoin is pseudonymous which means it is not completely anonymous because blockchain is available to public where you can watch and check Bitcoin transactions and it could also be traced. There is a website where you can check Bitcoin transactions such as these known blockchain explorers like mempool.space, blockchain.com and blockchain.com. What I mostly use is mempool.space and sometimes blockchair.com. An identity could also be linked to a wallet address that a person is using if your identity and wallet address that you use is exposed just like Hal Finney's wallet address (I'm sure that you know the story about it).

[KingsDen]

Bitcoin is pseudonymous which means it is not completely anonymous because blockchain is available to public where you can watch and check Bitcoin transactions and it could also be traced. There is a website where you can check Bitcoin transactions such as these known blockchain explorers like mempool.space, blockchain.com and blockchain.com. What I mostly use is mempool.space and sometimes blockchair.com. An identity could also be linked to a wallet address that a person is using if your identity and wallet address that you use is exposed just like Hal Finney's wallet address (I'm sure that you know the story about it).

Yes, bitcoin is pseudonymous rather than anonymous. Many people confuse the two and use them interchangeably. Bitcoin transactions are public and your wallet address van be linked to your identity through many ways which include but not limited to using one address repeatedly, using unsecured network and lots more.
At the same vein a privacy conscious human can achieve anonymity with bitcoin. I think Satoshi did. And we should also follow his footsteps only if we care of our identity. It takes discipline and careful carefulness to maintain anonymous status in this social media age.

[lobo13hf]

If we say Bitcoin is anonymous how many Bitcoin users use DEXs. DEXs aside as long as identities are no where recorded on the blockchain we can say Bitcoin is anonymous.

Not so much, liquidity problem has been preventing bitcoin users to use dex.

But how anonymous is bitcoin?

That's pseudo when it comes to the p2p transaction but when it comes to the centralized exchange transaction and yeah it's not even anon or peudo anymore. These days centralized exchanges were forcing its users to complete KYC verification which means exchange site can know your identity easily.

Since Bitcoin address owners need to reveal their identities during business when payment of goods and services are been made during transaction then it can't be said to be fully anonymous.

Agreed

OR is the anonymous nature of Bitcoin just restricted to third party intermediaries?

It doesn't rely with third party intermediaries

What will we say then is Bitcoin, anonymous or private?

Bitcoin being anon pr pseudo when it comes to the private transaction between person to person. In my opinion if anything that related to the centralized exchange site will not be anonymous again. Even if you were using monero as the best anon coin but exchange site can still know who are you.

[witcher_sense]

What will we say then is Bitcoin, anonymous or private?

Bitcoin is neither anonymous nor private. All transactions in the bitcoin network have unique identifiers (pseudonyms) that can potentially be associated with the real identities of the people making them. Moreover, each transaction transfers unique indivisible chunks of bitcoin, which further breaks the anonymity of a sender. If you are using a service that requires identity verification, all transactions sent or received from this service will be, by definition, deanonymized. If, however, bitcoin transactions were indistinguishable from each other (no special signs that are tellings us which transaction is which), bitcoin could be said to have anonymity on a protocol level. As for privacy (one's ability to control when and which personal data are to be shared with the world), bitcoin doesn't provide it either (by default). In order to achieve decent privacy for your transactions, you need to use certain tools that help obfuscate your transaction history. These tools aren't perfect in the sense that they don't protect users from themselves, and require them to practice good privacy-preserving behavior after obfuscation is finished.

[ImThour]

I would say Bitcoin transaction is not anonymous nor private. It's a sort of transaction where until and unless you know the personal identity of the user who is sending/receiving on the blockchain, they remain anonymous.
For example, you can see on Bitcoin Rich List how much amount of BTC Binance's Cold Wallet is holding. It got a tag on their address and it completely ruins their privacy.
And now if they send funds to any other address, that will be traced, thanks to the transparency of the blockchain.

[Despairo]

Both anonymous and private are a same thing, if you're ask "Bitcoin is anonymous or pseudonymous?" then absolutely Bitcoin is pseudonymous since we can track the transactions on public ledger, but we can't know who're the owner of those address if they're not using and giving their KYC to centralized party.

Anonymous and private mean we can't track the transactions is.

[_act_]

Both anonymous and private are a same thing, if you're ask "Bitcoin is anonymous or pseudonymous?" then absolutely Bitcoin is pseudonymous since we can track the transactions on public ledger, but we can't know who're the owner of those address if they're not using and giving their KYC to centralized party.

Anonymous and private mean we can't track the transactions is.

Bitcoin transaction is pseudonymous, I agree but anonymous and privacy are not the same.

Privacy is when you use bitcoin in a way your addresses can not be tracked together in a way each addresses can not be linked together. You can acheive this if you use full client wallet, like bitcoin core together with tor so that to trace you and also link your addresses will be difficult. They do not know that two, three or many addresses belong to a single person, that is private enough.

Anonymous in the sense that you can use a wallet like the light clients like electrum, your wallet can sychronize with blockchain with the help of central server, central server can know many of your wallet address, but if you use it with tor, the central server can not know your IP address. They know that many addresses belong to one person, but they do not know the person.

[2stout]

More anonymous than private.  Not really private in that you can follow the public blockchain, really pseudo-anonymous in that identities aren't know but can be discovered.  For the best of both worlds= Monero.

[LTU_btc]

It's neither anonymous, neither private. Bitcoin is pseudo anonymous currency. And with details of every wallet, transaction and etc on public blockchain, it simply can't be private. If you want anonymous currency with privacy, you should look at other coins like Monero, Zcash and others.
Offcourse, lot of things depends on how you use Bitcoin. If you're using centralised wallets, reuse same addresses multiple times and etc, about what privacy we can talk about?

[Upgrade00]

Both anonymous and private are a same thing,
...
Anonymous and private mean we can't track the transactions is.

Anonymity and privacy are not the same thing.
Privacy essentially means that no one can track your activity, and being a public ledger, all transactions are visible and traceable.
Anonymity or pseudo anonymity, means that the activities on the blockchain cannot be linked to any real life identity or that multiple addresses cannot be linked together based off the flow of transactions.

With visible blocks, it's impossible to hide a transaction, but you can alienate it from any individual.