Anonymity In Bitcoin Should Be Upheld

[Sithara007]

I doubt if anything you do on the internet is fully anonymous, even if you use Tor / Proxies / Private VPN's etc. etc..

Most people do understand that Bitcoin is not fully anonymous... most of us, acctually promote it as being pseudonymous...

It would be stupid to have a blockchain or a Alt coin based on the blockchain {cough.. Ripple} where you can identify everyone and see all the transactions they do. {Stalkers / hackers / thiefs and marketers will have a field day, with that knowledge.

So we use the blockchain in a way to hide our "treasure" from the people, who wants to steal it. {The traditional banking system, hides it's ledger to protect your financial information... why not with Bitcoin?}

Governments or a skilled hacker CAN still trace your identity with Bitcoin, if they used a little effort. {Browser finger printing etc.}

Even the bank account or Paypal account used to withdrawal the equivalent money can be traceable very easily. Government is right now truing a blind eye towards it but it can be traceable within fraction of time.

[Amph]

Bitcoin is 100% anonymous,the users are the only ones that has to keep its anonymity,if nobody knows your address,your address is not linked to you,so you are anonymous

wehn you spend btc and you must spend them at the end, otherwise they become pointless, you will be caught , they can track you back anytime, it's not 100% anon at all, but at this point they could only know your position, not who you are

if you keep moving after every "spent", you should be pretty safe from tracking

[BitcoiNaked]

Bitcoins pseudonymity is the best option, more anonymity will attract bunch of scams and theft and criminals and will hurt a global currency more than it already does. If your goal is reaching mainstream then pushing for anonymity is the worst thing.

[ashour]

Once the dark wallet is complete bitcoin will be more anonymous for users who want to stay anonymous. Wallets liek coinbase try to extract as much private info as they can from their users so I would suggest you to use the dark wallet for anonymous bitcoin transcations.

[teukon]

I disagree again. The main strengths of BTC should be the lack of fees, easy access to financing from anywhere, application built at the top of the blockchain, etc.etc. Nothing related to anonymity. I will never advocate something which can help people avoid taxes, set dark markets, sell drugs, finance terrorism etc. I see this as unfortunate side effect of BTC which is there exactly due to the lack of any kind of control and consumer protection. Personally, I would like it to go away so we can have this beautiful new technology developing on new ideas, business, investment funds, increased financing options, BTC start-ups etc. All this has nothing to do with anonymity.

Why do you consider the Bitcoin technology beautiful?  Certainly, the underlying idea is clever, but all that it enables is a way of transferring wealth across the internet without the need to trust a 3rd party.  Mainstream financial networks need trusted 3rd parties to function, and a significant duty of those parties is in stymieing criminal activity.

If Bitcoin is beautiful to you, then the existing banking system should be more beautiful still, for this system:

• requires participants to register their personal information, information which is used to catch criminals.
• allows chargebacks used to reduce the effectiveness of fraud.
• enables lawful investment, big business, and start-ups.
• stores transactions in a small number of secure locations (rather than on thousands of nodes all over the world).
• processes transactions using a small number of protected servers (rather than via a global, wasteful, POW-based competition).
• allows monetary policy thought necessary to maintaining financial stability.
• allows state-approved banking with many regulations designed to prevent bad behaviour.
• allows lawful high-tech extensions deployed by huge companies (see developments by Apple, Google, and Facebook).
• is already mainstream and far less volatile than Bitcoin.

The first two points imply the reduced access and also make up for the lion's share of the fees.  One can argue that Bitcoin does lead to lower fees due to competition between potential transaction processors but, with no systemic anonymity, these processors would quickly become swamped in regulation and reporting requirements, killing off all but a handful of giants (parallel to VISA and MasterCard).

TL;DR:  Anonymity goes hand-in-glove with "low fees" and "easy access".