Bitcoin anonymity

[Somekindabitcoin]

User A -> illegal drug money -> tumbler

User B -> illegal Ponzi money -> tumbler

User C -> terrorist financing -> tumbler

Tumble - Tumble - Tumble

Tumbler -> User A = illegal Ponzi money and terrorist financing

Tumbler -> User B = illegal drug money and terrorist financing

Tumbler -> User C = illegal drug money and illegal Ponzi money

User A, B, C -> Coinbase

Coinbase = Sorry we've confiscated your bitcoins because they were blacklisted.

LOL

Quote from Bitmixer:

I'm not a criminal. Why should I mix my coins?
Virtual currency is part of the here and now, but with it comes the need to “guard your wallet.” BitMixer’s high volume bitcoin mixer keeps your identity safe by offering premium mixing service with the ability to handle even the largest bitcoin transactions.

anyone normal wants to stay anonymous

[shorena]

-snip-
Thank you for this nicely explained post.


Monero has the solution for this? If yes, it probably will rise fast and become a serious contender.

Alts are not my strong suit, sorry, but there are probably many alts that focus on anonymous transactions.

User A -> illegal drug money -> tumbler

User B -> illegal Ponzi money -> tumbler

User C -> terrorist financing -> tumbler

Tumble - Tumble - Tumble

Tumbler -> User A = illegal Ponzi money and terrorist financing

Tumbler -> User B = illegal drug money and terrorist financing

Tumbler -> User C = illegal drug money and illegal Ponzi money

User A, B, C -> Coinbase

Coinbase = Sorry we've confiscated your bitcoins because they were blacklisted.

LOL

Quote from Bitmixer:

I'm not a criminal. Why should I mix my coins?
Virtual currency is part of the here and now, but with it comes the need to “guard your wallet.” BitMixer’s high volume bitcoin mixer keeps your identity safe by offering premium mixing service with the ability to handle even the largest bitcoin transactions.

anyone normal wants to stay anonymous

Coinbase does not care, AFAIK they actually do this or at least have done so at least once in the past.

[Skeksis]

anyone normal wants to stay anonymous

Normal? Most normal people don't care or not to the point where they mix their money several times. I think the pseudo anonymity of bitcoin is enough for most people.

[QuestionAuthority]

User A -> illegal drug money -> tumbler

User B -> illegal Ponzi money -> tumbler

User C -> terrorist financing -> tumbler

Tumble - Tumble - Tumble

Tumbler -> User A = illegal Ponzi money and terrorist financing

Tumbler -> User B = illegal drug money and terrorist financing

Tumbler -> User C = illegal drug money and illegal Ponzi money

User A, B, C -> Coinbase

Coinbase = Sorry we've confiscated your bitcoins because they were blacklisted.

LOL

Quote from Bitmixer:

I'm not a criminal. Why should I mix my coins?
Virtual currency is part of the here and now, but with it comes the need to “guard your wallet.” BitMixer’s high volume bitcoin mixer keeps your identity safe by offering premium mixing service with the ability to handle even the largest bitcoin transactions.

anyone normal wants to stay anonymous

Of course a company making money mixing coins is going to say that. There is no reason to mix coins other than to hide your transactions. I'm not passing judgement. Who wants to pay taxes or be busted buying drugs? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

I do think tumblers work fairly well but you don't need to be fleeced by a tumbler service to hide your coins. Greg Maxwell was working on a service to do it for free. I'll see if I can find the thread and post it.

[harrymmmm]

There is no reason to mix coins other than to hide your transactions. I'm not passing judgement. Who wants to pay taxes or be busted buying drugs? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

Seriously?

You wouldn't mind people knowing your salary?

You would be ok with your bitcoin company's profits being calculable from your payments to suppliers, customer receipts, etc?

[errornone]

There is no reason to mix coins other than to hide your transactions. I'm not passing judgement. Who wants to pay taxes or be busted buying drugs? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

Seriously?

You wouldn't mind people knowing your salary?

You would be ok with your bitcoin company's profits being calculable from your payments to suppliers, customer receipts, etc?

i think i will invest in monero. it solves that problem.

[Amph]

There is no reason to mix coins other than to hide your transactions. I'm not passing judgement. Who wants to pay taxes or be busted buying drugs? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

Seriously?

You wouldn't mind people knowing your salary?

You would be ok with your bitcoin company's profits being calculable from your payments to suppliers, customer receipts, etc?

i think i will invest in monero. it solves that problem.

monero cannot be used directly(i'm not aware of shops that accept it), you need at some point to return to bitcoin, at least try to use two exchanges to perform this

until zerocoin/darkwallet or some unknown sidechain will be implemented to solve this little issue the best solution is cryptonight at the moment

[oblivi]

User A -> illegal drug money -> tumbler

User B -> illegal Ponzi money -> tumbler

User C -> terrorist financing -> tumbler

Tumble - Tumble - Tumble

Tumbler -> User A = illegal Ponzi money and terrorist financing

Tumbler -> User B = illegal drug money and terrorist financing

Tumbler -> User C = illegal drug money and illegal Ponzi money

User A, B, C -> Coinbase

Coinbase = Sorry we've confiscated your bitcoins because they were blacklisted.

LOL

Quote from Bitmixer:

I'm not a criminal. Why should I mix my coins?
Virtual currency is part of the here and now, but with it comes the need to “guard your wallet.” BitMixer’s high volume bitcoin mixer keeps your identity safe by offering premium mixing service with the ability to handle even the largest bitcoin transactions.

anyone normal wants to stay anonymous

Like someone mentioned, if someone like Coinbase has a policy of investigating the origin of the Bitcoins you send and they find out they come from criminal activities then you are in trouble, even if you had NO IDEA that those coins were in Silk Road sometime ago. This really sucks and will hinder mainstream adoption. It kills fungibility. The average end user should not care about it and not have that worry on their mind. I myself avoid stuff like Coinbase because who the hell knows where the Bitcoins that you got come from? It's a joke, but I don't really see a way around this as long as the blockchain is an open ledger... any solutions?

[harrymmmm]

Like someone mentioned, if someone like Coinbase has a policy of investigating the origin of the Bitcoins you send and they find out they come from criminal activities then you are in trouble, even if you had NO IDEA that those coins were in Silk Road sometime ago. This really sucks and will hinder mainstream adoption. It kills fungibility. The average end user should not care about it and not have that worry on their mind. I myself avoid stuff like Coinbase because who the hell knows where the Bitcoins that you got come from? It's a joke, but I don't really see a way around this as long as the blockchain is an open ledger... any solutions?

Send them to an address that has a  lot of coin, then withdraw in different sized amounts
Exchanges, for example, maybe change coin types, do some trades if it makes you feel better.
Mixers
direct exchange to anon coins like monero using, say, shapeshift followed by back to xbt in another exchange.
All of the above make things pretty onerous for even resourcefull trackers.

[Somekindabitcoin]

User A -> illegal drug money -> tumbler

User B -> illegal Ponzi money -> tumbler

User C -> terrorist financing -> tumbler

Tumble - Tumble - Tumble

Tumbler -> User A = illegal Ponzi money and terrorist financing

Tumbler -> User B = illegal drug money and terrorist financing

Tumbler -> User C = illegal drug money and illegal Ponzi money

User A, B, C -> Coinbase

Coinbase = Sorry we've confiscated your bitcoins because they were blacklisted.

LOL

Quote from Bitmixer:

I'm not a criminal. Why should I mix my coins?
Virtual currency is part of the here and now, but with it comes the need to “guard your wallet.” BitMixer’s high volume bitcoin mixer keeps your identity safe by offering premium mixing service with the ability to handle even the largest bitcoin transactions.

anyone normal wants to stay anonymous

Like someone mentioned, if someone like Coinbase has a policy of investigating the origin of the Bitcoins you send and they find out they come from criminal activities then you are in trouble, even if you had NO IDEA that those coins were in Silk Road sometime ago. This really sucks and will hinder mainstream adoption. It kills fungibility. The average end user should not care about it and not have that worry on their mind. I myself avoid stuff like Coinbase because who the hell knows where the Bitcoins that you got come from? It's a joke, but I don't really see a way around this as long as the blockchain is an open ledger... any solutions?

This. You are absolutely right. I used Coinbase when I first heard about Bitcoin, because no fees.
Then I discovered that Coinbase, obviously, sucks. Good for me.

[Velkro]

Bitcoin is not anonymous, it reveals your IP when you make transaction and its easy to correlate your addresses :/
In future i think it will be improved by protocol or 3rd party.

[fox19891989]

BTC can be traceable, and that's why dark markets' CEO went to jails, cause FBI can check their btc wallet to gather proofs. The best anon things should be monero or darkcoin, they are both best altcoins and anonymous coins, the addresses can't be traceable, so many criminals like them, maybe they will be huge in the future, who knows. Top 5 coin marketcap is possible for them.

[Westin Landon Cox]

Like others have said, it's not really possible to use Bitcoin anonymously. Even using it pseudonymously takes effort. You should at least always use a VPN or Tor when connecting to the network.

If you want to use Bitcoin pseudonymously, I recommend creating a number of different "identities" each of which has their own bitcoin wallet. Some of these identities can be "connected" and others should not be. For example, you could have identities Alice, Bob and Charlie, each of which has their own bitcoin wallet. Alice could be connected to your real life identity. You could send Alice some coins, but never Bob or Charlie. Alice could send you or Bob some coins, but never Charlie. Bob could send Alice or Charlie coins, but never you. Charlie can send coins to Bob, but no one else. In a picture:

You <-> Alice <-> Bob <-> Charlie

If you want to get serious, sending coins through the <-> links should use coinjoin or a mixer.

Note that since there are (at least) 4 different wallets here, the coins for the different identities can't be accidentally combined as inputs to a transaction.

I learned about this way of doing things through discussions with a friend who coded "idmas" -- it's a tool for using BIP0032 (HD Wallets) to create and manage identities like the kind above. It's free and open source -- this isn't an ad. But it doesn't have a GUI, so it's only for people comfortable with the command line.

https://github.com/cjbauer/idmas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abINpUxZwPI

Another recommendation I'd make is one that's probably hard for people who really believe in the potential of Bitcoin: stop talking to people about Bitcoin. In your everyday life, don't bring it up. If someone brings it up to you, just say it's an interesting technology, but that you're no longer interested in it as a currency/investment. You can, for example, use the block size debate as an excuse why you've divested. (I'm not saying divest. I'm saying don't trust people.)

Basically: Bitcoin is Fight Club.

[QuestionAuthority]

There is no reason to mix coins other than to hide your transactions. I'm not passing judgement. Who wants to pay taxes or be busted buying drugs? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

Seriously?

You wouldn't mind people knowing your salary?

You would be ok with your bitcoin company's profits being calculable from your payments to suppliers, customer receipts, etc?

Why not, everyone that wants the info on my salary can get it now anyway. In fact, if they can get my SSN they can get my tax records too.

I'm fine with business transparency. One of the problems we have with modern business is the lack of transparency. That's also one of the biggest problems with government.

[Nikolai the Barber]

Bitcoin is not anonymous, it reveals your IP when you make transaction and its easy to correlate your addresses :/
In future i think it will be improved by protocol or 3rd party.

Lol, use a proxy then problem solved. IPs are the least of your worries. Bitcoin is anon in that you have no idea who the person is. If I send money to you you don't know my real name or personal details.

[harrymmmm]

There is no reason to mix coins other than to hide your transactions. I'm not passing judgement. Who wants to pay taxes or be busted buying drugs? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

Seriously?

You wouldn't mind people knowing your salary?

You would be ok with your bitcoin company's profits being calculable from your payments to suppliers, customer receipts, etc?

Why not, everyone that wants the info on my salary can get it now anyway. In fact, if they can get my SSN they can get my tax records too.

I'm fine with business transparency. One of the problems we have with modern business is the lack of transparency. That's also one of the biggest problems with government.

Not to say I don't believe you, but the real point is that most people won't feel the way you say you do.

Your original statement implied that people only mix transactions if they're doing something shady. These examples are some of the other reasons.

[QuestionAuthority]

There is no reason to mix coins other than to hide your transactions. I'm not passing judgement. Who wants to pay taxes or be busted buying drugs? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

Seriously?

You wouldn't mind people knowing your salary?

You would be ok with your bitcoin company's profits being calculable from your payments to suppliers, customer receipts, etc?

Why not, everyone that wants the info on my salary can get it now anyway. In fact, if they can get my SSN they can get my tax records too.

I'm fine with business transparency. One of the problems we have with modern business is the lack of transparency. That's also one of the biggest problems with government.

Not to say I don't believe you, but the real point is that most people won't feel the way you say you do.

Your original statement implied that people only mix transactions if they're doing something shady. These examples are some of the other reasons.

If people didn't feel the way I do then they would pay for everything with cash. No one would use PayPal, credit cards, debit cards, checks or just about any other modern payment method. BTW: When I first started using checks they always put your SSN under your address and drivers licenses had your SSN on them too.

[Somekindabitcoin]

You should check out this article. It's exactly about this, everything is clear and simple to read even for Newbie. From my own experience, Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous. You are anonymous when randomly sending transaction but you can be easily tracked when doing trades through exchanges. It depends on people if they want to stay anonymous or not.

[harrymmmm]

There is no reason to mix coins other than to hide your transactions. I'm not passing judgement. Who wants to pay taxes or be busted buying drugs? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

Seriously?

You wouldn't mind people knowing your salary?

You would be ok with your bitcoin company's profits being calculable from your payments to suppliers, customer receipts, etc?

Why not, everyone that wants the info on my salary can get it now anyway. In fact, if they can get my SSN they can get my tax records too.

I'm fine with business transparency. One of the problems we have with modern business is the lack of transparency. That's also one of the biggest problems with government.

Not to say I don't believe you, but the real point is that most people won't feel the way you say you do.

Your original statement implied that people only mix transactions if they're doing something shady. These examples are some of the other reasons.

If people didn't feel the way I do then they would pay for everything with cash. No one would use PayPal, credit cards, debit cards, checks or just about any other modern payment method. BTW: When I first started using checks they always put your SSN under your address and drivers licenses had your SSN on them too.

Paypal, credit cards don't reveal your company profits, or your salary.

[Amph]

There is no reason to mix coins other than to hide your transactions. I'm not passing judgement. Who wants to pay taxes or be busted buying drugs? That doesn't sound like fun to me.

Seriously?

You wouldn't mind people knowing your salary?

You would be ok with your bitcoin company's profits being calculable from your payments to suppliers, customer receipts, etc?

Why not, everyone that wants the info on my salary can get it now anyway. In fact, if they can get my SSN they can get my tax records too.

I'm fine with business transparency. One of the problems we have with modern business is the lack of transparency. That's also one of the biggest problems with government.

Not to say I don't believe you, but the real point is that most people won't feel the way you say you do.

Your original statement implied that people only mix transactions if they're doing something shady. These examples are some of the other reasons.

If people didn't feel the way I do then they would pay for everything with cash. No one would use PayPal, credit cards, debit cards, checks or just about any other modern payment method. BTW: When I first started using checks they always put your SSN under your address and drivers licenses had your SSN on them too.

Paypal, credit cards don't reveal your company profits, or your salary.

unless major istitutions like banks are forced by taxes man like IRS to reveal information about an individual which presumably he is doing money laundering or he is evading taxes with a big amount that wasn't declared previously..

they can control everything that can travel on any fiat circuit, that's why they fear bitcoin