It's the nature of the code that Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous. You can't wish anonymity upon the code just because you feel a certain way (i.e. "sentiment").
I do not just "wish anonymity upon the code", see
Automatic Coin Mixing Idea or
P2P coin mixingLook what's happened on this forum alone...people get scammed and now the SEC is apparently involved in a particular case. This means that people are tracing Bitcoin transactions as we speak and connecting transactions to various persons. This all happened before the Bitcoin Foundation; none of this is new. Any radical change to the protocol would likely require a forking of the blockchain anyway and the success of that fork would be determined by a miner vote, i.e. hashing power.
Besides, look at how many people use Bitcoins and run to file a complaint as soon as they've been scammed.
Generally, smart people do not lose their money to scammers, so I don't think there should be even a choice between preserving financial privacy or making it a little harder to scam someone.
Moreover, look at the value of Bitcoin itself. The only reason Bitcoin has the fledgling economy that it does is because of the exchanges. Without exchanges as centralized value markers, people wouldn't be buying any goods or services. And yet only a handful of people are shouting for the exchanges to close operations despite the fact that the exchanges go against the "sentiment" of Bitcoin (i.e. they involve 3rd parties that happens to collect your name, address, and several forms of identification). Maybe in the long, distant future we won't need a centralized exchange, just as in the future Bitcoin might not need a "Foundation" so to speak.
The Foundation will bring more organization to the community. The community needs it now, just as it needs the exchanges now. In the future, maybe they won't be needed. But seriously, there are so many other aspects about Bitcoin to highlight than its anonymity factor
Sometime there is benefits in giving up some privacy as a trade off, but I disagree with the implication that it should be an easy choice.
If Bitcoin client has feature such as
Automatic Coin Mixing Idea or
P2P coin mixing that would make the cost of uncovering someone's identity astronomically high, but mathematically speaking you're correct.
I think THIS is the disturbing sentiment that the OP was initially responding to, not whether Vessenes believes bitcoin is anonymous or not, but the sense that he doesn't CARE about anonymity.
This is a strategic decision. Think about it. Now that the Internet is here, not even the most repressive government can keep their citizens from blogging and reading western media. But that only happened because the Internet got here.
I am not sure if it is an irony or not, so I am going to take it for the face value. We can certainly speculate that it is the master plan, but I didn't see much that would support it.
Obviously people disagree with me, but I don't believe having an infiniteish number of addresses to potentially work with gives anyone real anonymity automatically. You have to work damn hard to stay anonymous and by default bitcoin doesn't give rise to privacy beyond the "numbered bank account" that swiss banks used to have. You're only anonymous as long as you aren't doing anything with your money. The second you spend it your invisibility cloak is chipped away at, no matter how small. The government or anyone else could always honeypot you and gradually figure out more and more about your real identity over a large amount of time.
Being anonymous is an individuals responsibility and is crazy hard work to really do. Ironically the people who really need anonymity are the ones that have the hardest time really getting it. That said, I think everyone should work hard to be anonymous, if only because it gives even greater safety to the few who really need if it we are all practicing responsibly. I don't think Bitcoin itself lends itself to being anonymous any more then the internet itself lends itself to being anonymous. In theory yes- but when the internet interfaces to the real world: then not so much.
Probably, most of it is currently true, but it doesn't have to be this way, there is a fairly easy fix.
Either way, it seems like a reasonable and practical assumption to work on bitcoin without a focus on anonymity to push it forward. As long as nothing is added to bitcoin that deliberately makes it less anonymous, then no fault, no foul, no?
Unless Peter Vessenes clarifies his statement, I can assume that he doesn't care if Bitcoin users will have less privacy.
Fact of life, BTC do get stolen, BTC are use for hideous crimes. Don't you think BITCOIN is facilitating these enough already ?
Anonymous by default would surely kill bitcoin in the long run.
I do not believe that we should give up our financial privacy because people getting scammed or use Bitcoin for illegal transactions.
