Is the anonymity of Bitcoin causing problem globally ?

[absy]

We know that "anonymity" is one of the main characteristic of Bitcoin and many people love to use Bitcoin because of this feature but is this causing problems worldwide?

The recent  Wannacry Ransomware attack is the biggest Ransomware attack in the history and the hacker/attacker has asked to pay in "Bitcoins" because it can't be traced . What can be done in this type of situations?

A group or individual has also threatened a big company in our country to pay him certain ( big) amount of money in BTC otherwise their employees would face many problems . Payments from other methods ( which hackers or attackers used before ) was traceable but what about Bitcoins ? What can be done ?

[GetClams.com]

Bitcoin is not anonymous but if you are clever you can cover your tracks using other coins and exchanges. And governments are very opposed to anonymous crypto. I see a battle coming in the future over this issue.

[absy]

Bitcoin is not anonymous but if you are clever you can cover your tracks using other coins and exchanges. And governments are very opposed to anonymous crypto. I see a battle coming in the future over this issue.

I understood what you said . Yes bitcoins can be traced by writing down all the addresses it has been sent to and the final destination ( bank account or any other account where we can find to which person it belongs to) but as you mentioned its not difficult to exchange it to other coins and trade it and again convert it back to BTC ( whole new address ) and use it .

[Sex Video Chat VKcams.com]

in "Bitcoins" because it can't be traced

Put some time to research, how much people become prison dreaming in it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-crime-bitcoin-idUSKCN0UY0V8

[Amph]

Bitcoin is not anonymous but if you are clever you can cover your tracks using other coins and exchanges. And governments are very opposed to anonymous crypto. I see a battle coming in the future over this issue.

not exactly true, bitcoin transaction are not anonymous, but the identity behind who is sending those transaction is very well anonymous, until he link his name to the address by shipping something to his home address for example

until that happen there is no way you can tell who is behind any of those address

in "Bitcoins" because it can't be traced

Put some time to research, how much people become prison dreaming in it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-crime-bitcoin-idUSKCN0UY0V8

i suspect they exchanged and transfered to their bank account, if they used directly bitcoin for payment, there is no way to know who they are, unless they sent it to the police directly, which were under cover to caught them

[Hydrogen]

Bitcoin is less anonymous than a suitcase full of cash.

There are many ransomware schemes involving digital transactions other than bitcoin tend to be more effective, and for some strange reason aren't as widely publicized.

Its possible ransomware schemes involving bitcoin are false flag ops.

[centralbanksequalsbombs]

Bitcoin IS NOT ANONYMOUS and is basically a dream-come-true for records available to police globally and agencies equivelent to FBI & IRS to have freely accessible bitcoin ledger data that will not change and can be used in a court against you. No need to subpoena private banks or for them to request you provide the records. its PUBLIC, just need to match some IP data/telecom/username/login/geographical pattern data.

[bitllionaire]

Bitcoin is not anonymous but if you are clever you can cover your tracks using other coins and exchanges. And governments are very opposed to anonymous crypto. I see a battle coming in the future over this issue.

yes bitcoin is not anonymous but the person who is holding bitcoin is really anonymous, but i am hopeful that it is not causing problem globally. hope that bitcoin will be economically helpful for the people of the world. as it is already helpful for those people who do not have any day job and they have invested even a little amount of money in trading. or those people who do not have any money and they are still earning bitcoin from joining a signature campaign in bitcointalk.org forum.

[Sex Video Chat VKcams.com]

there is no way to know who they are

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/scs/people/academic/dr-sarah-meiklejohn

Call tomorrow to this lady, maby she give to You some story.

[Argon2]

As it is Bitcoin is more anonymous than the traditional banking system. This is desired and people are trusting banks less and less and less....

[xuan87]

Bitcoin is not really anonymous, actually we can track the transaction, but there are also ways to make it harder to track, a lot of people believe that the anonymity has caused so many problems, that is because the people doesn't understand about bitcoin, bitcoin and fiat is almost the same it is a currency, so actually bitcoin doesn't add problems, the ransomware like to used bitcoin because it is valuable not because it is anonymity

[absy]

Well by reading all your comments and also going through some cases like

in "Bitcoins" because it can't be traced

Put some time to research, how much people become prison dreaming in it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-crime-bitcoin-idUSKCN0UY0V8

we can say that Bitcoin can be traced and eventually it is like any other currency but it will be just harder .

"Bitcoin isn't anonymous but the person who is holding it is upto some extent ".
I will close this thread if we don't see a new approach to this soon Thanks all for the clarity.

[Sadlife]

Bitcoin's anonymity is great cause you dont have to type your personal information and dont get victimized by identity theft like paypal thousand of credits information being leaked online and getting used for financial gain, bitcoin helps you from those kind of things
But also not everything is perfect there are also some disadvantages to it like being used in illegal ways like what you have mention ransomware but the question is bitcoin really to blame or the users?

[jaberwock]

Bitcoin is not really anonymous, I think the correct term is fungible, or something.

But even if you can hide your identity, the address the coins would be sent will be know, so if you upset powerful people, they will be flagged and may be refused on exchanges, or the mines could just refuse to mine your transactions and you'll have nothing

[AK47-]

Hackers have a better chance staying anonymous by demanding ransom in the form of prepaid gift cards than bitcoin. Gift cards offer a higher degree of anonymity when it comes to tracking transactions than the bitcoin which leaves a trail on the blockchain. So there is nothing like bitcoin is causing a problem. It is just a matter of choice. These ransomware attacks were happening successfully even before the bitcoin came into existence.

[jaberwock]

Hackers have a better chance staying anonymous by demanding ransom in the form of prepaid gift cards than bitcoin. Gift cards offer a higher degree of anonymity when it comes to tracking transactions than the bitcoin which leaves a trail on the blockchain. So there is nothing like bitcoin is causing a problem. It is just a matter of choice. These ransomware attacks were happening successfully even before the bitcoin came into existence.

the gift cards could be cancelled, and it is probably possible to detect which account has been used to redeem a certain gift card

cash still is better for ransom, at least regarding anonymity

[Doms]

It's really up to the individual on how he wants to utilize the benefits of bitcoin to his advantage. It so happens that pseudonymity is one of the characteristics of bitcoin, and some people took it to their advantage. I think the same can be said of fiat or any other currency, for that matter.

[AK47-]

Hackers have a better chance staying anonymous by demanding ransom in the form of prepaid gift cards than bitcoin. Gift cards offer a higher degree of anonymity when it comes to tracking transactions than the bitcoin which leaves a trail on the blockchain. So there is nothing like bitcoin is causing a problem. It is just a matter of choice. These ransomware attacks were happening successfully even before the bitcoin came into existence.

the gift cards could be cancelled, and it is probably possible to detect which account has been used to redeem a certain gift card

cash still is better for ransom, at least regarding anonymity

In 1989 when the first attack happened they demanded payment through banks and Western Union and they easily got traced down to panama. But this time hackers have not got traced till now. Moreover, they chose bitcoin because bitcoin transaction can be easily verified by the hackers and they are faster.

[Kakmakr]

Bitcoin gives you no more anonymity than cash gives you. So if you use cash, you would be more anonymous than when you would be using Bitcoin. The pseudo-anonymity is necessary to protect your financial privacy and unfortunately some people take advantage of that to commit crimes.

Question : Are you going to shut down the internet, because people use that to spread Randsomware OR that it is being used by criminals? < Unfortunately you have to take the good with the bad in these situations >

[emezh10]

Bitcoin can be a really big problems when it comes in the government because bitcoin is anonymous in the sense of it is really digital we cant know the trase of the transaction so bitcoin can be use in such a illegal transactions and more applicable in it so it cant be trase by the government they really doing it in the black market.