Bitcoin is not Anonymous

[Cutekittens21]

I thought one of bitcoins big selling points was anonymity. Yet I've read some articles about people who have either stolen or embezzled bitcoin and they were later tracked down and arrested. I'm glad they were caught don't get me wrong but how were they caught if bitcoin is supposed to be anonymous?

[ikilledcobain]

Bitcoin's strength is not really anonymity. Granted there are ways to make it harder to trace the transactions, but it can be done.

There are a number of other coins/tokens whose primary focus is on anonymity. If that's your concern, I would take a look at some of those.

[TryNinja]

Bitcoin itself can be pretty anonymous.

But from the moment you gave your ID and address to an third party like Coinbase or Bitstamp, you are giving away part of this anonymity in exchange for the convenience of selling those coins for physical cash, that are controlled by your government. If you want to live only of Bitcoin, buying groceries and coffe with your digital wallet, you can. And you will be "anonymous" for that. But unfortunately, it's still not that easy.

[NeuroticFish]

The fact that everybody can see everybody's wallet and transaction is a bad start. One can start trying to track the path of the money.
And if you start selling that Bitcoin you need to give your ID; or you may have bought Bitcoin with your ID and sent to that wallet.
It's a start. They work with probabilities and habits checking. And with more and more businesses asking you to reveal your identity it's hard to hide.

Bitcoin is not anonymous. Not really. It was more anonymous before, when everybody used only core wallet, but many reuse now the same address many use vanity address, light wallets and the anonymity decreases even more.

Maybe it's better this way. Bitcoin is not the best cover for shady people and this may count in the future.



"Lately" quite a number of anonymous coins have arise. Some are better, some are worse; they are not as mature as Bitcoin, obviously. Some may have quite an interesting future, but I can bet that the authorities will not like them

[Velkro]

I thought one of bitcoins big selling points was anonymity. Yet I've read some articles about people who have either stolen or embezzled bitcoin and they were later tracked down and arrested. I'm glad they were caught don't get me wrong but how were they caught if bitcoin is supposed to be anonymous?

I thought the same long time ago. Now i know its not anonymous at all.
Transactions are public, balances are public, u need to only track it to real name user, which is not that hard after all.
Many selling points of bitcoin are not true in time. For example cheap transactions (almost free). Not here anymore.

[pedrog]

I thought one of bitcoins big selling points was anonymity. Yet I've read some articles about people who have either stolen or embezzled bitcoin and they were later tracked down and arrested. I'm glad they were caught don't get me wrong but how were they caught if bitcoin is supposed to be anonymous?

Bitcoin was never anonymous, and definitely not untraceable, you were wrong in your assumptions, however, bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous just like email addresses, people know an email address is yours when you say it is yours, just like bitcoin addresses.

[iram3130]

Bitcoin was and is always pseudo anonymous. You have to give your address to the sender and they will be able to know the transactions, if a powerful entity like a government wants to know what you do on exchanges then they'll easily know how much you buy and how much you sell.

[kolloh]

It really depends on how you use Bitcoin as to how anonymous it can be. There are steps you can take to increase your privacy and if you need to be anonymous, you can use mixers and such.

Bitcoin's strength isn't being anonymous though and if you are looking for a truly anonymous coin, you may want to check out some of the altcoins that aim for that.

[planaree]

It depends of how you protect yourself.

If you use Bitcoin Core wallet and use addresses only once, then it's hard
to trace back to you.

But for example if you post an address somewhere on a forum, then maybe
it's possible to find you.
And maybe they caught the guy by tracking his other activities.

[Cipa]

All of the guys above are suggesting you can take measures to assure your anonymity, but no-one gave you a solid advice. There are certain sites, mixers that provide you a highly secure service. They scramble your coins with their own and prevent others from tracking your BTC.

Let's say you receive ten $100 bills that have consecutive serial numbers. Someone could check where those particular notes end up and figure out what you used them for. But you could go to a bank and get ten different bills that are basically untraceable.

You could try any, but I highly recommend Bitmixer the site in my signature bellow.  

[TryNinja]

All of the guys above are suggesting you can take measures to assure your anonymity, but no-one gave you a solid advice. There are certain sites, mixers that provide you a highly secure service. They scramble your coins with their own and prevent others from tracking your BTC.

Let's say you receive ten $100 bills that have consecutive serial numbers. Someone could check where those particular notes end up and figure out what you used them for. But you could go to a bank and get ten different bills that are basically untraceable.

You could try any, but I highly recommend Bitmixer the site in my signature bellow.  

You seems to be a little out of the loop.

Bitmixer just got closed by his owner. Here is the announcement thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2042470.0

[Cipa]

All of the guys above are suggesting you can take measures to assure your anonymity, but no-one gave you a solid advice. There are certain sites, mixers that provide you a highly secure service. They scramble your coins with their own and prevent others from tracking your BTC.

Let's say you receive ten $100 bills that have consecutive serial numbers. Someone could check where those particular notes end up and figure out what you used them for. But you could go to a bank and get ten different bills that are basically untraceable.

You could try any, but I highly recommend Bitmixer the site in my signature bellow.  

You seems to be a little out of the loop.

Bitmixer just got closed by his owner. Here is the announcement thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2042470.0

I must admit I haven't been that active recently and didn't notice that 

Anyway my tip still stands, just swap BitMixer with another BTC scrambler.

[Cutekittens21]

Reading a lot of good information here.

Curious as to what the founders had in mind for bitcoin long term. If not anonymity, then what? Ease of access? Cheap? Convenient?

[kensai7]

How do Bitcoin donations/sales comply with various money anti-laundering legislations? Is there a way to enforce only eponymous transactions?

[ZenFr]

I thought one of bitcoins big selling points was anonymity. Yet I've read some articles about people who have either stolen or embezzled bitcoin and they were later tracked down and arrested. I'm glad they were caught don't get me wrong but how were they caught if bitcoin is supposed to be anonymous?

Yes Bitcoin is not anonymous.
On the contrary, Bitcoin is the more public money system : everybody can see all the transactions in all the world.
If somebody know one of your Bitcoin address, he know all your transactions with this address.

[Cutekittens21]

For those saying bitcoin is not anonymous, what do you use bitcoin for? and why bitcoin?

[ladytee]

i use bitcoin because of the ease of changing my cryptocurrencies to fiat currency, also because it's more likely to be accepted by both parties for international transactions

[salmanahmedone]

I thought one of bitcoins big selling points was anonymity. Yet I've read some articles about people who have either stolen or embezzled bitcoin and they were later tracked down and arrested. I'm glad they were caught don't get me wrong but how were they caught if bitcoin is supposed to be anonymous?

There's actually two benefits to something like Bitcoin, there was anonymity and I was also the fact that it was decentralized to deregulated. An anemone was basically destroyed by the fact that it's also completely transparent.

[Sweetbtc]

I thought one of bitcoins big selling points was anonymity. Yet I've read some articles about people who have either stolen or embezzled bitcoin and they were later tracked down and arrested. I'm glad they were caught don't get me wrong but how were they caught if bitcoin is supposed to be anonymous?

All someone has to do is attach a single part of that blockchain to your IP or your location and then they have everything forward from there and everything backwards there I can pretty much recreate your entire Financial history with in that single wallet or single set of addresses.

[BitMaxz]

I heard in reddit before that bitcoin is not anonymous if you are just using it without using mixer anytime they can be trace and if you are not using vpn you can trace easily by investigating and tracking your transaction ..
This is just i heard.. But there are many ways to hide your identity and can't trace your location ..  like using a premium vpn that can block the tracking or scanning of your computer to trace your location and a service like VPS  and other tools .. that can hide your location but if you are just a simple not using vpn and other anonymous tools anytime they can find you..