So how much privacy do we really need?

[bomberb17]

You are not realistic by saying
"It's our right to be 100% anonymous" or "I don't steal".

Anonymity is the right of any citizen of a modern civilized country, up to some extent. There is a red line which separates the anonymity right and the use of anonymity to conduct illegal business. If someone crosses that line, the government should waive the anonymity right for that person in question and investigate what's going on. Else if we all demand unlimited anonymity, the country will fall into anarchy. It's like demanding our right for free speech, but at the same time swearing at others. The government should protect the privacy of its lawful citizens on the other hand of course.
You might say that you don't steal and that you are righteous, but statistically there will be some people who misbehave in a society. And this must be controlled or the society will fall into chaos.

[1714150374]

1714150374

[aleksej996]

You are not realistic by saying
"It's our right to be 100% anonymous" or "I don't steal".

Anonymity is the right of any citizen of a modern civilized country, up to some extent. There is a red line which separates the anonymity right and the use of anonymity to conduct illegal business. If someone crosses that line, the government should waive the anonymity right for that person in question and investigate what's going on. Else if we all demand unlimited anonymity, the country will fall into anarchy. It's like demanding our right for free speech, but at the same time swearing at others. The government should protect the privacy of its lawful citizens on the other hand of course.
You might say that you don't steal and that you are righteous, but statistically there will be some people who misbehave in a society. And this must be controlled or the society will fall into chaos.

It is foolish to think that anonymity can or will destroy any chance of law and order. There are plenty of other ways to catch a criminal then to look at everybody's daily transactions. If there is an actual physical crime that took place, then start from there, the physical evidence, there is no absolute necessity to look at all the transactions of your suspect and gain knowledge about what his interests are, what websites he visits, what he writes on his social media, what he sends to his friends or a loved one, who he voted for and what his views are.

There is no necessary connection between a physical crime and information regarding someone's personal life. We shouldn't let the government scare us into giving them more power then they need. We should try to solve crimes at their core, in the physical world and leave the cyberspace as a free world of information and ideas, where no one can get physically harmed and can say whatever they want.

There is no issue with people swearing at others, that never killed or physically harmed anyone. Freedom of speech should never come second to someone's feelings getting hurt. Freedom of speech is an absolute necessity in a democracy, as all decide as one mind and there can't be limits to what that mind can think of, however scary it might be, a mind is to be free to have it's thoughts. Anonymity is a direct requirement for such democracy and freedom of speech, as lack of anonymity puts a physical body of a mind at risk for it's thoughts and ideas. Neither of those things, as they are all a product of a same idea, should come second to none. No fear should sacrifice the democracy, freedom of speech and anonymity.

[CryptoSpark]

It depends on the use case.

Sometimes its perfectly acceptable or even desirable to have public visibility of transactions. A charity with a public account is not a bad thing and throw away accounts just for one off transactions is also often acceptable. Generating new addresses for each transaction can also be sufficient.

But often privacy is vital, would you want your bank account and its transactions visible to the world even if they didn't know for sure who owned the account? That's where technologies like the Lightning Network with Sphinx or Hornet comes in to keep all those smaller transactions off chain and just using the blockchain for intermittent persistance of transactions.

The reality is that blockchain is one layer but not the only layer. TCP is awesome but it isn't enough for a functional corporate network. A more realistic long term solution layers technologies so there's nothing inherently wrong with combining blockchain with cloud with desktop with mobile with SQL databases, just make sure that each layer is used appropriately for its strengths.

Bitcoin remains my favourite blockchain since its the most practical and well used. Its far from perfect and doesn't cater for all scenarios but thats why we have altcoins. I don't like the idea that its Bitcoin or nothing, that's like someone inventing the car and announcing there's no need for other car makers, we have a car thank you very much.

[bomberb17]

You are not realistic by saying
"It's our right to be 100% anonymous" or "I don't steal".

Anonymity is the right of any citizen of a modern civilized country, up to some extent. There is a red line which separates the anonymity right and the use of anonymity to conduct illegal business. If someone crosses that line, the government should waive the anonymity right for that person in question and investigate what's going on. Else if we all demand unlimited anonymity, the country will fall into anarchy. It's like demanding our right for free speech, but at the same time swearing at others. The government should protect the privacy of its lawful citizens on the other hand of course.
You might say that you don't steal and that you are righteous, but statistically there will be some people who misbehave in a society. And this must be controlled or the society will fall into chaos.

It is foolish to think that anonymity can or will destroy any chance of law and order. There are plenty of other ways to catch a criminal then to look at everybody's daily transactions. If there is an actual physical crime that took place, then start from there, the physical evidence, there is no absolute necessity to look at all the transactions of your suspect and gain knowledge about what his interests are, what websites he visits, what he writes on his social media, what he sends to his friends or a loved one, who he voted for and what his views are.

There is no necessary connection between a physical crime and information regarding someone's personal life. We shouldn't let the government scare us into giving them more power then they need. We should try to solve crimes at their core, in the physical world and leave the cyberspace as a free world of information and ideas, where no one can get physically harmed and can say whatever they want.

There is no issue with people swearing at others, that never killed or physically harmed anyone. Freedom of speech should never come second to someone's feelings getting hurt. Freedom of speech is an absolute necessity in a democracy, as all decide as one mind and there can't be limits to what that mind can think of, however scary it might be, a mind is to be free to have it's thoughts. Anonymity is a direct requirement for such democracy and freedom of speech, as lack of anonymity puts a physical body of a mind at risk for it's thoughts and ideas. Neither of those things, as they are all a product of a same idea, should come second to none. No fear should sacrifice the democracy, freedom of speech and anonymity.

It won't destroy law and order because law and order will destroy (or better shutdown) the exchanges that accept that cryptocurrency first.
Physical evidence is a way to catch a criminal, as long as that evidence exists.
What if that crime was committed in the cyberspace only? Someone could not even touch or physically possess drugs or dirty dollars but still committing crime by exchanging them with that super-anonymous cryptocurrency and then in turn exchanging them with USD (= money laundering).
And I'm not talking about sacrificing democracy or freedom of speech. But these freedoms should be revoked if the line gets crossed (i.e. you act against the other people's interest). And that's when you go to jail.

[liseff3]

mb creation of the wallet must be limmited, may have any person verification with passport? Create the wallet using the special service with verification, and that service will controll all transactions legality. Block of blockchain will have personal data witch can be read only by "admins"

The majority of Bitcoin users are law-abiding people motivated by privacy concerns or just curiosity.
But Bitcoin’s anonymity is also a powerful tool for financing crime: The virtual money can keep shady transactions secret. The paradox of cryptocurrency is that its associated data create a forensic trail that can suddenly make your entire financial history public information.

[WannaCry]

We need just enough privacy to also help ensure that there are no illegal activities going on involving bitcoins. I mean just imagine if every member is too private, then they can hide all the illegal activities that they can think of.

[CryptoSpark]

This whole idea that Bitcoin is some kind of currency exclusive to criminals is just ridiculous. Most crime is still funded in dollars or failing that, Euro's or pounds. If you're smuggling people or funding other major nefarious activities you are far more likely to be using a more abundant, widely accepted and easy to hide currency. When HSBC got into trouble for turning a blind eye to money laundering it was for more money than the entire Bitcoin economy and that was just one single instance of serious crime.

The vast majority of use of Bitcoin is for perfectly legal and everyday activities, even Amazon has plans to accept it. Just because someone doesn't want to broadcast to the world what they're buying doesn't make it shady. If it was then everyone would have public bank accounts so we could all inspect their bank statements. Privacy is more popular these days because there's been so many abuses of people's private information whether its State or corporate or criminal hacking or whether its just trading of legal or ill-gotten data for marketing purposes. Identify theft is a massive problem and financial records are a powerful aspect of good identity theft.

I was at a presentation recently by a central bank and they talked about how privacy is vital for banking because there are many genuine reasons for banks and businesses and people to want to move money anonymously, its a major use case for any currency and doesn't indicate that a currency is somehow dirty as a result.

[skyflakes88]

i think i depends on the need of a particular transaction but in general privacy in concern to your payment is a must where the traceability is subject to approval or to the position on which and how will events occur i think a regulation whereas no human intervention is needed so there will be a clean way of dealing things

[iv4n]

Bitcoin is not anonymous, you can use bitcoin mixers and that can help you with privacy. Monero have much better protection and anonymity, but it's not 100% private as I know. How much privacy do we need, well I don't think that we need privacy if governments let us to be free and experiment with out bodies and minds, if you wish to use drugs use it, pay legally and enjoy, why do you need to hide when you pay for sex? Or you wish to hide that you are buying women clothes?
I would like to give my support for transparent bitcoins, we will know where the money from tax is going, who is paid and how much for work in government sector. Social justice can be better if we know where the money is going. Bitcoin can help us in that.

[CircularLoGic]

I would vote for making the crypto less private actually, transparency always goes well with the majority of people and for BTC to be accepted worldwide people needs to feel secure about it. Also governments won't want to deal with money they can trace if needed, if you keep it private then the black market and the scammers will be the 'users' of the currency as most not knowledgeable people think when you mention Bitcoin.

[shield132]

We all know that Bitcoin transactions are not anonymous but pseudo-anonymous, resulting in many problems like tainted coins etc.
Some cryptocurrencies offer significant more privacy (Monero, Zcash etc) but at a cost.
However my question is more fundamental: How 'much' privacy do we really need for a widely-adopted cryptocurrency?
I believe Bitcoin as-is won't get adopted for everyday transactions. Nobody would want showing his buying habits to the whole world (imagine how many ads and flyers you would get).
On the other hand, I don't believe cryptocurrencies that offer too much privacy will get adopted either, since they will be used for criminal activities and eventually get banned.
My feeling is that we want a currency that offers privacy to some extent, without revealing our transaction to the world but still be possible for law-enforcement to track illegal activities.
What do you think?

As I understand you are looking for bitcoin without blockchain. If people won't be able to see transaction, it's logical to consider that no one will be able to see, so no one will be able to confirm transaction and prove payment. There is no such way or choose bank where transactions aren't public but available for goverment and bankers.
Current privacy level is absolutely enough for normal users.

[Philopolymath]

Privacy is a binary condition like pregnancy...
There are no degrees of privacy.

[Erelas]

Always seems unfair to BTC to (and many still do) say it's used for primarily illegal activities.  The US dollar has BTC beat to no end on being the currency used for illegal purposes.

If we all were able to accept and complete commerce in BTC, then it would be perfect, but since the majority still use fiat, then we are never truly anonymous since we have to eventually use fiat, which is tracked.

If crypto could just be "crypto" and never cross paths with fiat, then we'd be set I think for the most part.

[The_Dark_Knight]

We all know that Bitcoin transactions are not anonymous but pseudo-anonymous, resulting in many problems like tainted coins etc.
Some cryptocurrencies offer significant more privacy (Monero, Zcash etc) but at a cost.
However my question is more fundamental: How 'much' privacy do we really need for a widely-adopted cryptocurrency?
I believe Bitcoin as-is won't get adopted for everyday transactions. Nobody would want showing his buying habits to the whole world (imagine how many ads and flyers you would get).
On the other hand, I don't believe cryptocurrencies that offer too much privacy will get adopted either, since they will be used for criminal activities and eventually get banned.
My feeling is that we want a currency that offers privacy to some extent, without revealing our transaction to the world but still be possible for law-enforcement to track illegal activities.
What do you think?

It will depend on the government and their tracking capabilities, some exchanges are not accepting coins that comes from casinos and this is a dangerous thing, one fundamental concept of a currency is interchangeability, the idea that a dollar in your pocket is the same as a dollar in my pocket, if that does not hold true then bitcoin is no longer a currency, so if they are willing to go that route then bitcoin needs privacy features which allow every person, service and business to treat all coins the same.

[bomberb17]

We all know that Bitcoin transactions are not anonymous but pseudo-anonymous, resulting in many problems like tainted coins etc.
Some cryptocurrencies offer significant more privacy (Monero, Zcash etc) but at a cost.
However my question is more fundamental: How 'much' privacy do we really need for a widely-adopted cryptocurrency?
I believe Bitcoin as-is won't get adopted for everyday transactions. Nobody would want showing his buying habits to the whole world (imagine how many ads and flyers you would get).
On the other hand, I don't believe cryptocurrencies that offer too much privacy will get adopted either, since they will be used for criminal activities and eventually get banned.
My feeling is that we want a currency that offers privacy to some extent, without revealing our transaction to the world but still be possible for law-enforcement to track illegal activities.
What do you think?

As I understand you are looking for bitcoin without blockchain. If people won't be able to see transaction, it's logical to consider that no one will be able to see, so no one will be able to confirm transaction and prove payment. There is no such way or choose bank where transactions aren't public but available for goverment and bankers.
Current privacy level is absolutely enough for normal users.

You are wrong. Private cryptos have their own blockchain, the transactions are just masked such that it is hard or impossible to trace. These masked transactions are confirmed for validity from the nodes themselves.

[GorillaDental]

We all know that Bitcoin transactions are not anonymous but pseudo-anonymous, resulting in many problems like tainted coins etc.
Some cryptocurrencies offer significant more privacy (Monero, Zcash etc) but at a cost.
However my question is more fundamental: How 'much' privacy do we really need for a widely-adopted cryptocurrency?
I believe Bitcoin as-is won't get adopted for everyday transactions. Nobody would want showing his buying habits to the whole world (imagine how many ads and flyers you would get).
On the other hand, I don't believe cryptocurrencies that offer too much privacy will get adopted either, since they will be used for criminal activities and eventually get banned.
My feeling is that we want a currency that offers privacy to some extent, without revealing our transaction to the world but still be possible for law-enforcement to track illegal activities.
What do you think?

I think that, for most people, a good crypto coin is one that keeps them safe from theft and doesn't let others know how much they have. In some cases, you might want them to know who sent it, like when you're buying from an online retailer possibly. I think having options is good. A lesser known coin called Verge is heading that way, but we'll see once Wraith protocol comes out.

[RobertoBBB]

privacy is king, btc have an important "leak" in my opinion because can't be private.

[Menahun]

we need regulators

[aleksej996]

It won't destroy law and order because law and order will destroy (or better shutdown) the exchanges that accept that cryptocurrency first.
Physical evidence is a way to catch a criminal, as long as that evidence exists.
What if that crime was committed in the cyberspace only? Someone could not even touch or physically possess drugs or dirty dollars but still committing crime by exchanging them with that super-anonymous cryptocurrency and then in turn exchanging them with USD (= money laundering).
And I'm not talking about sacrificing democracy or freedom of speech. But these freedoms should be revoked if the line gets crossed (i.e. you act against the other people's interest). And that's when you go to jail.

First of all, government can't shut down all the exchanges, since there are decentralized exchanges, there are even the ones like Bisq that use fiat and are still decentralized. They really have no way of effectively stopping this revolution.

If physical evidence doesn't exist, then how can you be sure that crime even happened. There is a reason why I didn't count any crime that happens in cyberspace, because it isn't a crime in my opinion. You can't get killed or hurt in cyberspace. I think that cyberspace has nothing to do with the law or governments or the rest of the physical world and they shouldn't hold no authority over it. My point is that if no one gets physically hurt, it shouldn't be a crime and if they did, then there is evidence. And if law enforcement can't catch it by using that evidence, nor the evidence they obtain from cyberspace peacefully or anywhere else for that matter, as long as it is a peaceful way of obtaining information, then they shouldn't compromise other peoples privacy or peace just so they can get their job done. Biggest fish already have their ways of anonymity, as we saw in part in Panama papers, this is for the people and they just want to protect their power from the people. It is a biggest trick all regimes use, fear, to make people give them more power then they deserve. Money laundering shouldn't be a crime on it's own, it hurts no one, it is an actual crime they are laundering money from that is a problem and that should be stopped there, as other ways are unjust and ineffective. There will always be ways to easily launder money for big criminals, they are not fighting this battle so they can win or even make a dent in this crime, they are fighting it so they can hold power and have reason to exist and expand and employ more of their own people.

I think that democracy and freedom of speech should never be revoked, whatever you do, you should always be able to say your part of the story and give your opinion, as opinion never hurt anybody. It is just another way to stop people from expressing their opinion about the system, if you take away their right to vote or say how badly they were treated in the system, you can keep doing it and make up crimes for others to shut them up as well. I know you don't want to believe this is happening and it isn't happening in an enormous level at all, and is always decreasing, but it is happening. System is corrupt, everyone can see that. And in such system, even the worst criminals deserve a right to free speech,democracy and anonymity for their opinions.

[bomberb17]

It won't destroy law and order because law and order will destroy (or better shutdown) the exchanges that accept that cryptocurrency first.
Physical evidence is a way to catch a criminal, as long as that evidence exists.
What if that crime was committed in the cyberspace only? Someone could not even touch or physically possess drugs or dirty dollars but still committing crime by exchanging them with that super-anonymous cryptocurrency and then in turn exchanging them with USD (= money laundering).
And I'm not talking about sacrificing democracy or freedom of speech. But these freedoms should be revoked if the line gets crossed (i.e. you act against the other people's interest). And that's when you go to jail.

First of all, government can't shut down all the exchanges, since there are decentralized exchanges, there are even the ones like Bisq that use fiat and are still decentralized. They really have no way of effectively stopping this revolution.

If physical evidence doesn't exist, then how can you be sure that crime even happened. There is a reason why I didn't count any crime that happens in cyberspace, because it isn't a crime in my opinion. You can't get killed or hurt in cyberspace. I think that cyberspace has nothing to do with the law or governments or the rest of the physical world and they shouldn't hold no authority over it. My point is that if no one gets physically hurt, it shouldn't be a crime and if they did, then there is evidence. And if law enforcement can't catch it by using that evidence, nor the evidence they obtain from cyberspace peacefully or anywhere else for that matter, as long as it is a peaceful way of obtaining information, then they shouldn't compromise other peoples privacy or peace just so they can get their job done. Biggest fish already have their ways of anonymity, as we saw in part in Panama papers, this is for the people and they just want to protect their power from the people. It is a biggest trick all regimes use, fear, to make people give them more power then they deserve. Money laundering shouldn't be a crime on it's own, it hurts no one, it is an actual crime they are laundering money from that is a problem and that should be stopped there, as other ways are unjust and ineffective. There will always be ways to easily launder money for big criminals, they are not fighting this battle so they can win or even make a dent in this crime, they are fighting it so they can hold power and have reason to exist and expand and employ more of their own people.

I think that democracy and freedom of speech should never be revoked, whatever you do, you should always be able to say your part of the story and give your opinion, as opinion never hurt anybody. It is just another way to stop people from expressing their opinion about the system, if you take away their right to vote or say how badly they were treated in the system, you can keep doing it and make up crimes for others to shut them up as well. I know you don't want to believe this is happening and it isn't happening in an enormous level at all, and is always decreasing, but it is happening. System is corrupt, everyone can see that. And in such system, even the worst criminals deserve a right to free speech,democracy and anonymity for their opinions.

1. Can you provide an example of a 'decentralized' exchange? Any exchange needs a form of a government permission to operate in any country. (we are not talking about crypto<->crypto exchange, but crypto<->fiat)
2. Suppose I hack into your bank account and steal all of your savings. Or use your identity to get a $100,000 loan. Did I commit a crime? Not according to you, since I didn't hurt or kill anyone.