So how much privacy do we really need?

[arisen725]

The amount of privacy and/or anonymity someone needs much depends on where they live, and under which government and jurisdiction. Seeing multiple solutions next to Bitcoin brings the possibility of diversity and gives users choice to use what they need to be safe in their personal situation.

[moneycrypto]

Either we keep the blockchain public for everybody or we don't.

The main idea of bitcoin is the decentralization and independence of governments. This means that it's not possible to block a normal user from seeing your transaction history but allowing your government to do that so they can "track criminals" without giving them too much power.

People can get a little more privacy by not re-using their addresses. This way is harder to link all the payments to a single individual.

You are absolutely right mate, we can always have multiple wallet for multiple transactions.Though some people are very lazy they use same address every time.Fro privacy purpose we must always use new wallet address and its free..

[Protected101]

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?

We need a 100% privacy in bitcoin,Now a days we are not sure to our government who is in clean hands and we dont want to affect that on bitcoin we need to secure from doing dirty hands in our country.I want a strong digital currency that holds our bitcoin to make a privacy in our transactions here to avoid placing it in illegal activities of others.

[GROKEN]

We dont need privacy, we need to be smarter.

[glowing10]

The amount of privacy and/or anonymity someone needs much depends on where they live, and under which government and jurisdiction. Seeing multiple solutions next to Bitcoin brings the possibility of diversity and gives users choice to use what they need to be safe in their personal situation.

Yes I think every one privacy whenever new things come up and especially regarding cypto currency as not many govt has supported it fully and accepted so people in other countries would be looking out at ways to be safe and does not get struck under such things

[donmgray33]

Privacy is a binary condition like pregnancy...

[ytkingo]

Completely agree. I feel like anonymity is necessary but   pushing anonymity to the extreme is not the way to go either. We should meet somewhere in the middle and that's where bitcoin nails it right on the head. Pseudo-anonymity is a lot better. Because having complete anonymity can be dangerous.

[nlhuy0905]

The most sensible answer I've read so far. Clearly the majority of people would fall into your second group, so the privacy question is mainly targeted for this group. Businesses also fall into this category. I believe that a cryptocurrency that satisfies this group's needs has yet to be found.

[bubble1]

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 all depends how you define illegal activity and/or who defines illegal activity.

Well respected studies have shown that use of bitcoin for money laundering (high on the list of mainstream media) is actually extremely low, as there are much easier ways of laundering large sums of money (eg open an HSBC account?).

The same goes for the purchase of drugs and arms.

More interesting is what governments define as illegal activity when it comes to legislation. Some examples:

- People living in UK bought bitcoins when they were a few pounds and today sell them for a few thousand, will have made a capital gain. Any gains over £11300 in any one year will be taxable.
- People living in China who want to get round exchange controls and move their wealth out of the country might use bitcoin to do so.
- Residents of Zimbabwe or Venezuala might use bitcoin to protect themselves against hyperinflation.

In many ways, it's a similar debate about strong encryption.

I tend to a libertarian view and would want maximum privacy.

[The_Dark_Knight]

Either we keep the blockchain public for everybody or we don't.

The main idea of bitcoin is the decentralization and independence of governments. This means that it's not possible to block a normal user from seeing your transaction history but allowing your government to do that so they can "track criminals" without giving them too much power.

People can get a little more privacy by not re-using their addresses. This way is harder to link all the payments to a single individual.

So it is still possible to identify the person who use that address? Can they track it by going back on the transaction transfers?

Of course it is possible, the easiest way is to wait until a transaction leads to an exchange then they can ask the exchange to whom that address belongs then they give to them your name and now they know that address was yours and now any address connected to you now has their privacy compromised, there are many more methods but that is the most simple and straightforward.

[eternalgloom]

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 all depends how you define illegal activity and/or who defines illegal activity.

Well respected studies have shown that use of bitcoin for money laundering (high on the list of mainstream media) is actually extremely low, as there are much easier ways of laundering large sums of money (eg open an HSBC account?).

The same goes for the purchase of drugs and arms.

More interesting is what governments define as illegal activity when it comes to legislation. Some examples:

- People living in UK bought bitcoins when they were a few pounds and today sell them for a few thousand, will have made a capital gain. Any gains over £11300 in any one year will be taxable.
- People living in China who want to get round exchange controls and move their wealth out of the country might use bitcoin to do so.
- Residents of Zimbabwe or Venezuala might use bitcoin to protect themselves against hyperinflation.

In many ways, it's a similar debate about strong encryption.

I tend to a libertarian view and would want maximum privacy.

I don't think that the need for strong encryption and privacy on the blockchain (kind of a silly notion) are really similar debates.
There are so many more essential structures that depend on strong encryption than on the need for privacy.

Privacy on the blockchain is already pretty limited and one could wonder if it is 100% possible to use Bitcoin anonymously, even if you make use of Tor, mixers etc.

If you want a digital currency that offers privacy, isn't it better to just look at Monero or Zcash for example?

[neurotypical]

There are big problems when it comes to fungibility with bitcoin. Im tired of being told im a criminal and a drug dealer if I demand more privacy.

I have been demanding more privacy for obvious reasons that have nothing to do with illegal activities. For example: If you are an artist, and you are taking donations for your paintings or music or whatever.. why other people have to see how much money are you getting? If they see that you got paid a lot, they may think, "oh wow, this guy got too much money, I will just pirate his music, he will be ok anyway".
Don't you get how stupid accepting donations in Bitcoin is? unless you are an anonymous artist, people will see how much money you are getting.

And this goes for anything else. This is why BTC needs to improve his privacy immediately. I know gmaxwell was working on Confidential Transactions so that would solve how much BTC you are getting, but im not sure how that will work in practice. In order for it to work, you must be able to create a "Confidential receiving  address" and this would mean that any BTC sent there is forced to be obfuscated in it's amount, this would allow for anonymous (at least in quantity) donations.

I think that everyone needs privacy, not just a certain type of people, like artists or any other group. It is for all of us. The most obvious reason for privacy is that you can't trust the government, simple as that. They could freeze your bank accounts tomorrow if you speak your mind against the government. This is what they did to Wikileaks, they hurt no one and it was just obvious politics. When they used Bitcoin for donations, Bitcoin got some high profile from the government and Satoshi left soon after, maybe for that reason. You never know when you will need to speak your mind and how bad your government might get, so we should all, absolutely all of us, have complete and full privacy if we choose to do so.

Wikileaks itself is a reason as to why we need to improve privacy.

"Thanks" to Bitcoin not being able to deliver obfuscated transactions, now everyone knows Julian Assagne is carrying millions worth of bitcoin, because he was given a lot back in the day.

Their donation address is public, you can see how many BTC they have been donated:

https://blockchain.info/address/1HB5XMLmzFVj8ALj6mfBsbifRoD4miY36v

Final Balance    4,025.04795591 BTC

This is right now around $22,500,000 worth of BTC. Imagine how scared you would be if you got such a big donation and everyone knew. It's ridiculous really. And we are only in the beginnings of Bitcoin, once BTC reaches $100,000 during the next decade, that will be an huge fortune, and everyone knows that no matter how much they moved it, they have tons of money. I wouldn't like to be on their shoes to be honest, specially Julian since he is the visible head. Bitcoin should have had optional obfuscated transactions since the beginning, now we can only hope on further upgrades..

[franco123]

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 agree with your argument. We can not blame the government on trying to point out that Bitcoin is an option for criminals to freely transact illegal activities because it really is. We can not get the otptimum idea of having high privacy and yet be able to track down illegal transsctions.

But I dont think the Bitcoin is the problem. Illegal activities such as drugs existed ever since and even grew in numbers even without Bitcoins. The government should try harder on catching them instead of banning or regulating Bitcoins.

[shoreno]

The amount of privacy and/or anonymity someone needs much depends on where they live, and under which government and jurisdiction. Seeing multiple solutions next to Bitcoin brings the possibility of diversity and gives users choice to use what they need to be safe in their personal situation.

yeah i agree that it really depends in the persons activity , if hes doing illegal activities like buying drugs, carding, hacking and scamming people then he really needs some serious privacy or anonymity but if hes just an average joe that dont do monkey business then it doesnt really matter and i believe most of the people are not botherd about this issue.

[Xylber]

It is a democracy, goverment is under our control, and we have to watch them, not the other way around, so: we need the same privacy we give to the goverment.

[KoinBey]

In future we can not guess the way of cryptocurrency and goverment relations. Maybe some countrys try to reach crypto users via address informations or something else. Therefore, privacy is necessary for any bad scenarios i think.

[bubble1]

Bitcoin and altcoins are another way to hide all of a person's wealth. With that said, taxes that should be collected will also be free for those wealthy person. I guess that it also one of the reason why countries are afraid adopting crypto currency. Without proper regulation, crypto currency can ruin a country.

It's equally true to say that without proper regulation, Fiat currency can ruin a country.
Witness Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe

[liseff3]

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?

If privacy uses certain time limits, it sounds very good to do.
Privacy is the most important things in our life, much or nothing depends on the need or its use. And we are required to be able to manage these privacy-privacy. And this applies overall either anonymous or pseudo-anonymous.

Private zone
That privacy helps a person to create different zones in his or her social relationships. Meaning? like this, each person must create its own boundaries in the relationship with the surrounding. And privacy is a zone or place where everyone will put things very personal.
Everyone needs a place to explore himself without any distraction from outside parties. Here is a person can feel very comfortable and free to express himself the truth. And here is the importance of privacy.

It's debatable, 1 user has the potential to take any action, it will be difficult for the government to track addresses that perpetually transact and eventually stop tracking when the addres are replaced in a complex way.

I try to be neutral if the government wants my account privacy to be known then I will give it away, I can create another address for personal use.

I agree with you.

[bomberb17]

So far I have seen some people arguing for 100% privacy, and some for (pseudo)privacy as it is now in bitcoin. (It is pseudo-privacy and not privacy, you can't be 100% anonymous with your transactions on a public blockchain free for anyone to view, no matter what tricks you use like Tor, mixers etc - if you are still not convinced there are several articles/academic papers out there that show exactly that).

I would suggest that to concisely answer the question, you have to look at the big picture, not yourself as an individual.

Let's say I am using fiat money. I get paid my salary to my bank account, I pay my bills, my doctor, I buy my vacation and my sex toys.
Q: Do I have the right to keep these transactions private?
A: Of course I do!  I don't anyone to be able to take a picture of my entire life just by looking at these transactions (not my friend, my neighbor, my employer or the government). Nor do I want to advertise my savings amounts to the entire world.
Q: Does bitcoin (as it is today) help me keep these transactions private?
A: No (see above). => Bitcoin as it is today can not be used as a total fiat currency replacement.

Now let's say I am an illegal materials/goods trader (drugs? child pornography? human trafficker?) or I am otherwise engaged in some criminal activity (money laundering? blackmailing? scamming?)
Q: Do I have the right to keep these transactions private?
A: NO. Authorities will have to suspend your privacy rights if you are suspect of taking part into illegal activities.
Q: Should authorities "unmask" your private transactions in such cases?
A: Yes. If you are part of an organized and lawful society you should think the same. If not, go find a place to live in some anarchist country on in the jungle with the monkeys.
Q: Can a 100% private - anonymous cryptocurrency (Zcash?) be auditable and accountable for such illegal transactions?
A: No. => Such a currency can not be used as a total fiat currency replacement.

Now you might argue that Bitcoin (or some other cryptocurrency) might not totally replace our fiat currencies but could somehow be a global-"subcurrency" that could be used for some types of transactions (e.g. capital transfer across countries). Such thing might be a possibility.
But those who dream ourselves living our lives only with cryptocurrencies, I think that a cryptocurrency that satisfies the properties "anonymous" and "accountable" will have to be invented first.

I added a poll to this post to see what your opinions are.

[Getcoinsite]

Either we keep the blockchain public for everybody or we don't.

The main idea of bitcoin is the decentralization and independence of governments. This means that it's not possible to block a normal user from seeing your transaction history but allowing your government to do that so they can "track criminals" without giving them too much power.

People can get a little more privacy by not re-using their addresses. This way is harder to link all the payments to a single individual.

you cant just rely on the addresses because the coin address needs legitimate and exact one,you must present a government IDs before making an account in which you must indicate your permanent address or the address in your ID it self,so by then the government is 100% involved in your tratsactions