To what extent are crypto transactions anonymous?

[alizay]

From my understanding, cryptos enable you to do anonymous transactions by hiding your IP during those transactions. However, you're still able to give information about yourself when you're making a payment with crypto for example. Otherwise how could the company who receives the payment check your identity? Then what's behind the concept of "anonymous"?

[reymartH]

Bitcoin is partially anonymous and not private at all because of the way the blockchain works. Since the state of the entire blockchain is public, making one slip-up and publicly exposing ownership of an address is enough to permanently bind a person’s real identity to the blockchain and their actions on it.

[filharvey]

Bitcoin is only pseudo anonymous.For full anonymity,you should use altcoins like monero,zcash.Or else,mixer services provided by various companies could be used which give new bitcoins instead of bitcoins you give.

Unless you reveal your identity related to your bitcoin transactions,you are almost safe.The other thing is that cryptos don't hide any of your IPs.Only the receiver would know that you have sent bitcoins by the address linked to your transactions and not all unless identity publicly revealed.

[jseverson]

It depends which crypto you are talking about. If you're talking about Bitcoin, then it's only pseudo anonymous, as others have pointed out. You're only anonymous until a single address has been definitively linked to you, after which all your transactions are pretty much public. Bitcoin doesn't hide your IP when transacting either. If you don't want your IP being traced, then you can hide under a VPN, or route your traffic through tor. Although you can hide your identity quite effectively, Bitcoin wasn't built with anonymity in mind so you're going to have to take extra steps to ensure your privacy.

If your primary consideration is anonymity, you can use altcoins like Monero, which actually obscure your IP as a feature, along with making your transactions extremely hard, if not impossible to trace.

[alizay]

Bitcoin is only pseudo anonymous.For full anonymity,you should use altcoins like monero,zcash.Or else,mixer services provided by various companies could be used which give new bitcoins instead of bitcoins you give.

Unless you reveal your identity related to your bitcoin transactions,you are almost safe.The other thing is that cryptos don't hide any of your IPs.Only the receiver would know that you have sent bitcoins by the address linked to your transactions and not all unless identity publicly revealed.

I understand. And how does the blockchain for monero or zcash work compared to bitcoin and other non-anonymous altcoins?

[jossiel]

So you are worrying on how could you be identified if you paid for something right?

That's why there is TXID and that's how it works and by the time you sent the payment to them, they can just confirm it that you sent that amount.

And also you can just simply sign a message to the bitcoin wallet address you use to verify that you are the owner of that TXID if others are claiming that they are the owner of it.

[squatz1]

They're as anonymous as you make them. If you go ahead and buy bitcoins on an exchange where you're tracked, post your address alongside your name, and so on and so forth you're of course going to be easily tracked as all of this can be used alongside blockchain analysis to see what you're doing online.

If you buy your BTC in cash, dont associate yourself with your wallet information, use tor/ vpn services for wallets then you'd be MORE anonymous. So, it's up to you.

[LAODINGTOU]

From my understanding, cryptos enable you to do anonymous transactions by hiding your IP during those transactions. However, you're still able to give information about yourself when you're making a payment with crypto for example. Otherwise how could the company who receives the payment check your identity? Then what's behind the concept of "anonymous"?

For bitcoin, anonymity is common, transactions are traceable, and anonymous tokens are much better.

[8270thNinja]

It's still depends on the user. If you are not anonymous or careful enough on your activities, the information you share on public and many carelessm moves that will reveal your address.transactions. it will lessen the anonymity that crypto gives to your transactions and to your identity as well. Someone advised me that You should use different address for each different transaction, that may sound hassle to you but that would be more secure.

[BitcoinSupremo]

It depends on what crypto a user uses and what is the technical ability in computer of this user. For example if a user uses Zcash,Monero and Dash these coins offer full anonymity support (dash was once called darkcoin, taking reference to darknet). Bitcoin transactions are pseudo anonymous but if you have the right computer knowledge you can make them fully anonymous.

[nioctiB#1]

From my understanding, cryptos enable you to do anonymous transactions by hiding your IP during those transactions. However, you're still able to give information about yourself when you're making a payment with crypto for example. Otherwise how could the company who receives the payment check your identity? Then what's behind the concept of "anonymous"?

I think it depends on the cryptocurreny and the service you will use. if you use services like exchange of course they can trace you because almost all exchanges require all its users to provide their identity so if you dont want to be traced dont use exchanges but it will be hard for you to convert your coins to real money. it also depends on the coin because their are cryptocurreny that can be trace like bitcoin but there are some that is untraceable like monero.

[Maveth13]

From my understanding, cryptos enable you to do anonymous transactions by hiding your IP during those transactions. However, you're still able to give information about yourself when you're making a payment with crypto for example. Otherwise how could the company who receives the payment check your identity? Then what's behind the concept of "anonymous"?

You're identity is never recorded in the bitcoin protocol itself. So if you make a payment to a company the only record they and you would have is the transaction ID. Unless you blatantly link your wallet address to your real email address or social media accounts, you can stay as pseudo-anonymous as you would want.

[redhondaxrm125]

From my understanding, cryptos enable you to do anonymous transactions by hiding your IP during those transactions. However, you're still able to give information about yourself when you're making a payment with crypto for example. Otherwise how could the company who receives the payment check your identity? Then what's behind the concept of "anonymous"?

What you are saying depends on the coin or token you are talking about or the purpose of every transaction. You see, you will have to reveal who you are in some transactions that needs trust from both parties.

Also, if you want to be anonymous, there are other coins for that. Which a lot of criminals are using at the moment. There really isn't a problem here. You can do whatever you wish. All you need is money amd a bit of time to study the mechanics.

[Fazlurkhan.kz]

You are not completely anonymous while making the transactions. There are times when it is necessary that you have some kind of proof that it's you that has made the transaction, so that's where TXID comes into picture. It allows you to claim your authority over the transaction that you made. And apart from that if you need complete anonymity then there are a couple of cryptocurrencies like Zcash, Dash and Monore, So there are options for that too!