yes. you can use exchanges as a way to mix your coins, although it depends on the exchange and how they are doing things, when you send your coins to an exchange that is very active the coins will be moved and when you withdraw you will be paid from a different address down the line which will make it impossible for the average Joe to trace where your funds went. but the authorities will be able to trace it so easily.
that depends on a few factors. for instance, there are exchanges and brokers that don't enforce KYC. you can connect to them through a no-log VPN and in some cases through TOR. 1broker is one example; withdrawals are automatic, don't come from your deposit address and there is no KYC nor IP restricting. WEX (formerly BTC-E) is another example.
when withdrawing, time delay and incremental withdraws can help to disassociate coins from your deposit. on top of that, there are legal issues regarding jurisdiction and cause that may prevent subpoenas from being effective.
I notice when sending coins for a currency such as ETH from an exchange such as Binance, Bittrex, Bitfinex etc that the coins are sent from the exchanges wallet and not your personal receiving wallet on the site. Does this mean you can send coins from the exchange as a way to protect your anonymity from simple transaction tracing? I'm not talking about anything illegal where the exchange would rightfully be subpoened and your details revealed, but just simple trading transactions where you'd rather remain anonymous to other traders?
yeah, but in the interest of avoiding third party trust, i don't keep funds in their custody. i just use them to get untainted outputs for my personal wallets.
