Noob question about Electrum

[robber]

Hi I am very new to Electrum (and Bitcoin).

Can you please help.

If I buy bitcoins from a legitimate exchange and put them in the Electrum wallet is that wallet now forever linked to me by this transaction?

If I send bitcoins from this Electrum wallet to a mixer then back to a second Electrum wallet owned by me is this second wallet/coins now completely anonymous?

Sorry for the noob questions.

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[TryNinja]

If I buy bitcoins from a legitimate exchange and put them in the Electrum wallet is that wallet now forever linked to me by this transaction?

The address will be linked to your exchange account. Bitcoin transactions are stored forever in the blockchain.

If I send bitcoins from this Electrum wallet to a mixer then back to a second Electrum wallet owned by me is this second wallet/coins now completely anonymous?

Yes. If you never do any direct transaction from your wallet 1 to the wallet 2 and if the mixer trully works (some can be analysed quite easily).

Buy Bitcoins -> Send to Wallet 1 -> Send to Mixer -> Wallet 2.

If you use ChipMixer (see my signature), it's will probably be more effective, because the output coins are older than the input (the coins you sent), so chain analysis are way more difficult to be executed.

[ranochigo]

If I buy bitcoins from a legitimate exchange and put them in the Electrum wallet is that wallet now forever linked to me by this transaction?

No. The address will have some form of relations to you. Bitcoins are being sent to an address, not a wallet and the addresses within a wallet is independent of each other. The address would be connected to the transaction forever but it isn't sufficient to show that whoever sent that address definitely (100%) is also the person who initiated the withdrawal from the exchange. The probability is high though.

If I send bitcoins from this Electrum wallet to a mixer then back to a second Electrum wallet owned by me is this second wallet/coins now completely anonymous?

Could be. You must ensure that the previous address would never be used again by you and all the coins (UTXO) in the address has been spent completely. While mixer could enhance your anonymity, parties can still use Blockchain analysis to try to find the mixer's address.

Electrum is generally pretty bad for privacy since whichever server you connect your client to will be able to see every address in your wallet as well as your IP address. If you want to have as much privacy as possible, you should use Bitcoin Core.

[hugeblack]

If I buy bitcoins from a legitimate exchange and put them in the Electrum wallet is that wallet now forever linked to me by this transaction?

The government can verify your identity on the trading platform " legitimate exchange" and then link that address "not a wallet" to your identity.
Customizable, powerful computing enables them to track all the currencies sent from that address to the rest of the addresses of the Bitcoin network.
Using a mixing service "based on mixing service" will enhance your privacy but does not mean it can not track you.
Bitchin is not built for high-privacy.

[robber]

Hi thanks for the excellent responses and good advice 

Can someone please tell me why bitcoin mixers seem typically seem to have both a darknet and clearnet address? Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but just now I can't imagine what the point is.

thanks

[TryNinja]

Can someone please tell me why bitcoin mixers seem typically seem to have both a darknet and clearnet address? Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but just now I can't imagine what the point is.

Those addresses are only reachable via TOR. Some users who want to stay as anonymous as possible may prefer to use them (and TOR) instead of the regular .com domain.

".onion names are used to provide access to end to end encrypted, secure, anonymized services; that is, the identity and location of the server is obscured from the client. The location of the client is obscured from the server."
Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-an-onion-site-and-why-are-they-used
And clearnet addresses for those who don't want to bother downloading TOR and setting it up.

[HCP]

Buy Bitcoins -> Send to Wallet 1 -> Send to Mixer -> Wallet 2.

Or just skip the whole Wallet1 and Wallet2 setup altogether... and simply go: Buy Bitcoins -> Send to Mixer -> Your Wallet

That way, the ONLY coins in a wallet/address of yours has come from a Mixer (plus you save on one transaction, not that that really matters much with today's fees )

Also, as others have mentioned, mixers help enhance your privacy, and will stop "most" people from being able to track your coins... but they probably shouldn't be considered 100% foolproof.

[bob123]

".onion names are used to provide access to end to end encrypted, secure, anonymized services; that is, the identity and location of the server is obscured from the client. The location of the client is obscured from the server."
Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-an-onion-site-and-why-are-they-used

It might be worthy to add that 'only' using TOR doesn't obscure everything enough to never be found/tracked.
While using the TOR browser does help a lot, the privacy also highly depends on the user.

Can someone please tell me why bitcoin mixers seem typically seem to have both a darknet and clearnet address? Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but just now I can't imagine what the point is.

The whole point is privacy.
Thats also the same reason why some mixing services (eg. ChipMixer) do offer a non-java script mixing service. Reducing the graphical animation, increasing the privacy.

[nc50lc]

Or just skip the whole Wallet1 and Wallet2 setup altogether... and simply go: Buy Bitcoins -> Send to Mixer -> Your Wallet

Good shortcut, except the risky part during times when unconfirmed transactions are clogging the network and normal transaction could take more than a week.
Today, it's risk free even for a newbie.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but just now I can't imagine what the point is.

There is really no point here unless you're strictly conscious about your transaction and asset's privacy not against the regular users but the "Big Guys".
Otherwise, someone like me won't be able to tell if those bitcoins from an address belongs to you (unless if motivated/payed to do so).

Bitcoin was designed not to be anonymous,
But not re-using an address can help you keep your privacy safe, do not disable "Use Change Address" either.

If you wanted to be "slightly" anonymous, do the mini-mixing yourself by utilizing all of the addresses in another Electrum wallet.
Or just use a mixer service to skip the hassle.

[pooya87]

Or just skip the whole Wallet1 and Wallet2 setup altogether... and simply go: Buy Bitcoins -> Send to Mixer -> Your Wallet

Good shortcut, except the risky part during times when unconfirmed transactions are clogging the network and normal transaction could take more than a week.
Today, it's risk free even for a newbie.

that is not a risk because there are ways of solving the problem if you paid a lower fee than you should have and had your transaction stuck. and Electrum and Bitcoin core are already marking the transactions as RBF by default which makes that easy to solve.

[nc50lc]

that is not a risk because there are ways of solving the problem if you paid a lower fee than you should have and had your transaction stuck. and Electrum and Bitcoin core are already marking the transactions as RBF by default which makes that easy to solve.

I mean, when you buy bitcoins (from an exchange in this case) in some cases you don't have an option to choose the tx fee of the withdrawal request.
If this was from December, when you directly use the invoice deposit address from the mixer (Buy Bitcoins -> Send to Mixer -> Your Wallet) and it didn't make it in time, that's the risk (for a newbie like OP).
But as I said It may never happen again after the recent updates, so, it's not much of a subject for discussion.