Not anonymous = only for legal business

[Findeton]

Hi, i'm new to Bitcoin, and I think it's a great idea (greater even for early adopters). I've been reading and reading, and the thing is that if someone links (one of) your account(s) to you, they get all your trading history. That's bad for you if what you're doing is illegal (like selling drugs). Yes, there are some ways to make your money more anonymous, but they normally are too much of a hassle.

So, Why should an illegal business man choose Bitcoin?

It's not that i were planning to do anything illegal, it's more like... well... we all know that a big part of all the existing money comes from illegal activities (like drugs and weapons). How could we go mainstream without cashing all that money into the bitcoins economy!?

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[Frozenlock]

Sure, you can see all the trade history.
For example, you can say he received 20BTC from account 1MwEJr2F2d3bfuvn4Pdx5PpsgkZZ3eyXRK.
However, if you don't know who's using this account, what can you do with this info?

[Prze_koles]

You can have many addresses pointing to the same wallet and no one knows how much BTC you've got in that wallet. They can only find how much coins were send to particular address.

[Findeton]

Sure, you can see all the trade history.
For example, you can say he received 20BTC from account 1MwEJr2F2d3bfuvn4Pdx5PpsgkZZ3eyXRK.
However, if you don't know who's using this account, what can you do with this info?

But why should they (illegal activities overlords) use bitcoin instead of normal money/banks? I just can't see why they should use it instead of normal money. Although normal money also usually money laundering.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, maybe a good thing is that if they have money in their bitcoin accounts, no one can stop them from using it.

[cloud9]

Sure, you can see all the trade history.
For example, you can say he received 20BTC from account 1MwEJr2F2d3bfuvn4Pdx5PpsgkZZ3eyXRK.
However, if you don't know who's using this account, what can you do with this info?

But why should they (illegal activities overlords) use bitcoin instead of normal money/banks? I just can't see why they should use it instead of normal money. Although normal money also usually money laundering.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, maybe a good thing is that if they have money in their bitcoin accounts, no one can stop them from using it.

Maybe the CIA designed bitcoin and tricked them into believing that it is actually anonymous?  And now they can trace them through the blockchain because the user were technically trustworthy/ignorant to check out the software before using it for their illegitimate activities.  

[gigitrix]

It's trivial to circumvent with mixing services. Just as it is trivial to use https over http. Choose what's right for you (personally I'm fine being public and generating new addresses all the time, but hey...

[cloud9]

It's trivial to circumvent with mixing services. Just as it is trivial to use https over http. Choose what's right for you (personally I'm fine being public and generating new addresses all the time, but hey...

Wouldn't a mixing service be considered bitcoin laudering and just as illegal as cash laundering?

[ChristianK]

If someone wants to sell access to a botnet they might want to avoid giving their identity to their buyer. The person might want to buy an software exploit without identifying himself with the seller.
The criminal can buy products with Bitcoin that don't require him to reveal his identity.

If he wants to move his money outside of the Bitcoin economy he will have to do some money laundering. Existence of mixing services would make it easy.

[BombaUcigasa]

Without access to private keys, an adversary will have trouble tracking your bitcoins as you can use different receive and send wallet IDs. Futhermore, if you add another 3rd party into the transaction chain, such as an exchange, lottery, blackpool laundry, or simply hop off the bitcoin network by selling the bitcoins and repurchasing them again, you effectively make your adversary lose too many resources tracking your ass.

However, if the adversary has access to your wallet(s), he can prove specific blockchain transactions are made in your behalf and reduce the doubt of your innocence.