Is it really Bitcoin Anonymous?

[doolittle]

I read a book, the other day and learned about bitcoin clustering in it. So, bitcoin clustering can show a certain pattern of transfers between bitcoin wallets. Who?  How much? and when he transferred bitcoins. Look at the picture



(picture from book )

Anyone can make such a deep analysis and identify who owns this wallet. So the picture shows the relationship between exchanges and major players in the market that have the most bitcoins and make the most transactions.


People Framing themselves and lose their anonymity. They publish his bitcoin wallets on all Internet platforms (Bitcointalk, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc)

It turns out that thanks to our mistakes, we deprive ourselves of the most priority feature in bitcoin - anonymity.

I understand that scammers and users of the darknet use disposable wallets, but they all lead to some stock exchange or currency exchange site. But how to be ordinary users who do not want to show their income from cryptocurrency and transactions on them. How to be in this situation? is there a way?

Besides books, I read the article " Bitfury bitcoin deanonymizer?"It's also about Bitfury's own analysis (one of the largest mining companies), they're also puzzled by anonymity. There in this article says there is only one way to protect yourself .
It's a crude way of anonymity: the "obfuscation" method. To do this, a lot of transactions are made, the purpose of which is to untie a person from a specific address. However, in bitcoin it is very expensive, if at all possible, due to the limited size of 1 MB data.

Gets that each exchange, let it be Coinbase or other exchange know which user has what bitcoin address and how many transactions he makes.
Conclusion. Anonymity in bitcoin is a very rhetorical question. Will there ever be complete bitcoin anonymity? Perhaps, when bitcoin will be an independent currency and there will be no transit transfers. (Bitcoin-Fiat).
What do you think about theme?

Source book
Source article

[1713580946]

1713580946

[xtraelv]

Bitcoin is pseudo- anonymous. It is not anonymous.

Satoshi had no illusions of this:

When you send to a bitcoin address, you don't connect to the recipient.  You send the transaction to the network the same way you relay transactions.  There's no distinction between a transaction you originated and one you received from another node that you're relaying in a broadcast.  With a very small network though, someone might still figure it out by process of elimination.  It'll be better when the network is larger.

If you send by IP, the recipient sees you because you connect to their IP.  You could use TOR to mask that.

You could use TOR if you don't want anyone to know you're even using Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is still very new and has not been independently analysed.  If you're serious about privacy, TOR is an advisable precaution.

[doolittle]

Bitcoin is pseudo- anonymous. It is not anonymous.

That's exactly what I tried to write in my article. By the way, not only bitcoin, But all altcoins have such essence. I wish I had thought otherwise.

[TMAN]

Think of it this way, Ill know the address that someone sent a TX from, but I wont know the inside leg measurement of the sender

[xtraelv]

Bitcoin is pseudo- anonymous. It is not anonymous.

That's exactly what I tried to write in my article. By the way, not only bitcoin, But all altcoins have such essence. I wish I had thought otherwise.

Not all altcoins either. There are some privacy coins that are anonymous. zcash, monero, electroneum. To name a few.

Of course as soon as you try to exchange it to fiat via a centralized exchange all anonymity is lost.

[Jet Cash]

Without using any of the tools to obscure internet activity, how are you going to track me in the following situation.

Set up a node using public WiFi, and a copy of the blockchain I've already downloaded.
Receive Bitcoin into that wallet.
Use the Bitcoin to purchase gold coins.
Wipe the hard drive on the computer with the core node.

[doolittle]

Without using any of the tools to obscure internet activity, how are you going to track me in the following situation.

Set up a node using public WiFi, and a copy of the blockchain I've already downloaded.
Receive Bitcoin into that wallet.
Use the Bitcoin to purchase gold coins.
Wipe the hard drive on the computer with the core node.

You speak too scientific a language, it's quite difficult for me. And not just me, most people do not know how to do this. I'm just trying to understand how the blockchain and bitcoin. "Blocks, knots" is difficult for me.

Not all altcoins either. There are some privacy coins that are anonymous. zcash, monero, electroneum. To name a few.

Of course as soon as you try to exchange it to fiat via a centralized exchange all anonymity is lost.

Yes you are right, I did not consider the peculiarities of these coins. For the Monero I heard a long time that it is used to pay on the black market.
But still, any contact with the exchange or Fiat money, you can immediately recognize.

Think of it this way, Ill know the address that someone sent a TX from, but I wont know the inside leg measurement of the sender

If I understand you correctly, you are talking about the situation when me transferred someone bitcoin, and I then transferred to several other accounts, it is impossible to track in the history of transactions? After all, through explorer it is possible to check wallets and transactions with them. Correct me if I misunderstand you.

[xtraelv]

Without using any of the tools to obscure internet activity, how are you going to track me in the following situation.

Set up a node using public WiFi, and a copy of the blockchain I've already downloaded.
Receive Bitcoin into that wallet.
Use the Bitcoin to purchase gold coins.
Wipe the hard drive on the computer with the core node.

I don't know why your would do it that way. There are numerous exchanges that allow for anon accounts. Just hold your bitcoin on one of those and transfer using a disposable device on public wifi like a $20 smart phone (in case the mac address is logged)

You need to somehow receive those gold coins. So shipping address from the vendor.
The vendor may not be as meticulous with protecting their identity. If the vendor can be identified then they could lead to you.
When the vendor sells their bitcoins it may also lead to their identification.
You could potentially be identified by the origin of your bitcoins too.

Yes you are right, I did not consider the peculiarities of these coins. For the Monero I heard a long time that it is used to pay on the black market.
But still, any contact with the exchange or Fiat money, you can immediately recognize.

Monero is used on the darknet. But fiat (cash) it used for more illegal transactions than anything else in the world.

If you sell your bitcoins to someone who remains careful with their identity and sell them for cash then you cannot be identified.

Your wallet and the transaction can be identified but if you are careful then your real life identity is not revealed.

Online casinos and mixers can also be used to mask the origin of bitcoins.

My proposal for a system called "walletswap" would make tracking much more difficult too.

[ND_INVEST]

Bitcoin is pseudo- anonymous. It is not anonymous.

That's exactly what I tried to write in my article. By the way, not only bitcoin, But all altcoins have such essence. I wish I had thought otherwise.

You are right about bitcoin, but altcoins can actually be different. For example, Byteball has a net of private transactions with blackbytes. There are also other cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zchash, as xtraelv pointed out. However, I came through some articles that were doubting the real anonymity and maintained that with good work it would be possible to tract down the coins to some address. But it's more like there are people who say that Tor is not safe ans cannot provide pure anonymity, so I am not sure those articles made sense.

[hdtqisg]

Bitcoin is not as anonymous as you are thinking, for ordinary users, it's a great anonymity, for large numbers of transactions are monitored and checked!

[xtraelv]

This is what Satoshi said:

> Can nodes on the network tell from which and or to which bitcoin
> address coins are being sent? Do blocks contain a history of where
> bitcoins have been transfered to and from?

Bitcoins are sent to and from bitcoin addresses, which are essentially random numbers with no identifying information.

When you send to an IP address, the transaction is still written to a bitcoin address.  The IP address is only used to connect to the recipient's computer to request a fresh bitcoin address, give the transaction directly to the recipient and get a confirmation.

Blocks contain a history of the bitcoin addresses that a coin has been transferred to.  If the identities of the people using the bitcoin addresses are not known and each address is used only once, then this information only reveals that some unknown person transferred some amount to someone else.

The possibility to be anonymous or pseudonymous relies on you not revealing any identifying information about yourself in connection with the bitcoin addresses you use.  If you post your bitcoin address on the web, then you're associating that address and any transactions with it with the name you posted under.  If you posted under a handle that you haven't associated with your real identity, then you're still pseudonymous.

For greater privacy, it's best to use bitcoin addresses only once.  You can change addresses as often as you want using Options->Change Your Address.  Transfers by IP address automatically use a new bitcoin address each time.

> Can nodes tell which bitcoin addresses belong to which IP addresses?

No.

> Is there a command line option to enable the sock proxy the first
> time that bitcoin starts?

In the next release (version 0.2), the command line to run it through a proxy from the first time is:
bitcoin -proxy=127.0.0.1:9050

The problem for TOR is that the IRC server which Bitcoin uses to initially discover other nodes bans the TOR exit nodes, as all IRC servers do.  If you've already connected once before then you're already seeded, but for the first time, you'd need to provide the address of a node as such:
bitcoin -proxy=127.0.0.1:9050 -addnode=<someipaddress>

If someone running a node with a static IP address that can accept incoming connections could post their IP to use for -addnode, that would be great.

> What happens if you send bitcoins to an IP address that has multiple
> clients connected through network address translation (NAT)?

Whichever one you've set your NAT to forward port 8333 to will receive it.  If your router can change the port number when it forwards, you could allow more than one client to receive.  For instance, if port 8334 forwards to a computer's port 8333, then senders could send to "x.x.x.x:8334"

If your NAT can't translate port numbers, there currently isn't a command line option to change the incoming port that bitcoin binds to, but I'll look into it.

--------------------
anonguy54:
Request: Make this anonymous?
Posted:Thu 15 of Oct, 2009 (19:58 UTC)

Are there any plans to make this service anonymous?

e.g; Being able to route BitCoin through Tor.

There will be a proxy setting in version 0.2 so you can connect through TOR.  I've done a careful scrub to make sure it doesn't use DNS or do anything that would leak your IP while in proxy mode.

Another thing you would want to consider is browser finger printing and device fingerprinting.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/browser-fingerprinting
http://testdeprivacidad.com/fingerprint/en

[Red-Apple]

Bitcoin is pseudo- anonymous. It is not anonymous.

Satoshi had no illusions of this:

to be fair that explanation is mostly talking about a very old feature in bitcoin where you could send bitcoin to someone by knowing their IP address, essentially connecting to that IP https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/IP_transaction which is now removed.

but you are correct that nobody had any illusions about bitcoin being anonymous. i don't know when this illusion came from though.

[Granxis]

I do not really know if bitcoin can be fully anonymous,for now it's simply pseudonymous
  I think the issue is when your identity is related to your pseudonym,then your identity can be traced since its stored on the blockchain network.
  A different pseudonym(address) for every transaction will maintain a fairly anonymous status
 

The fact that Bitcoin is anonymous is just an extra feature, independent of all important money systems. There must be an anonymity within the Blockchain system and lost anonymity all over the world.

[Anies_Sandi]

Bitcoin is not as anonymous as you are thinking, for ordinary users, it's a great anonymity, for large numbers of transactions are monitored and checked!

It is very true that what you convey is cryptocurrency, the transaction can be known and its development is transparent in my opinion, all back to the confidence and patience of its investors.

[franky1]

no point in talking about going anonymous
look what the OP did

Name:    doolittle
Posts:    321
Activity:    321
Merit:    100
Position:    Full Member
Date Registered:    July 17, 2012, 10:08:27 PM
Last Active:    Today at 09:00:40 AM
Bitcoin address:    166QzXhNF7NySB9DuVFWHpUoH4Unjws6hY

no point asking a network to be anonymous if your literally linking your address to things that can reveal things about you.

which. even knowing the problem.. seems people dont listen and think its expensive....

People Framing themselves and lose their anonymity. They publish his bitcoin wallets on all Internet platforms (Bitcointalk, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc) [/i]

It turns out that thanks to our mistakes, we deprive ourselves of the most priority feature in bitcoin - anonymity.

But how to be ordinary users who do not want to show their income from cryptocurrency and transactions on them. How to be in this situation? is there a way?

It's a crude way of anonymity: the "obfuscation" method. To do this, a lot of transactions are made, the purpose of which is to untie a person from a specific address. However, in bitcoin it is very expensive, if at all possible,

(facepalm)

[ranman09]

Without using any of the tools to obscure internet activity, how are you going to track me in the following situation.

Set up a node using public WiFi, and a copy of the blockchain I've already downloaded.
Receive Bitcoin into that wallet.
Use the Bitcoin to purchase gold coins.
Wipe the hard drive on the computer with the core node.

You speak too scientific a language, it's quite difficult for me. And not just me, most people do not know how to do this. I'm just trying to understand how the blockchain and bitcoin. "Blocks, knots" is difficult for me.

Isn't that simply deleting your traces on using the network? You just deleted the .dat file. You have used the bitcoins anyway.

[muchachita14]

Bitcoin is not anonymous, but rather pseudo-anonymous. By now, most Bitcoin veterans know this. It’s less obvious to many, however, why Bitcoin is not really anonymous by default, and what can be done to de-anonymize Bitcoin users and what Bitcoin users can do to reclaim their privacy.

[BrewMaster]

no point in talking about going anonymous
look what the OP did

one might argue that even though he posted his bitcoin address on the internet he is still anonymous. all you can know is that this address belongs to an account on bitcointalk called <something>. you may not even know which country he is from let alone know his identity. unless he reveals those too.

[Jansaa]

Bitcoin and altcoin are not anonymous as people still think, if you get or sell bitcoin and altcoin on Exchange with KYC, they can track you

[Harlot]

I think we should have know this already? The US based authorities even have announced that BTC related criminal activities went down as for the reason it is easily tracked and they are using other anonymity based cryptocurrencies like Monero (XMR). Our transactions are always linked to our BTC addressed and once they know who owns that btc address all of our in going and out going transactions will be monitored and will be linked back to us. BTC being anonymous now seems to be impossible as majority of the countries now are requiring some kind of KYC for their citizens.