Downside of Bitcoin's Anonymity

[PsylockReborn]

Bitcoin is a decentralized currency that is transparent and secure. With the rise of bitcoin and blockchain technology there are lots of opportunities and benefits that the society can acquire. Little did we know that with the rise of this technology there are some scumbags who took advantage of one of its features which is anonymity, purchasing illegal stuffs online and even laundering money using bitcoin.

I bumped into an article awhile ago and I guess it's worth to share.

A Romanian City Hall was hacked and the hackers are demanding bitcoin as ransom.

You can read more in here. https://coindoo.com/romanian-city-hall-hackers-want-ransom-to-be-paid-using-btc/

These kinds of acts are giving bitcoin a bad name. We are moving forward to a digital world and whether we like it or not, we'll be using crypto as means of payment when doing transactions online in the near future.

Will hacking incidents increase as well as we progress with this digital currency? Is there a way that we can catch these guys given the anonymity of bitcoin? Do regulations solve this kinds of issues of anonymity? Share me your thoughts!

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[pooya87]

well bitcoin is no anonymous! and whoever says it is, they are very misled.

as for this news, why are you focusing on the negative? the important thing is that for every negative case that you can find in the news there are hundreds of positive usage in the real world but the news isn't interested in any of them. they just want to publish something hot, it may not even be true most of the times.

[PsylockReborn]

well bitcoin is no anonymous! and whoever says it is, they are very misled.

As long as you're not providing any personal identifying information then its totally anonymous. You may know the address but the people behind holding that particular address is totally unknown.
If a good mixing service is used then the BTC would be totally untraceable. 

as for this news, why are you focusing on the negative?

Sorry if you find it negative, I don't intend to spread such negativity in the forum. Peace!

[xbossJ]

The word "Anonymity" is what actually scares government when you talk $Bitcoin! If you can't put a face to a transaction or a person it means there is room for so much negativity! Anonymity in $Bitcoin may  mean well from the side of $atoshi who began $Bitcoin. But trust man; he explores the bad in every good thing you hand down to him! There are times in everyone's life when privacy is most needed even governments around the world don't deny this! But what you do with your privacy when it is granted you is one reason why anonymity has become an issue!

[walemil]

Bitcoin anonymity is a major aid for the numerous number of scam and hacking we witness nowadays. That is why some people are interested in cryptocurrency regulations, though some people argue that regulations will hinder decentralization but they believe that it will put this financial crisis to check.

[jseverson]

Will hacking incidents increase as well as we progress with this digital currency? Is there a way that we can catch these guys given the anonymity of bitcoin? Do regulations solve this kinds of issues of anonymity? Share me your thoughts!

I don't think hacking incidents will increase solely because of Bitcoin's pseudonymity. There are a few ways to track criminals, and these have been put into practice a number of times -- one of the reasons why criminal activity on Bitcoin is decreasing:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/dark-web-finds-bitcoin-increasingly-more-of-a-problem-than-a-help-tries-other-digital-currencies.html

So yeah, I don't really think it's a downside in the least. It's not necessarily an upside for bad actors either.

[Kakmakr]

You know, I cannot think of one technology where scumbags did not misuse it for scams and illegal activities. Take the telephone as an example. We use it every day for "legal" uses, but some scumbags use it to cheat people out of their money and to run large drug cartels. <Communication with clients and also between the drug runners and the suppliers>

Can we blame the telephone for the scumbags actions? Nope, because it was not designed to help criminals. The criminals just found new illegal uses for it and this is the same with all new technologies. 

[project_delta]

Bitcoin is a decentralized currency that is transparent and secure. With the rise of bitcoin and blockchain technology there are lots of opportunities and benefits that the society can acquire. Little did we know that with the rise of this technology there are some scumbags who took advantage of one of its features which is anonymity, purchasing illegal stuffs online and even laundering money using bitcoin.

I bumped into an article awhile ago and I guess it's worth to share.

A Romanian City Hall was hacked and the hackers are demanding bitcoin as ransom.

You can read more in here. https://coindoo.com/romanian-city-hall-hackers-want-ransom-to-be-paid-using-btc/

These kinds of acts are giving bitcoin a bad name. We are moving forward to a digital world and whether we like it or not, we'll be using crypto as means of payment when doing transactions online in the near future.

Will hacking incidents increase as well as we progress with this digital currency? Is there a way that we can catch these guys given the anonymity of bitcoin? Do regulations solve this kinds of issues of anonymity? Share me your thoughts!

I mean I get what you are saying! Anonymity has been the selling and failing point for bitcoin. Normal people like being anonymous, governments don't.But in humble my opinion ,bitcoin is not really anonymous! You might not use you real name,but you are using addresses. That's your identity,no? Once it is linked to you, there is no anonymity left!
Also,even if you are using different addresses for every transaction,but have the same wallet,it could be traced back to you.
Moreover,more often than not,fiat is demanded as ransom. Why no negativity towards the paper money then?
Its just really depends on how you want to look at it. There are quite a lot of people who want to put bitcoin under the bus and will do that no matter what because their interest don't align with it!
Simple as that.

[GemmaJon]

From what I know, many people take advantage of the bitcoin's anonymity for bad objective such as crime, money laundering..The operation of deep web depend on the bitcoin's anonymity , deep web is never dead so bitcoin is never dead of course.

[dothebeats]

well bitcoin is no anonymous! and whoever says it is, they are very misled.

As long as you're not providing any personal identifying information then its totally anonymous. You may know the address but the people behind holding that particular address is totally unknown.
If a good mixing service is used then the BTC would be totally untraceable. 

Pseudo-anonymous would be, IMO, the most fitting description for bitcoin since it is only anonymous at a certain point, though it does retain its anonymity with certain conditions as well, just like what you have said regarding mixers and other methods to obfuscate the taints. Due to this, scammers and money launderers are not afraid on using bitcoin for their schemes, but that doesn't mean that scams and the likes cannot be prevented. There are scammers since there are people who are too naive to be a victim. It's not the feature that is at fault, but most of the time the users' ignorance.

[bitfocus]

everything comes with 2 sides, positive and negative, it's up to you which side you want to believe in.

[Bessta]

You know, I cannot think of one technology where scumbags did not misuse it for scams and illegal activities. Take the telephone as an example. We use it every day for "legal" uses, but some scumbags use it to cheat people out of their money and to run large drug cartels. <Communication with clients and also between the drug runners and the suppliers>

Can we blame the telephone for the scumbags actions? Nope, because it was not designed to help criminals. The criminals just found new illegal uses for it and this is the same with all new technologies. 

[Bessta]

Some people are just so smart to use technologies to scam. So i think bitcoin scamming is not an isolated case.  Bad guys are always waiting for opportunities to do evil.

[Bessta]

You know, I cannot think of one technology where scumbags did not misuse it for scams and illegal activities. Take the telephone as an example. We use it every day for "legal" uses, but some scumbags use it to cheat people out of their money and to run large drug cartels. <Communication with clients and also between the drug runners and the suppliers>

Can we blame the telephone for the scumbags actions? Nope, because it was not designed to help criminals. The criminals just found new illegal uses for it and this is the same with all new technologies. 

I hope those criminals will one day be put to jail. I just wish that forthcoming techologies will all be safe and scam-free.

[Diced90]

Bitcoin is a decentralized currency that is transparent and secure. With the rise of bitcoin and blockchain technology there are lots of opportunities and benefits that the society can acquire. Little did we know that with the rise of this technology there are some scumbags who took advantage of one of its features which is anonymity, purchasing illegal stuffs online and even laundering money using bitcoin.

I bumped into an article awhile ago and I guess it's worth to share.

A Romanian City Hall was hacked and the hackers are demanding bitcoin as ransom.

You can read more in here. https://coindoo.com/romanian-city-hall-hackers-want-ransom-to-be-paid-using-btc/

These kinds of acts are giving bitcoin a bad name. We are moving forward to a digital world and whether we like it or not, we'll be using crypto as means of payment when doing transactions online in the near future.

Will hacking incidents increase as well as we progress with this digital currency? Is there a way that we can catch these guys given the anonymity of bitcoin? Do regulations solve this kinds of issues of anonymity? Share me your thoughts!

I think with the emergence of this digital crypto world its to be expected that hackers and scams become more common because people can be gullible.
For the reason of anonymity are governments trying to bring about some sort of regulation which if minimal may actually benefit the community.

[Red-Apple]

you can not call that a downside in my opinion. as others said bitcoin is Pseudoanonymous but even if it was 100% not anonymous then it still would have happened the same way. the scammers will always find a way. how do you think they were scamming others all these years prior to bitcoin? they were using banks and other money transfer methods!

[zitbau]

I do not think it is a downside of bitcoin. I think it is the advantage of bitcoin. This would allow bitcoin to grow without government control and imposing taxes.

[Perunex]

Well cash has much more anonymity and nobody is complaining about it?

All new technologies found their scammers. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are just very attractive for scammers atm, because of the ease of it and the lack of regulators. I personally hope for the day, when people go to jail because of price manipulation or ICO scams etc. Tether might be a good example atm.

[silent17]

well bitcoin is no anonymous! and whoever says it is, they are very misled.

As long as you're not providing any personal identifying information then its totally anonymous. You may know the address but the people behind holding that particular address is totally unknown.
If a good mixing service is used then the BTC would be totally untraceable. 

as for this news, why are you focusing on the negative?

Sorry if you find it negative, I don't intend to spread such negativity in the forum. Peace!

I know that the bitcoin holder is anonymous, but I think that is why many people are using KYC system for them to identify the user of bitcoin. This is one of the ways to identify the user identity.

But of course, we can't really detect it if they use a coin shuffle website. And I really discouraged this kind of website because if we get hack we have no way of finding who is was.

[joebrook]

I do not think it is a downside of bitcoin. I think it is the advantage of bitcoin. This would allow bitcoin to grow without government control and imposing taxes.

Bitcoin isn't as anonymous as most people think that it is, that's why there are a lot of people and companies who are currently offering the likes of bitcoin mixing services so that no one would be able to track their transactions.