Privacy in Bitcoin

[Abiky]

What you are trying to say is that, bitcoin transaction can be tracked obviously because blockchain adds it up to the chain that can be viewed publicly however the sender and receiver's data is completely anonymous even the place of transaction that has been made is completely unknown. That is why bitcoin is also used for illegal activities like money laundering coz some people found bitcoin doing best at this  thing.

Bitcoin is rather pseudonymous than anything else, because your transactions are entirely public on the Blockchain. Of course, no one can tell who you are by directly looking at addresses and transaction hashes on-chain. Still, it's possible that the government manages to link your identity with an specific transaction or Bitcoin public address. That's because the blockchain ledger is open for anyone to explore at will. With privacy coins like Monero and Grin, it's nearly impossible for anyone to lookup an specific address or transaction hash using a block explorer of their preference. In the case of Monero, for someone to be able to explore all of your transactions you'd need to share your "view key" with that person. Without it, there's no way to tell how many coins you have or which transactions have been sent/received across the Blockchain.

Nonetheless, Bitcoin still enables you to perform private transactions either on-chain or off-chain. You'd need to have some knowledge on the different privacy solutions available within the Bitcoin ecosystem in order to obfuscate transactions from the general public as much as possible. For on-chain transactions, you can use Wasabi Wallet, the Samourai Wallet, or even Bitcoin mixers. Transactions performed in an off-chain manner using the Lightning Network or offline, are private by design. As long as you rely these workarounds, you'll be able to achieve privacy on Bitcoin without having to recur to another cryptocurrency. There's the always the choice of exchanging Bitcoin to a privacy coin like Monero or Grin, if that's not enough for you. Whichever way it is, Bitcoin is as private as you want it to be. Just my thoughts

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[o_e_l_e_o]

sender and receiver's data is completely anonymous even the place of transaction that has been made is completely unknown.

Not necessarily. There are many ways that the sender of a bitcoin transaction could be de-anonymized. The IP address that broadcast the transaction, for example, or if you have made the transaction from any of the multitude of exchanges, web wallets, or other online custodial services.

That is why bitcoin is also used for illegal activities like money laundering coz some people found bitcoin doing best at this  thing.

This is often repeated, but has very little truth behind it. Studies have shown that less than 8% of bitcoin sent to mixers to be anonymized are from illegal or criminal activities, meaning that of the much larger pool of bitcoin in general circulation, only a tiny percentage is being used for money laundering. This is exactly because of the public nature of the blockchain. Using a currency which has a publicly viewable record of every transaction isn't exactly a great choice if you are trying to launder money. Cash remains king for criminals.

[FlightyPouch]

I think BTC's  main policy is anonymous transaction, i like it and some how good for me for invest. I really don’t want to share who sent me that's my privacy           

Bit the thing here is that bitcoin is not really anonymous, it is pseudo-anonymous. Decentralization is the main reason why bitcoin is created, faster transactions and lower transaction fees. Another thing is that, if people know your bitcoin address, they would be able to track the transactions you have just by searching your address in the blockchain.

[eddiep20]

Its not just about privacy but also security for you money. For those looking for the most secure Bitcoin wallet for Iphone Coinbase keeps 98 percent of customer funds in cold storage. What this means is that funds are kept offline so that know one can hack or get your money. They also distribute Bitcoin geographically in safe deposit boxes and vaults around the world. As a precaution they even insure each user up to 250k. They also make you use 2 step verification on all accounts using your mobile phone. Bottom line your money is secure. On a side note I have been using Coinbase now for the last 5 plus years. You can learn more about them here https://fliptroniks.com/most-secure-bitcoin-wallet-for-iphone/.

[Chris Barth]

Ummm.... Seems like you're kinda mixing up the words.... I wont point at all of them but this one

We Are and must fight against financial freedom

Seems to be odd. We aren't fighting against financial freedom 🤷🏽‍♂. We're meant to fight for it, win it, and enjoy it.

[BuNga_cute]

This is the advantage of bitcoin that I like is privacy, which is not owned by fiat currency. Although cryptocurrency maintains privacy,
but transparent too. Because every transaction can be seen on the blockchain network, this is what we must fight for now. So if
the government legalizing bitcoin will create a healthy economy. Because bitcoin besides being used as payment, it is very good for
investment too.

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

Coinbase is a custodial wallet, which means that you do not control you own private keys, and instead Coinbase have completely control over your keys and therefore your coins. You do not own any coins that are in your Coinbase wallet. Coinbase own them, and simply "promise" that they will let you withdraw them when you ask. Except sometimes they decide not to. Sometimes they decide they want you do undergo more invasive KYC, or submit more documents. Or sometimes they don't like where your coins came from, or where you want to send them. Or sometimes they freeze your account. Or sometimes they shut down your account completely.

Further, Coinbase's insurance only protects you if their servers themselves are hacked, which makes up a tiny minority of successful hacks on web wallets and exchanges. The vast majority of attacks are by attackers breaking in to individual accounts, either by guessing or resetting your passwords, breaking in to your associated email accounts, installing keyloggers, redirecting you to phishing sites, and so on. If your coins are stolen this way, Coinbase will not refund them.

The bottom line is that the least secure way to store bitcoin is with a third party. If you want security for your coins, then store them yourself in either an airgapped or a hardware wallet.

[gundala]

Well, bitcoin does offer freedom, but breaking the rules and fighting against the government is not part of that freedom. We must be wise in addressing this matter, the government set rules there must be a purpose. Understand the rules well, then take advantage of the opportunities given or allowed, so that we can still earn money from crypto and become good citizens by obeying the laws and regulations

[arthurbarajas]

Bitcoin transactions are transparent to all users while providing some sort of privacy because it's no easy to know which address belongs to who unless they let you know or that person involved in KYC

do you know? the difference between a fool and a smart person

only stupid people who want to do KYC,
they are people stupid giving data like ID cards, passports, home addresses and other complete data.

Smart people will protect their data from anything

[Krislaw]

Some of OPs point doesn't add up. There's no privacy in because of it's blockchain and it isn't necessary to know who owns the wallet address because they don't have name a tag but just some alphanumeric characters. The blockchain just serve as a chain where all transactions are stored and can be tracked without losing them or deleting them.
We all that already into the tech already know how it's benefits and must fight for financial freedom and not against it.

[Abiky]

Not necessarily. There are many ways that the sender of a bitcoin transaction could be de-anonymized. The IP address that broadcast the transaction, for example, or if you have made the transaction from any of the multitude of exchanges, web wallets, or other online custodial services.

The real obstacles for privacy are centralized exchanges which require you to submitting personally identifiable documents. You may try any of the workaround available across the web to achieve privacy on Bitcoin, but if you go through a centralized exchange, your efforts will be in vain. For those that are paranoid on achieving full privacy, it's best to rely on a decentralized exchange for crypto-to-crypto trades. Only use a centralized exchange if you feel the need to cash out your coins into Fiat (or trade crypto to Fiat in a P2P manner if you want to maintain your anonymity).

For direct Bitcoin transactions, there are many solutions available which allow you to achieve privacy on Bitcoin (like the ones I've mentioned previously). But if that's too complicated for you, I'd recommend you use coins which are private by default (such as Monero and Grin). As for me, Bitcoin is all I need to achieve censorship-resistant transactions in the most private way possible. With crypto's recent developments, it's now possible to do many of the things you do on altcoins right on the Bitcoin blockchain itself. Privacy, smart contracts, and instant payments can be achieved on the main Bitcoin blockchain without the need to use another cryptocurrency.

If you're serious about privacy, just connect to a VPN, use Wasabi wallet or Samourai wallet (using the "Whirlpool: feature), and you're good to go. There's no such thing as 100% anonymity since nothing it's perfect. But it's better something than nothing.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Only use a centralized exchange if you feel the need to cash out your coins into Fiat

This is the worst possible use for a centralized exchange. It is impossible to use a centralized exchange to cash out fiat without at the very least linking a bank account, which gives the exchange your real name and bank details. The vast majority of exchanges will ask for far more than that and want full KYC. You've now linked your real identity to any bitcoin addresses you used to deposit to that exchange, and any addresses which are obviously linked to those one. Decentralized peer-to-peer trading is most useful for trading fiat.

If you're serious about privacy, just connect to a VPN

VPNs do not ensure privacy. If you are serious about privacy, you should be using Tor.

[Gouravsharma]

Privacy in Bitcoin is good and amazing . If you don't share any information of your Wallet then this is looking impossible to hack blockchain technology.

[Latviand]

You can always use a mixer to increase privacy. Use your bitcoin addresses only once too.

Privacy is essential in many aspects, always keep your privacy and never let anyone to have access with that. It is never easy to retrieve an account if it gets hacked and those information are the most important thing because it includes your identity. If you're a bitcoin holder, you must take care of your account. Every wallet is essential and it contains a lot of money and information and we should take responsibility of what we have in our wallet. Bitcoin is not easy to manipulate and to acquire so that we must think before we do some actions that will put your account wallet at risk. Increasing privacy in our account will help us to become more comfortable and confident with our bitcoin wallet.

[Dr.Osh]

what the government dislikes bitcoin about is its anonymous nature, so the government made some policies like KYC so that it could erode the principles of the blockchain itself. however, the reason for that is money laundering and other crimes. Well, however, it's quite difficult to find fiat exchangers who don't do KYC, especially if it's in large quantities.

[yazher]

Privacy is just a bonus but you can make it possible when using some mixer but you need some advanced knowledge to use it. Bitcoin was never been made to hide everything from the transactions to the amount of BTC you are receiving. nevertheless, as long as we used it on a legal way, there's nothing to worry about it since Bitcoin right now has been known as a top currency in the world.

[tv1967]

Anonymity was not the goal for bitcoin. The most important thing is that no one can control this system

[icewitch0612]

We can't talk about any privacy in 2020. It's almost impossible.

[buwaytress]

Well, bitcoin does offer freedom, but breaking the rules and fighting against the government is not part of that freedom. We must be wise in addressing this matter, the government set rules there must be a purpose. Understand the rules well, then take advantage of the opportunities given or allowed, so that we can still earn money from crypto and become good citizens by obeying the laws and regulations

Bitcoin doesn't offer anything that you won't already take, so if privacy's not your thing, if being the sole person in control of your money isn't your thing, then you likely won't take up Bitcoin.

I respect all beliefs, but I would always recommend you question. If you believe that the government sets rules for a purpose, find out what that purpose is, and question it. If you're still satisfied with it, then good for you. If not, seek alternatives.

Self-determination may be seen as a right in our part of the world, but many see it beyond that, as a divine duty to one's self.

[a.s.t.e.r.i.s.k]

Try to use monero if you want real privacy. And there are others privacy projects with better than btc privacy too

I wonder why monero  isn't bigger than Bitcoin,in terms of price,global market cap and the amount of active users.If everyone in the crypto world wants complete privacy,why aren't people using monero instead of Bitcoin?

davis196, the issue with cryptocurrency privacy currently is that it is a domain that is changing constantly.

Please be aware that *all* the privatization technologies available in cryptocurrencies today (including Monero, Grin) are broken, maybe with the exception of Zcash which relies on too exotic mathemathics and so ultimately you can never be confident that inflation not has happened unbeknownst to you.

Really private would mean that a third person is unable to reconstruct the transaction graph. The way they are broken is either at the networking level or in the cryptography used e.g. dandelion is broken.

Maybe the most promising research is the Lelantus algorithm.

In other words, Bitcoin with its Lightning is biggest because it's still the strongest, best, most rigorous and well understood technology, so much that there has been no reason to migrate.