Is bitcoin anonymous?

[Crptomagma]

Is Bitcoin entirely anonymous? It’s common for people to say that in reality bitcoin is absolutely anonymous but are not knowledgeable enough to know that is pseudonymous . Bitcoin being pseudonymous rather than the assumed anonymous gives us an understanding that each user has a established public address. So that further tells us theoretically bitcoin address can be traced back using an IP address or an exchange account.
We should be more concerned about to what level or extent is bitcoin anonymous ?

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[ChiBitCTy]

Like you said bitcoin is pseudo anonymous.  I personally fear the lightning network making bitcoin anonymous.  I've still yet to get a concrete answer whether the Lightning Network actually makes bitcoin truly anonymous or not, but if it does, I worry.  Man countries don't allow their women to drive, vote, or hold many career positions that men do..why on earth are they going to allow an anonymous currency to operate in their country? Of course OTC will always live, but shutting down exchanges could be detrimental to bitcoins future.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Bitcoin is anonymous. I don't know if it's pseudo anonymous or not, but if you have bitcoins on a non-custodian wallet there's literally no way for somebody to find out. Once you make a transaction, again, same thing. You just broadcast a signed message. Nodes don't know who moved the bitcoins, because they don't know who sent/received the message first.

When anonymity loses its point? Once you reveal yourself! If you believe that you have to sell your bitcoins, then yeah, at least 1 person will find out who you are, because somehow you'll have to transfer fiat.

Cryptography makes it anonymous, whether we want it or not.

[Marvelman]

Was that meant to be a question or what? It seems to me that the OP has all the answers already and yet it brings up a subject that has been addressed on this forum several times already.
What's wrong with the Search function? (It was a rhetorical question, you don't really have to answer.)

[ChrisPop]

Bitcoin can be 100% anonymous if the user knows how to cover his tracks. However I don't think our society needs 100% anonimity. From my observations the average joe does not care much about privacy. Personally the fact that Bitcoin offers a high level of anonimity when making transactions is simply a bonus on top of the more important features like decentralization.

[BIT-BENDER]

Bitcoin can be 100% anonymous if the user knows how to cover his tracks. However I don't think our society needs 100% anonimity. From my observations the average joe does not care much about privacy. Personally the fact that Bitcoin offers a high level of anonimity when making transactions is simply a bonus on top of the more important features like decentralization.

The user covering tracks, is possible when the user is not in an serious interest, like when the user commit a fraud, crime and the user, uses bitcoin to implement the crime, the tracks can't be swept un-stained, it shouldn't even be so, if one commits a crime, anonymity can be of concern to people who aren't allowed into a project, contest, exchange and so on because of their location.

[Ayiranorea]

It is upto the user and the technical knowledge he has got in using a bitcoin wallet address for transaction purposes. When we talk of the anonymity, it is pseudo anonymous. This means everything is open and if the end users were known, then the entire detail of their wallets can be seen by everyone. To overcome the same it requires more form of mixing services. Anyhow if regulated surely it'll lose this unique feature.

[coolcoinz]

It is anonymous as long as no personal details of yours appear in any of the transactions. This means that if you got coins for free from a friend or a member of family, or earned them in a signature campaign, they are anonymous. If you then go to a service that requires KYC and spend them there, they stop being anonymous, but if you exchange them with someone for something (barter) they will remain anonymous.

[Oshosondy]

It is anonymous as long as no personal details of yours appear in any of the transactions. This means that if you got coins for free from a friend or a member of family, or earned them in a signature campaign, they are anonymous. If you then go to a service that requires KYC and spend them there, they stop being anonymous, but if you exchange them with someone for something (barter) they will remain anonymous.

I can not agree to this, so far the coins can be tracked on blockchain, it is not anonymou. That is why bitcoin transactions are called pseudonymous because it is possible for the transactions to be known but not linked to the owner until it is linked with kyc, that is why bitcoin is called a privacy coin. There are some anonymou coins like monero, zcash and dash which transactions can not be seen on blockchain.

[Globb0]

Do you realy think of bitcoin as anonymous?

can be easily linked to an IP address

and anyway TRANSPARENT LEDGER!

[gentlemand]

You have control of how much you're willing to let slip. If you're committed you could in theory never link a real world ID to a transaction. In reality all it takes is one balls up and it's all blown to smithereens. No way could I be arsed to check myself every step of the way but if you're willing to stay alert it's conceivable.

[Altcoinsintel]

Like you said bitcoin is pseudo anonymous.  I personally fear the lightning network making bitcoin anonymous.  I've still yet to get a concrete answer whether the Lightning Network actually makes bitcoin truly anonymous or not, but if it does, I worry.  Man countries don't allow their women to drive, vote, or hold many career positions that men do..why on earth are they going to allow an anonymous currency to operate in their country? Of course OTC will always live, but shutting down exchanges could be detrimental to bitcoins future.

Are you worried with your paper fiat being anonymous too? Aren't you worried that all exchange names and addresses have been leaked and every scammer can know your addresses?

[palle11]

Bitcoin can be 100% anonymous if the user knows how to cover his tracks. However I don't think our society needs 100% anonimity. From my observations the average joe does not care much about privacy. Personally the fact that Bitcoin offers a high level of anonimity when making transactions is simply a bonus on top of the more important features like decentralization.

I think it is because of the decentralization that people say is anonymous but if you have a bitcoin, people can know about it from blockchain or if you do transaction on exchange. They may not see how many balance from exchange as they don't have your code for security but they can see the value of transaction made.

[adzino]

Is Bitcoin entirely anonymous? It’s common for people to say that in reality bitcoin is absolutely anonymous but are not knowledgeable enough to know that is pseudonymous . Bitcoin being pseudonymous rather than the assumed anonymous gives us an understanding that each user has a established public address. So that further tells us theoretically bitcoin address can be traced back using an IP address or an exchange account.
We should be more concerned about to what level or extent is bitcoin anonymous ?

You are correct. It is pseudonymous. But lot of people think that bitcoin is completely anonymous. And there are those dumb people that commit crimes using bitcoin thinking they won't get caught, but they eventually do. I remember few months ago someone groups of criminals were financing their crimes through bitcoin. They were using voucher codes to redeem coins, but they did get caught eventually.
As long as you are connected to the internet, there will eventually a way to track you (unless you take extreme measures). I doubt anyone would want to track you by doing those complex deep analysis unless you have done some serious crime that resulted in national/international pressure.

[profullstack]

nope. its a public ledger. created by the NSA in collaboration with the CIA for use at the DEA and IRS.

[catur123]

It is anonymous as long as no personal details of yours appear in any of the transactions. This means that if you got coins for free from a friend or a member of family, or earned them in a signature campaign, they are anonymous. If you then go to a service that requires KYC and spend them there, they stop being anonymous, but if you exchange them with someone for something (barter) they will remain anonymous.

I agree with you.
I also feel dependent on your own thinking about bitcoin being anonymous or not as long as bitcoin is still in its goal.

[vaultman]

You can only identify a user if the person or exchange that sent you bitcoins transfers information to someone about you. There is no other way. Thanks to the use of bitcoin mixers, it is possible to achieve almost complete anonymity, but again, it is not known how the mixers work. Perhaps its creators are logging all IP addresses and wallets from which bitcoins were sent, and accordingly, they can also provide information about you.

[oktana]

For me, I'd say bitcoin is anonymous. Considering the fact that I do not need to submit any personal document to transact with it. However, this post is quite thoughtful and has made me rethink. What if wallet app / site has been recording my IP addresses? What if they can use it to track me? 

[death69]

Bitcoin is yes pseudoannonymous. But do you really care about uour anonymity while using bitcoin? Many bitcoin enthusisasts only focus their money and efforts so as to earn more money after investing. Being anonymity is not their concern. Bitcoin is becoming the digital gold with no doubt

[#dhabitamartha]

Anonymous does not mean without control or without a legal owner, bitcoin can be owned, every user can invest and have an official and private wallet. sometimes we make buying and selling transactions we can't see where the person selling is from and we don't know who he is maybe this is my anoim but the transaction history is still detected and recorded by the wallet. miners may not even know who made the transactions