Chainalysis software puts the lie to the idea that Bitcoin guarantees anonymity.

[PawGo]

Bloombers published an article about another "chain analysis" company:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-21/crypto-tracer-chainalysis-busts-bitcoin-btc-anonymity

I have a feeling it is more a PR game than a real introduction of problem, but still, any information are better then nothing.

[buwaytress]

- Chainalysis is not just "another chain analysis" company. It's one of the oldest ones around, and they're building something of a name and wealth for themselves getting contracts with govt enforcement. They also shut down noise from an ex employee a few years back who went whistleblower, claiming their tech is laughably poor and unscientific.

- The idea that Bitcoin guarantees anonymity is misled, was never claimed, and disproven publicly from the days of Silk Road. Why do we need Chainalysis to tell us something they really didn't have a hand in helping educate about? Think it's really just Bloomberg readers who still think so.

[pooya87]

They have to advertise their services somehow! They can't just place banner ads or run a signature campaign on bitcointalk because I don't think anybody would participate and they would probably be bashed to hell with their accounts neg-tagged
Their audience are also not here. So when they pay these news outlets to publish some nonsense about bitcoin and their services, they are practically advertising their services and to a better audience.

"the US Department of Justice announced it had reclaimed almost all the Bitcoin. ~ FBI had tracked the ransom Colonial paid to an address tied to DarkSide, a Russia-linked cybercrime group associated with the attackers, and swooped in to seize it."
hmmm. they should have mentioned some other country that US has some jurisdiction not Russia where they don't!

[Pmalek]

The word "anonymous" is only mentioned once in the Bitcoin whitepaper. Satoshi uses it when talking about the privacy of public keys, and not transactions or people. "Anonymity" isn't mentioned even once. "Privacy" is discussed in the segment with public keys. The word "private" is mentioned 3 times to explain what private keys are.

Bitcoin was never intended to be private. This is just Chainalysis tapping their own shoulders saying how good they are.

Chainalysis be like:

[DaveF]

Companies that do chainalysis are more or less providing a service that anyone with enough time and money can do themselves.
Anyone can follow transactions on a block explorer and follow notes to known addresses for exchanges and people.
Add in getting the information from other centralized services and it becomes more difficult. But still possible.

What they do do is provide 2 things.

1) A nice PR for the government agency when they show they are protecting you by hiring people to find this stolen, or obtained through fraud or whatever BTC

2) They are the fall guy when they get it wrong, "We didn't do anything wrong, we hired the best company we could find"

-Dave

[franky1]

bitcoin never asks for your birth certified names or house location

chain analysis works with BUSINESSES that do.
its art of the GSC portfolio so it graps BUSINESS customers details

bitcoin is pseudonomous but BUSINESSES are not

the DCG subsidiaries are the main BUSINESSES at the edges of bitcoin
just look at all the businesses sharing info between each other and to chainanalysis

https://dcg.co/portfolio/
just to name a few  coinbase, bitpay, gyft, ftx, kraken all share info on their customers

but bitcoin transactions never ask for user info. no blockchain data includes peoples names or locations

[Z-tight]

I think there will be more and more such companies in the market, because there is a lot of illegal money in cryptocurrency, so states will promote the emergence of such organisations. A very good example recently was tornado cash. The government has made it clear to many that it will not allow shady dealings. We are all about to be heavily regulated. Some exchanges have long since stopped accepting deposits from wallets with built-in mixers.

There is illegal money everywhere, and by the way the amount of it in crypto is small compared to other places, e.g. like with paper money. These chain analysis companies are not doing anybody any favor but the government. Regulations isn't new in centralized exchanges, they have always been 'censor agencies' and be it money, data, privacy, etc is not safe when one uses them.

[Apocollapse]

I wonder why Chainalysis can't differentiate between anonymous and pseudonymous while they're currently seems to be the most reputable crypto tracer. Actually Bitcoin mixer and decentralized exchanges help to make Bitcoin become 100% anonymous, if they're saying Bitcoin can't guarantee anonymity, why in the hell they're can't trace the whole Bitcoin scammer? especially those who create ponzi scheme on many sites.