Is bitcoin really censorship resistant?

[btc-freedom-money]

I am going to be objective and try my best to not be biased and include my own opinion.
You can see my name that I try to be optimistic about bitcoin.

There are two perspectives. The first perspective is bitcoin is living up to its promises and is censorship resistant and decentralized money. The government can't stop us from making transfers with bitcoin and they can't freeze out bitcoin or confiscate it.

The second perspective is that none of that is true. The government can confiscate and freeze bitcoin and stop us from using bitcoin in a way they don't approve. Regulations and laws will be enforced and they are increasingly coming after and giving fines or prison time to anyone who don't follow their regulations. From their perspective, saying bitcoin is censorship resistant is as big lie as saying we have freedom of speech because the government can't stop us from opening our mouth and speaking anything we want to, but that is wrong because the government has made a habit of punishing anyone who says something they don't like such as removing their licenses, censoring them, giving fines, prison, assassination, debanking.

Evaluating those two perspectives, it's easy to see that the first perspective is of course technically correct. But I don't think anyone can deny that the second perspective is also correct in terms of "how it works in practice".

In that case how did bitcoin fail with becoming censorship resistant in practice? The answer is easy, it's because bitcoin has no privacy. The tiny amount of pseudonimity is easily removed. It is also illegal to have privacy with bitcoin. If you have privacy that means you are not reporting to authorities how much bitcoin you have in which wallets and then you become a tax evader and that means you will end up spending a lot of time in prison in the future.

The only way to be censorship resistant is with complete anonymity. Without anonymity you can be censored by those who know your identity, which is the government. The governments use chainalysis to track everyone on bitcoin blockchain. And even if you manage to be anonymous and evade paying taxes without getting caught, it means you can't spend your bitcoin then because anyone who accepts your bitcoin without doing a KYC on you will be comitting a crime, at least in EU, and the rest of the world has similar laws because of AML laws are international everywhere. Maybe you can for the time being find a loop hole somewhere but regulations are spreading and tightening up those holes.

Bitcoin failed because it has no privacy. It was not designed with privacy in mind, it was designed to be regulated but not intentionally because Satoshi really did want bitcoin to be censorship resistant. It was supposed to be a digital revolution. Revolution means you don't let regulations control you. Bitcoin had a good vision but it was flawed by not having privacy.

Some people argue that it's ok if it doesn't have privacy, we can use coinjoin and other tools built on top of Bitcoin. The problem is those tools get sanctioned and devs get prison time and anyone interacting with sanctioned tools (any privacy tool) will also be sanctioned. There are black lists, and anyone who is on that black list will not be welcomed anywhere KYC and AML is involved which is soon going to be everywhere. Any bitcoin going into those tools will become useless when they come out. Because if you are anonymous then you can't do kyc and aml and that means you can't use your bitcoin.

Bitcoin should have been a revolutionary movement which means it should have had privacy all along. Instead bitcoin became hijacked by investors and ROI and digital gold and regulations and no privacy.

Last but not least is I've noticed quite many users here on this forum have said they want bitcoin to be regulated. They don't want it to be censorship resistant. That is just a little extra to take into consideration, that this regulation hijack of bitcoin has really succeeded because not many people are actually speaking up about wanting bitcoin to be censorship resistant. Maybe it's because all those users have already since a long time seen bitcoin as a failure and moved on to Monero.

On an ending note I will add my own opinion has been just objective facts I've found during my research. My opinion is no matter how bad the situation looks like for bitcoin, we should not give up hope. We must remind everyone and teach everyone the problems bitcoin are facing so we can fix them.

[nutildah]

Bitcoin failed because it has no privacy.

By what metric do you come to this conclusion? It certainly has not failed as a form of P2P electronic cash, nor as a store of value. Its worth pointing out the difference between "censorship resistant" and "censorship proof". It can really only be censored through government address blacklists. Even then, you can still send it anywhere you want, it might just land you in a hot spot with the government. You admit Satoshi developed Bitcoin not with privacy in mind, so how could it have failed?

Bitcoin should have been a revolutionary movement which means it should have had privacy all along. Instead bitcoin became hijacked by investors and ROI and digital gold and regulations and no privacy.

Perhaps, but it was the first of its kind and paved the way for Monero (XMR). If true fungibility and privacy matter to you the most, then that's the coin for you.

[stwenhao]

You admit Satoshi developed Bitcoin not with privacy in mind, so how could it have failed?

10. Privacy

The traditional banking model achieves a level of privacy by limiting access to information to the parties involved and the trusted third party. The necessity to announce all transactions publicly precludes this method, but privacy can still be maintained by breaking the flow of information in another place: by keeping public keys anonymous. The public can see that someone is sending an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone. This is similar to the level of information released by stock exchanges, where the time and size of individual trades, the "tape", is made public, but without telling who the parties were.

As an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner.

If privacy was not intended, then why the whitepaper has the whole paragraph, written only about that, and nothing else?

If you have privacy that means you are not reporting to authorities how much bitcoin you have in which wallets and then you become a tax evader and that means you will end up spending a lot of time in prison in the future.

If you evade taxes with Monero, the end result could be exactly the same.

[_act_]

The only way to be censorship resistant is with complete anonymity. Without anonymity you can be censored by those who know your identity, which is the government.

There are many node runners that are using Tor to mask their connection.

But the problem is that government can make miners to censor transactions. But this has not happened since bitcoin was created till now. We have heard about how a mining pool or so wanted that but it did not happen.

[pooya87]

You sound confused.

There is a difference between doing all those things (restrictions, surveillance, censorship, etc.) to bitcoin and doing all of it to a centralized service using bitcoin.

For example they can force you to go through KYC when you use a centralized exchange and they can order that exchange to freeze your coins. But you weren't using bitcoin, you were using a centralized service.
When you use bitcoin, nobody can freeze your coins. Nobody can prevent you from sending transactions from any address to any other address (ie. censorship resistance).

When the government impose all those restrictions, that is NOT bitcoin's failure. It is the society's failure for having a government that doesn't represent their interests...

[BlackBoss_]

There are two perspectives. The first perspective is bitcoin is living up to its promises and is censorship resistant and decentralized money. The government can't stop us from making transfers with bitcoin and they can't freeze out bitcoin or confiscate it.

Bitcoin is a best decentralized cryptocurrency, and it is a best one in censorship resistant.

How many Bitcoin confirmations is enough?
There are attempts to filter Bitcoin transactions.
https://howmanyconfs.com/

It's true to say Bitcoin is a best cryptocurrency blockchain in decentralized, security against attacks and censorship-resistant.

[Ambatman]

Most of your argument are correct to users using CEX not a non custodial wallet.
Bitcoin was never created for privacy in mind but as a public ledger with pseudonym doesn't equate full privacy.

Censorship resistance isn't same with privacy, Bitcoin is still censorship resistance
They can restrain you through the Blockchain but other means

Mind you Resistance doesn't equate immunity.

[Mia Chloe]

Well firstly Op who says bitcoin doesn't have privacy? It definitely seems like you are misinterpreting the difference between privacy and transparency. The bitcoin network is a private and simultaneously transparent network. Now to cite an example, take the MEMPOOL for instance, you can definitely go to the memepool space as long as you have an internet connection and basically you find thousands and millions of transactions over all. That's transparency you can see everything going on in the network.

Now what is privacy? Those transactions you see, how can you tell who made them? Or how can you tell the person controlling the wallet? The fact is you can't except you have an additional information about that particular wallet and user linking them.

[Catenaccio]

Well firstly Op who says bitcoin doesn't have privacy? It definitely seems like you are misinterpreting the difference between privacy and transparency. The bitcoin network is a private and simultaneously transparent network.

Bitcoin blockchain is not a privacy blockchain. It has a public ledger, and with many Bitcoin block explorers, a normal Bitcoin user can trace transaction history of any Bitcoin address. If that address is known as yours, they will know about your transaction history through Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin blockchain can provide privacy and anonymity at some levels, but not perfect.

List of useful Bitcoin block explorers
General guidelines for sending BTC transactions

[Mia Chloe]

Bitcoin blockchain is not a privacy blockchain. It has a public ledger, and with many Bitcoin block explorers, a normal Bitcoin user can trace transaction history of any Bitcoin address. If that address is known as yours, they will know about your transaction history through Bitcoin blockchain.

Now I never said the privacy of the bitcoin network is perfect infact even with Monero in the category of privacy coins, it's still not 100% safe or private. Now the fact you need to understand is that bitcoin privacy is based on the condition that you as the owner of that address or wallet doesn't disclose any information that can link your transactions else you just can't pick up a random transaction hash on the MEMPOOL and without further information tell who owns the address.

The fact is privacy is personal and if you decide not to share your addresses on the internet then it would require extra information to be able to track a transaction to a person that can be seen basically as privacy.

[joniboini]

Bitcoin should have been a revolutionary movement which means it should have had privacy all along. Instead bitcoin became hijacked by investors and ROI and digital gold and regulations and no privacy.

How exactly do you want to go about this though? Do you want Bitcoin to become like Monero as mentioned above? What are your criteria for judging whether a hijack is impossible or not? If the government blocks exchanges from listing coins, does this mean hijackable? What if people intentionally dump the coin to bring the price down?

I second that you should differentiate what happened on the blockchain and businesses using Bitcoin to make profits. If the government wants to manipulate the network they'll have to do more than just asking KYC when someone use Binance.

[btc-freedom-money]

You sound confused.

There is a difference between doing all those things (restrictions, surveillance, censorship, etc.) to bitcoin and doing all of it to a centralized service using bitcoin.

For example they can force you to go through KYC when you use a centralized exchange and they can order that exchange to freeze your coins. But you weren't using bitcoin, you were using a centralized service.
When you use bitcoin, nobody can freeze your coins. Nobody can prevent you from sending transactions from any address to any other address (ie. censorship resistance).

When the government impose all those restrictions, that is NOT bitcoin's failure. It is the society's failure for having a government that doesn't represent their interests...

No you are the one who is confused because all you did was make a perspective 1 post. You should read the whole post again slowly and probably more than once then you won't be confused any more.

Bitcoin should have been a revolutionary movement which means it should have had privacy all along. Instead bitcoin became hijacked by investors and ROI and digital gold and regulations and no privacy.

How exactly do you want to go about this though? Do you want Bitcoin to become like Monero as mentioned above? What are your criteria for judging whether a hijack is impossible or not? If the government blocks exchanges from listing coins, does this mean hijackable? What if people intentionally dump the coin to bring the price down?

I second that you should differentiate what happened on the blockchain and businesses using Bitcoin to make profits. If the government wants to manipulate the network they'll have to do more than just asking KYC when someone use Binance.

I already answered that in the OP. We need privacy. Privacy is the solution. Using defi instead of centralized exchanges doesn't change anything if we don't have privacy. There are now laws that says you can't use USDT or DAI or WBTC and many other coins and you have to do KYC on all defi transactions or you will be fined/prison. Without privacy they can see who is breaking their regulations by looking at the bitcoin ledger which has no privacy to protect us and they will just come and knock on your door and arrest you. It doesn't matter if you are using centralized or decentralized when there is no privacy.

[mindrust]

Wtf is that wall of text full of nocoiner bullcrap? If I wanted to hear shit like that I would listen to Peter Schiff’s podcasts.

Bitcoin is working as intended.

Day by day bitcoin adoption is getting bigger and the support for the current prices is getting stronger.

If you want full-privacy you might want to use monero but that has low user adoption so bitcoin is overall the best choice among all. That is not debatable. Get your factoids straight.

[Saint-loup]

I would say half agree because if you are not a big holder and not doing large transactions, you're unlikely to be tracked and purchased by anyone. Except if the receiver is himself a big holder doing illegal things. So up to now, you can virtually trade bitcoin for goods or services anonymously I would say. In addition you can easily travel with all your crypto bag to spend it in whatever way you want without being tracked in countries where Bitcoin is fully legal and accepted without any KYC requirements.

[Synchronice]

There are two perspectives. The first perspective is bitcoin is living up to its promises and is censorship resistant and decentralized money. The government can't stop us from making transfers with bitcoin and they can't freeze out bitcoin or confiscate it.

If there is a unity among nations, Bitcoin can be hugely oppressed. I mean, if literally every country decides to censor Bitcoin, then its usage will be very limited but it doesn't mean Bitcoin will be stopped. Maybe it will be but Monero will not.

Bitcoin failed because it has no privacy. It was not designed with privacy in mind, it was designed to be regulated but not intentionally because Satoshi really did want bitcoin to be censorship resistant. It was supposed to be a digital revolution. Revolution means you don't let regulations control you. Bitcoin had a good vision but it was flawed by not having privacy.

If there is anything that entitles Bitcoin as failed, it's probably moments when transaction fees are high but other than that, Bitcoin is doing fine. It's still one of the most decentralized cryptocurrency compared to others and it solves the problem it was created for, it helps you to do peer to peer transactions without using of 3rd parties.

Bitcoin should have been a revolutionary movement which means it should have had privacy all along. Instead bitcoin became hijacked by investors and ROI and digital gold and regulations and no privacy.

I completely agree with you but it was inevitable and is inevitable with everything that becomes popular and massive.

[Doan9269]

Bitcoin failed because it has no privacy.

I knew it already that from the start of seeing this thread and how bulky the contents are, i knew there must be something wrong from what you're saying.

Bitcoin has not failed.
Bitcoin has privacy and not only that, it security is also accurate and confirmed.

maybe to go against all odds, you just have to step up on how you make your own research about bitcoin or need to verify more on things that some people say about bitcoin without you having any idea on them to be true or false.

i will just have to leave you with this to discover which aspect of bitcoin you need to learn more from.

Mega Resource for Newbies
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5500358.0

[davis196]

Bitcoin failed because it has no privacy. It was not designed with privacy in mind, it was designed to be regulated but not intentionally because Satoshi really did want bitcoin to be censorship resistant. It was supposed to be a digital revolution. Revolution means you don't let regulations control you. Bitcoin had a good vision but it was flawed by not having privacy.

I think that the term "censorship resistant" means that no government or third party could block and reverse transactions, that are being processed on the BTC blockchain. I don't think that the term "censorship resistant" has anything to do with privacy.
OP, there are many forum posts criticizing Bitcoin for not being a privacy coin. You simply don't add anything new to the discussion.
If you want privacy, just use privacy coins like Monero. You could use BTC with mixers/tumblers, but they are banned almost everywhere.
Satoshi Nakamoto didn't create Bitcoin with the "I will make a privacy coin, so that all the criminals on the darkweb could use it" mentality.

[betswift]

Most of your argument are correct to users using CEX not a non custodial wallet.
Bitcoin was never created for privacy in mind but as a public ledger with pseudonym doesn't equate full privacy.

Censorship resistance isn't same with privacy, Bitcoin is still censorship resistance
They can restrain you through the Blockchain but other means

Mind you Resistance doesn't equate immunity.

Yep.
It's a security fortress, not a privacy one.
For that, there is Monero, that is commonly referred for those willing to make a step forward in that regard.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

Bitcoin failed because it has no privacy.

Bitcoin is not a private blockchain and it was not designed to provide complete privacy to Bitcoin users. If you care about privacy, and want it, you need to use Bitcoin wallets, UTXOs carefully, together with other tools for hiding your IP address, and leave a humble life too. Many things to do for achieving privacy, and it's true and the same in life, not only in finance or blockchain.

Bitcoin privacy resources.
https://www.privacytools.io/

[FortuneFollower]

Bitcoin failed because it has no privacy.

Bitcoin is not a private blockchain and it was not designed to provide complete privacy to Bitcoin users. If you care about privacy, and want it, you need to use Bitcoin wallets, UTXOs carefully, together with other tools for hiding your IP address, and leave a humble life too. Many things to do for achieving privacy, and it's true and the same in life, not only in finance or blockchain.

Bitcoin privacy resources.
https://www.privacytools.io/

It's pseudo anonymous, so yeah.
It wasn't envisioned to be something would be full-proof resistant to such factors, so it's okay. And as you said, there are tools to make the situation better.