Question about bitcoin transaction privacy

[standardnepo]

Let’s say my private keys are well protected. I use a cold wallet with a passphrase, and I keep my seed phrase somewhere safe. So, from a security point of view, my Bitcoin should be secure.

If someone could figure out approximately how much BTC I have, when I receive BTC, or which transactions are connected to my wallet, how could that affect me if they still don’t have access to my private keys? Bitcoin transactions are already public, and they don’t give away my identity anyway.

[Mr Reporter]

Let’s say my private keys are well protected. I use a cold wallet with a passphrase, and I keep my seed phrase somewhere safe. So, from a security point of view, my Bitcoin should be secure.

If someone could figure out approximately how much BTC I have, when I receive BTC, or which transactions are connected to my wallet, how could that affect me if they still don’t have access to my private keys? Bitcoin transactions are already public, and they don’t give away my identity anyway.

Well I might say technically your funds should be saved at some point since your private keys are not in the wrong hands….talking from experience for someone to know how much worth of BTC you have and your transaction patterns is a bad one….now the risk even without your seed phrases and keys let's say if someone finds out I'm worth having 2BTC and I live in a local community with such amount, I think that info is a big info to the scammer or kidnapper’s…which over the years I have noted such that bigger OGs never talk about their crypto amounts publicly.

And also take not that if you reuse the same BTC address, anyone can watch it forever.
They’ll know when you get paid, when you sell, when you’re broke. And at same time you could be sent a dusting to see if you are greedy to check out the link….

[nelson4lov]

If someone could figure out approximately how much BTC I have, when I receive BTC, or which transactions are connected to my wallet, how could that affect me if they still don’t have access to my private keys? Bitcoin transactions are already public, and they don’t give away my identity anyway.

Correct. The primary way people establish a connection between an address and a person is if the person sends their coins to an exchange or any centralized service providers that they have KYC'ed with. As long as you never interact with any of such service, you are good to go for the most part because its the easiest way to get linked.

 

[ryzaadit]

how could that affect me if they still don’t have access to my private keys?

You become a target, and this is why you should never share anything about your personal financial information online.

First approach.

• Targeting phissing
• Targeting malware
• Social engineering attack
• Sim-attack
• Impersonating, claiming to be support or other

The second approach is getting worse, just like being mentioned by @Mr Reporter

• Blackmailing you with your secret stuff
• Robbery at your house
• Kidnaped you, demanded your crypto
• Kidnaped one of your family and demanded to pay the ransom

They don't know your private keys, but they will be desperate to get your private key or crypto in any way they can use once they know you have a big chunk of money. Search in Google with simple keyword: "crypto millionaire got kidnapped". You will see bunch of news.

[BitMaxz]

If you don't talk about your wallet and address to the public, they also don't know who owns that bitcoin. Our addresses or used addresses are exist to any explorer except the information of the owner; it means your privacy is safe but not how much you own bitcoin in your wallet.

However, it's not a problem because you can use multiple addresses and split your BTC, and they don't know if you still own those BTC. Meaning, don't put BTC in a single address; also use the other addresses from your wallet to make sure your privacy about your BTC is safe and I think only the exchange knows what you doing if you buy BTC from them but if you use P2P exchange with no KYC, then all of your BTC is anonymous. Even if it is public, all of our data won't publicly exist.

[Ucy]

If you have sizeable amount of bitcoins you should be worry about attackers or thieves getting to your physical location to take them away. Aside people getting to you physically due to your wealth, your coins will most likely be monitored for movements, If you're intention is to sell, the market could move against you.
Another vulnerable groups are actual bitcoiners or people who aren't liked by fiat system, who are persecuted or are into some kind of honest/right activism. Their transactions maybe censored or funds confisticated when they try to sell/trade

If you don't belong to any of the group then you have little to nothing to worry about as it won't be worth it for thieves to risk stealing from you. But if you want to feel completely safe then move your funds to another address/addresses without leaving any trace. But you should be really careful with coins that leave no trace

[Zaguru12]

If you have sizeable amount of bitcoins you should be worry about attackers or thieves getting to your physical location, to take them away,. Aside people getting to you physically as a wealthy person, your coins will most likely be monitored for movements, If you're intention is to sell, the market could move against you.
Another vulnerable groups, are actual bitcoiners or people who aren't liked by fiat system, who are persecuted or are into some kind of honest/right activism. Their transactions maybe censored or funds confisticated when they try to sell/trade  

How would they get to someone with just address, i don’t think you understand the OP question entirely because from what I read the OP is actually using a self custodial wallet and the only way that someone could get to know about his wallet holdings is through the blockchain because it’s public but they don’t even know who the address belongs to physically and all they can do is monitor the the address by means like sending dust.

The only period they can actually get access to you OP physically is when he makes it public through ways that the address belongs to him, like he might have Sent them coins or transact with them using that same address.

[Ucy]

If you have sizeable amount of bitcoins you should be worry about attackers or thieves getting to your physical location, to take them away,. Aside people getting to you physically as a wealthy person, your coins will most likely be monitored for movements, If you're intention is to sell, the market could move against you.
Another vulnerable groups, are actual bitcoiners or people who aren't liked by fiat system, who are persecuted or are into some kind of honest/right activism. Their transactions maybe censored or funds confisticated when they try to sell/trade 

How would they get to someone with just address

If they can associate your physical location to the address

[fullfitlarry]

If someone could figure out approximately how much BTC I have, when I receive BTC, or which transactions are connected to my wallet, how could that affect me if they still don’t have access to my private keys? Bitcoin transactions are already public, and they don’t give away my identity anyway.

Yes, they don't have any access to your private key even if they known or seen your address. Addresses doesn't have any attached name in it, unless you uses a custodial wallet like in crypto exchanges wherein exchanges themselves will ask KYC, hence your identity has been exposed.

But if you have total control of your seed + extra phrase and your private key then you are anonymous. But if you really wanted to be more private, then run your own Bitcoin node.

[Zaguru12]

If they can associate your physical location to the address

That is if he gives his identity away either through selling off the coins on exchanges and even on KYC exchanges it’s not that easy to get the information or identity of him because even though we say exchanges actually lose people identity, just common people cannot still get access.

so if OP only deals with self custodial wallets alone physical attacks or wrench attack is only possible by highly skilled scammers. Merely having your address and knowing the amount of bitcoin doesn’t actually give away such information.

[bitmover]

Let’s say my private keys are well protected. I use a cold wallet with a passphrase, and I keep my seed phrase somewhere safe. So, from a security point of view, my Bitcoin should be secure.

If someone could figure out approximately how much BTC I have, when I receive BTC, or which transactions are connected to my wallet, how could that affect me if they still don’t have access to my private keys? Bitcoin transactions are already public, and they don’t give away my identity anyway.

There are many blockchain analysis companies which exchanges share their data with, so they do know the owner of a bunch of addresses.

This is why it is important to protect your privacy when using bitcoin. Avoid to reuse the same address, always generate a new address each time you receive coins (so the sender cannot know your past transactions), for example.

You can be anonymous using bitcoin, but you can make the work of those blockchain analysis companies much harder to detect you.

[Ucy]

If they can associate your physical location to the address

That is if he gives his identity away either through selling off the coins on exchanges and even on KYC exchanges it’s not that easy to get the information or identity of him because even though we say exchanges actually lose people identity, just common people cannot still get access.

so if OP only deals with self custodial wallets alone physical attacks or wrench attack is only possible by highly skilled scammers. Merely having your address and knowing the amount of bitcoin doesn’t actually give away such information.

... the only way that someone could get to know about his wallet holdings is through the blockchain

... physical attacks or wrench attack is only possible by highly skilled scammers...

Both quotes of yours seem contradictory.
Anyway, you probably forgot that people send bitcoins to people in most cases, meaning that if Op has stash of bitcoins somewhere he likely received them from another peer/peers. So, he doesn't necessarily need to reveal the address publicly in order to be known. And ofcourse, hackers, just as you mentioned, could also get that information.
There are other ways to expose an address without revealing it "publicly"

[Darker45]

Yes, transactions are public, which means you also have a public address, which further means you shared it with whoever you had transactions. So, while Bitcoin transactions don't give away your identity, could you guarantee 100% that your public address isn't tied with any name, residence address, phone number, email address, social media account, and what not?

For example, if you bought your wallet device with a Bitcoin address, your identity, shipping address, contact number are already identified with that address.

Even posting or sending via private message your public address on Facebook or Twitter or on this forum means dropping a clue as to who you are or where you live or where to send you phishing mails or which number to call you.

[lionheart78]

Let’s say my private keys are well protected. I use a cold wallet with a passphrase, and I keep my seed phrase somewhere safe. So, from a security point of view, my Bitcoin should be secure.

If someone could figure out approximately how much BTC I have, when I receive BTC, or which transactions are connected to my wallet, how could that affect me if they still don’t have access to my private keys? Bitcoin transactions are already public, and they don’t give away my identity anyway.

Bitcoin gives a pseudo-anonymity, not a complete anonymity, where your transactions are kept from public viewing.  Anyone can see your balance as long as they know your Bitcoin address, since the Bitcoin blockchain is public.  But Bitcoin protects the user from being identified as long as it is not connected to a centralized institution that requires KYC.

It does not matter whether everyone knows the balance of your BTC address as long as it does not connect to your personal identity.  So I can say if you kept your BTC wallet address connection away from your personal identity, it will not be affected even if people all around the world know how much your address is holding BTC.

And indeed, Bitcoin doesn't give away your identity, but the moment you connect your Bitcoin address to a centralized entity and provide your details on the KYC, the data the centralized entity holds will connect your identity to your Bitcoin wallet address.

[ruykeri]

Security and privacy are not the same thing. Seed phrase can prevent your bitcoin from being hacked or your wallet from being accessed by someone else. But if someone somehow finds out that you are the owner of that wallet, then it may be for you to face physical threats. Because many such news can be seen now. It is important to keep in mind that your real identity should never be linked to your bitcoin address. Suppose if someone finds out that you have a large amount of bitcoin holding, he will not be able to get coins from your address in any way. But he will be able to target you. He will try to hack you online in various ways to get your stored seed phrase or he may try to get access to your wallet by holding you hostage through social attacks. So to secure your bitcoin holding, it is not just about protecting the seed phrase. Along with this, you should also protect your identity and privacy. Because if someone does not know about your assets, they will not even plan or think about taking your assets.

[X-ray]

How would they get to someone with just address, i don’t think you understand the OP question entirely because from what I read the OP is actually using a self custodial wallet and the only way that someone could get to know about his wallet holdings is through the blockchain because it’s public but they don’t even know who the address belongs to physically and all they can do is monitor the the address by means like sending dust.

The only period they can actually get access to you OP physically is when he makes it public through ways that the address belongs to him, like he might have Sent them coins or transact with them using that same address.

Blockchain analytics company like Chainalysis, Elliptic, etc able to identify who the address belongs to by simply looking at the source of fund and destination of fund.

It's not that hard for these company to trace address ownership unless you are using pure P2P for both off ramp and on ramp which not many could do.

Many of us here use KYC'd exchange and can easily be traced.

For hackers, it will be hard, but it's not impossible because KYC'd exchange have been having data breaches for quite sometime.

[Jostle]

Bitcoin is not a privacy-focused chain (sidenote: Monero is).

However, as long as you keep your passphrase safe, your btc is secure.

[ArabBTC]

If you don't talk about your wallet and address to the public, they also don't know who owns that bitcoin. Our addresses or used addresses are exist to any explorer except the information of the owner; it means your privacy is safe but not how much you own bitcoin in your wallet.

However, it's not a problem because you can use multiple addresses and split your BTC, and they don't know if you still own those BTC. Meaning, don't put BTC in a single address; also use the other addresses from your wallet to make sure your privacy about your BTC is safe and I think only the exchange knows what you doing if you buy BTC from them but if you use P2P exchange with no KYC, then all of your BTC is anonymous. Even if it is public, all of our data won't publicly exist.

Yea creating multiple addresses could be another strategy in securing your coins though personally am always a bit skeptical about creating multiple addresses because i feel with multiple addresses their are high chances that one might misplace one of the private keys to one of the wallets and lose some coins in the process, privacy to me remains the best strategy, if one is private enough not to share informations regarding his bitcoin or wallets to people it will go a long way, scammers/kidnappers work based on information, hence depriving them of such information will cripple all their defrauding strategies, lets ensure we are private with our crypto assets especially within our immediate environment.

[joniboini]

because i feel with multiple addresses their are high chances that one might misplace one of the private keys to one of the wallets and lose some coins in the process, privacy to me remains the best strategy,

But why would you do that if you have the seed phrase? I think most modern wallets support them, BTC or not. You only need to store the seed phrase and you can generate multiple addresses easily. Unless I misunderstood what you're saying here, there's no big hurdle to use multiple addresses from the same wallet (especially if the user is careful with coin control and whatnot. CMIIW.

[RGBTC]

Let’s say my private keys are well protected. I use a cold wallet with a passphrase, and I keep my seed phrase somewhere safe. So, from a security point of view, my Bitcoin should be secure.

A cold wallet, a passphrase technically enhances fund security, but it doesn't necessarily elevate your level of financial privacy. Achieving that requires more technical effort, such as using mixers, avoiding centralized services, and so on. Enhancing security and protecting privacy are distinct goals.

If someone could figure out approximately how much BTC I have, when I receive BTC, or which transactions are connected to my wallet, how could that affect me if they still don’t have access to my private keys? Bitcoin transactions are already public, and they don’t give away my identity anyway.

Regarding the idea of ​​being "affected": if you know who is monitoring your wallet, the real question that shouldn't even arise is how did they find out that address belongs to you in the first place? The cold wallet and passphrase themselves aren't the issue here.