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In practice, many of the gatekeepers to the layman using Bitcoin require so much documentation that anonymity should not be a major selling point. Perhaps you c
by Olscore 10y ago
In practice, many of the gatekeepers to the layman using Bitcoin require so much documentation that anonymity should not be a major selling point. Perhaps you can acquire a few thousands USD worth that is anonymous, but trying to scale that anonymity doesn't go easily. Ironically, the needlessly growing inquisition into how I was using Bitcoin is what forced me to close my Coinbase account. They pretty much require the same information as a bank does, including photocopies of your state ID, even tax documents.
Having used a handful of the exchanges and other more casual wallets like Circle, it's obvious that the trend is towards more "security" and legitimacy by vetting users and knowing their real world identities, etc. Which can include Skype interview, scanning personal bills to prove addresses and so forth.
- PeterisP 10y agoThis is not really specific to Bitcoin, but to any player/system that is going to become popular and thus used/supported by companies and/or integrated with the rest of global infrastructure. The laws in almost everywhere (except niche jurisdictions that treat holding offshore accounts as their main industry) pretty much require you to know your customer and not be an enabler of any anonymous transfers of money - or alternatively, be treated as responsible for any "bad" money passing through you. Any institution that would enable you to trade a scalable amount of USD for Monero or some new cryptopayment solution would also have to require the same information to know your real world identity. Any institution that would enable you to trade a significant amount of such new cryptocurrency for USD would be required (perhaps not immediately, but definitely if/when it becomes sufficiently popular) to report that to IRS, who would then request documentation about the transactions and originators where you obtained that amount (which you surely reported when filing your taxes, didn't you?), and it doesn't really matter that much that the blockchain is anonymous since essentially you'll give them the transaction details anyway or go to jail. If no institutions enable that, then the cryptocurrency cannot be liquid enough for everyday use, as it's not easy to trade it with other liquid currencies.
- mindslight 10y agoA major feature of untraceability is that exchanges can know your identity in this way, yet your transactions still remain confidential.