> The anonymity of bitcoin is a design artifact, not a feature. Think about the opposite problem -- how would you design a cryptocurrency to not be anonymous?

> The anonymity of bitcoin is a design artifact, not a feature. Think about the opposite problem -- how would you design a cryptocurrency to not be anonymous? Speaking in terms of cryptographic assurance, Bitcoin is not anonymous. When we're talking about blockchain technology, we're talking about byzantine fault tolerance and consensus algorithms. It's not productive or meaningful to talk about anonymity outside of the context of cryptographic assurance, because you're introducing reliance on non-determinism in human behavior. That's no longer a quality of the protocol, it's a quality of the individual's caution and identity hygiene. Stated another way, in order for Bitcoin to be anonymous, it must be anonymous by default, or have such a meaningful feature that can be "turned on", so to speak. Cryptographic anonymity is fully possible, and we have it with Zcash. But you don't get there just by divorcing your offline activities from an online public/private key.