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Presumably, forcing illegal actions to happen through bitcoin adds friction to the process. But more importantly, as far as I know bitcoin is not designed to g

by kace91 6y ago

Presumably, forcing illegal actions to happen through bitcoin adds friction to the process. But more importantly, as far as I know bitcoin is not designed to guarantee anonymity in money transfers, and the fact that every transaction is set in stone publicly in the blockchain makes it relatively easily traceable. Am I wrong in that area?

kevingadd 6y ago
While it's not trivial, it's been shown that you can de-anonymize bitcoin transactions. In some cases it's very easy. So in practice you can't rely on your transactions being anonymous even if in practice some of them may end up that way. And of course even if transactions themselves were fully anonymous, many people end up needing to rely on exchanges, and the idea of those being truly anonymous is borderline absurd.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> Presumably, forcing illegal actions to happen through bitcoin adds friction to it. Adding friction to non-illegal actions is harm, not benefit. Adding friction to illegal actions is the opposite of what happens, because it's enabling something that wasn't previously possible. Also, criminals can survive higher friction than dissidents and vulnerable populations because the illegality creates a moat that raises margins. It's why drug cartels make billions of dollars and can finance submarines and stuff but marginal changes that nobody thinks through the implications of get dissidents killed. > But more importantly, as far as I know bitcoin is not designed to guarantee anonymity in money transfers, and the fact that every transaction is set in stone publicly in the blockchain makes it relatively easily traceable. Am I wrong in that area? Every transaction is public but it's only the transaction and there is no requirement to reuse the same wallet for multiple transactions. You go to some cryptocurrency hangout, pay some stranger a hundred bucks in cash and they transfer a hundred bucks in Bitcoin to your wallet. You go pay for a VPN with it. Then everybody can see that A transferred money to B and B transferred money to C, but nobody knows that you're B and those are the only transactions for that wallet. Also, there are cryptocurrencies where this isn't the case and you don't even get that.
- ivanche 6y ago
  > You go to some cryptocurrency hangout, pay some stranger a hundred bucks in cash and they transfer a hundred bucks in Bitcoin to your wallet. You go pay for a VPN with it. Then everybody can see that A transferred money to B and B transferred money to C, but nobody knows that you're B Nobody? Some stranger from above knows that you're B!
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    But they're a stranger. They don't know that you're you.
- lottin 6y ago
  > You go to some cryptocurrency hangout, pay some stranger a hundred bucks in cash and they transfer a hundred bucks in Bitcoin to your wallet. You go pay for a VPN with it. Then everybody can see that A transferred money to B and B transferred money to C, but nobody knows that you're B and those are the only transactions for that wallet. Essentially you have to create a brand-new, single-use wallet for every transaction, am I wrong?
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    So what?
    - lottin 6y ago
      Nothing.

by kace91 6y ago

kevingadd 6y ago

While it's not trivial, it's been shown that you can de-anonymize bitcoin transactions. In some cases it's very easy. So in practice you can't rely on your transactions being anonymous even if in practice some of them may end up that way. And of course even if transactions themselves were fully anonymous, many people end up needing to rely on exchanges, and the idea of those being truly anonymous is borderline absurd.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> Presumably, forcing illegal actions to happen through bitcoin adds friction to it. Adding friction to non-illegal actions is harm, not benefit. Adding friction to illegal actions is the opposite of what happens, because it's enabling something that wasn't previously possible. Also, criminals can survive higher friction than dissidents and vulnerable populations because the illegality creates a moat that raises margins. It's why drug cartels make billions of dollars and can finance submarines and stuff but marginal changes that nobody thinks through the implications of get dissidents killed. > But more importantly, as far as I know bitcoin is not designed to guarantee anonymity in money transfers, and the fact that every transaction is set in stone publicly in the blockchain makes it relatively easily traceable. Am I wrong in that area? Every transaction is public but it's only the transaction and there is no requirement to reuse the same wallet for multiple transactions. You go to some cryptocurrency hangout, pay some stranger a hundred bucks in cash and they transfer a hundred bucks in Bitcoin to your wallet. You go pay for a VPN with it. Then everybody can see that A transferred money to B and B transferred money to C, but nobody knows that you're B and those are the only transactions for that wallet. Also, there are cryptocurrencies where this isn't the case and you don't even get that.

ivanche 6y ago
> You go to some cryptocurrency hangout, pay some stranger a hundred bucks in cash and they transfer a hundred bucks in Bitcoin to your wallet. You go pay for a VPN with it. Then everybody can see that A transferred money to B and B transferred money to C, but nobody knows that you're B Nobody? Some stranger from above knows that you're B!
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  But they're a stranger. They don't know that you're you.
lottin 6y ago
> You go to some cryptocurrency hangout, pay some stranger a hundred bucks in cash and they transfer a hundred bucks in Bitcoin to your wallet. You go pay for a VPN with it. Then everybody can see that A transferred money to B and B transferred money to C, but nobody knows that you're B and those are the only transactions for that wallet. Essentially you have to create a brand-new, single-use wallet for every transaction, am I wrong?
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  So what?
  - lottin 6y ago
    Nothing.