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that’s simply not true. bitcoin and blockchain is as traceable as it gets. it’s all there in the ledger.

• dcolkitt 5y ago
  Yes and no. It's traceable in the sense that pseudonymous public keys are traceable. But generating a public key is cheap, easy and can be done anonymously. As long as the blockchain participant doesn't interact with any party revealing his IRL identity, he can keep his true identity hidden.
  • rantwasp 5y ago
    yes and no. it’s enough to interact with someone that messes up and your identity is revealed. also, in today’s surveillance society I would assume that the gov knows which bitcoins are yours
• nroets 5y ago
  How can a merchant or even a crypto exchange know that the Bitcoins they receive weren't stolen in a hack before being laundered through a number of wallets ? I assume the US government will ask Coinbase to freeze these assets. But that is not DeFi.
• Closi 5y ago
  It's traceable in the sense you can see the transactions going into an address, but it's not traceable back to an individual in the same way that either bank transactions are via subpoena, or in the same way that you can "follow the cash" with money that has to be physically laundered. This is the traceability I mean - there is a reason that ransomware uses bitcoin rather than a PayPal account even though the transactions are in the ledger (because the transaction can't be cancelled, and even logging into the PayPal account could result in your physical location being traced unless you are very careful).