They aren't that inherently anonymous; the transaction flow can be traced to a limited extent. For example, if the thieves just did something naive, like trans

They aren't that inherently anonymous; the transaction flow can be traced to a limited extent. For example, if the thieves just did something naive, like transfer all those 'coins' to an address in a wallet they had previous used, or that was previously connected to an identity, it could reveal who they are. In that scenario, the person receiving the coins could be faced with the questions 'Why did you just receive all those stolen coins? If you arent the thief, then who gave them to you? Did you sell them something?' etc. I did some work on this before, showing it was possible to follow flows of stolen bitcoins at least some distance through the blockchain. The visualisation lower down this page is of a previous alleged theft, and is extracted from the blockchain: http://anonymity-in-bitcoin.blogspot.ie/2011/07/bitcoin-is-not-anonymous.html http://anonymity-in-bitcoin.blogspot.ie/2011/07/bitcoin-is-n...