>The primary value of BitCoin is its anonymity and difficulty to trace. That means that the people that made it appreciated those values. There are many simple

>The primary value of BitCoin is its anonymity and difficulty to trace. That means that the people that made it appreciated those values. There are many simple things that could have been done to make it more anonymous. The blockchain contains huge amounts of information that could have been made much harder to analyze, if anonymity was a main design goal. The rest of the system is almost surprisingly well designed and robust, it seems surprising to me that if they set out to design for anonymity, this is the best they came up with. Hell, if we put our tinfoil hats on, and go with the line of thinking in PGs post, I'd almost say that from an anonymity point of view, in default usage, its closer to the 'clipper chip', where its just obscure enough to make people think they are anonymous, but really reveals a lot if you look at it properly. Not putting that forward as a theory, though!