This was bound to happen, and cannot be stopped from happening, given the nature of bitcoin. It's not the end for bitcoin anonymity. There will always be a mar

This was bound to happen, and cannot be stopped from happening, given the nature of bitcoin. It's not the end for bitcoin anonymity. There will always be a market for "dirty" coins, and there won't be one definition of "dirty" either. The countermeasure is a multitude of such tracking tools, each operating on an opt-in basis, each with a different definition of "dirty". Then merchants and users would be able to choose what provenance has what value. In fact, there is an opening now for someone to build an alternative system that isn't associated with regulators. One that perhaps might help us track stolen coins, like those from Pirate@40. On the other hand as a voluntaryist I happen to believe that DPR (the other pirate) deserved his coins, and I would accept his coins at face value. If such an open-data solution existed, then I would feel inclined to support merchants and exchanges that reported their bitcoin addresses, knowing that (a) if their funds get stolen, people have the opportunity to reject the stolen coins thus reducing their value and the incentive to steal and (b) the public can perform audits on these bitcoin exchanges. On the other hand I wouldn't feel comfortable with a closed solution where the data gets walled off from the public, which selectively benefits those with access to the data. The future of bitcoins will be full of unexpected surprises that seem obvious in hindsight. I think this is one of them. To the moon!