Quote from: pringesgood on January 02, 2013, 08:16:37 AM

what about privacy?

since all transactions are public, you can just go through the blocks and trace an account to individual / groups

Bitcoin is not anonymous. It is pseudonymous. Or, as Jon Matonis describes it, Bitcoin has user-definable anonymity.

That's why no bitcoin thief has been identified from the bitcoins they've stolen -- they are using methods to protect privacy.

But there aren't many clues to tie identity to a bitcoin address unless either the sender or recipient (or both) don't care about privacy and do stuff like use a static address for receiving payments.

Quote from: pringesgood on January 02, 2013, 08:16:37 AM

well really obvious ones, like for example, a account with 10,000 Bitcoin per month revenue,

The way most merchants work is that there is one Bitcoin address for each customer payment transaction.

Quote from: pringesgood on January 02, 2013, 08:16:37 AM

there are only so many organizations capable of that, and through process of elimination and probably other tracing techniques, you can find out the EXACT amount of bitcoins any individual/group has.

Nope. Especially if the merchant uses a payment process (such as BitPay, or WalletBit, etc.

You might take a moment to peruse the Bitcoin wiki. Bitcoin can be a complex topic, depending on the level of detain needed, but the wiki provides some great information:

- http://en.bitcoin.it
- http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ
- http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Introduction
- http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths

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