I hear people talking about anonymity with various currencies, eg Monero, or DASH, but as most people seem to use exchanges, there really isn't any anonymity, because the exchange presumably knows each person's identity and therefore has a record of all transactions, whether they be for bitcoin, or any other "anonymous" currency. Is this right? It would seem that anonymity is a function of the exchange and not the currency (granted there are differences in currencies that impact anonymity as well).
If the above is true, are there any legitimate (I know this is subjective) exchanges that do not keep identities of their customers? I have heard of local meetups, but that does not seem very convenient and there are trust issues.
Are you sure there is any exchange asking for people identity? Because for me, I can easily trade coins without any type of verification.
However, when one need to sold Bitcoin to native currency then one need to provide his/her complete identity like bank account, etc. collectively known as KYC (Know your customer) due to Income Tax requirements but there is hardly any requirement on exchanges. This is true triumph of cryptocurrency