Quote from: johann159 on April 12, 2013, 11:00:22 PM

How could a BitCoin exchange be traced? You put in the address, your number goes down, their wallet goes up...

Would someone just need to watch for bitcoin-type data being sent?

blockchain.info

Also, the whole point of bitcoin is that everything can be traced. This is the point of the blockchain. Every coin is traced and you can trace back and eventually you'll get to a mined block. This is how we prevent double spends. Keeping track of all the outputs. You can find out how many bitcoins are at each address. You can trace where each input of that address came from.

Bitcoin is actually in a way less transparent than credit cards and cash.

Currently, to gain anonymity you would need to use a laundry service. But you have to put your trust into the laundry service, that they don't run away with your coins or that they don't keep logs of who's coins go where.