Re: Use of cryptocurrencies, a concern IMF

Bitcoin is built to be anonymous.

No, it's built to be pseudonymous, but it's very difficult to keep transactions pseudonymous because many people have revealed some kind of identifying information about themselves in connection with their address on the Internet. Especially with exchanges that have KYC in place, governments and others can draw connections between known Bitcoin users and the people that they are sending Bitcoin to.

Satoshi did not claim that Bitcoin is an anonymous system, rather that the possibility to be anonymous or pseudonymous relies on you not revealing any identifying information about yourself in connection to the Bitcoin address you use.

I just checked the dictionary definition of pseudonymous just to be sure, and as far as I can tell, users who run full nodes don't use false name for their addresses or wallets. Their addresses are typically anonymous with no false/fake names tied to them unless they want their identities to be known.

Ofcourse, no anonymous system/network is really fully anonymous. There will always be ways to know or guess the identity behind them.

But some are really fully anonymous! Monero is one of them! I didn't hear that someone claimed that $ 500k bounty on cracking Monero chain, issued by some US agency... maybe I am wrong?!

Bitcoin is transparent, you can connect yourself with your address (or not), but the transaction is visible to all of us! With Monero (and some other privacy coins) you can't keep track of transactions!

Quote from: Charles-Tim on February 18, 2021, 12:48:22 PM

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Central banks that ban bitcoin only encouraging p2p.

The future is in p2p... people are sick of banks, governments, and all their shit!