this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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"This is the story of the revelation in late 2013 that Bitcoin was, in fact, the opposite of untraceable—that its blockchain would actually allow researchers, tech companies, and law enforcement to trace and identify users with even more transparency than the existing financial system."

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[–] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 145 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Anyone in the crypto space has known this for years.

Thats why privacy coins like Monero exist

[–] my_hat_stinks@programming.dev 97 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You're not wrong, but the first words are literally "Just over a decade ago". It's not a news article, it's the story of the research in 2013 which revealed bitcoin isn't anonymous.

[–] 520@kbin.social 42 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It wasn't a revelation in 2013 either. The ledger data has always been public information.

[–] massive_bereavement@kbin.social 22 points 2 years ago (1 children)

But neither the addresses nor the people who had them where. It would be like saying that you can identify someone from an arp table because you can see the mac addresses.

Unless you know specifically who own said address (even to the point that those can be spoofed) you just have a big pile of wet paper.

[–] 520@kbin.social 12 points 2 years ago

Plenty of ways to identify people from their spending habits.

There are also plenty of ways to connect the address to the person. You can subpoena a legit vendor they've paid with that address, for example.

[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

An article in Wired doesn't speak to the "crypto space", they speak to your aunt and uncle in Missouri who don't know about this.

[–] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This is the Technology sub on Lemmy, I cant imagine you believe im talking to people in Missouri

[–] Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

St. Louis has a decent tech scene, AT&T used to have their headquarters there. There's still a large tech presence there, low cost of living drives tech companies to hire there since they can pay lower wages and no one in the area really cares since you can still get a two bedroom apartment for less than $1,000 a month.

[–] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

I was being tongue in cheek, I dont disparage any particular state.... except Arkansas

[–] dasgoat@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

I mean I'm an absolute troglodyte when it comes to technology and I'm here too. Hi!

[–] los_chill@programming.dev 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Or pay cash... ultimate "privacy coin"

[–] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

true, but paying in cash is sort of difficult over the internet.

You can send it via mail, but mail is slow and it could potentially be traced back to you.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

How does Monero work compared to the other big ones?

[–] bjorney@lemmy.ca 22 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Every time there is a transaction the sender's funds are mixed together with a bunch of other senders, and the recipients receive their money from this random pool, so there is no direct association between sender/receiver

[–] stown@sedd.it 24 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yes I laundered some of my salary from work. don't report me please.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 years ago

This is not quite correct. You do not have to involve anybody else in your transaction. What happens is the protocol takes a random selection of 15 other people who have spent money and adds them to a ring so that your transaction could be any one of 16 different outputs. But there is no mixing of funds involved.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 years ago

your fake internet points are routed via north korean money laundering scheme