{"id":95877,"date":"2019-09-06T16:29:55","date_gmt":"2019-09-06T23:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/?p=95877"},"modified":"2019-09-07T09:07:52","modified_gmt":"2019-09-07T16:07:52","slug":"can-bitcoin-transactions-be-made-private","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/can-bitcoin-transactions-be-made-private","title":{"rendered":"Can Bitcoin Transactions be Made Private?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The blockchain is public, yet a Bitcoin wallet can be created anonymously. So are Bitcoin transactions anonymous? Not at all\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft is-resized\"><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Each transaction into and out of a wallet is a bread crumb. Following the trail is trivial. Every day, an army of armchair sleuths help the FBI. That\u2019s how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/2015\/04\/silk-road-1\/\">Silk Road was brought down<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The problem is that some of that money eventually interacts with the real world (a dentist is paid, a package shipped or a candy is purchased at a gas station). Even if the real-world transaction is 4 hops before or after hitting the \u201canonymous\u201d wallet, it creates a forensic focal point. Next comes a tax man, an ex-spouse or a goon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first article linked below addresses <a href=\"https:\/\/research.circle.com\/weekly-recaps\/weekly-crypto-recap-ever-done-the-bitcoin-shuffle\">the state of tumblers<\/a> (aka \u201cmixers\u201d). They anonymize an open network by obfuscating the trail of bread crumbs.<\/p><div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/can-bitcoin-transactions-be-made-private\">Continue reading \u201cCan Bitcoin Transactions be Made Private?\u201d | &gt;<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The blockchain is public, yet a Bitcoin wallet can be created anonymously. So are Bitcoin transactions anonymous? Not at all\u2026 Each transaction into and out of a wallet is a bread crumb. Following the trail is trivial. Every day, an army of armchair sleuths help the FBI. That\u2019s how Silk Road was brought down. The [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":353,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1318,1761,1412],"tags":[3548,2161,2121,3547,3545,3544,2162,3546,3543,3549],"class_list":["post-95877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bitcoin","category-cryptocurrencies","category-privacy","tag-anonymous","tag-bitcoin","tag-blockchain","tag-crypto","tag-mixer","tag-onion-routing","tag-privacy","tag-private","tag-tor","tag-tumber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95877"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95896,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95877\/revisions\/95896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}