Anonymity by default?

[GreenBanana]

What do you think?

[rogerver]

One of the characteristics that makes good money is fungibility.
Bitcoin has a lot of room for improvement in this area.

I would like to see some existing wallet companies focus on improving this.

Blockchain, Mycelium, Airbitz, anyone?

[BitcoinXio]

What do you think?

Yes of course, I think all wallets should be doing this. Some wallets for example Blockchain have coin mixing (SharedCoin), although it's up for debate exactly how well it works (to what lengths the obfuscation goes), but for the laymen I think it does a fine job. Maybe for high-tech forensics/NSA type of data mining, it's like I said, still questionable. The problem is many wallets aren't doing this. DarkWallet is supposed to be doing this but the wallet is basically abandoned right now, so it's unstable to use (use at your own risk, but still a great project). There is another newer wallet called Samourai Wallet that is focusing on anonymity and privacy as well, which is exciting. But overall in this space, there is a lot more room to improve in this area, in my humble opinion.

[rogerver]

I'm also a big fan of what Samourai wallet are trying to accomplish and will be watching eagerly to see what they come up with.

[GreenBanana]

Yes of course, I think all wallets should be doing this.

I Agree 100%

DarkWallet is supposed to be doing this but the wallet is basically abandoned right now, so it's unstable to use (use at your own risk, but still a great project).

I was really excited about that project and find Amir to be passionate and a real character. It's a shame that development seems to have stopped

There is another newer wallet called Samourai Wallet that is focusing on anonymity and privacy as well, which is exciting. But overall in this space, there is a lot more room to improve in this area, in my humble opinion.

I'd heard the name but haven't looked into Samourai Wallet. I'll check it out

Secondary question: Do you think the powers that be (banks, state, or others) will fight against a move in that direction? They aren't big fans of financial privacy but would also have a hard time defending the alternative, which would be forcing a Bitcoin user to expose his/her account total and complete payment history to everyone they transact with.

edit:spelling

[BitcoinXio]

Secondary question: Do you think the powers that be (banks, state, or others) will fight against a move in that direction? They aren't big fans of financial privacy but would also have a hard time defending the alternative, which would be forcing a Bitcoin user to expose his/her account total and complete payment history to everyone they transact with.

A wallet developer adamant about privacy, security, and anonymity, could implement a wallet client that has the same principles that cannot be blocked or censored by the state. A pure-wallet (no fiat exchange) would not require any state interaction, and therefore the state would have no way to force wallet users to make themselves public. It can be done in Bitcoin Core now, it just needs to be built into it.

[LiteCoinGuy]

I would say "not yet". Bitcoin is still in its infancy. Maybe we should wait until there are several hunderts of millions of users.

And there are bigger problems to solve first.

"The project needs to grow gradually so the software can be strengthened along the way. ... Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage."

[BitcoinXio]

"The project needs to grow gradually so the software can be strengthened along the way. ... Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage."

Isn't that a Satoshi quote, but in the context of Wikileaks using Bitcoin and getting too many users too fast (kicking the hornets nest)?

Wouldn't you say then the quote would mean, that *now* would be the ideal time to build this into the software rather than later, when there are too many users? We need to build the software slowly, introduce new features, so that it can be strengthened along the way.

[rebuilder]

Yes, if no serious technical issues are introduced.

Anonymity needs to be introduced into all transactions because currently anyone you send BTC to can see how much they can rob you for with the proverbial $5 wrench if you don't take steps to make it hard to track your holdings.

When you throw a street musician a coin, you don't flip out all the bills in your wallet for them to see. When you pay for coffee, you don't tell the barista how much money is in your bank account.

[LiteCoinGuy]

"The project needs to grow gradually so the software can be strengthened along the way. ... Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage."

Isn't that a Satoshi quote, but in the context of Wikileaks using Bitcoin and getting too many users too fast (kicking the hornets nest)?

Wouldn't you say then the quote would mean, that *now* would be the ideal time to build this into the software rather than later, when there are too many users? We need to build the software slowly, introduce new features, so that it can be strengthened along the way.

Correct, i quoted Satoshi. I would still say that it is too early. Maybe in 2-3 years.

[SamouraiWallet]

What do you think?

Yes of course, I think all wallets should be doing this. Some wallets for example Blockchain have coin mixing (SharedCoin), although it's up for debate exactly how well it works (to what lengths the obfuscation goes), but for the laymen I think it does a fine job. Maybe for high-tech forensics/NSA type of data mining, it's like I said, still questionable. The problem is many wallets aren't doing this. DarkWallet is supposed to be doing this but the wallet is basically abandoned right now, so it's unstable to use (use at your own risk, but still a great project). There is another newer wallet called Samourai Wallet that is focusing on anonymity and privacy as well, which is exciting. But overall in this space, there is a lot more room to improve in this area, in my humble opinion.

Thanks for the shout out. And thank you for the kind words as well Roger.

I firmly believe that the future success of bitcoin is dependent on it becoming money that cannot be censored. Fungibility plays a huge roll in this. I'm not too worried about Bitcoin Core developers baking in better anonymity into the protocol (although I would be very much for that) as I am very encouraged by the independent response from very clever developers trying to solve these problems today. Kristov Atlas and Justus Ranvier stand out as two talented and bright developers who are contributing a big amount to making bitcoin more private.

For example, Samourai is currently hard at work implementing the first mobile implementation of BIP 47 - which is like Stealth Addresses on steroids. At the end of the day, it will be up to the service providers like us to build the tools that provide the anonymity that consumers desire.

[helloworld]

People seem to ignore that using any networks anonymously have little to do with the network itself.

For example, Monero is stated to be completely anonymous, but these efforts worth exactly 0 if the user do not give a shit about opsec.

[GreenBanana]

People seem to ignore that using any networks anonymously have little to do with the network itself.

For example, Monero is stated to be completely anonymous, but these efforts worth exactly 0 if the user do not give a shit about opsec.

True, I suppose that the type of anonymity I'm referring to is not having your wallet balance and previous transaction history exposed with every purchase.

[ERt1F2Wvyr]

I personally think it should pretty much stay as it is. Although I'm not against a future sidechain that can provide anonymity. Also I'm a big fan of wallets like DarkWallet. That offers both stealth addresses and the coinjoin protocol combined together in one application.
If you want true anonymity then you should look to the likes of cryptonote cryptocurrencies. And the zerocoin protocol to be released. Monero is a cryptonote coin that is working on moving their network over to the I2p darknet. While Anoncoin already operates on the I2p darknet and is working on adding the zerocoin protocol. The I2p darknet is akin to the Tor network. Only while Tor uses Onion routing I2p uses Garlic routing.
Tor was designed in mind of offering a anonymity proxy for clearnet browsing. While I2p doesn't really offer that but is much more efficient and faster at routing peer to peer traffic. Like Bittorrent and file sharing works fast and very efficiently within its dark network. And cryptocurrency are peer to peer networks by default.

[GermanyBTC]

idk man sory

[CohibAA]

Anonymity is extremely difficult, however financial privacy is important. I hope that some of the major wallet devs will start to implement privacy tools such as JoinMarket into their future work.

[stan.distortion]

On one hand Bitcoin fails one of the classical points that define money but on the other that definition is almost forgotten in todays monetary systems and the traceability aspect will have given a major boost to Bitcoins acceptance. I'd often wondered if bitcoin would develop black and white economies over time and still think its quite likely but mainly for large transfers. Sidechains, external services anonymous alts etc. can provide anonymity for small amounts relatively easily and that will grow over time but if Bitcoin where to integrate anonymity by default I'd expect a backlash from the legacy financial system and that would give an advantage to mainstream adoption of propitiatory systems.