Here’s Why Bitcoin is NOT Anonymous (And what to do...)

[Music] we've all heard it bitcoin is anonymous criminals use anonymous cryptocurrency too pay for a dark web mystery box the story's irrelevant i'd be willing to bet almost every person watching this video has heard somewhere that bitcoin is anonymous this video will cover why this is false and how to make it partly true by teaching ways to use cryptocurrencies anonymously we're going to start with myth busting then cover the keys to anonymous usage go through four solutions to achieve anonymity then we'll cover the actual process of obtaining cryptocurrency anonymously followed by storing everything in a private and secure manner once the whole process is finished this is an all-in-one guide and you'll find chapters for each section on youtube if you're watching from peertube or library the timestamps will be in the description as well let's get started bitcoin isn't a tangible item but rather a currency if it helps you understand bitcoin just pretend they're v bucks on fortnite or donuts from simpson's tapped out but with the ability to buy things and exchange the currency with other people in a decentralized way meaning no one owns bitcoin and you can directly pay someone without a third party like a bank or paypal in addition bitcoin runs on the blockchain which for our purposes is simply a history of every transaction this is public and you can see who sent what amount of bitcoin publicly traditionally speaking you buy bitcoin from an exchange like coinbase finance or gemini and exchange is like a bank you'll likely pay real currency and in exchange you receive a certain amount of bitcoin based on how much you offered for the current price of bitcoin if you paid five thousand dollars and bitcoin is worth ten thousand dollars you do the math you bought half a bitcoin from here you can keep your cryptocurrency in your exchange to sell and buy things but this is not not recommended for security reasons which we'll cover in the storing section later it's recommended you send your bitcoin to a dedicated bitcoin wallet that either lives in your pockets a phone app or a program on your computer this wallet has a public key and this is what we see on the blockchain when you make a transaction the reason bitcoin seems anonymous is because these are just random numbers it doesn't say jeff paid mary for child support and even if it did who the hell's jeff and who's married no one acted as a middleman between these two people to really know anything about them that said there are many reasons why this isn't truly anonymous first if jeff pays merry and bitcoin every four weeks from the same wallet for the same amount you can start to form a pretty good profile on jeff second jeff's entire wallet is public mary can check jeff's wallet and see he's paying a similar amount to a different person also every four weeks leading her to speculate he has a different child to pay child support to likely with that lauren chick she saw him with at the gym mary may also see he's receiving money every few days at around midnight leading her to think that jeff is still dealing drugs the reason for their breakup despite this being an entirely fabricated story sure the point stands that people you know can form good ideas of what's happening in your life offering less anonymity than a traditional bank account which doesn't normally publicize all of your purchases third the fact that someone knows this is jeff's wallet instantly de-anonymizes who he is the extent of this is up for debate but if you bought something from a store with bitcoin and supplied your information it's not hard for a government to ask the store for the owner of that wallet fourth the final and most important remember that exchange we talked about the thing like a bank almost every exchange will request some form of payment and typically an id this leaves a pay trail that ties directly back to you this is how most cryptocurrencies work there's a public blockchain they use exchanges and they have wallets now i'm not saying bitcoin can't add a layer of privacy compared to something like paypal but i do criticize the belief that the queen is anonymous because it really isn't so how do people use cryptocurrencies anonymously because it does happen and it is possible let's get into how they and you can achieve this there are three keys you have to maintain for cryptocurrency anonymity buying storing and paying each of these has unique problems that can expose who you are traditionally speaking buying is synonymous with the exchange storing with the wallet and paying with the transaction i put together four solutions each of which tackles the three keys in different ways and you're going to have to make a decision on which solution to go with based on your threat model something that's more thoroughly covered in an article below which you should definitely read without further ado let's cover solution 1 and how it covers the 3 keys solution 1 is obvious just get bitcoin anonymously there is no pay trail and what you do the rest of the way is pretty well protected let's analyze the keys for obtaining if it's obtained anonymously then you're covered again there are many ways of doing this that we go through in its own section towards the end so be patient we're just covering the broad solutions right now for storing if your bitcoin is secure and offline something else will teach at the end you're covered here too paying is where you really can screw up if you order a shirt with your anonymous bitcoin and you use your real name and home address you jeopardize your anonymity to some extent similar to how logging into a personal account through tor jeopardizes that anonymous session using anonymous bitcoin with anything personal jeopardizes the bitcoin so this should be used with a pseudonym or ghost identity maybe an online alias of yours that's also set up anonymously as long as you don't draw a direct line to who you are you have a good layer of anonymity though creating a proper pseudonym and actually carrying this out is no easy task so make sure to subscribe to catch a guide on that as part of our free go incognito course or the script is already available to read online the second solution is a bit more convenient in some ways than the first you buy bitcoin even with your id if you want uh to use a more traditional exchange then convert it to monero monero is another cryptocurrency like bitcoin except it is designed to be private and anonymous by default and there are two addresses used when you make a transaction resulting in the other party never knowing your real address and you not knowing theirs these are known as stealth addresses aside from this without getting too technical the act of using manero can be assumed to be as anonymous as it gets for cryptocurrencies let's investigate the keys for obtaining there is a pay trail you will be going through coinbase or another exchange which is likely linked to your bank account and id however monero in theory prevents that pay trial from ever affecting you since the non-private bitcoin you had never saw your real monero address breaking any direct link even though monero is trusted and i would recommend the solution to a lot of people please be aware that over relying on any single tool like monero is not something that's recommended for extreme threat models making this a bit riskier of a solution for storing just like solution 1 if it's offline and stored securely you're good to go for paying monero has several advantages over the anonymous bitcoin in solution 1. because of stealth addresses and the private blockchain there is no public wallet where people can tie transactions together if you buy something even with your real information from a website that site still doesn't have the capability of knowing what your real wallet is and everything else it's been used for this is a huge layer of protection since even if you screw up your operation security we all do it it should only screw up for one transaction not everything else you've ever done again though this is in theory and you should not over rely on manero to keep you entirely safe the third solution is a step up and it's essentially combining one and two you obtain the bitcoin anonymously then you convert that to monero hiding the indirect pay trail to monero entirely for obtaining you're getting the perks of solution 1 which is a covered pay trial making it extremely hard to figure out who purchased the original currency again this will be covered how to do later in the video storing is the same deal just follow the rules in the storing section and you'll be golden paying will benefit from solution 2 by hiding your wallet and ensuring that remains anonymous solution 3 really is the best of both worlds the only major con is inconvenience not only do you need to obtain bitcoin anonymously which can be a chore as you'll see later but you then need to exchange it for monero it sounds like it's just an extra step but i'm sure people watching who have used cryptocurrencies know it's a lot more extensive than just these two steps despite the inconvenience solution 3 is rock solid and i'd even go as far to claim that as long as you're not a huge target even state actors will have an extremely difficult time tracing things back if they're even able to the final solution is bypassing bitcoin all together by simply just obtaining monero anonymously and directly in terms of the keys it's pretty much exactly the same as solution 3 but it's bypassing some of the other steps specifically the entire process of even owning bitcoin or having to go through bitcoin at all the only con is there aren't as many methods of getting monero directly and you could argue that the additional steps taken in solution 3 make it harder to backtrack where the funding came from so i wouldn't say one is better than the other we're talking about nitty gritty debates solution 3 and 4 are both great solutions and are as pretty much anonymous as it gets and that satisfies some of the most extreme threat models solutions one three and four require obtaining the currency anonymously and solution two will negate the need for you to go through the more complex tasks most people watching are probably okay with solution 2 and if you are you can get started today on any exchange we have a coinbase and binance link in the description which you can use to support us if you choose to go with solution 2. if you have a higher threat model and choose solution one three or four i have five different methods you can use to obtain the currencies anonymously let's get into them [Music] the first and most foolproof method is local bitcoins we have a local bitcoins affiliate link down below so if you do end up going this routes it's much appreciated if you use that but there's a normal link there as well if you're going with solution 4 there's a monero version of this site called local monero the second option is mining it yourself miners are people who are verifying transactions on the blockchain and in return they earn a little bit of currency with bitcoin this is reliant on your computer's gpu i'd recommend a gtx 1060 or better there are a few cons to this first you're killing the earth a bit with the electricity used second that electricity use may cost more than the bitcoin you receive we have a video covering how to calculate profit third you will be pushing the limits of your gpu and last but not least it will take time to get a substantial amount of money however this is a self-sustaining model of continually getting more money over periods of time without any effort on your ends and no personal information you can mine monero as well though this is rather cpu dependent for a whole guide on mining we have a tutorial from way back in the day which youtube delisted um it's still public but it's like shadow bands for some reason so i'll leave in the description uh that video so you can actually find it which should still be relevant in 2020. option three is a bitcoin atm check out maps for a local bitcoin atm near you i'll have links below you put your cash in the machine asks for your wallet and then you're done while this is an option i would probably discourage it as there are two big issues the largest one is fees i'm not talking one percent here this isn't some stock trade i'm talking like 10 or more our experience was actually closer to 30 so it's gonna cost you second um they have cameras and those cameras do record when you make the transaction aside from this many machines live in malls and convenience stores which have their own cameras this can be thwarted face masks and sunglasses you know the drill but if there's a camera in the parking lot and it caught the same person using the bitcoin atm arriving in their car with a visible license plate you're done for despite these two issues bitcoin atms are reliant backed by a company and probably the most convenient way to obtain your bitcoin anonymously the fourth option is creativity craigslist now has a buy with cryptocurrency option maybe you're selling your old phone and you get the buyer to use bitcoin i sold my cpu heatsink a couple years ago using crypto so i know it's possible but your luck will vary maybe there are local bitcoin meetups maybe you can create your own maybe you can have a friend get it for you the world is only limited by your creativity the fifth option are exchanges that require no information the most notable one i feel comfortable recommending is bisque they are open source decentralized and built to respect your privacy and anonymity with this you have a plethora of payment options including alipay cash deposits zell local face-to-face transactions and even money orders and bisque never checks identification they have a great wiki breaking down the pros and cons of each payment method and the risks involving each one there's also packs full and though it does require id it does offer some similar privacy options we'll have a link to both below for bisque you can also buy monero directly though i've read it seems to be a bit harder than bitcoin mostly due to less popularity and those are the main options to obtain currencies anonymously there's not really a best solution since each has pros and cons i encourage you to dig into each one and pick something that matches your threat model and the amount of time and energy you want to dedicate to this so go back and tie them together and see how they fit together because someone might choose bitcoin atms for solution one and that might work perfect for them and then for solution 4 someone's going to want to use bisque it's just going to depend on what you're looking for and you can kind of mix and match what works best for you which is pretty neat the last major thing to cover is storing the money you finally end up with let's go to our final category [Music] where you store your money is very important the public address is what everyone sees and the private one is what gains access to your wallet if someone has your private key they have your money this is why it's heavily discouraged to keep your money in exchanges since you're trusting them to hold your funds so let's cover a couple options the first is a local wallet on your computer if you want an easy program that's kind of open source but not really and is very usable and user friendly exodus is nice if you want something more foolproof truly open source and extremely secure electrum is probably your best bet the second major option and the best thing to do is a hardware wallet which is its own dedicated device designed to securely store your money the ledger nano is what i use and i love it there's also trezor and those are the main two i feel comfortable recommending i'll leave a link to both in the description if you want to go this route which is considered the most secure method of doing things don't forget if you're using a desktop wallet or even a hardware wallet for that matter you're only as strong as your weakest link and if the security of your computer is in jeopardy then so is your money regardless of how secure the wallet itself is to prevent this and learn how to secure your devices we have a become anonymous guide which breaks this all down from start to finish no matter what your threat model is as well as some device specific guides which should help fill in some pieces and that my friends is the end of the video covering why bitcoin is anonymous is a myth but how it can be made to be anonymous through some effort if you enjoy this kind of content it really really helps us out and we'd really appreciate it if you give us a like below share this with people you know and other communities who think bitcoin is anonymous to help debunk some of these myths i want to also thank our patrons especially and our other supporters who help us make this kind of content and we welcome all new supporters for some exclusive perks in our communities you're awesome thank you all so much if you can't give back directly on patreon we do have a public monero address so if you go through the steps in this video and end up with a few extra bucks send it our way aside from that we do have some affiliate links from different tools we mentioned throughout this video you'll find all of the normal links as well so you have the option to support us through the affiliate link and we really do appreciate if you choose to go through the affiliate link but if you don't want to you don't want to support us you'll find the normal links as well in the description thanks again for watching everyone and see you next time [Music] wow

Channel: Techlore

Views: 74,459

Keywords: anonymous cryptocurrency, anonymous purchase, localmonero, monero, bitcoin, techlore, cryptocurrency, zcash, privacy, security, zencash, exchange, wallet, private key, hardware wallet, software wallet, trezor, exodus, localbitcoin, coinbase, binance, ledger, ledger nano, blockchain, private transaction, paxful, bitcoin ATM, identification, cash, guide, tutorial, bitcoin mining, Monero mining, tor, VPN, proxy, go incognito, surveillance report, the hated one, is bitcoin anonymous, Is monero anonymous

Id: MGGIvaF234c

Length: 17min 27sec (1047 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ArticMine]

There is a fifth option he did not mention namely buying Monero on an AML / KYC exchange.

The one part of talk that really shocked me is mining Bitcoin with a GPU in order to then sell the mined BTC for XMR! I mean seriously. Buying Bitcoin on an ATM is way cheaper than that even with 10 - 30% fee. Of course simply mining Monero with a well chosen CPU would be the best mining route.

Apart from the mining issue it is a good talk.