Use privacy preserving coins such as Monero instead of Bitcoin as it is much more safe. Not bulletproof, but much better.
Monero also complicates any type of investigation much more than Bitcoin. It is very hard for investigators. They also don't want to burn techniques unless the case is absolutely massive.
Also make sure to never use an exchange that forces KYC.
I also noticed on a darkweb site that keeping monero in an escrow account is used to further muddy the trail. Not sure how effective that actually is though.
It's not actually that tricky - because obtaining Monero anonymously is also tricky, the only way to do so is to put on a pair of rubber gloves, and anonymously send cash from a mailbox that can't be traced to your identity. The other side of that transaction is the party interested in converting to cash. Because there's so much demand on both ends, there are many reputable vendors with a long and trusted history of those transactions.
this kind of blockchain analysis for the non-privacy oriented coins has been well known at least for a decade.. I don't see how it's a secret weapon except against the naive or uninformed
Fascinating how blockchain’s transparency has flipped the script on crypto anonymity. Law enforcement now uses forensic tracing to dismantle criminal networks, from dark web markets to ransomware rings. The real challenge remains jurisdictional reach, not technical capability.
What I’m most interested in is: are there proof-of-concepts or any work done on making Bitcoin actually more private and untraceable? Does Lightning suffer from the same traceability issues?
There is a constant flux of papers and prototypes that are not mentioned anywhere (least of all this website) unless you delve deep into technical forums (such as delvingbitcoin) - which I never find the time to stay abreast of.
It was never a secret, it was a design choice from the start.
People don't actually pay attention to what powers the pyramid scheme they participate in?
I think most opsec sensitive people, if they do use BTC it is one wallet per transaction. That said, BTC is still cash-like because your wallet isn't associated with your identity, cops still have to work out that detail.
The NSA was using this sort of tricks long before all this when people tried to use PGP encrypted email.
Either way, if governments allowed payment cards that don't do KYC, it would be more convenient for everyone involved. I don't know how governments suddenly took it upon themselves that in addition to controlling commerce, they get to monitor lawful commerce between law abiding citizens with no suspicious of criminal conspiracy.
Privacy wasn't taken from us, they asked nicely and we shrugged.
Someone one time wrote a great filesharing application. Then one day I asked him about caching what other clients downloaded and offered. A few exchanges later he concluded that one could reconstruct what someone downloaded. The problem was clients that didn't run very often. They needed some time to catch up with deleting things no longer available. They tended to wait for a good while for the other client to come back online so that they could get a new list. In the mean time you could ask them what a user had to offer and they would provide the outdated channel info.
The next day he released an update that erased the application and all data.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 56.0 ms ] threadMonero also complicates any type of investigation much more than Bitcoin. It is very hard for investigators. They also don't want to burn techniques unless the case is absolutely massive.
Also make sure to never use an exchange that forces KYC.
Ethereum has entered the chat
It took them until 2014 to read the satoshi white paper?
There is a constant flux of papers and prototypes that are not mentioned anywhere (least of all this website) unless you delve deep into technical forums (such as delvingbitcoin) - which I never find the time to stay abreast of.
Some entity does not want this type of info out there.
https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1100/format:webp/0*_My...
The NSA was using this sort of tricks long before all this when people tried to use PGP encrypted email.
Either way, if governments allowed payment cards that don't do KYC, it would be more convenient for everyone involved. I don't know how governments suddenly took it upon themselves that in addition to controlling commerce, they get to monitor lawful commerce between law abiding citizens with no suspicious of criminal conspiracy.
Privacy wasn't taken from us, they asked nicely and we shrugged.
The next day he released an update that erased the application and all data.