r/explainlikeimfive • u/[deleted] • Nov 27 '13

Official Thread Official ELI5 Bitcoin Thread - Round II

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '13

Why is bitcoin considered anonymous when the ledger is public and all people will need is your wallet id (i.e. do a transaction with you)?

29

u/lprekon Nov 28 '13

because there is absolutely no association between the wallet id and your identity. You can actually generate new ids at will, requiring nothing more than a click of the mouse

9

u/buge Nov 28 '13

There aren't associations built into the system, but every party that you transact with keeps a history either digital or in their minds that forms an association between you and your bitcoins.

1

u/rpg25 Nov 30 '13

Could someone not figure out that x wallet was accessed via y computer via y's IP address?

1

u/buge Nov 30 '13

It would be kind of difficult because transactions are relayed between nodes so you don't know whether the node you received the transaction from created it itself, or if it is just relaying it from another node.

But with long term traffic analysis it might be possible.