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Saw this on another board and since someone brought up bitcoins to me earlier,I figured it was a good read to bring over and very relevant to it's use.
Reminder to Bitcoin users that seek extreme privacy- Monero
Everyone should be aware, bitcoin is not anonymous. Transactions can be tracked from wallet to wallet. The good news is there is an anonymous untraceable currency, Monero.
Monero uses a cryptographically sound system that allows you to send and receive funds without your transactions being publically visible on the blockchain (the distributed ledger of transactions). This ensures that your purchases, receipts, and other transfers remain private by default.
By taking advantage of ring signatures, a special property of certain types of cryptography, Monero enables untraceable transactions. This means it's ambiguous which funds have been spent, and thus extremely unlikely that a transaction could be linked to particular user.
You can read more and get setup with monero here. https://getmonero.org/home
The best way to obtain new bitcoins untainted wrt old ones (that is, to restart your visible wallet identity from scratch without a link to your past activity) is nowadays through the use of Monero.
Not through mixing or coinjoining, which leaves a trails and worse, mix your coin with other people also mixing for maybe very bad reasons. Imagine mixing because you're a good guy but keen on your privacy, and ending up with coins publicly known as robbed on exchange X or from scam Y?
Here is the most private way to obtain "fresh" bitcoins, thanks to the outstanding privacy features of Monero. In fact the entire privacy that you'll get by following this procedure actually comes from Monero - you just have to be careful how you convert from private Monero to visible Bitcoins.
Convert some Bitcoins to Monero. You can do that OTC, on some exchanges such as poloniex.com (they'll ask you a name though), or on shapeshift.
Be sure that there is a high mixin (>= 10) used when you receive your Moneroj. Ideally, transfer them to another Monero wallet of yours, again with a high mixin. Always use a high mixin for all your Monero transactions. At this point, everything you will do with your wealth on the Monero network (and also how much it is) is completely unknown to the entire world.
When you need your fresh bitcoins, convert your Moneroj back to Bitcoins. It should be on a different market place/individual/service than the one you used in the other direction. If you want to make a single anonymous Bitcoin purchase instead of converting a stash in advance, you can use shapeshift or https://xmr.to/
Be sure to reach the convertion services on internet without giving out your IP address. Use TOR, and disable javascript. xmr.to has an API that you can use without javascript: http://xmrto-api.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ and we will also deploy a no-js version soon, it just needs few more tests. For the other services I don't know but I'm sure some other options exist.
For the extra paranoids, be sure to use different amounts and no immediate timing for the two conversions (first BTC -> XMR then XMR -> BTC), so even if the two services/individuals that you use to convert in each direction collude together and share information, they'll have a hard time finding out you are the same person.
This simple technique is known since there have been several cryptocurrencies with sufficient liquidity, we just jump from blockchain to blockchain to prevent blockchain analysis. The nice trick here is that the Monero blockchain is the most private one available at the moment - far more than the previously existing Bitcoin clones - and it has a decent liquidity that allows real usage.
Reminder to Bitcoin users that seek extreme privacy- Monero
Everyone should be aware, bitcoin is not anonymous. Transactions can be tracked from wallet to wallet. The good news is there is an anonymous untraceable currency, Monero.
Monero uses a cryptographically sound system that allows you to send and receive funds without your transactions being publically visible on the blockchain (the distributed ledger of transactions). This ensures that your purchases, receipts, and other transfers remain private by default.
By taking advantage of ring signatures, a special property of certain types of cryptography, Monero enables untraceable transactions. This means it's ambiguous which funds have been spent, and thus extremely unlikely that a transaction could be linked to particular user.
You can read more and get setup with monero here. https://getmonero.org/home
The best way to obtain new bitcoins untainted wrt old ones (that is, to restart your visible wallet identity from scratch without a link to your past activity) is nowadays through the use of Monero.
Not through mixing or coinjoining, which leaves a trails and worse, mix your coin with other people also mixing for maybe very bad reasons. Imagine mixing because you're a good guy but keen on your privacy, and ending up with coins publicly known as robbed on exchange X or from scam Y?
Here is the most private way to obtain "fresh" bitcoins, thanks to the outstanding privacy features of Monero. In fact the entire privacy that you'll get by following this procedure actually comes from Monero - you just have to be careful how you convert from private Monero to visible Bitcoins.
Convert some Bitcoins to Monero. You can do that OTC, on some exchanges such as poloniex.com (they'll ask you a name though), or on shapeshift.
Be sure that there is a high mixin (>= 10) used when you receive your Moneroj. Ideally, transfer them to another Monero wallet of yours, again with a high mixin. Always use a high mixin for all your Monero transactions. At this point, everything you will do with your wealth on the Monero network (and also how much it is) is completely unknown to the entire world.
When you need your fresh bitcoins, convert your Moneroj back to Bitcoins. It should be on a different market place/individual/service than the one you used in the other direction. If you want to make a single anonymous Bitcoin purchase instead of converting a stash in advance, you can use shapeshift or https://xmr.to/
Be sure to reach the convertion services on internet without giving out your IP address. Use TOR, and disable javascript. xmr.to has an API that you can use without javascript: http://xmrto-api.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ and we will also deploy a no-js version soon, it just needs few more tests. For the other services I don't know but I'm sure some other options exist.
For the extra paranoids, be sure to use different amounts and no immediate timing for the two conversions (first BTC -> XMR then XMR -> BTC), so even if the two services/individuals that you use to convert in each direction collude together and share information, they'll have a hard time finding out you are the same person.
This simple technique is known since there have been several cryptocurrencies with sufficient liquidity, we just jump from blockchain to blockchain to prevent blockchain analysis. The nice trick here is that the Monero blockchain is the most private one available at the moment - far more than the previously existing Bitcoin clones - and it has a decent liquidity that allows real usage.