Bitcoin is often described as an anonymous currency because it is possible to send and receive payment without giving personal data.
This is one of the motives for the use of bitcoin as well as other cryptos for the payment of illegal goods and services, money laundering and the financing of criminal and terrorist activities. However, one should keep in mind that the possession of cryptos and their use are everything but anonymous. Of course, certain anonymity is achieved, but only apparent while absolute anonymity is impossible. It can be said that Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous.
In the world of cryptos we present ourselves with our e-mail address in order to receive or send certain value. Every transaction that includes this address is always kept in the blockchain that we previously were active on. If our address is ever linked to our identity, each transaction will be associated with us and our true identity. Bitcoin address is not the only element that reveals our identity. In addition, there is an IP (Internet Protocol) address that defines our computer as well as the network or service providers we use to access the Internet. There are several more elements that reveal our identity while the Bitcoin's address is certainly the most obvious.
One of the recommendations for hiding your own identity is to constantly change the Bitcoin address. If each transaction is done from another address, it is possible to significantly impede the establishment of a genuine identity.
A multi-input transaction occurs when we receive payments into our wallet at different addresses, and then we send a payment from a wallet that pulls Bitcoin from multiple addresses. An outgoing transaction will include multiple addresses as input, revealing in that way that they are in the same wallet and belong to the same person. If our identity is ever linked to any of these addresses, none of the addresses will retain its anonymity.
One way to increase our anonymity is to use more wallets. In this way, we maintain several different identities. The easiest way to maintain multiple wallets is to use MultiBit. MultiBit is a simple and efficient software wallet for Windows, MacOS and Linux that allows us to manage multiple banknotes from one program.
Despite the many protection mechanisms, it is possible to determine the owner and his transactions for bitcoin and other crypto-crawlers.
