Quote:
Originally Posted by YouAreAwesome
Pretty criminal really...
Guess that's why Bitcoin is the future.
But now I'm wondering if Bitcoin is anonymous? I have to give heaps of ID to buy it at an exchange and then move it to blockchain and then move it from block chain to a poker site... seems pretty traceable... plus I'm not confident in my method anyway... hmmmm, advice anyone?
You're correct that it's not really anonymous. Every transaction is public. But only the bitcoin addresses are seen, not who the addresses belong to.
It's true that if you give your ID to an exchange and then buy bitcoin from them, they will know that the first address the bitcoin goes into belongs to you.
But after that first address it's unclear. They won't know whether you sent bitcoin to another address you control, or sent to a friend, or sent it to buy something online, or sent to a poker site.
You're correct about the process. That's why you buy from an exchange, send it to your own wallet, and then send to the poker site. When you send from the exchange to your own wallet they won't know whether that's an address you control or if it belongs to someone else.
Also, the poker sites play a big part. If they're doing it right there shouldn't be a way for an exchange - or anyone - to know that the address you send a deposit to belongs to a poker site.
The reverse is true for withdrawals. If the site is following best practices the address they send your withdrawal from shouldn't be able to be detected as belonging to a poker site. You have the withdrawal sent from the site to your own wallet. Then you send from the wallet to your exchange account.
Even as a worst case if the exchange is able to tell the withdrawal address belonged to a poker site, breaking the direct link makes it slightly more difficult for them to detect. It also creates plausible deniability because they can't know for sure that you were the one that withdrew from the poker site.
Buy BTC from exchange -> Send to a new address in your own personal wallet -> Deposit to poker site
Poker site -> Withdraw to new address in your wallet -> Send to exchange