The identity of the creator(s) is ambiguous and nobody has yet claimed to have invented it. An Irish guy by the name of Michael Clear is frequently mentioned but Satoshi Nakamoto seems to be the prime cadidate Good ol' Wiki
to trade magic the gathering cards hence the name of the biggest exchange mt gox (magic the gathering online exchange)
Source: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Default.aspx What! And nobody liked my "The world as analogue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer" thread? I thought BitCoin was an expression of people's attempt to re-establish private property rights through privacy and anonymity online? Turn's out to be just a gamer's trading platform. That's a bit disappointing. Now it appears you can interrogate other people's wallets as well. In a world of identity theft and cybercrime, it all sounds pretty ill conceived to me. Edit: But wait, we get to rule the guilds of Ravnica [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZf08OBag4o[/youtube]
What's your source for this claim, please? If you can determine how much is in my wallet, I'll give it to you for free
Source: http://forums.silverstackers.com/message-504780.html#p504780 Just post your address here: ________________________________
I think you've misinterpreted what willrocks stated. Yes, all the Bitcoin transactions are a matter of public record. However, if and only if you can correlate personal identities with a Bitcoin address can you monitor someone's transactions. Bitcoin users can generate new Bitcoin addresses at will, and use multiple wallets (with multiple addresses in each). Oh, and there is no obligation for a Bitcoin user to give out any of their addresses, unless they choose to do so. I choose not to.
Yes, ok. I get that it would be difficult to source people's bitcoin address, but it certainly isn't impossible and if you were to transfer your bitcoins to someone else in a transaction they would have your bitcoin address and potentially other details. So if the government, a company or a criminal front, adopts bitcoin as a payment mechanism, then they would have your identity as well as transactional history and balance, if providing personally identifying information was a requirement of the trade. They would also have the bitcoin addresses of every other entity they trade with along with their identities (or aspects of their identities). In that scenario, recreating or even monitoring a network of transactions with personally identifying details would then be pretty straightforward. I would imagine that recreating the trail of wallet transfers wouldn't be to difficult either, for well funded agencies with an interest in that sort of thing, and of course as soon as you transact with someone... I understand that at the moment you might transact with a pseudonym or without providing any personally identifying details, but that's now and if this is the future of digital currency, it's only a matter of regulation before you are classed a criminal for behaving like that and become the subject of law enforcement. I think I have a better understanding of what this Bitcoin thing is about. Thanks.
If someone uses a mixing service correctly (i.e. Bitcoinfog), then tracing the coins and transactions is next to impossible. The use a giant pool and all the coins are mixed together, then paid out in multiple smaller transactions.
A couple of interesting articles about Bitcoin privacy: http://anonymity-in-bitcoin.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/bitcoin-is-not-anonymous.html http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygre...ould-make-it-truly-anonymous-and-untraceable/