So far, the Bitcoin anonymity remains the key issue among all the problems discussed in the cryptocurrency community. In theory cryptocurrency is completely anonymous, but in practice anyone who has the necessary knowledge can easily disclose information about the participants in the system with a minimal effort.
There is every chance that the creators of cryptocurrencies will improve the blockchain technology and will place greater emphasis on the confidentiality in the future. So far, users have to protect themselves and their personal data from the third parties. There are several ways to do it.
A simple and ready-made solution that does not require using special skills is to hide your real IP address. For this purpose, you must install a TOR browser on your PC, use a VPN or proxy server. Data transfer (user’s city, IP address, provider, browser, and much more) in this case is done via secure channels, and switching to a new IP address will not allow anyone to link transaction in the blockchain to a specific user. Using the TOR browser will prevent defining the source of this transaction.
The next method to increase personal security is to generate new addresses for each operation. A similar feature was implemented in the functionality of modern software and hardware wallets a long time ago. To get a new key you just need to make one click with the mouse and wait for a few seconds. The method is simple, but it guarantees to complicate the process of searching for related addresses. It will take much more time and effort to search.
Using a bitcoin mixer is the most reliable method. There are a lot of such sites, but their functionality always remains the same: users “dump” cryptocurrency onto the balance of the mixer, after that, coins are mixed using special algorithms. Upon that, Bitcoins are again sent to the addresses, but it is no longer possible to trace their source. Mixing should be of a high quality, then, even the analysis of the spread will not allow to find related addresses and to find out the path of the coins. The problem is that not all mixer sites provide quality services to their customers. Some of them simply charge and do not mix at all.
An example of a good mixer is
Bit-Mix.biz. Using this resource you receive completely anonymous coins that have no connection to you. Thus, it is impossible to prove by tracking transactions that the funds in your wallet are related to your business.
Bitcoin security is partly a problem of the program code imperfection, but every user can improve the level of protection by following simple recommendations. Do not think that no one is interested in transactions in the network. On the one hand, analysts track them to change the network algorithm for the better. On the other hand, cybercriminals are interested in operations because they are trying in every way to hunt down a victim, hack into his PC and steal digital coins.
Both fraudsters and law enforcement agencies use various methods of analysis in their work, but they have different goals. Depending on how often you have to use Bitcoin and what kind of operation you perform (for example, one can make transfers every couple of months and the other makes purchases in online stores almost every week), you can use one or several methods of protection at once. This will allow you to achieve the desired level of anonymity.