A lot of people believe that bitcoin transactions are anonymous per se. However, that’s not entirely true. Even though they do provide users with more anonymity than most fiat transactions, they are still not completely anonymous.
But they can be! There are several simple measures you can take to ensure that your privacy is guaranteed, and your personal information is not disclosed to anyone when dealing with bitcoin.
While some of these measures are complicated, others are very simple and require minutes to set up. Let’s check out some of the easiest and fastest ones you should start practicing right away.
1. Using Tor – Onion Router
The first thing you need to do is make sure that you are using a secure browser that will not collect your personal information and will prevent others from finding out who you are. Tor is the best option you have. It is often used by people who intend to visit a Bitcoin casino, as casinos are known for collecting a lot of private information for security reasons.
Tor encrypts your internet traffic and sends it through several computer nodes on the Tor network before it reaches the final destination. That way, the source of the original internet request cannot be traced back to you. It is very difficult to pinpoint the IP address from which a bitcoin transaction was initiated if it came from a Tor browser.
2. Bitcoin Mixing
Bitcoin Mixing is a paid service, so you will have to invest in your anonymity if you wish to use it. Because of its nature, it is also commonly known as Bitcoin laundering, Bitcoin tumbling, or Bitcoin washing.
All regular bitcoin transactions are recorded in a public ledger. This makes it quite easy to track the route of the transaction – where it came from and where it went. The purpose of Bitcoin mixing is to break the link between the source and the destination and make the transaction untraceable.
This is done by either making temporary Bitcoin addresses or mixing transactions of several users. This makes it hard, if not impossible, to follow the transaction on the blockchain.
3. Paid Logless VPN Service
There are many VPN services out there you can use. Chances are that you have already used some. Were they free? If they were, that means they have stored the history of your activity on their servers. This information is usually sold to third parties for advertising purposes.
If you want to stay anonymous when performing bitcoin transactions, you must use a logless VPN service. Such services will not keep logs of your activity. However, logless VPNs are usually paid. One good option is NordVPN, but there are many others too.
4. Buy and Sell BTC with Prepaid Cards
Do you normally buy bitcoins using your credit or debit card? If that’s the case and you want to be anonymous, you need to stop doing it right away. Buying bitcoins with your credit card means sharing a lot of valuable information on the blockchain. Instead, what you need to do is use prepaid cards.
Prepaid cards can be bought in a multitude of stores and used anonymously. You need to register them on your computer, but you can use false information as it is not verified by the providers. After that, simply load them with cash and use them to buy BTC.
5. Use a New Address for Each Transaction
When using Bitcoin, you can generate a new public address for each transaction you make. You should do that every single time. As you know, blockchain is a public service, which means that anyone can see the information about transactions performed there.
If you take a look at any Bitcoin address, you can see the number of BTCs sent from that address, the number of BTCs received, the total balance, and the total number of transactions. If you use the same address every time, all of your transactions will be logged in one place. Instead, change your address frequently and you’ll be less traceable.
6. Use JoinMarket
There are some similarities between JoinMarket and Bitcoin Mixing. However, JoinMarket is not a piece of software, company, or paid service. It is a market where Bitcoin users come and join their transactions together in order to make them more anonymous. Such transactions are called CoinJoin transactions.
The market is not that popular at the moment, but it is definitely worth a try.