My question is: is it possible to trace who has cashed out bitcoins into money if you know the bitcoin wallet address.
I think it should be possible to trace, but how to trace such a thing?
NOTE: I’m just talking about cashing out bitcoin into money, not buying some cheap stuff.
Bitcoin is pseudonymous. Not completely anonymous. Your wallet addresses are stored on a publicly accessible ledger, or blockchain. So your bitcoin address is recorded. Your identity is not, so it stays private. However, funding an account, or withdrawing from an account, is getting harder to do competely anonymously, as countries and businesses feel it’s in their best interest to know who they are dealing with. So KYC (know your customer) regulations, the requirement to give up personal information about yourself, are ever increasing.
Also, exchanges and crypto related business, if in a country that values financial law and financial protections, often keep network/IP transaction history, often tied to wallet addresses. I imagine that those organizations with the correct amount of legal authorization could “persuade” these businesses to give up relevant personal customer information if the need was great enough.
So unless you were concealing your network connections, and then moving your funds around between different wallets and maybe even mixers/tumblers, being completely anonymous isn’t so easy. Laws and regulations are also changing that may make complete anonymity impossible (depending on where you live).
nope, you can’t dtect, if the person doing everything correctly
Sorry, but that is wrong.
All Bitcoin transactions are public, traceable, and permanently stored in the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin addresses are the only information used to define where bitcoins are allocated and where they are sent. These addresses are created privately by each user’s wallets. However, once addresses are used, they become tainted by the history of all transactions they are involved with.
Anyone can see the balance and all transactions of any address. Since users usually have to reveal their identity in order to receive services or goods, Bitcoin addresses cannot remain fully anonymous. As the block chain is permanent, it’s important to note that something not traceable currently may become trivial to trace in the future.
If you think you can avoid paying taxes on your gains then think again. Even if the authorities don’t know about today, they will eventually catch up with you.
Steps in blockchain analysis firm. There are good guys out there helping the other good guys.
As far as I know, bitcoin transactions are public and hence, traceable. There are no restrictions on anyone who wants to check the balance and all transactions of any address. Moreover, bitcoin addresses cannot be fully anonymous because users need to reveal their identity to receive services and goods.