Bitcoin is fully traceable and not actually privacy-friendly.

Evidence

One important study of Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that relies on blockchain, suggests that such machine solutions both express and contribute to the general erosion of the social fabric in ways that are both consistent with instrumentarianism and further pave the way for its success. Information scholars Primavera De Filippi and Benjamin Loveluck conclude that contrary to popular belief, “Bitcoin is neither anonymous nor privacy-friendly… anyone with a copy of the blockchain can see the history of all Bitcoin transactions… every transaction ever done on the Bitcoin network can be traced back to its origin.” Such systems rely on “perfect information,” but the kinds of coordination processes that build open democratic societies, such as “social trust” or “loyalty,” are “expunged” in favor of “a profoundly market-driven approach.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1408

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to Milgrom’s law-merchant work on how reputation and social trust underwrite trade — Bitcoin’s ‘certainty machines’ replace exactly the social trust those institutions preserved. — connects to: Privacy is not eroded but redistributed to surveillance capital — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 284
• QUESTION: The blockchain traceability claim is a strong, specific one — worth verifying current consensus on whether all Bitcoin transactions are reliably traceable to origin.
• CANDY: Popular belief holds Bitcoin is anonymous; the claim that the entire transaction history is public and traceable is a compact, surprising one-liner.

Broader Connections

• Privacy is not eroded but redistributed to surveillance capital #complicates (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 284