Bitcoin Q&A: Fungibility, Privacy, Anonymity

Is Bitcoin as anonymous as cash? Cash is still more anonymous than Bitcoin, which is pseudonymous. However, Bitcoin will become more anonymous and there are a number of other related cryptocurrencies which you can move in and out of to increase your privacy under certain conditions. The conference on Bitcoin scaling in Milan addressed strengthening privacy and fungibility. I'm a strong believer in financial privacy.

Fungibility in Bitcoin, creating blacklists are expensive, common laws "receiving stolen property" and fungibility of fiat. Discount rates, bad money chasing out good money. Gresham's law in India. Human graphs, six degrees of Kevin Bacon. How easily bitcoins are tainted. Lightning Network.
The trade-offs for privacy and anonymity. Privacy is inefficient and costly, it takes commitment and sacrifice to implement, but being able to serve that community is very important. Some people think that trade-off is one worth paying because it pays back in the currency of freedom, and there are many places in the world where the trade-off is very easy. You never really appreciate freedom until you don't have it; for most people, privacy and freedom will not be issues until they start feeling their loss, and by that time it's usually too late.