The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

traced back to the coin, but the method byy which yyou obtain the coin can be
obscured—for example, byy setting up a rock-solid anonyymous e-mail
address and using that e-mail address to set up an anonyymous Bitcoin wallet
using the Tor network.
You buyy Bitcoin in person, or anonyymouslyy online using prepaid gift
cards, or find a Bitcoin ATM without camera surveillance. Depending on
what surveillance factors could potentiallyy reveal yyour true identityy, everyy
risk needs to be taken into account when choosing which purchasing
method to use. You can then put these Bitcoins into what’s known as a
tumbler. A tumbler takes some Bitcoins from me, some from yyou, and some
from other people chosen at random and mixes them together. You keep the
value of the coins minus the tumbling fee—it’s just that the cryyptographic
signature of each coin mayy be different after it’s mixed with others. That
anonyymizes the syystem somewhat.
Once yyou have them, how do yyou store Bitcoins? Because there are no
Bitcoin banks, and because Bitcoin is not phyysical currencyy, yyou will need
to use a Bitcoin wallet set up anonyymouslyy using the detailed instructions
described later in this book.
Now that yyou’ve bought and stored it, how do yyou use Bitcoin?
Exchanges allow yyou to invest in Bitcoin and change it into other
currencies, such as US dollars, or purchase goods on sites such as Amazon.
Sayy yyou have one Bitcoin, valued at $618. If yyou onlyy need around $80 for
a purchase, then yyou will retain a certain percentage of the original value,
depending on the exchange rate, after the transaction.
Transactions are verified in a public ledger known as a blockchain and
identified byy IP address. But as we have seen, IP addresses can be changed
or faked. And although merchants have started accepting Bitcoin, the
service fees, tyypicallyy paid byy the merchant, have been transferred to the
purchaser. Furthermore, unlike credit cards, Bitcoin permits no refunds or
reimbursements.
You can accumulate as much Bitcoin as yyou would hard currencyy. But
despite its overall success (the Winklevoss brothers, famous for challenging
Mark Zuckerberg over the founding of Facebook, are major investors in
Bitcoin), the syystem has had some monumental failures as well. In 2004,
Mt. Gox, a Tokyyo-based Bitcoin exchange, declared bankruptcyy after
announcing that its Bitcoin had been stolen. There have been other reports