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Comment by nnfy | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunate display of the intrinsic value of bitcoin as an anonymous[1], decentralized store of value.

1. Please don't tell me that btc is not anonymous; the fact that I can trace transaction histories is irrelevant, since I still need to deanonymize the initial address.

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That's not anonymity, that's pseudonymity.

No, by the conventional definitions of anonymous [1], the protocol is fully anonymous. Saying that it is pseudo anonymous is in my opinion misleading. There is a different word to describe the weakness of a deanonymized address. I dont know what that word is, but we will confuse and possibly turn interested parties and laymen away with the misnomer of pseudoanonymity.

I would compate this mislabeling to claiming that btc is insecure because of the mt. Gox hack; the fact that you can steal bitcoin's from people doesn't mean that bitcoins are insecure. Similarly, the fact that I can trace your transaction trail does not mean that your transactions themselves weren't fully anonymous.

1. Dictionary.com/browse/anonymous

This is HN, not CNN. s/anonymous/random/ and s/pseudonymous/pseudorandom/ and rethink your position. Anyhow, even in a more general forum like CNN pseudonymous is still the better term. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonymity

pseudo anonymity != pseudonymity. In laymans terms, "pseudonymity" means "fake name" whereas pseudo anonymity would mean "fake anonymity". shemnon42 is using the exact terminology you are referring to.

In this case, the conventional definition of anonymous is less useful than domain-specific definition of anonymity, since different currencies have different levels of anonymity. Recent HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14672691

I have been misreading that word for a few months now. I didnt catch that people were using the root pseudonym.

I didnt even know that pseudonymous was a word until today, thank you.

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