Blockchain Privacy: Building Robust Anonymity

The concept of privacy often does not couple well with public blockchain technology. Blockchains, in the form they were conceived, are openly accessible records of transactions stored in an immutable ledger. Any individual can view every transaction a party (blockchain address) has been involved in. While a person’s private information is often not directly displayed on the blockchain, this does not fully protect them from identification by others. 

Blockchain addresses are pseudonymous in the sense that, at creation, the address does not relate to the creator’s personal information in any way. However, the traceability of transactions means if a person’s address interacts with a platform that records personal information, then reidentification is possible. Guided by increased regulation, the majority of cryptocurrency on- and off-ramps have implemented KYC policies, making true blockchain privacy increasingly difficult to achieve.