Yes. Bitcoin, as most cryptocurrencies, has an open ledger, meaning all transactions (and, by extension, wallet amounts) in the network are public. Everyone can see any transactions associated with any wallet.
Thereby, if someone knows a certain person is an owner of a given wallet (and the effort is to associate those two things by introducing identity verification on all major exchanges), they can know every transaction you have ever made. In fact, there are several analytical companies (for example, Chainalysis) that process this very information in bulk to help authorities combat criminal activity.
There are cryptocurrencies in which this data is encrypted, like Monero. There, you cannot view transactions associated with the wallet address unless you got a special key only the wallet owner can give to you.
There are also cryptocurrencies like Zcash, in which you can choose whether to encrypt your transactions or not.
Might actually be good in some ways - less options to hide ill-gotten gains, or to award people wildly different salaries based on what they’re ready to settle for.
I believe in Sweden, for example, the information on income should legally be public for everyone.
Allero@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Yes. Bitcoin, as most cryptocurrencies, has an open ledger, meaning all transactions (and, by extension, wallet amounts) in the network are public. Everyone can see any transactions associated with any wallet.
Thereby, if someone knows a certain person is an owner of a given wallet (and the effort is to associate those two things by introducing identity verification on all major exchanges), they can know every transaction you have ever made. In fact, there are several analytical companies (for example, Chainalysis) that process this very information in bulk to help authorities combat criminal activity.
There are cryptocurrencies in which this data is encrypted, like Monero. There, you cannot view transactions associated with the wallet address unless you got a special key only the wallet owner can give to you.
There are also cryptocurrencies like Zcash, in which you can choose whether to encrypt your transactions or not.
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Imagine if actual wallets worked like that, and everyone knew what your bank balance was.
That’s wild.
Allero@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Might actually be good in some ways - less options to hide ill-gotten gains, or to award people wildly different salaries based on what they’re ready to settle for.
I believe in Sweden, for example, the information on income should legally be public for everyone.