Bitcoin privacy: UTXOs, address reuse and CoinJoin
Why Bitcoin is pseudonymous rather than anonymous, and the basic habits that protect your privacy.
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Pseudonymous, not anonymous
Every transaction is public forever. Your name isn't on it, but once an address is linked to you (for example by an exchange with ID checks), your history can be traced.
Coins are UTXOs
Your balance is made of separate pieces (unspent outputs). Spending several together reveals they belong to the same owner. Reusing addresses links payments too.
CoinJoin
Proposed on the forum in 2013, CoinJoin lets many people combine payments into one transaction so outside observers can't easily tell who paid whom. Rules on privacy tools differ by country.
FAQ
- Did Satoshi think about privacy?
- Yes. The whitepaper suggests using a new key pair for each transaction to keep them from being linked.
On the site
Original bitcointalk.org threads
- CoinJoin: Bitcoin privacy for the real world · 746 replies / 295,053 views (as of 13 Oct 2026)
- Anonymity (2010) · 113 replies / 68,914 views (as of 13 Oct 2026)
- Pros and Cons of Anonymous Digital Cash · 44 replies / 199,844 views (as of 13 Oct 2026)
Our own explanation; forum threads are linked, not copied. Not investment advice.
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