The same anonymity and untraceability of that crumpled paper money in your pocket is now available in electronic form.

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Coinbase has put the money in the cloud, making it far easier for people to use, but sacrificing the untraceability of the money.

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By default, bitcoin may not offer anonymity and untraceability like our paper cash today, but it is better described as user-defined anonymity because the decision to reveal identity and usage patterns resides solely with the bitcoin user.

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It also facilitates the many other currency features that are so important to users, but not to governments, such as unrestricted person-to-person payments, user-defined anonymity and untraceability, near-immediate bearer settlement, transaction irreversibility, reliable store of value, multi-grid capable, and decentralized processing.

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