On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 10:30 AM, Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net> wrote:

> Second thing, it's best to carefully separate "anonymity" from
> "privacy". Privacy is supposed to be a feature of the system (it says
> so in Satoshis paper) because people demand it. If I loan a tenner to
> my friend and he is able to find out what I earned last month, then
> that trade was neither anonymous nor private. In this case I want
> privacy but anonymity isn't useful. Mixing up anonymity with privacy
> is not only a public relations problem, but can lead to confusion from
> users when they, eg, try and buy Bitcoins from an exchange and are
> asked to provide ID proofs.


I would like to second this point...privacy is essential because the market
demands it.  If Bitcoin doesn't do it well (and I would argue that it
doesn't today), then eventually a competitor to Bitcoin will do it better
and that would be the beginning of the end for Bitcoin.  Debates about
whether it was or wasn't a core feature are pointless.