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Add to SafariCryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin have risen extremely in popularity in the past few years. With a cryptocurrency, you're able to send money to anyone in the world with a few mouseclicks and it happens completely anonymously.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro A truly peer-to-peer and anonymous solution
There are no names and no accounts in the Bitcoin ecosystem: only anonymous Bitcoin wallets. It makes transactions with people less of a hassle and doesn't require you to input confidential data such as your personal information or credit card details.
Pro Personally untraceable money transfers
Pro Allows you to choose a wallet of your choice
Bitcoins are stored in digital wallets, which is a unique identifier for your balance. You can choose to keep your bitcoins offline, but there are also hundreds of online wallet services to keep your bitcoins in.
Pro Convert bitcoins to a currency of your choice
Bitcoins can be converted to 'real' currency in online marketplaces. You'll often pay a small fee, but that's negligible compared to the average charges. The worth of your sold bitcoins can be transferred to your bank account. This also makes Bitcoin an ideal solution for global payments with different currencies.
Pro High security with offline storage
Users can secure their wallet though encryption all while keeping this info offline. They can be backed up as well, meaning many encrypted copies of the wallet (and the funds contained) can be stored securely.
Cons
Con Not truly anonymous unless you take extra precautions
you must figure out how to buy enough btc without providing any personal data, sadly most mayor exchanges now follow kyc and aml policies so those are out of the question, this leaves only a few services or using a btc atm or mining (but that is no longer realistic)
you must tumble the coins after to further obfuscate their origin
the merchant you are buying from will know your delivery address, the btc address that the payment came from and the ip used when ordering which they will happily give to law enforcement should they get in trouble (and most eventually do get caught)
All the interactions between your wallet and the internet should be done over tor as should any purchases and you must find a way to get the products delivered to a fake address.
Only after all of this are you at least close to anonymous. Unless law enforcement is really trying to get you (unlikely unless you are also distributing the products in large amounts, buying smaller quantities for personal use is safe).
Con Transactions are not instant
Bitcoin payments take place in the 'blockchain', and must be processed before a payment is completed. This can take anywhere from a couple of minutes up to a couple of hours. However, if you pay a small fee, your transaction is more likely to be completed faster.
Con Not yet widely accepted as a payment method
Altough the popularity of Bitcoin is on the rise, there aren't many individuals who use bitcoin as a payment method. Hewever, webstores and services that allow Bitcoin payments are increasing.
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