OK what you said is literally true, but I interpreted the spirit of your comment, because it has few implications for the end user. It's technically relevant, but eventually will be abstracted away.. (.. because "if the project continues to succeed into the future")
For the record I link all of my transactions to my personal identity. And intend to in the future. I just like to think about the project a lot, because its feature as a de facto black market currency is one thing that will guarantee usage (not necessarily /USD price appreciation) in the at least short term future (until a better technology supplants it).
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#Its easy to convert Bitcoin into other altcoins.
btc-e, cryptonit make it easy
#And then convert those alt coins into other altcoins.
btc-e, cryptonit make it easy
#And then convert those alt coins into Euros/Rubles/USD
btc-e, localbitcoin
#And in the future some of these alt coin chains will vanish totally
have you looked at the namecoin project. it hasn't been updated in 8 months. the price has gone down over time (but it's really fucking hard to get historical price data for namecoin unless someone sells it to you). honestly if you just wash through one of these fledgling currencies there is a speculator market on all of them, one of these projects will wend its way into obscurity. the market has a limited number of actors, not enough to guarantee that anyone is recording data. the exchange probably has books of its rates, but how are you going to get data from them? these also drop like flies.
# and it will take a miracle to recover the block chain history.
that's what i'm saying. the initial transaction will be logged, and tied to you if you aren't careful. the last transaction will be logged, and tied to you if you aren't careful. but putting together all the links in the middle and linking it to someone's identity? it's possible, if you knock on enough doors, and have aggressive enough resources. but there's no process for it currently, and so many things would have to come together in the most serendipitous way to conspire against you.
Thanks for this explanation. I misunderstood your statement to mean "technically" impossible to trace, rather than "realistically" impossible. I understand much better now!
