What are Anonymity and Pseudonymity in Cryptocurrency?
In the bitcoinsmarter, users use pseudonymity or anonymity to a few extents for private and safety matters or to move to self-sovereignty. Pseudonymity and anonymity bring safety in their distinctive ways. In this article, let’s explore the anonymity and pseudonymity concepts and understand them briefly.
What is meant by Pseudonymity & Anonymity?
Anonymity:
Generally, anonymity suggests that not everyone is aware of your true self. Still, they are, beyond a doubt, familiar with your online activities, meaning that you have to do your work and movements while staying anonymous. The user’s actions & his true identity can remain separate through anonymity. In respect of blockchain safety, anonymity means that no transaction or activity made on the exchanges or blockchain can be linked to a user, whether they are utilizing a pseudonym or not.
Pseudonymity:
The term “pseudonymity” is related to using a distinctive name on different social media platforms, like a nickname or pen name. It is conventionally utilized to hide your original identity while managing your identity under some other name. Pseudonymity does let a real person, like a poet or artist, retain their identity for their work by a nickname or pet name; a few users use it to get financial benefits by keeping a false name. In these conditions, the victim may criticize the wrongdoer on his fictional character but not on his original identity.
For blockchain safety, pseudonymity means that the person’s identity while doing transactions is unknown; every transaction they do can be attached to a similar pseudonymous identification. If we say in a simple form, anonymity is a much stronger privacy form than pseudonymity; hence, it comes with some extensive indication that we would see.
Why are they both important to cryptocurrency?
Ethereum & Bitcoin are the biggest cryptocurrencies that function on pseudonymous systems. Any Bitcoin Trading Platform transaction is publicly transparent. It simply stands that the user’s identification stays unknown, and the actions linked with their pocket take the form of a huge cryptographic address. Such addresses play an important role in keeping track of the fund’s move from the blockchain security perspective. There are a few plans that exist that provide full anonymity by cryptography. Such projects are also famous as “privacy coins,” which avert the transactions from being connected to certain addresses & eventually make it difficult for the funds to trace.
Anonymity & pseudonymity have come up as the cryptocurrencies’ major pillars. Have you heard the term “Satoshi Nakamoto”? If you are into cryptocurrencies, you must have learned about this well-known creator of Bitcoin. He is a pseudonym, too, as his identity is anonymous.
Why pseudonymity & anonymity are crucial?
Anonymity and pseudonymity are both vital privacy concepts. They help individuals exercise enough control over their private details and decide how much confidential information will be revealed or shared with others. A person might choose to deal pseudonymously or anonymously with an App company for several reasons, such as:
- Prefer unidentified or stay ‘left alone
- Avoid future contacts like direct marketing from that firm or other firms
- Keep their location secretive from an ex-partner or family
- Access to the services (like health services or counseling) by keeping himself secret from others
- To show views publicly without being privately identified
There can be wider benefits too:
- People may want to inquire more about products & services that an App firm gives if possible without being recognized, which means the community is well-informed.
- Users should express minority opinions or be controversial without having reprisal fear.
- The identity fraud risk has minimized if less private information has been gathered, attached & stored by firms.
- An APP company can reduce its compliance burden under the APPs by diminishing the private information quantity it gathers.
- Feedback from clients can be more strict and forthcoming if users choose to make an entity complaint or unattributed compliment.
Conclusion
The conversation about the significance of having anonymity or pseudonymity and executing their rules and regulations is quite common. It is a favorite topic for discussion, which can be unavoidable as the cryptocurrency industry will have an extensive presence. At any cost, compromises need to be made from both sides to save cryptocurrency and blockchain in the future.
