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Introduction
Bitcoin is pseudonymous, not anonymous. Every transaction is public, allowing anyone to trace funds between addresses. Privacy requires minimizing linkability.
Blockchain Analysis & Address Clustering
When you spend Bitcoin, you often combine multiple UTXOs from different addresses into a single transaction. This reveals to observers that:
- All those addresses belong to the same person (you)
- The approximate total value you control
- Patterns in your spending behavior
This technique is called address clustering, and it's the foundation of blockchain analysis. Protecting your privacy means avoiding unnecessary address linkage.
Privacy Best Practices
Key strategies for maintaining privacy:
- Never reuse addresses — Each receive should use a fresh address
- Minimize UTXO consolidation — Avoid combining coins from different sources
- Use coin control — Manually select which UTXOs to spend
- Consider CoinJoin — Break the on-chain link between sender and receiver
- Run your own node — Don't leak your addresses to third-party servers