Too Long; Didn't Read
There’s a popular misconception that Bitcoin is anonymous and untraceable. It’s an understandable mistake given Bitcoin’s first popular use case was the infamous Silk Road — a market known for dealing in illicit substances. The truth is that Bitcoin is <em>pseudonymous </em>and <em>fully traceable</em>. In fact, every transaction in Bitcoin maps inputs to outputs, allowing anyone to follow the money trivially.