The feature that people confuse with anonymity is that everyone can create a wallet and join the network. No need to sign up or provide personal information. Hence the myth.
When careful enough, bitcoin can be used anonymously. But the developers do not claim that it's anonymous by default, certainly not in the current mainline client. For example, the wiki page about anonymity:
Anonymity is not guaranteed. There are various initiatives under way to improve this. But people should stop thinking that anonymity is the single redeeming feature of bitcoin, anyway.
Comments
The feature that people confuse with anonymity is that everyone can create a wallet and join the network. No need to sign up or provide personal information. Hence the myth.
When careful enough, bitcoin can be used anonymously. But the developers do not claim that it's anonymous by default, certainly not in the current mainline client. For example, the wiki page about anonymity:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity
Anonymity is not guaranteed. There are various initiatives under way to improve this. But people should stop thinking that anonymity is the single redeeming feature of bitcoin, anyway.