Clique Researchers investigate Anonymity in Bitcoin

An analysis of anonymity in the Bitcoin system, conducted by Clique researchers Fergal Reid and Martin Harrigan, was recently featured on a number of popular news web sites including New Scientist, Slashdot, Hacker News and Gizmodo. In their analysis, they show that Bitcoin is not inherently anonymous by identifying many users using information external to the network and by tracking the flow of Bitcoins over time. As a case study, they analyzed a reported theft of $500,000 worth of Bitcoins. They have blogged about their analysis and made a preprint available on arXiv.