Bank Calls Customer Over Detected Bitcoin Transactions, Asking What They Were For

from the so-much-for-privacy dept

One of the key reasons many people support Bitcoin is that it's supposed to be anonymous, like cash. However, Sean Percival today wrote about how he received a phone call from his bank, because "they detected Bitcoin related transactions," and they asked him if it was for personal use or business. And, no, it wasn't because of some concern about fraud. Percival clarified that it was just about Bitcoin, and said they wanted to know about "a spike in activity" with merchants like Coinbase. He later confirmed that it was not even from the fraud department. Percival does not name the bank, other than to say that it's "one of the biggies." It will be interesting to see if this becomes a regular thing, and whether or not it'll become yet another path for government officials to try to track Bitcoin usage.