Note: I’m not suggesting that these are good solutions to the problem, only that they were engineered to solve this type of problem.

Unless you mine yourself. Then truly zero knowledge. But yes if you try to buy bitcoin via a bank thing then it will be an issue.

Also, merchants need your name and address to ship the product to you…

Well all they would really need is a one time code that you provide them that you’ve pre registered your address with the shipping carrier.

Would 100% prefer a shipping carrier who supported “oh address is 17bkHdb74nKl? Send it to 123 main st, city, state, etc”

100% agreed on the first part though. Perhaps if the shipping carriers all worked together (ha!) on a common system like this they could do it.

Welcome to bitcoin / etherium / etc.

I don’t know too much about out the culture and application level but some of the theory.

Bitcoin can transfer currency with ~zero knowledge (at least from one side) and Etherium can implement smart contracts.