Excatly.  People have the wrong idea that bitcoin is anonymous, but only if used with that specfic objective and cautious.

Blockchain is an open book. More open and more traceable than fiat transactions. You just need to know how to look.

There are many services like walletexplorer which also allows any user to connect different public addresses.
So, if scammers are dumb they can be easily be traced.

There are many scammer sin this space unfortunately, but some of the bigger ones are slowly getting caught as more and more people track and trace through the Blockchain and they get reported. People thinking that just because they are using Bitcoin, that they can just carry on doing their dirty business, they are mistaken. More and more countries are regulating the Digital Currency and Bitcoin space, so there are going to be more and more people chasing the Bad guys so it were. Cash is less traceable than Bitcoin because bitcoin transactions can be traced on the blockchain, which is an immutable ledger after all. Things will improve as more and more scammers get caught and end up in the courthouse and tried. We need more effective regulations, that is fore sure and more people taking a stand against the scammers who want to malign this industry at large.

I think stolen funds are usually the opposite of stationary - thieves move them between addresses and then send them to mixing service, usually multiple times and through different services, and then look for p2p trades or other exchange methods that are more private then centralized exchanges. Even with chainanalysis, it's hard and not worth it to trace amounts that aren't too big. So, many thieves end up unpunished, even though Bitcoin's privacy is seemingly weak.

As said, blockchain is an open book. Download whole blockchain and you'll have whole data of all of transactions but why is bitcoin still considered as anonymous? It also depends on you to make transaction anonymous by using mixers and etc, then things are getting harder. So for them small people aren't alarm but they won't turn their back if there is illicit transaction where big guys are involved, then they'll try their best to dig and find them.
Just see yourself, every day more and more news are published where they say, some people that were laundering bitcoin, were found, hackers whom stole money, were found. Governments are getting better in transaction tracking everyday.

What is the faith of scammers....
I was really curious to hear about although my bet would have been on the majority being atheist.
Fate not faith!!!!!!

As for their fate, nothing will change whatever you do, scammers will still be around, just as the ones camming over Paypal or MoneyGram or whatever are still actively doing their job. Even here there are scammers who are fully doxxed and still continue to pop every now and then and still try to make some quick money from some newbie. There are known scammers that have been arrested and now are free and enjoying their hidden stash, too few have been convicted.


What most people think of traceable in their way of "improving" bitcoin is the never to be done with idea of whitelist addresses or stuff like that.
So that every address would be linked to a known person and when you make a transaction 12gm1SGr4WVdso2pukhT3fykcrVW3mYA8P you can check that the address is listed as being a verified address on binance or coinbase.

And God helps us if any of those "marvelous" ideas gain some traction.

The most advertised part of Bitcoin is the "anonymity". This word is currently thrown with Bitcoin as if it's really anonymous, well it's not. It's just like what others have said and the correct term for that is pseudo-anonymous which means that there are still connections towards a username or something to that sense.

There are tools already being used to check if there are illegal activity in the Bitcoin Blockchain like Crystal [1]

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[1] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelwolfson/2018/11/26/tracing-illegal-activity-through-the-bitcoin-blockchain-to-combat-cryptocurrency-related-crimes/

Correct, unlike cash or bank transactions we can see the whole history of how coins have moved to different wallets, the only thing in which bitcoin helps is that if you have never revealed your identity to the ones that you're dealing with, then your identity is safe and no one knows that you are the one that was holding those coins at that particular time.

But we know that governments are making huge efforts to try to make exchanges comply and force them to ask for your personal information.

You are being naive...

Try to find someones world residence by looking at his virtual addresses...

That's the thing why if bitcoin becomes a traceable currency it will be good against scammers.
Currently it's anonymous, you can not trace who the real world user is, what's that person name, address, phone and so on.

Hackers get your funds if you provide such access to those private key addresses.

scammers don't rely on traceability or lack of it. instead they rely heavily on gullibility of people to fall for the obvious scams. if you ever looked at how scams take place and use your head, you can always see that majority of them are too obvious that you'd be surprised how people got scammed in first place. and in less obvious ones, still the greed and gullibility plays a big role.
so whether bitcoin is traceable or not, does not change anything for scammers. they will continue doing what they have always done, even before bitcoin...