What do you consider a fair premium to pay for no-kyc bitcoin? \ stacker news ~AskSN

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What do you consider a fair premium to pay for no-kyc bitcoin?

1337 sats \ 34 comments \ @unschooled 14h AskSN

I'm paying about 8 % on my regular DCA.

From the 'shopping around' I have done on p2p markets, I regularly see higher premiums, and seldom see premiums much lower in my local currency.

I've accepted this as the cost of stacking.

When I first started my stacking journey, unfortunately I kyc'd and bought on an exchange for a little bit before I realized how much of a mistake this was.

"Obfuscating" these coins was stressful and costly, and I still feel insecure about having gone through this. Had I known better, I would have begun paying this premium much earlier.

What's the maximum you'll pay?

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100 sats \ 12 replies \ @optimism 12h

Zero. You can teach yourself how to route through LN, configure wasabi, route through LN again, for free. Unless you're a shitcoiner that needs to get fiat gainz all the time, it ought to be OK for this process to take a while at 1sat/vb opportunity times. Otherwise you can just use LN and be done with it. Sender privacy is good.

117 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby 4h

Doesn't it come down to your threat model? Buying kyc creates a record that your legal identity owns that amount of bitcoin.

If the state does a 6102 type event, they start with the record and knock on your door. The coinjoins and lightning txs that happen after you pulled it off the exchange are of no concern to them.

If you are worried about wrench attacks, same thing is true. If an exchange you use leaks their records, now you are a target. No matter how well you obfuscate the onchain footprint.

Coinjoins are more useful if you'd like the people you spend with to not know about your stack. But maybe good coin control can achieve quite a lot here.

What is the threat model where you buy kyc-free and mix/coinjoin/swap chains?

619 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 2h

Doesn't it come down to your threat model?

Of course, and it's always better to avoid any KYC.

But be wary about the counterparty and the exchanged good. Bank transfers are fully traceable and you don't have sender or receiver obfuscation so your counterparty knows who you are. For example, it's trivial to infiltrate robosats with high penetration rate at current volumes and you're often exposing KYC-linked accounts. In-person cash exchange make you traceable. Your friends can be rubber hosed... the possibilities are endless and I don't think there's a catch-all protection.

Also, if your coin comes up in an investigation ¹ then, for sufficient amounts, you're still tagged and could be worth exploring, doesn't matter if this is LE or (another form of) organized crime.

the state

The protection Bitcoin offers against the state is hardening against confiscation ², not avoidance of accountability. On the contrary; the open ledger design ensures accountability and obfuscation only helps against unsophisticated attackers. If you're a big fish, I don't think you can avoid it at all. The only way you could get away with laundring is because you're too small a fish for anyone to care about.

So what you can (and imho should) do is spread risk. You don't want all your coin to be flowing through the same channels.

Coinjoins are more useful if you'd like the people you spend with to not know about your stack.

Similarly for the people that you traded with, as long as you're consistent and do the coin control post-mix too. Coinjoin without post-mix coin control is pointless.

What is the threat model where you buy kyc-free and mix/coinjoin/swap chains?

The counterparty and the traceability of whatever you're trading for.

note that it can simply be that your coin's "history" causes this - thanks to the utxo tainting theories that law enforcement uses. ↩
If a state, with their monopoly on violence, truly is committed to getting your coin then they have means to compel you. But they can't do it Justin Trudeau style by ordering a third party to execute a freeze or seizure. ↩

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby 2h

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

So what you can (and imho should) do is spread risk. You don't want all your coin to be flowing through the same channels.

This is very good advice.

And it seems to me that, as you say, the fair premium for non-kyc is probably zero, or close to it. Kyc-free reduces your attack surface, but I'm unsure by how much.

Imagine what you could do if you dedicated 8% of your stack on personal security. It is, at least, a trade off worth considering.

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 2h

the fair premium for non-kyc is probably zero

Yes, or close to it. Also because that's what it should be - privacy is the greatest good we don't have.

Kyc-free reduces your attack surface, but I'm unsure by how much.

The only reason why I don't want to argue against tether-on-taro much is because long-term it could enable a proper chain into tether-as-ecash, which is useful for the majority of unfree people that need to DCA:

"buy" USDT for cheap on an exchange for USD
withdraw to taro
LN bridge taro-USDT into an ecash USDT mint of choice
nutswap for sats on robosats

Theoretically we could do this today by backing the dollar ecash with sats, but it would be risky to guarantee that peg and hard to get the rails in place to an ecash mint from a CEX. The mint would need a lot of liquidity for that.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 3h

this is good advice

LN has decent privacy

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 2h

On the sender side for the moment. So that's what you use to your advantage.

100 sats \ 5 replies \ @unschooled OP 12h

So would you be ok with kycing to buy on a central exchange to do this?

Just asking because my concern is the threat of my data leaking and then getting wrenched, not so much whether a particular utxo can be traced to me, but that my id be connected to a data honeypot.

just use LN and be done with it. Sender privacy is good.

Boltz charge around 4-5% to get it back on chain, no?

21 sats \ 4 replies \ @optimism 12h

So would you be ok with kycing to buy on a central exchange to do this?

Yes, because it doesn't really matter: anyone you trade with can wrench you. Your robosats peer can ID you through your bank account. Your f2f cash trade can ID you cuz you met. Do you think they won't sell you out if they get in trouble with organized crime? They'll do so in an instant if it will save their lives.

The only way is to earn sats anon and be really good about opsec. But that's very hard to execute at scale. Instead, just don't be a big fish in a central place. Spread risk. Don't use the same methods all the time.

Boltz charge around 4-5% to get it back on chain, no?

.5% is what they charge + tx fees. Don't push small amounts.

100 sats \ 3 replies \ @unschooled OP 12h

Hm. Food for thought. Chances of these scenarios seems less likely than an central exchange getting hacked, but definitelt not negligible.

configure wasabi,

Last I checked coinjoins had fees too.

So effectively,

Buy on exchange (0%) -> swap (0.5%) -> coinjoin (fee depends on coordinator?) -> reverse swap (0.5%) /open channel (miner fee) -> swap into cold storage (0.5)

Looks like it could be close to 4% or 5% with more leg work when its all said and done.

I guess with some inbound liquidity you can send directly from the exchange to your node and swap to cold storage with reasonable privacy. That's probably ideal, again, only if you're okay with exchanges having your coordinates

110 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 12h

No you just on-chain transfer into cold storage. LN is what you use on the way out of cold storage, but not through swap but you simply fund a channel. Boltz does mixing checks so you only want to use them to offramp from LN. For onramp, just find a cheap counterparty on Amboss.

Edit: My last round of mixing (at 2-5 sat/vb) cost me ~0.3% in fees in total. So 0.5% for boltz + 0.3% for mixing = 0.8%... LN fees plus - unless you're unlucky - tx fees out, won't add .2% there if you're using Msat denominations... so under 1%.

110 sats \ 1 reply \ @unschooled OP 11h

This makes sense. 8% seems like a lot in comparison when you put it that way.

Then you're just spending sats or p2p trading for fiat if needed.

Still I don't like the coerced identification that central exchange require.

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11 sats \ 6 replies \ @Coinsreporter 14h

3 to 5%. When you buy with your card or electronically, how do you obfuscate that transaction.

32 sats \ 5 replies \ @optimism 12h

You don't unless you p2p with cash and then literally kill your trading partner. So don't do that so that they cannot identify you.

You simply obfuscate the flow after. LN is enough as long as you mix all your funds before you open a channel (without LSP of course)

100 sats \ 4 replies \ @Coinsreporter 12h

I did one in cash hiding my face behind a helmet, and the trading partner was also behind a helmet. And it was in a different and big city. Nonetheless I realised it wasn't the most secure, I never did it again.

71 sats \ 3 replies \ @optimism 12h

I hung with the localbitcoin crowd for a while. It's much higher risk and when the buzz wore off it didn't feel safe for me either. Nowadays, I just trade f2f with friends. But I know that there are many circumstances they'd give me up. I'd not even be upset. So it's always best to be a pleb.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @Coinsreporter 11h

I trade f2f with my friends and relatives, but they mostly come to me trying to sell their KYC sats on which they don't wanna pay a hefty 34% tax. I most often buy without premium.

So it's always best to be a pleb.

Yeah, I'll add to it that if you know how to earn sats, that's the best way to stack. Isn't it?

41 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism 11h

Its not know-how. You just say at your next job/gig contract negotiation that your only hard requirements are being paid in sats and being paid fairly for the job at hand. Then you'll get to laugh a lot before being kicked out a lot, but persistence is priceless in this.

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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @88b0c423eb 3h

on robosats you can find for a cheaper premium.

11 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 14h

I seem to be able to get 4-5%, but its not reliable enough for a dca.

36 sats \ 0 replies \ @unschooled OP 12h

I've seen these fees on robosats but then you're getting bigger chunks, and not particularly mitigating volatility.

So I guess there's the trade off.

11 sats \ 2 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 13h

Why pay any premium? Just find someone with a stack they acquired before KYC was predominant and who are selling down ~ arrange a regular buy at market price...or one off. It is a lot easier than you ap addicted millennials can even imagine. Zero fees. Zero KYC. Everyone is happy. True decentralised trading.

36 sats \ 1 reply \ @unschooled OP 12h

Are you in the market?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 4h

Not currently but I have people I can sell to and buy from directly should I wish to.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @hasherstacker 12h

Convenience vs Sovereignty is always a critical point plebs experience. But hard and harsh freedom is much better than comfortable slavery

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 13h

4-5% would be great 7-8% is reasonable.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @nichro 14h

7-8% for no KYC is common around here too I think. I've seen much higher on some of the p2p platforms. like 20-40% when BTC was around 30k. But that's because the CAD market has very low liquidity on those platforms

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jon_Hodl 14h

3-7% seems to be pretty regular.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 29m

Nice question.

I've seen anywhere from -6% to +12%.

On Peach, for instance, I've observed that at high prices (close to all-time high), the premium shrinks down to 3-4-5%, while at lower prices and dips, it comes back up to 8-10%.

It's like sellers have a fiat amount in mind and adjust the premium a little in response to market prices.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @klk 5h

In Bisq I usually manage to turn fiat into bitcoin for a negative premium (as the offer maker). Then there's the cost of coinjoining or swap in + out of LN. But that can be done below 1%.

So you can get anonymized, non-kyc, P2P Bitcoin for 0% premium. And all of that in a self custodial way.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bitcoiner1 6h

I've been using lnp2pbot for a while, if you are not in a hurry you can get some SATs a market price, just offer various payment systems. The maximum premium that I have paid is 5%

Here is a good site to check the offers and premium on Robosats and lnp2pbot: http://p2p.band

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @96c0b276a3 10h

1-2% because that's the average

https://habla.news/u/corey@sdbitcoiners.com/1739691441175

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