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Doesn't Robosats' advice on Amazon gift cards defeat the point?
180 sats \ 2 comments \ @moray 8 Aug 2023 bitcoin freebie
On their website, it says:
It is important to not share a giftcard code directly on the chat, as this might lead to difficult to solve disputes in case of fraud. As a seller, do not accept a giftcard code on the chat. Instead, the seller should provide an email in chat. The buyer should buy a new giftcard explicitly for the trade and have it sent to the email address of the seller. This way the seller knows he is the only one to have access to the redemeable code.
I understand the desire for a trail to follow for dispute resolution, but doesn't this defeat the purpose of buying gift cards in the first place? The whole point of the gift cards was that you're paying a premium to achieve near perfect privacy -- pay with cash in some store and then give someone the code. I would assume they have Amazon open, ready to redeem it, and then they simply test if they can redeem it before completing the trade, so I don't see how it's a huge risk to the seller.
If every time I want to buy no KYC bitcoin I have to go through my Amazon account and send a high-amount gift card to a random stranger, wouldn't that look suspicious? What if I do this a lot and very frequently? And isn't it not completely no KYC since now the bitcoin purchase could lead back to me via my Amazon account?
Any of the other methods require some sort of connection to bank accounts or credit cards, which leaves a trail back to me by A) providing payment information to a complete stranger and B) leaving a record of potentially suspiciously frequent high-volume transactions that someone may want to investigate.
Anyway, I've been searching for awhile to find a really robust solution for no KYC, but everything except the pay with cash in person gift card method seems semi-KYC, so really disappointed to see this as the official advice on Robosat's website. The only other thing that comes close is a bitcoin ATM that accepts cash, but it seems they all require a phone number which is then traceable.
Fwiw, @btcsessions video seems to just give the code in the chat, and I've seen other posts on Stacker News posts where people describe doing the same, so I'm not sure how much people listen to this advice.
Any advice on getting as near to "perfectly private no-KYC" as possible would be much appreciated.
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @HardRich 8 Aug 2023
I have the same thought.
With Bisq I use Zelle payments, but it looks kind of fishy to have large amounts of Zelle payments to random people. I think if the amount is in the few thousands then no one would ask questions or you could say you bought some crap on Craigslist or something.
In my mind, however, the only real way to move a lot of money into bitcoin without the government knowing is to receive payment for services/products - but then you gotta have a side hustle or a business that would allow this to happen (and could you really do hundreds of thousands?).
The biggest problem (imo) with a centeralized exchange (like Coinbase) is that it's required by law to keep your info and purchases/sales info. A bad guy could perhaps see your Zelle or Amazon Gift card history but they'd not know that you bought Bitcoin (so $5 wrench attack is not worth it). On the other hand, individuals buying big bucks on Coincbase would be pretty sweet for someone that owns a wrench and doesn't mind hurting people.
In summary, I don't see a great way to hide large amounts of bitcoin from government, but at least you could "hide" it from bad actors (other than government, of course).
It's sad since I, personally, don't mind paying taxes on bitcoin gains to government (though, I'd much prefer non-taxation of bitcoin, of course) but I don't really want people knowing what I have (I'd like to keep my family safe). If the US government never got hacked I'd worry less, but they suck at keeping info private. I think Coinbase has a better track record but almost certainly that info will get leaked, too.
So, yeah, I'm with you. I wonder if anyone knows of a way to a few hundred thousand of bitcoin without a big trail that looks funny. I think home mining might be one of the only other options?
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54 sats \ 0 replies \ @moray OP 8 Aug 2023
True, and maybe I'm overthinking things thinking in a worst case scenario, but if it's under the thousands it probably doesn't matter, in which case if you're really worried you could spread the spending out over different apps/cards and further obscure what's happening.
And I agree with you on the tax thing, my problem is not really with government laws as they stand, but rather as they could become, not to mention third party risk. You never know what they'll think of Bitcoin in the future, and I'm not sure I see things trending in the right direction. So I have more peace of mind knowing that they (or any other party intent on confiscating it) simply don't know that I'm a target in the first place, so when/if they do start going after people in a hypothetical potential future, there's plausible deniability. Not to mention that, yeah, the US govt does get hacked and so therefore I shouldn't trust them to know as it stands, nevermind the future.
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