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TL;DR You should happily be paying a 5-8% premium and putting the extra effort for purchasing Non KYC Bitcoin. The reason being, Non KYC Bitcoin will never be cheaper than it is now. If your Bitcoin is non-KYC'ed, you will always be able to sell it make at the same premium. However if shit hits the fan, and governments try to block the exits, your Non KYC Bitcoin will be worth considerably more.
Before going into the benefits of Non KYC Bitcoin, I just want to give a general guide on how to obtain it because it is not as hard as you might expect.
  1. To make your purchase untraceable, you want to try and purchase your Bitcoin through the Lightning Network. This can be done via RoboSats (If you are in US or Europe, there are always tons of options) or with Azteco Vouchers. Certain KYC exchanges also allow you to withdraw via Lightning. If you cannot use any of these options, try tracking down a Bitcoin ATM that accepts cash and does not require KYC. Buying over Lightning means that your Bitcoin has no clear "origin" on-chain.
  2. When you have your purchase in Lightning, you can use Muun Wallet or dedicated swapping services like Boltz to swap your Lightning Balance for On-Chain Bitcoin.
  3. Next, which is perhaps the most important part, is to carry out a Coin Join, so that you coins trully become untraceable and anonymous. I prefer to use Wasabi Wallet for this, but there are many other options you can explore. Please do your research. Once you coins have been coinjoined, move each UTXO you end up with individually without mixing them, to a new unique Address from your cold storage. Congrats, you now have 100% uncensorable money! Now the rationale going through all this trouble goes beyond just "Good Privacy Practices", I believe there is a clear economic incentive in doing so. Options for purchasing Bitcoin in a Non KYC fashion are becoming gradually fewer and fewer because of the government and the banking sector pressure. At beginning of Bitcoin's history, almost all Bitcoin purchases were Non KYC, now I wouldn't be surprised if it's less than 10%.
It will be getting harder and harder to find Non KYC options in the future, especially if you country goes through a currency debasement event.
The few options that are left will be able to charge much higher premiums in the future... So I estimate you are better off acquiring this Non KYC now at the current premium rather than later when you might really really need and you pay a much larger premium.
Furthermore, that additional cost you paid for that Non KYC is far from "lost", if you need convert back to fiat the following month for example, you can charge exactly the same premium as you were charged for your Non KYC Bitcoin. If, however, you hold on to said Bitcoin for 5-10 years and then want/need to sell, then the premium you could charge could be significantly higher, as high 20%-50% depending on your the situation in your jurisdiction and whether Bitcoin is forced to operate in a Black market. Whatever the situation is, I'm sure you will always be able to charge at least 5% over the current market price.
Finally, keeping the best for last, if you ever need to sell that Bitcoin, you won't need to pay any capital gains tax on it....Which will save you much more money than the premium you initially paid.
When i first started buying i got ripped off by a guy on paxful and started DCAing every since but id really like to start a no-kyc stack. When i looked at robosats i really couldnt understand how im protected by someone bailing after i send $. I even went through the motions of selling btc and i was asked to put up(the amout i lose if the tx fails) a small fraction of the amount id recieve. Can someone please explain how this is safe cause id really like to started using it
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It's safe because of a mechanism called escrow. Once you understand that the rest should make sense.
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Or you could see it like this. Non KYC Bitcoin price is the real Bitcoin price. Central KYC Exchanges offer a discount for your privacy.
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Thanks for writing this, couldn't agree more. I think the market will bifurcate even further with the inevitable approval of BTC ETFs. Non-KYC corn will always be the best (for those that recognize its value), followed distantly by KYC'd corn, followed even further behind by paper claims to BTC (the ETFs and similar tradfi vehicles).
I'd be surprised if the normies didn't rush en masse into paper BTC because they're only concerned with NgU. Sadly, this will act as a regulatory mechanism to ratchet up pressure against the rest of us, clearly a vocal minority, under the guise of KYC/AML or extremist labels.
I could see the logic from regulators as follows: tradfi investment vehicles are safer because of regs/laws -> most normies buy the funds for the NgU tech (stupid) -> regulators point to the funds and say most law-abiding citizens are choosing this option, and the only demand for the other "unhosted" (BS terminology) version is by a minority population of extremists -> thus, we need to criminalize the use of "unhosted" BTC to "protect" the majority of users.
In the end, this wouldn't even stop its usage, only drive it underground. But this is something we need to start actively pushing against, starting yesterday.
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I would appreciate if @Darthcoin can comment on the above procedure. I have read some of his post on the Privacy. Still not able to completely conceptualize.
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nothing to comment. Each one could find his way. There's no "best way". My approach is the simplest possible: stay in bitcoin, never go back to fiat.
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@lnp2pbot exchange on LATAM is great for non KYC.
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It's the best one
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non-KYC btc includes bitcoin you mine yourself?
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I consider it, yes. Except I don't consider it non-KYC if it goes through a place that I KYC'd, like the mining rigs I own at River. I keep those sats separate from my other miners.
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I've been using robosats too. Great service, especially when self-hosted. I've been using a Lightning wallet like Breez, which has swapping to onchain, as my Lightning wallet I use for robosats. Would it be okay to combine kyc and non-kyc bitcoin on my other main Lightning wallet? Any privacy concerns for mixing those on a Lightning wallet? I've typically kept everything separate. I have also started having robosats doing a swap to onchain automatically and putting into my dedicated non-kyc wallet. I find it easier to manage an entire separate account to manage individual UTXOs...too big a risk of combining ones that shouldn't be combined.
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I do both, non-kyc and KYC because I see the value in both, and yeah I am willing to take those risks and that's a personal decision once you weigh up the options.
  • Non-KYC isn't all smooth sailing
  • If you have an amount to allocate, you now need to manually match orders
  • Small-sized purchases aren't always viable non-kyc
  • Premiums can be much higher than 10% depending on your country and payment method, I've seen up to 60% locally
  • KYC is active buying you have to sit and sift through orders, deal with scammers, which are also costs to you
I think people need to know what they are getting into and manage expectations before they go into KYC or you'll end up frustrated and want to ditch it.
Lasly, there's one popular way here in South Africa to get non-kyc Bitcoin is to buy a KYC account or purchase/rent someone's ID and create an account and then go about purchasing your Bitcoin lol people won't be stopped, liquidity finds a way.
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I'd be happy to provide BTC peer-to-peer at above the Luno rate. May I ask where you see such large premiums?
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I saw them on Paxful if you switch to bank deposit, you will often see higher premiums, and sure, where do you trade on robosats?
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I haven't done P2P trading in ages but looking at it again as I have too much value in LN BTC right now. I couldn't find any ZAR offers on RoboSats. Checking out Paxful now, looks good but not sure it works with LN.
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Paxful does support LN you just have to deposit the funds with them unlike robosats that use hodl invoices
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It will be getting harder and harder to find Non KYC options in the future, especially if you country goes through a currency debasement event.
Could you develop your thinking? Let's say €uros is debased. So it would be worth nothing to buy or sell €uros? Hopefully then people will tend to accept real values like Gold, Silver and Bitcoin. I hope by then non-KYC options will adapt to be able to exchange with what value there is left.
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When you have your purchase in Lightning, you can use Muun Wallet or dedicated swapping services like Boltz to swap your Lightning Balance for On-Chain Bitcoin.
or keep using RoboSats:) they have some nice swapping offers sometimes.
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Agreed
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thank you and more power to you 💪
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What made you decide to use Wasabi versus other options like JoinMarket and Whirlpool?
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I have use lnp2pbot many times for buying BTC free of KYC, the maximum premium that I've paid is a 3%.
My tip is, post a daily offer with the condition you want to buy and renew the offer every 24 hrs.
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