Why P2P for bitcoin transactions?
We all know that we should be using peer-to-peer exchanges for buying and selling bitcoin. If a KYC exchange knows that you've been buying and selling bitcoin, then it's just a short step to the government having that information. And once the government knows...well, a lot of things can happen.
In 1933 in the US, we had Executive Order 6102, basically making gold ownership illegal. What will happen with bitcoin?
And yet...the KYC exchanges are heavily promoted. They advertise on all the bitcoin podcasts, they sponsor conferences, etc. They say the right things. So they tend to be top of mind, when you're thinking of buying bitcoin.
But I'm here to tell you that it's really not that hard to buy bitcoin, peer-to-peer, on Robosats. Yes, it feels a little cloak and dagger, but it works well, and doesn't take long to learn.
And what did Satoshi say about P2P networks?
November 7, 2008 - Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.
I encourage you to take the first steps towards getting familiar with Robosats and eventually buying and selling on Robosats. I will answer any questions that I can in the comments.
First steps - starting out with Robosats
What do I need?
Access to Robosats
If you have an Android phone, you can download the Robosats android app here: https://github.com/RoboSats/robosats/releases. You'll need to allow your phone to install APK files.
Or to use it on a desktop, you'll need to download the Tor brower (https://www.torproject.org/download/). Then go to https://dex.robosats.com in Tor to access the site.
Lightning wallet
You will need some kind of Lightning wallet to send and receive sats. There's some suggestions here: https://learn.robosats.com/docs/wallets/.
A way of sending fiat currency
Almost no transactions take place with cash F2F (face to face). The most common way to send fiat currencies to buy bitcoin are Strike, Zelle, USDT, CashApp, Revolut, Wise, Venmo, Amazon gift cards, and a lot of other country-specific payment methods. You'll need to have one of these. In the US it's often Strike, in the EU it's usually Wise or Revolut.
These are all KYC payment rails, except maybe the Amazon gift cards. But except for your trade partner, nobody will know that you made a transaction for bitcoin, not even Robosats.
An quick overview of the process
Creating your robot token
Once you open the app, you'll be prompted to "create a new robot". This generates the token that is your temporary identity on Robosats. It'll look something like this: YLctzKElzMHiIrizcPw2UXjoHs1qK3BnvdSp
Copy it somewhere safe, you may need it later. But in general, once the trade is over you do not reuse the tokens.
Finding an offer
Once you have your token, as a buyer of bitcoin, you want to go to the Offers tab at the bottom. In Offers, use the filters at the top to indicate that you'd like to BUY, which currency you'd like to use, and which payment method you want (Zelle, Cashapp, Revolut, etc). You'll then get a filtered list of only those offers.
On the right you'll see a Premium field. Check for offers that have a reasonable premium. It'll usually be between 1 and 3%, sometimes more. You're paying more than the normal exchange price, in exchange for privacy, which I think is a good deal.
Placing an order
Once you've decided on an offer, click on it. You'll be prompted to enter the amount you'd like to buy. After you've entered that, the next step is to post a fidelity bond, usually 2 or 3%. This is a lightning payment you need to make. You'll get this back assuming you comply with all the rules. It's to ensure the order maker's time doesn't get wasted by people who don't fulfill the trade.
The fidelity bond must be paid with a lightning invoice. The next step is for you to send in a lightning receive invoice for the sats you'll receive for your fiat. This is where your sats will be paid to, when you've paid for the bitcoin in fiat.
The actual payment
After this, you're waiting for the seller of bitcoin to post the trade escrow. The bitcoin seller has to post the full amount of bitcoin into this trade escrow.
Once that happens, a trader chat dialog comes up, that only you and the trader have access to. You keep it short and sweet, and don't exchange any private info. All you need to communicate is how to pay them in the chosen method of payment. For instance, the Revolut username.
Then you actually make the fiat payment, using your chosen method of fiat payment.
And then voila! After your trade partner confirms they've received the fiat, you receive the sats into your lightning wallet.
More info
If you want a detailed guide with a lot of screenshots, here's a good quality recent one:
https://www.athena-alpha.com/how-to-buy-bitcoins-using-robosats
Also, you can access this website https://learn.robosats.com/ to get more info about Robosats. It's an info website, not the trading website, which should only be accessed on Tor.
Final notes
It's truly not that hard. The user interface can be a little wonky, as expected when the priority is privacy as opposed to user friendliness. But it's still quite good.
Feel free to ask questions below!
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