Alright, storytime. Last month I finally pulled the trigger and closed my accounts on all the major KYC exchanges. Coinbase, Kraken, Binance - all gone. And honestly, I should have done this years ago.

The final straw wasn't even some dramatic privacy violation. It was Coinbase asking me to "verify" a transaction I made six months ago. They wanted bank statements, proof of funds, explanation of where the Bitcoin came from, where it was going. For a transaction that was already completed and settled.

I'm sitting there thinking - this is supposed to be MY money, right? But here I am, having to justify every sat movement to some compliance department in San Francisco like I'm asking permission from my parents to use my allowance.

So I went full no-KYC. Bisq for most trades, local Bitcoin meetups here in Barcelona when I can, and yeah, sometimes paying a small premium. But you know what? That "premium" is actually just the real price of Bitcoin without surveillance included.

The KYC discount we've all gotten used to isn't free - we're paying with our privacy, our data, and our financial sovereignty. Every transaction linked to our identity, every sat tracked, every movement recorded in some database that'll eventually get hacked or subpoenaed.

My wife thinks I'm being paranoid again (she's probably right), but I keep thinking about that Eric Hughes quote: "Privacy only extends so far as the cooperation of one's fellows in society." If we all keep voluntarily giving up our privacy for convenience, we're making the choice for everyone.

Plus, using no-KYC exchanges feels more... Bitcoin-y? Like actually using the peer-to-peer electronic cash system instead of just trading Bitcoin IOUs with traditional finance in a Bitcoin costume.

The learning curve was steeper than I expected - figuring out Bisq, understanding the trade-offs, dealing with the occasional failed trade. But now that I'm set up, it's honestly not that much harder than the KYC route.