Obtaining no-KYC stats are no doubt the most desirable way to get sats. The future we face is full of uncertainty and trending to loss of civil liberties and freedom. So it is imperative that we try our best to protect our privacy. But the current options we currently have just flat out suck.
Here is a list of items the privacy community says to use and my beef with these
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Bisq- The liquidity is awful. You must keep your computer on at all times to buy and sell. The user experience overall is horrible so many different tabs and steps to follow. But my biggest beef is you need No-KYC sats first to even make your first purchase for collateral. So already it’s a catch 22.
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ATMs - So I’m supposed to wear a mask get a fake burner number and then go to an ATM point a phone at it after purchase and then walk out. Again you are limited to a max before you have to show ID. Usually you are paying an awful spread (worse than Bisq). This provides reasonable privacy but if the government really wanted to dig into your cash flows I don’t think it would be too hard for them to track you buying sats this way. It feels more like a fools game than an actual way of getting No-KYC sats. I think people do this to make themselves feel better since this is somewhat reasonable way to avoid KYC.
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Mine it - This is feasible if you have cheap power. And space to deal with miner noise. If you are living in a poor area or in a city with killer price for electricity again this again is fallacy. If you wanted $200 of no-kyc sats in a short time frame mining would be a horrible way to go. Buying an s9 and hoping to get the sat equivalent of a market buy would take years and that’s if mining difficulty doesn’t blow you up.
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Work for it - This is legitimate too but trying to offer goods and services in a currency that isn’t legal tender can be a nightmare tax wise plus you are only offering these services to hardcore Bitcoiners. The market isn’t fully developed to make this a reality yet. And again this doesn’t work in poor and rural communities. They barely can find work in fiat let alone in Bitcoin. Expecting everyone to enter the digital economy (programming, blogs, podcasting, media, influencer) just isn’t for everyone
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Buy from a friend- This one is laughable. Most Bitcoiners aren’t trying to sell and plus if they do it’s Highly unlikely they are selling you non-KYC sats. Yes you can try Plausible deniability but that can only get you so far. If the government wants you good luck trying to explain those two words to the authorities.
And that’s it. These are your options! Now we do have forward privacy tools that are used which can help your privacy going forward but getting initial privacy is very tough.
I speak on this because privacy is starting to feel elitist. Those who are poor/rural/limited technically are just out of luck. They must use regulated exchanges and dox themselves for a chance to fight financial oppression. Bitcoin and privacy should be for all.
Lastly, the same folks who champion privacy and no-kyc celebrate when the price pumps. I find this incredibly contradictory. The fiat flows are not coming from bisq or ATM buys it’s coming from the masses who are more than likely regulated /KYC’ed in some shape or form. If you are going to be pumping privacy just know the price Appreciation is not coming from non-kyc buys!