Bitcoin Forum

So i have been working with bitcoin since it started, i sold off all my holdings at 6k before the rise to the moon, but recently ive came back to buy some and all of the otc markets are gone, local traders require ID, the big exchanges either dont accept fiat or require your soul and mothers baby pictures.

So can somebody help me understand what happened? did the 2017 bubble kill off the anonymity or am i missing something? I understand the importance of a trust-circle but i am asking solely on the basis of send payment, get bitcoin using WU, cash deposit, Moneypak, etc.. without an in-group. It seems there isnt even a way anymore to find private sellers efficiently, just oceans full of buyers trying to pawn off paypal and itunes giftcards, OTC sellers requiring ID, and corporate exchanges that are even worse than mtgox.

I dont remember it being this "centralized". Shame.

So what actually caused this? Regulations shouldnt have effected the OTC market IMO.

https://bisq.network/

Go for decentralised exchanges like bisq mentioned above. But don't expect much variety as they mostly trade privacy altcoins, in addition to bitcoin of course

Currently, there are several anonymous exchanges. But almost all of them are unreliable in some way. I would not expect anonymity when you use exchanges. Because if something goes wrong, and your account is blocked, your passport details and so on will be required to insure you against fraudsters.

I will check out bisq, Thanks for the recommendation! privacy altcoins are fine, they can be converted easily.

don, that is the problem i am talking about, there should be no problem that requires blocking of funds. When BTC is deposited it stays as btc and that is your money regardless of where it originated or who it used to belong to. The exchanges job is not to protect us from fraud, it is our job, Use long unique passwords, encrypt your data, dont talk about having bitcoin, use dedicated machines if financially viable, Dont get phished.

But its a problem ill have to solve myself i guess, Id love to see bitcoin get back to its roots. I think we should all expect some level of anonymity if we choose to have it. Pseudo-anonymity is key to security in my opinion.

But im just ranting now, thanks for the info guys!

what did you expect?
the banking cartels will be losing profit and Central Banks will be losing control
if people are allowed to trade currencies anonymously
there will be all kind of excuses , sponsoring terrorism, crime, money laundering and what not
in reality it is all about your anonymity and privacy
and money

I'm sure it's a bit of both, sponsoring terrorism, money laundering etc are definitely easier with bitcoin than with fiat, but that doesn't mean they don't happen with fiat. Couple that with all of their banker buddies pressuring them to cramp down on bitcoin and you get to the regulators decision to push hard on everything. I'm not sure we've even seen the worst of it yet.

There's currently a ton of pressure from regulators and the overall market. Lots of businesses that used to be anonymous have been forced to implement KYC checks.

The exchanges and sites we grew to know and love had a need to stay alive hence the KYC bonkersdom. That's the price of increased growth and visibility. It's only going to go in one direction.

Back in the day you could buy inside the blockchain.info wallet with Paypal. That's the luxury of being obscure. As soon as that goes out the window it's time to man up.

Hopefully proper p2p stuff is going to get more robust and easier to use. Right now it's on the painfully clunky side.

And it turns out the one true anon exchange, btc-e, was probably a giant money laundering machine.

Most of cryptocurrency exchange (such as LocalBitcoin & BTC-e) has always been centralized, but the difference are they didn't comply with KYC/AML, didn't ask personal information and allowed user with private connection. All anonymous (and centralized) exchange these days are scam or simply will be removed by the government soon.


If you don't own the private key of your Bitcoin, then you don't own it


And some DEX even require lock small amount of Bitcoin as insurance, but it should be more user-friendly if more people use DEX and atomic swap can be used securely

That's the result of the regulations, the same regulations people here were saying "regulations are great for Bitcoin!"
See the result now. People are considering Bitcoin as an investment so the framework comes with. There are still ways to buy bitcoins as you want but not via the centralized exchanges.

The result will be:

https://i.bitcoinonair.com/images/crypto-2018/ceo-mark-karpeles-resigns-while-mt.jpg

While owning the private keys will make you happy:

https://media.giphy.com/media/JltOMwYmi0VrO/giphy.gif

There is nothing can be done when the government force the exchanges to apply kyc for the customers, if the exchanges not following the rules then the site will be blocked, nobody like crypto being regulated but crypto need the permit from government, if the government ban crypto then we can lose the chance to grow

Blame all people considering cryptos an investment. Exchanges would probably never need to follow the KYC/AML policies if people started to use cryptos as a currency instead.  nobody like crypto being related? Are you serious, even all the shitposters here say regulations are great! I read tons of them daily.
The same people considering cryptos their investments are killing the cryptos world (more than a ban from govt.), and no, we don't need government permissions, we don't need regulations, one of the purposes of Bitcoin was to avoid governments, banks, regulations and so on.

Looking at the current state of crypto exchanges, there is nothing like anonymity. Before you can buy or trade on these exchanges, they require you to fill kyc forms before you will be grant assess to either trade your coin or buy cryptocurrency.  Some don't ask for kyc during your initial start but after you are done trading your coin and you want to withdraw your funds, then kyc pops up.

Pretty much this. There's been an increased push for KYC / AML for all sorts of financial services and against consumer-citizen privacy in general, so it's not just crypto.



KYC / AML became inevitable as soon as people exchanged to fiat on a regular basis and crypto grew large enough. Used within a closed economic loop you're still fine and hopefully always will be. It's using crypto as a mere transport layer for fiat currencies where the trouble begins.

However, in this case, the cryptocurrency will lose its appeal. Then it will not make much sense to engage in cryptocurrency, if we always leave our data. As a result, we will simply increase the number of problems, as the number of misunderstandings and abuses with our data and copies of our documents will increase.
Yes, it seems that the golden time of cryptocurrency is leaving. Or we are on the verge of something new.

I am not sure some exchange could be hacked, maybe just their drama to make your asset lost, how come real exchange have billion member could be hacked, why their security too low and could not protect their account.

In the early days "anonymity" was more important, because most countries/governments were against Bitcoin. People had to use these services to buy & sell bitcoins to circumvent government controls. There was also a large influence from the Cypherpunk community back then.

Lately Bitcoin was infiltrated by loads of speculators that wants to trade in a legal framework and the services acknowledged that need, so they adapted their offerings to also serve that group.

Centralized services analyse changing trends and demands and they adapt to it, to maximize their profits.  :P

Well to keep trading safer the anonymity era is gone because unlike the good old time where there was little scam issues cryptocurrency has grown and attracted so many and that's includes scammers and also some countries are restricted from trading so exchanges now requires some prove of identity

It's been gradually getting worse for the last year or two. The price rise and increasing size of the market had a lot to do with it, I'm sure. FINCEN is watching... a bunch of Localbitcoins traders have been arrested on money laundering related charges. BTC-e, who allowed anonymous trading since 2011, got shut down by the US government and fined $110M for AML violations. Exchanges started either mandating KYC or prohibiting US customers. Localbitcoins started mandating KYC for "significant" trade volumes last April.


Options are getting slimmer and slimmer. Paxful and Bisq are options, but they're both disappointing in terms of both volume and interface. There are traders on this forum as well -- try the Currency Exchange board.


I guess it's related to money transmission laws that were already on the books.

Thats right, that also happened in my country, the government represented by the relevant agencies requested that each exchange require verification of data to the user so that any user activity could be monitored by the government, exchanges could not reject it because they could be blocked by that country

There are too many decentralized exchange which you can use. For example you can use Binance without KYC and limit for withdrawals only 2BTC.

You can use a lot of exchanges without KYC also.

I think that sooner or later most of the exchanges will become centralized, as KYC will be more and more present. Only a few exchanges do not require today KYC, bit honestly, I wouldn't keep important funds on them due to security issues they might face.

Why would you even keep any funds on an exchange? That's bonkers! Seriously, if you're keeping your coins on an exchange, it's best to withdraw them as soon as possible to a wallet you trust. If you can't afford a hardware wallet, storing your keys on an encrypted USB stick would work almost as well. If you need some for spending, just put a small amount on a hot wallet, of which there are many out there.

simply because he is an active trader . its a nice idea if you already deposited your funds on an exchange because you can buy and sell coins instanly whenever theres the oppurtunity strikes .


why would you even store and keep them  if you will imediately withdrew them  ?  makes no sense  . and do you think storing your coins on an online wallet is safe  ?  hell no  .  thats the same as storing your funds in an exchange but i think exchange had a higer security than crypto wallets  .

exchanges arent anonymous at all because they can record all your transactions and other important infos  . its not really an issue tho  ...

Fortunately or unfortunately the exchanges are now pressured to comply with all the laws and requirements on KYC and AML policy.

That's what cryptocurrency exchanges recommend to do.
And full KYC is already required for cryptocurrency exchanges which allow, just like Linkkoin, to buy cryptos with Visa/Mastercard. This is a requirement imposed upon us.

The process in the market is getting harder and this may disturb some people, but these practices increase the confidence in crypto market. This is something that must be done, I think.

I agree. Alas, at the moment, the black segment of the use of cryptocurrencies is very large.To the situation with transactions has not passed into the stage of uncontrolled chaos exchanges just need proof of identity.Note, however, that on most stock exchanges, if the amount of your withdrawal is small, then, as a rule, the exchanges do not require identification.Hence the conclusion that the exchanges insure themselves. And in principle there is nothing wrong with that.

Yes, now increasingly require that exchanges verify to ensure that you could brings a certain amount. If you are not satisfied with this, you can use a variety of anonymous exchanges. The choice is yours.

BISQ might be your best bet.
I hope a lot more atomic-swap-based exchanges will pop up soon and people would move to them.
Because with centralized exchanges you have 2 options:
1. Legal, aka more secure -> 100% it needs KYC
2. Shady, very likely to exit scam -> then it might not need KYC
And we all know you prefer option 1