Bitcoin Forum

Up until now, I thought the only way to convert fiat to BTC is through KYC exchanges. It seems like there are alternatives such as Bysk. Did I shoot myself in the foot by purchasing through KYC exchanges? 

The answer to your question will depend on how security/privacy paranoid you ere.

Fortunately, it's not the end of the world for you, and all you can do right now is to not further the damage. Use peer-to-peer no-KYC exchanges like ByskBisq[1], HodlHodl[2], and LocalCryptos[3]. And if you want to get a step further, probably contact the exchange you used and try to get your account(and data) deleted.

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[1] https://bisq.network/
[2] https://hodlhodl.com/
[3] https://localcryptos.com/

Is there a way to reverse the damage? Perhaps through things like mixers etc? What are your thoughts on those?

Nothing wrong with that. Don't overreact to that selling privacy issues.

If it seems to give you the benefit and advantage you want why you comply with the KYC there in the first place, then it's all good. Buying crypto with fiat is difficult for some and if your case isn't the same, nothing to worry about as it gives you convenience in return just by complying with KYC.

Totally not safe to trust with exchange that requires KYC, if your purpose only is to have a secured account, because that's not important anymore right now as long as you are buying through trusted exchanges.  As the matter of fact there's a lot of issue when using KYC on some exchanges nowadays , which it became very dangerous because of some scammer out there. It's like you let them use you personal information for short..

Probably the only damage was that you have submitted your personal information to the exchange. For now, withdraw your funds outside of that platform, keep them in a wallet whose private keys are under your sole control, and, as mk4 suggested, contact the exchange and request that all personal information pertaining to your account be deleted immediately.

If you wish, you may also use a mixer. It's up to you, but it wouldn't reverse the damage. It wouldn't erase your personal information stored somewhere.

Depending on what "damage" you're referring to. If you're referring to your personal information being handed over to the exchange, probably not. If you meant you want more privacy on the coins you're holding, then you can use CoinJoins through Wasabi and Samourai or Mixers like ChipMixer.

https://cryptosec.info/exchange-hacks

What? Don't talk nonsense. It is one thing if you lose privacy and anonymity, and another if it is not secure. I agree with the comment above:


For the OP, it is necessary to take into account what quantities we are talking about. If you buy $2K, it does not matter if you do it in a non-KYC exchange, although I understand that in these there are fewer offers, but if you buy $200K, you better do it in a regulated exchange, because if not tomorrow you can have a serious legal problem to sell or to justify where it has come from.

If you want true privacy, convert it to Monero and use a VPN + Tor browser to mask your IP. Even if someone knows you purchased BTC, it won't be linked to you after you trade it away.

There are many decentralized exchanges (DEX) that deal only with alt coins. Sometimes these DEX will ask for KYC. 99.99% of the time they will not. I have never been asked for it.

This is a good start:
https://swapzone.io/

If you are barred from using an exchange, because it is not supported in your country, use a VPN to route through an IP in another country and you can use that exchange.

BTC is never truly anonymous, but you can do a good job of keeping your privacy if you take the right steps.

You probably don't have that much stored on exchanges that's why you're not worried of locking account/seized funds and hacks. If you're not declaring your income from crypto, your so called professional exchanges can also give your personal information to your local tax man.

Sorry, but I would doubt the first half of your statement a lot! Yes, reputable exchanges that are licensed and well established in the market are quite trustworthy when it comes to KYC. There are a loooot of exchanges asking for your documentation with nothing else in mind but selling your data on the black market. Don't take KYC as a an indicator for the trustworthiness of the exchange itself...

My question is, why so much concern/fear about buying BTC from kyc exchange?  You probably must have done that kyc before you were able to do that transactions I believe and you weren't concerned then? I have used kyc exchange since the beginning of my cryptocurrency dealings and don't have a problem with it until now the financial institutions are banned from doing any crypto transactions, so we result to P2P.
If it 8s not a crime in your country to do cryptocurrency trade then I don't think there should be this much concern except otherwise.

Are you trying to remove the label of your personal info from your wallet? Hmmm I don't think so? Unless you start from scratch. Granted exchanges would have info about your past wallet, but they'd have no info about your current one as long as you don't do KYC again. You also won't transfer funds from your old wallet to you new wallet since that may lead to them tracing you and they can safely assume that you did something. Checking your next transactions then and one could easily assume whether the new wallet of yours was a merchant or really yours.

Still tbh, there's no problem with buying BTC from exchanges if you aren't that paranoid about privacy. You've been basically living you're entire life like that anyway.

No it is not the only way to convert your cash to Bitcoin, i mean Bitcoin transactions were expected to take place without a third party, which exchanges obviously are, so that means you can convert your fiat to BTC through P2p transactions, and right now I'm not referring to P2p options on exchanges, but with another Bitcoin user who sends you Bitcoin for your cash, but such transactions requires trust, and in this network you're not expected to trust anyone, and that's were the dilemma lies. Having said that, there are reputable users on this forum who trade btc for cash, they have been doing it for quite a while and are trusted to a very, very large extent, people who are paranoid of trading on exchanges can find it easier trading with such users. But overall you will be fine on centralized exchanges if you don't store or leave your funds there and you don't trade on fraudulent or new exchanges.

When you buy from platforms, you buy from central authorities that have a license to buy and sell bitcoin, and according to the laws of combating terrorism and money laundering, we must provide data based on the amount of money you want to transfer, many countries require verification of identity and residential address for transactions from 5 thousand dollars, but they differ according to Country.

When you buy from dexs, you buy from individuals, and all the platform does is provide a guarantee that you will not be scammed.

Well, there is probably no other gateway than from P2P on centralized exchanges, as far as Fiat is concerned, perhaps KYC is a must in the current state of affairs.  Fiat on ramp has to do the same as KyC to get into slaughterhouses.  In most cases, they don't want to put their ass into KYC, but maybe there is no other option yet.  Lol

P2P exchanges are the only way to convert your fiat into bitcoin. 90% of these exchanges require KYC and provide a built in escrow service. Unless you are want to avoid Kyc and take a bit of risk, you may try other methods. I am using binance P2P without any issues  to convert my fiat into btc or vice versa.

To all those who want to know more about the KYC creep there's this very informative website which has all the basics. Before getting into the no-KYC world is always best to first untangle all the kyc coins you have from the ones you wish to acquire KYC-free. That's very important in order to avoid jeopardizing your no-kyc set-up
https://bitcoinqna.github.io/noKYConly/

There are many alternatives as pointed out by mk4 so shift your business with them and avoid KYC exchanges at your will. But a lot depends on your local jurisdiction. If crypto is legal in your country, then you are good but tax will come along the way. But if the legal status of crypto is still not finalized, it's best to avoid kyc exchange.

Also look for a data protection law if available in your country. If you reside in European Union, the GDPR law empowers you to take control of your data. So you can ask the exchanges to delete your data.

Binance won't force you to do KYC but you're limited with how much you can withdraw. Despite that, they're still a good exchange and also considered as one of the best exchanges although if you want to increase and upgrade your account, you really have to do KYC.

If you're not confident with your privacy and you think that there's a need to let through a mixer then just do it. Because if you won't do it, you'll keep worrying with that matter. So just do it and have a peace of mind.

Op, there's probably no need to panic, but it largely depends on other things you've done, and on what specifically is of concern to you. If you submitted KYC once, and you're not a serious criminal, your data probably won't ever come up anywhere again. Sometimes there are hacks and some data is leaked, but the odds of this happening to you are very low. If you don't want to submit KYC in the future, choose relevant services. If you want to now try hiding your identity via mixers, I wouldn't recommend it because mixers are largely considered illegal, and using a mixer might attract more attention than doing nothing. Also, if you don't pass KYC but use a debit/credit card to buy/sell cryptos for fiat, you're also identified because all bank accounts are tied to ID, so if needed, this way the authorities can get back to you. But since there are tons of people using cryptos all the time, they won't unless they have a very special interest specifically in you because you're a big criminal. So keep calm.

I don’t see why anyone would be as paranoid as an OP if we assume most people buy cryptocurrencies through a centralized crypto exchange (with KYC), with money they have legally earned. If at some point they want to sell that crypto and if they make a profit that way, then they need to pay taxes according to the laws of their state. On the other hand, if someone wants to buy BTC without identifying themselves, then there are other ways to do it - it all depends on what a person wants to achieve with such an investment.

For me, the biggest problem at KYC is data protection, which is often inadequate, compromising customer security - so everyone should think carefully about who they give their personal information to - and sometimes it's certainly better to pay a higher fee and make an anonymous purchase - security and privacy have never been cheap.

for me personally it's okay to buy crypto on the KYC exchange because now it seems that there is still the only safest way to get crypto without getting scam ( if you choose trusted exchange ) and also it depends on where you live too. if in my country there is an e-commerce that sells bitcoin assets as well. This does not require KYC but is also safe because our money is held by the e-commerce.

If ATM is available for you, you might be able to use that.  That being said, anything related to fiat is closely related to KYC. If there is no way to avoid it, then just try to use the most reputable platform near you and stop doing KYC here and there. It won't remove the risk but at least it will reduce it to some extent.

Converting fiat to bitcoin through KYC exchanges is one of many ways to sell bitcoin.
If you are concern with your identity getting hack or sell by the exchanges, you really need to find your local sellers so you can buy or sell bitcoin without anyone knows except you and your local sellers.
Your government will also do not know about the transaction because you and your local sellers only send and receive the fiat transaction through your bank account and you send the bitcoin from wallet to wallet.
But @mk4 already gave you 3 options to buy and sell bitcoin so you can try to use one of the options or use one by one.
But I still prefer to buy and sell to the local sellers because we know the sellers and if we often make a transaction with the sellers, we can make a friend with them to be more secure for you.

I don't see how you would have, unless the money you were using was somehow dirty. You actually did the right thing because when you bought from an exchange there was a paper trail for your money up until that point so the government will not be able to create any disputes over hidden wealth. I personally quite like using localbitcoins which is a peer to peer exchange, however it can come with its own set of risks, if you follow their rating system and only trade with people who are very highly rated (99-100%) then you will do just fine. Now I think about it, they have a KYC process too but it didn't exist when I first signed up - it was verified much later. Why do you think that it was wrong to to use those sites? You'll generally have better legal protection.

I also prefer to use KYC exchanges to buy Bitcoins, because that's probably the safest way I can think of for now. Although the risk is that we must be
willing to lose our privacy, because we have to submit our personal data to these exchanges. Therefore, it is better if we finally decide to use KYC exchanges
to buy Bitcoin, choose one that has a good reputation.I've been using KYC exchanges in my country for 5 years, and luckily I haven't had any bad experiences.

If you have used a KYC exchange then the exchange will now know your address and any linked addresses to the address that you used for withdrawing that is the only thing that they know and have tied an identity to it but it probably has not had a big impact because they have millions of Bitcoin addresses on record.

Yea, I have always said..... the real "flaw" in Crypto currencies are the "need" for people to convert back and forth between Fiat and Crypto and visa versa on Exchanges. Exchanges could care less about your Pseudo anonymity, because they are only focused on their profits from your transactions.

When I started out with Bitcoin, we had to do person to person trading behind McDonalds where they do not have CCTV cameras. (Yes, it was illegal back then, so we did not trust 3rd party services and we had to take big risks to buy it from verified "contacts". Now, with verified contacts, I mean... people who knew people ...who traded with those people before.)  The authorities set traps for those traders, so you had to watch out for them and also robbers and scammers.  :(

Buying in exchanges that require KYC seems to guarantee more security, because they also do not want on their case there are criminals, terrorists, to launder money, or other evil things. This is also a good exchange standard for use, because some of the litigants that don't use KYC are like less trusted, or they don't look serious in running a case.

If you open your account on centralized exchanges, you must read Term of service and follow their guides. If you break ToS, your account will be under investigation of Compliance team. They might suspend or restrict your account.

Mixers are not good because exchanges are keen on being strict with mixers. They don't want to get troubles with governments and money laundering. You can mix your coins with mixers if you want, after you buy your coins on exchanges, and withdraw it to your non-custodial wallet. After that, you can send your coins to your non custodial wallets to mixers.

If it is Bitcoin, you can use Wasabi wallet and Coin Join transactions. https://wasabiwallet.io/
Mixers: the best is Chip Mixer. Other mixers 2021 List Bitcoin Mixers Bitcoin Tumblers Websites (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2827109.0)

Cases of terrorism or money laundering are also not what these exchanges pay attention to, they only pay attention to the attitudes of traders from their exchange, holding the KYC equivalent of holding an alias, just a certain account is behaving badly and not completing the transaction on time, blacklisting is the first thing, the next is to block all transactions at that exchange. If this scammer took a large amount of money from the customer, the information from KYC can become a good resource for government agencies to track down these bad guys

its an old way before you can buy bitcoin from exchanges. But nowadays it's not recommended at all since mostly exchanges are not safe from hacking. By the way what do you mean Bysk? If it's a new exchange or whatever it's because to be honest i never heard such name before. So i suggest to buy bitcoin through binance, latoken or any legit platform to secured your money from scam exchanges out there.

What absolute nonsense. Centralized exchanges guarantee nothing for their users. If your account is hacked, say bye to your coins. If they are hacked or sell or KYC data, sucks to be you. If they choose to lock your account, tough luck. You risk everything by trusted a centralized exchange with the security of your data and the security of your coins. Conversely, a decentralized exchange which does not require any data from you and does not have a centralized wallet you must deposit your coins to is far more secure.

I would still do this, but it is unlikely to have much of an effect. Centralized exchanges are legally required to hold your information for a period of time after your last transaction with them. Depending on your/their jurisdiction, this could be up to 10 years.

This is just the "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument, which is completely nonsense and has been thoroughly debunked. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5214200.msg53499357#msg53499357)

I would say his data is probably already in the hands of his government and tax agencies.

No they aren't.

Either transfer the bitcoin you bought back to the exchange, sell them, withdraw the fiat, close the account, and buy bitcoin on a decentralized platform, or close your exchange account first and then use a mixer or coinjoin to mix the coins you already own and transfer them to a brand new wallet, being careful not to link any newly mixed coins to any old unmixed coins.

There several ways of going about this, I myself use my trading account  to convert my crypto into fiat but when it comes to using exchanges with no KYC  these usually apply higher conversion rates which makes them kind of expensive on your side.

Never heard of Bysk...
But afaik It all depends on how you treat your personal information and urgency of the money,  because  the price you will be paying is higher than you would on exchanges with KYC.

BTC purchased from an exchange with KYC when you have KYC and then it is very difficult to cancel, you can contact support or go to the section to cancel all information. but I KYC binance also don't know how to cancel KYC, KYC is very inconvenient to withdraw a lot, but when the amount is too large, they suspect and think that the money is illegal, I don't like KYC

I am assuming you bought Bitcoin with fiat money as a long-term investment, so the answer is no. In any case, if you have followed the "Know-Your-Customer" procedure and purchased BTC on a legitimate exchange, you can withdraw your coins to a cold wallet to avoid the risk of losing funds due to a possible hacked trading platform.



Keep in mind that the cryptocurrency exchange can monitor the public Bitcoin blockchain and track all transactions associated with the BTC address you provided. I've heard that some exchanges blocked their customers' accounts when they sent withdrawn coins to the mixers, so beware of such activity.

To me there are many ways I can convert my cryptocurrency into Fiat, but my prefer method is to sell it to friend around my abode. Bitcoin is some how scarce and there are always people ready to buy it and use it for other trading reasons because of it volatility and worth in the society. I don't have to look for buyers on kyc platform or P2P trading platform cause to me it's stress and I wouldn't want to waste time looking for buyers which they can be always around me. I do sell my Bitcoin to trust able persons that can always credit me.

There are a lot of exchangers where you can exchange cryptocurrencies for fiat. Also, there are p2p exchangers where you can even be offered to meet a person in real life to cash out funds. and do not pay taxes!

There are a lot of ways to do this without KYC!

Not really mate, it's not a big deal as unless that exchange breached your private information. We need to be careful on trusting unknown exchanges that requires us to submit kyc. Much better to buy btc at trusted sites like binance or ettoro.

Well, I smell something this OP trying to shill this exchange OP said ^[Bysk].
However, there are too many alternative ways to buy bitcoin without KIYC, on P2P exchanges that mentioned on the first page and also perhaps bitcoin ATM considering that you can purchase bitcoin without KYC but I think in a limited amount only. Yes, Binance is also a good crypto exchange if you purchase bitcoin under 2 bitcoins. However, why do we need to be afraid to have KYC, this KYC for me is fine and there is nothing wrong with providing KYC, if you know how this will help to reduce causing of crimes, you will be amazed.

I also have no problem buying Bitcoin from centralized exchanges that do enforce KYC procedures, as long as the exchanges have a good reputation.
Since most centralized exchanges are licensed by the government, so they have to follow government rules by imposing KYC. But the benefits are
usually safer and there is an option to convert Bitcoin to fiat, which can make withdrawals to our bank account. That's why I feel comfortable using
my country's local exchanges to buy Bitcoin.

Why do you seem too afraid of KYC exchange? Don't they state the guarantee of your data security on the exchange? You can choose top exchanges with a good reputation if you want to ensure your KYC data be safer. Those top exchanges surely won't sell your data or share it with scammers, they know how to keep their members' trust. It is also the reason why most top exchanges regularly update their security system. I think we don't be so afraid of KYC exchange, it is not needed.

It may not be very safe, but as you say, it also happens in my country. In every local exchange of my country, we must register in exchanges that have licenses from our government. And we can only use the exchange for deposits, trading, and withdrawal after we are completing and approved the KYC.

However, if it is about going to KYC in the global exchanges, I will prefer not to use them because it is too wide.
I will prefer to use some exchanges that don't need KYC like Binance.

It's a shame if you think like this. I slightly disagree with you. Indeed, there are several cases that have made some data on KYC spread to irresponsible people. But I think not all even exchange though. They do KYC because it is a procedure. If we don't want KYC then don't register. Even at the bank you have also submitted paper documents, that also includes KYC. They seek security for the continuity of their business, so they must know our data, with guaranteed confidentiality. It's a shame some exchanges don't have KYC but have a smaller limit when withdrawing money.

Concerning to see so many people give up their privacy so easily... Why are people so willing to accept centralized exchanges and give up their personal identification to unknown entities?

The biggest downside to centralized exchanges is quality of service. They control everything. Exchanges have stolen people's crypto many times. Coinbase service was terrible. I also have my suspicions that they are run by the government.

With many DEX, the exchange will process your exchange within seconds. It's effectively an API and happens automatically.

For fiat, Bisq (https://bisq.network/) is an option. It can be slower, but you actually control the wallet and their is little risk of fraud, due to the deposit system. The more people that use it, the faster it is.

I really appreciate to your topic that buying btc from kyc exchange because some exchange accept deposit before kyc verification but when they go for withdrawl their funds they are facing problem. But sometimes it is not recoverable because depositor can't provide exact information then they may unable to withdrawl their funds. I exactly faced this problem several times. So its also my advice not to go deposit fund kyc verification without this you may lost your fund forever.

Binance have been hacked and had thousands of users' KYC data stolen in the past. Being a large exchange doesn't mean you are automatically safe using them.

If you don't value your privacy and are happy to complete KYC, that's fine for you. Doesn't mean everyone else thinks the same way though. There is also very little evidence that KYC helps prevent any crimes.

No exchange can guarantee security, and if they say that, then they are either stupid or deliberately trying to deceive you.

Coinbase sold customer data for years, and yet are still one of the biggest exchanges out there. Exchanges can seemingly do pretty much anything and their users don't seem to care.

Of course they do and to a certain degree that is ok, but there is a difference between providing your documents to JP Morgan Chase or Yobit. :D The former may lose your data, too, but at least you can have some feeling of security that they don't gather your documentation for malicious intent. A lot of exchanges do that, not talking about Binance here as I deem them trustworthy.

One last point from my side: also avoid to share your personal data with other companies unless really necessary! I'm thinking specifically at the Ledger hack: many people opsec got smashed because they bought a ledger at some point in time. For those who saw only their email leaked, that's not a big thing. But for those who had their personal info shared, I can only say good luck.
Always be wary when asked to give your data to some entity, whichever it maybe. In the era of internet, your data is never safe.

No you didn't shoot yourself in the foot, but it's always better option not connecting your bitcoin addresses with your real identity.
One option you have is using bitcoin mixers like Chipmixer that will make very hard for anyone to identify source of your coins,
or you can use exchanges that allow trading (with some withdrawal limits) even if you didn't pass kyc verification.
Best option is using decentralized exchanges like Bisq or P2P trading websites like LocalCryptos that nobody can control.

I think it depends on your personal perspective because I believe that KYC is not bad, I'm a law-abiding citizen, and in my country if we transact to a bank we should go through a KYC procedure it was required by the law and also in my country I can buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in a central Bank regulated and license crypto exchange so buying BTC on a KYC exchange is not a problem with me.   

Depends on what kind of exchange you are talking about since when are you gonna convert it to fiat, most of the country's local exchanges are required to get from you your personal info and source of income. Like our local exchange where you can't withdraw minimum until you proved that you are the real person behind the names and address you registered on their website. For us, there's nothing wrong with it because that's just the way it is and once you have done so, conveniently you can withdraw your money from their exchange.

I totally see nothing wrong in purchasing bitcoin thru platforms that require KYC. As a matter of fact, KYC makes me more secure and at peace that my transactions will be done safely because they provide higher level of security against hackers attack. KYC is asked by exchangers for a reason. And that reason is to guarantee the users that their funds are on a safe place. I bet you've done several transactions using KYC exchangers before, so why bother now?

If you are thinking of trying different exchanger that do not require KYC, it's still up to you. But make sure to always be on your guard because maybe instead of saving up some bucks on processing and transaction fee, you'll lose even more by trying to be frugal.

That just depends on who will use the service of exchangers. If he is not comfortable or does not want to undergo verification, he should not continue. In such situations, we must know or have enough knowledge of the risks or possible consequences and be willing to accept and be prepared for whatever may happen. If it's okay with you, then there's no problem. If I had to choose between the two if the centralized leading and proven or if the decentralized you doubted and you had almost no idea how to use it, I would still choose the more trustworthy.

The P2P platform that I am using right now has the option to delete the user account. But I am not sure whether all the data is deleted or not. Because the trust factor comes in to play here. There is no guarantee that they will purge all the user data, even if the account holder opts for that. There may be legal issues that surface later, and some of the exchanges would retain at least some information related to the users. The platform also claims that the communication between the buyer and seller is not visible to them, unless any of the parties opt for dispute resolution. If that is the case, then we don't have anything to worry. But once again, are they saying the truth and can we trust them?

I think exchanges that implement kyc are better at this time than those that don't implement kyc. because in my opinion now kyc security can be tested better and can be used as one of the reasons for our assets to avoid negative things

Why? KYC provides no additional security. In fact, you are more vulnerable, because now your identity is at risk, in addition to your money.

I think people are so brainwashed into giving up their privacy that they associate that with somehow being better. That's an illusion.

Mt. Gox - required KYC - hacked.
Bitfinex - required KYC - hacked.
Here are 45 other centralized exchanges that were also hacked. Most, if not all, required KYC: https://www.hedgewithcrypto.com/cryptocurrency-exchange-hacks/

There is nothing stopping the owner from the exchange from sending all of your crypto to another wallet, selling your personal identification, closing the exchange and defrauding everyone of their money. It's happened multiple times before. KYC gives people a false sense of security.

That can never happen with something like Bisq. It is open source. Any attempt by the developers to steal your funds would be immediately apparent in the code. I trust the software, because the code is not hidden like Coinbase or other proprietary, centralized exchanges.

Other DEX can be trusted the same way a centralized exchange is - based on reviews.

No, it doesn't. Completing KYC puts you at more risk, not less, since you are now risking all your personal information as well as your coins. Completing KYC also does nothing to prevent against account hacks or other attacks. The safest way to trade is on a decentralized platform which does not require KYC nor does it require you to deposit your coins to their centralized wallet. Your information and coins cannot be stolen if the exchange never has either to begin with.

That doesn't even make sense. KYC is demanded because the government want to track bitcoin users. Whether or not an exchange demands KYC says nothing about how secure your funds are on that exchange.

KYC is common.The best thing is p2p but somewhat risky.

Exchange platforms are regulated and its expected that they would really be having this kind of system when buying up directly BTC on them.

So, no crypto exchange in the world can guarantee their user data? And what I ever heard about their promise to keep KYC data safety is fake only?
If it is true, even Binance cannot guarantee our data? I am starting to be a bit afraid about my KYC data on Binance. I never imagine that even Binance can risk our data. This probably becomes a big problem if one day all centralized exchanges are investigated because of risking people's data around the world.

I think you are talking about Bisq and i tried using them in the past but the problem was liquidity as all the users are behind centralized exchanges it is hard to find the liquidity to make the trade, i have not used them in a very long time and if you already made a transaction i would like to hear your reviews and experience on using them for the first time. Right now with DEX a major hype we might see a change in the trend of people using centralized exchange to completely decentralized markets.

Binance was hacked in 2019 (https://www.hedgewithcrypto.com/cryptocurrency-exchange-hacks/). So no, your data is not safe there.

Bisq does not use centralized exchanges. It operates as a P2P network. You send the user a bank transaction, money order. gift card or some other digital currency provider (Revolut, etc.) and they send you BTC. Both the buyer and seller have to place a deposit that is locked in a multisignature wallet. The buyer's full BTC amount is also locked. If anything goes wrong, a moderator ensures you get your money back and you may also get a portion of that person's deposit. Everything uses TOR so it is also relatively anonymous.

Once you learn how to use it, it works fairly well. The more people that use it, the better the liquidity. It also provides buyer/seller activity so you get real time data of current demand for Bitcoin. This gives you some advance insight into what the market is going to do (hint: no one is buying BTC right now).

Even legit exchanges asking KYC can't fully guarantee that we are safe and our personal details won't fall into the other hands as they are also prone to hacking leading to such scenarios. But I think, as we are started to join crypto, using centralized and decentralize platforms, we are also aware of the consequences we might have in the future. However, we are not praying for that and that is why we still risky our life in here and continue. if we are too afraid about this, it is simply not to try being in crypto as it is possible that years from now KYC is mandatory and we have no escape anymore.

I think there are a couple of possibilities to buy Bitcoin safely apart from exchanges that demand KYC. First of all there are exchanges, reputable exchanges that don't ask for KYC and then you also have a couple of swapping services that you can trust as far as I know. I think Shapeshift also offers swaps to BTC for cash if I am not mistaken and I think you don't have to provide KYC.

If you are dealing with fiat and  buy bitcoin on  exchange I think majority will ask KYC for their users so for this a proper selection on choosing top tier exchange is really good here since selecting those exchange who  offer something  like who doesn't  require KYC is so shady to me. If  They don't like  KYC better to  do P2p  and drag some escrow on  the deal to make the transaction smoothly.

All exchanges required to do kyc (Know your customers) but kyc not a good sign of secured. It's should have different verification systems. But p2p always risky and it's should need good deal esrcow.

Yes, there's no guarantee that exchange can give full security of our data and avoid possible data breaches.  A big exchange might also have data breaches even though big companies like Microsoft and Wattpad have experienced a disclosed data breach and even the big exchange like Binance was experienced before a data KYC breacH, AFAIK, that was way back in 2019.

However, if you really have paranoid feelings about your personal information that shouldn't expose and must your personal information private, find a decentralized exchange that is better for p2p transactions.

I think KYC is a good thing, so I always do KYC on every exchange, crypto is an asset and without KYC it will be difficult to recover assets if a problem occurs, I'm sure an exchange that implements KYC will not sell our data unless it gets hacked.

I generally agree with you, but we are talking about buying and selling BTC on decentralized exchanges and not declaring them to the tax authorities? I guess that would be the logical thing to do.

The problem I see with that is how you justify that you have large amounts of money tomorrow.

If you have $2K in Bitcoin, you can spend it with gift cards or go to a Bitcoin ATM that doesn't require ID and exchange it for cash.

But if you bought a certain amount on a decentralized exchange in the previous cycle, didn't declare it and today you have $200K you have a problem. Even if you want to declare it now, in many jurisdictions you have already committed a tax crime, so you are in big trouble if you declare it. If you don't declare it, you will have to spend the money $200 at a time or exchange it for fiat at ATMs little by little, but you won't be able to buy a house or a car with it.

But we need to select the recommended exchange to do KYC and not doing KYC in all exchanges.
That will be risky because we do not know what will happen to us if we are doing KYC in exchanges that will not have reputations.
But that will be back to personal because when we can feel comfortable to trade in one or two exchanges, we can doing KYC without any hesitations and will not have a problem by sending our document to them.
If someone does not feel comfortable sending the document to the exchange, he can search for the exchange that does not need KYC to reduce his risk of getting scam by the exchange.

There is a famous quote from a famous professor of computer science which goes like this:


The point he is making is that no can every possibly be 100% secure. There is always a chance that someone who isn't meant to be able to access it can, or that someone who is meant to be able to access it "goes rogue" and steals/sells the information on it. Any exchange which is "guaranteeing" the safety of your data either don't understand this basic fact, or understand it fine but are deliberately lying to their users to instill false confidence in newbies. Either way, I wouldn't trust anyone who makes such a claim.

Binance have been hacked for thousands of users' worth of KYC data in the past, so they absolutely can't guarantee anything: https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/binance-kyc-data-leak.html

Which jurisdictions require you to pay tax simply upon on acquiring bitcoin? Most that I see discussed on these forums only require tax to be paid when gains are realized, so when your bitcoin is sold, exchanged, spent, etc. Certainly that is the case in the US. Even if I bought 10,000 BTC 10+ years ago for a dollar, I owe no tax on my now ~$400 million stack (nor do I even need to declare it) until I start to offload that bitcoin.

The legislation of several countries obliges you to declare the mere possession of cryptocurrencies. The first one I found by googling is Russia (https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2021-01-11/russian-federation-new-bill-defines-cryptocurrency-proposes-tax-regulations/), but there are some in other European countries as well: "The bill requires that citizens, individuals, and legal entities operating in the Russian Federation declare their cryptocurrency holdings... "

Another one: (https://news.bitcoin.com/spain-cryptocurrency-disclose-crypto-holdings-gains/) "Spain’s government has reportedly approved a bill that requires cryptocurrency owners to disclose their crypto holdings..."


In countries with wealth tax, you should have declared you holdings years ago. Even if they don't have an explicit law requiring citizens to disclose their Bitcoin holdings, wealth tax does not usually exceed $1M by much. So you should declare your holdings when you exceed that figure. Others require you to disclose any asset you have.

Those laws are still being debated, as far as I can tell. No (reasonable) country can punish you for holding bitcoin you didn't declare for 10 years when they are only just making it mandatory to declare it now.

Still, I assume they will want a simple statement of "I own 1 BTC", as opposed to wanting you to report individual wallets or addresses, given that lots of people holding their coins on custodial exchanges and wallets and so wouldn't be able to provide such information. So there is a still a significant privacy improvement from government surveillance (not to mention surveillance by third parties) by using non-KYC peer to peer trading over centralized exchanges.

So how does that work in practice? You take the average value of bitcoin over the year? Or you take the spot value of bitcoin at the end of year?

Even the Biggest exchange like binance requires KYC though there is a certain amount to put this up and not in small withdrawals.
in which you are correct that KYC exchange will make you safety in all of your withdrawals and deposits more than those exchange that requires nothing .
But of course you can also use Mixers if you wanna Hide your identity but make sure to use reputable because there are tons of scam mixers that operates though many of them are already closed now.

Yes, normally in democratic countries you cannot be punished with retroactive laws. What could happen is that today the law is approved and from today you have to declare what you have, even if you bought it years ago. If you made a single purchase and you can justify it, fine. But if you were trading in several exchanges, one of them has already disappeared, and you also have gone through mixers, declaring that you have $200K (or $2M) of origin that you cannot justify will lead to an interrogation by the authorities at the very least.


Yes, more precisely, they want a statement of "I own 1 BTC which as of 12/31 of last year was equivalent to x dollars or euros or the currency in question. As there is no market close as in the stock market, it would be at 23:59:59."


The spot value of bitcoin on December 31 of that year. The same applies to shares.

I think this is a good idea, even though crypto is anonymous but I think KYC is a step forward to make consumer data safe in case the exchange has a problem such as a hack or malware attack.

And here is the second news: https://english.elpais.com/spain/2021-07-06/spain-drafts-bill-allowing-state-to-mobilize-all-adults-in-times-of-crisis.html


I don't know, can this really be a coincidence? I am not saying you should break a law and hide your assets, but you should always keep in mind that the government potentially can and most probably will force you to hand over your bitcoin holdings if there is a situation they call a "crisis". If they suddenly start to consider your crypto holdings a threat to the financial stability of the country, you are in trouble despite your being a good citizen.

They most likely do retain some data unless they themselves operate from some kind of underground corporate construct. It is similar to the VPN providers. I remember when a VPN provider claimed to not forward data to authorities, but it turned out that they were subpoenaed and handed out user data regardless. It may be true, but I would expect the worst using those platforms. Do you have to undergo KYC on that platform? I guess no? Because then it doesn't matter whether or not they delete it, you just could use false data. If they demand KYC, I would assume they also store some of the data without your consent.