Bitcoin Forum

If you are going to use a big exchange in the future then you will need KYC.  The only other way to get BTC will be on the black market.  Would that put you off?

A very very small minority. Chances are, the majority don't even care about security(or are just totally ignorant) either. Hence why a lot of people still has their funds on Coinbase/Binance/etc.


Depends what you mean with black market specifically. Peer-to-peer exchanges such as HodlHodl[1], LocalCryptos[2], and Bisq[3] should be totally fine.

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

Probably the first people that have stumbled upon bitcoin in the first place, the rest are either here for the profit or have learned to value privacy along the way. Not to worry, they will all care when their interests are being threatened.

You cannot regulate Bitcoin to that extent. Governments don't have and will not have an iron grip on Bitcoin. It is possible to be pseudonymous with Bitcoin because it is so hard to shut down and regulate every mixers out there. They are either out of reach of their jurisdiction or won't even have to comply with court orders.

P2P exchange won't die, because that is not illegal. Making it illegal is just unconstitutional.

not everyone cares about their privacy, in every hope they will verify their account with KYC especially regarding the use of their funds. many people do not realize that they have entered a dangerous realm and easily steal their data assets because they arbitrarily verify personal data in every activity, both websites and cryptocurrency platforms.

Correct, a lot of the time we "learn the hard way" when something is taken
unlawfully from us we then act and teach ourselves about security and privacy
when this should be to the forefront of our thoughts.

Its a lazy thing, we need a password for everything online in regards to our
personal posessions, e-mail, data storage, banking etc. but so many of us
let our hardware [smartphone's, PC's] take care of that.

So many people are oblivious to the fact that there are so many attacks on
privacy and security happening every second of every day globally.

https://techjury.net/blog/how-many-cyber-attacks-per-day/#gref

Here is some general info from the link above which should make everyone
contemplate their privacy and security more.

If you ask me then only 5% of Bitcoin users care about privacy. Nowadays it's become impossible to use reputed and Big centralized exchange. So privacy is already exposed when you are using one of them who required KYC. If you go to trade P2P then there are liquidity and fees issues. More concern you will not find your desired trading pair. Only holders could prevent their privacy who aren't related with any centralized exchange.

We don't have a choice.  Avoiding centralized exchange means we will face many issues during buy and sell our cryptocurrency. Even do we care about our wallet privacy? Those wallets have been using could trace our IP address if you aren't using VPN or Tor. Even we want to keep our privacy but sometimes we are hopeless. It's too much hassle for a few people dealing with Bitcoin without centralized exchange.

By the time they realize that their interests are threatened they would have already used the exchanges and services that have gathered their information and sold it on. The amount of information that people are willing to give to companies just because they have been legally registered and are obliged by law to collect your data is crazy when there are alternatives like P2P exchanges out there. Yes you might pay a little more at these P2P exchanges but I think that is a small cost compared to giving away your data to companies that you do not know what they are doing with your data.

I doubt it. Coinbase admitted they were selling their customers' data to third parties and they employ a bunch of people who built surveillance systems for dictators and were complicit in torture and other human rights abuse around the world. The result? Literally nothing happened and they continue to be one of the biggest exchanges in the world. Binance have been hacked for thousands of users data and their response was "Well, it was one of our third parties and not us, so its not our fault." The result? Literally nothing happened and they continue to be one of the biggest exchanges in the world.

People don't care when there is money involved. They will give up any amount of personal freedoms or liberties for the opportunity to earn $2 of some shitcoin!

Depends what you mean by a hassle. I would view giving away my KYC information and spending the rest of my life having to be extra vigilant regarding identity theft and my information being used against me, to gain access to my accounts, to open credit in my name, etc., far more of hassle than using a peer to peer exchange.

The early days everyone was able to trade freely without much restrictions. It is inevitable that the authorities will force all the centralized exchanges to follow AML rules and force everyone to provide KYC to continue trading and it is a tricky proposition. Personally I will be using centralized exchanges to covert my coins to fiat as long as DEX will be having enough liquidity to trade and i am hoping we will be able to trade with DEX without much restrictions.

No doubt, a lot of traders don’t care about privacy  but they shouldn't have. Some of them don’t want to bother, another are newbies that don’t think about  it, others are too honest and trust in security of the market. However phishing attacks and customer data leaks are the reality of today’s life.
- Famous phishing attacks https://www.thesslstore.com/blog/the-dirty-dozen-the-12-most-costly-phishing-attack-examples/
- Ledger customer data leak https://www.cityam.com/ledger-customers-exposed-as-personal-data-is-leaked/#:~:text=The%20names%2C%20email%20addresses%2C%20home,wallet%20company's%20e%2Dcommerce%20database.
- Binance customer data leak https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2019/08/07/binance-customer-data-has-leaked-what-we-know-and-what-we-dont/
- Coinbase data leak https://www.esecurityplanet.com/networks/coinbase-admits-data-leak/
- Pi Network data leak https://cointelegraph.com/news/mobile-crypto-mining-app-possibly-connected-to-personal-data-leak
And these are only some of them.

If there's KYC, I don't like the idea anymore. Satoshi never mentioned in the whitepaper or in any of his posts or emails that we should agree with KYCs. In fact, Bitcoin as a currency is totally against anything that has to do with revealing one's privacy. Take a look at Satoshi whose identity is also hidden to prove the need for privacy. However, many people got into Bitcoin because of making gains and never had the time to think through about the main feature of the currency. I may have done KYC in a few exchanges but this is because some of us were led by investments. Eventually, most of us are now seeing the need for privacy.

As long as the cryptocurrency exchange that I want to use is credible enough, there is no problem for me to share my private information with them. Exchange score is the most important thing for me. Because there are many scammers in this market. We have to be careful if we don't want to lose our money easily to this kind of people.

Before investors uses bitcoin for sake of privacy, but now due to government stricter implementation on exchanges to avoid AML problems and scam exposures they require many platforms to do KYC, as crypto tends to become more popular the risk of using it in doing illegal and engaging ing money laundering is at high risk so we can’t blame the government, however we should do our part to study what were using and report platforms who are requiring KYC with no valid reasons or seems questionable platform with issues. We can’t get away with KYC but atleast we do it on a legit platform. 

Bitcoin users who care about privacy will just move towards more decentralized options. Before KYC was mandatory I used to use big exchanges like Coinbase and Binance but eventually those were no longer options. Selling BTC for fiat is not the only way of using Bitcoin. If you cannot use exchanges there are still some options for using Bitcoin privately. You can buy anonymous prepaid cards with Moon browser extension, you can buy items from many stores through Bitrefill, and there are also some services which accept Bitcoin directly. I have always been able to find some way to utilize Bitcoin without KYC and I am sure people will continue to design solutions where you are able to preserve some privacy.

There is a difference between KYC and privacy, and between privacy and PRIVACY

As part of a signature campaign the address I get paid to is public.
It's in a post and on a pubic spreadsheet.
When I get paid I can either spend the BTC, at which point depending on where I spend them you can figure out where they went.
Or I can send them to an exchange, and since most exchanges wallets are known you can trace me as far as there.
But, you can't know if I traded the coins to another crypto, pulled them back out to another BTC address, or if available converted to fiat.

Depending on the exchange, they may know all about me, or have nothing more then an email address.
Obviously, if I am going to fiat they would know more then if I just put the coins in and took them out.

KYC, is an interesting thing, because people think KYC means that you have given up all sorts of info. And you probably have.
But, lets say I buy something on newwegg.com. They will know my shipping address. Or at least the address I shipped it to.
Depending on what I bought, there may or may not be other information leaked. i.e. I bought a cell phone, newegg knows the imei & serial number of the phone they sent to me. As would the cellular provider I use. So, there is a lot of trackability there. Same if I bought any Apple device, they all phone home and require your info to do just about anything.

Where does privacy end, is going to be different for everyone.

KYC, for the most part, depending on how deep you want to go, can be avoided here in the US.
There are states that allow for an anonymous LLC. 3 that I know of are Delaware, Nevada and New Mexico. I think there are more. Many, crypto to fiat platforms are fine with doing business with an anonymous LLC. So you can get it that way too.

Yes, no matter what the government can and will be able to hunt you down if needed. Anybody who thinks otherwise is just being deluded.
But from your fellow bitcoiners they will probably never be able to find you.

So with all that being said, how many users really care about privacy? The answer probably is, what kind of and how much privacy....

-Dave

When people’s privacy is not threatened, most people don’t care about their privacy and think it’s not important. They only care about their own benefits. But the more people’s privacy is revealed, the more thorough the analysis, and the less money is found to be spent, is the time when people lose their independence and are controlled.

I'd reckon that it'd be the minority. The world has gone far too deep that most wouldn't actually give a damn about their privacy anymore tbh, not to mention the massive influence of sharing what you bloody do and what you have in social media each day. It's to the point where that if you don't actually share anything, it'd be too odd or something. At this point, I wouldn't even be surprised if most of the information that people have is already being held by a majority of third parties.
Well, p2p exists so I don't think that's an issue really.

If you are using fiat and your bank account to make an exchange for bitcoin then you are already leaving your identity behind no matter what method you are using.

Wrong.
P2P markets exist too.

The KYC itself when dealing with bank transfer doesn't put me off. Altcoin exchanges dealing purely with cryptocurrencies requiring KYC does.

It depends on which group you are looking at.
The newbies who care about making profit and think bitcoin is a cash cow to make them rich overnight don't care about that many things which includes their privacy.
But those of us who accepted bitcoin as a decentralized currency care a lot about our privacy and we don't really go to exchanges in first place, this is a currency after all and it has to be earned ;)

Actually there are different P2P platforms that are not illegal so we can’t name them as black market. There you can exchange fiat to crypto easily without KYC, but usually with bigger commissions than on centralised exchanges. What comes to privacy, I think that there are quite a big number of people who care about it, as I know that there is a big volume on different platforms that let you hide your money (Tornado Cash).

The first people who have been early adopters are the first who supported the innovation of this blockchain technology, they are more of hackers that wanted to just stay in the background without having to submit any information from them even the cookies.

Some of them are still here trading on exchanges with KYC but most probably they've set aside coins that are safe in a wallet they have secured.

Probably 99% of them don't really care. I think most people just want the number to go up and nothing else. If this was chicken shit they were trading, it wouldn't make a difference to them (as long as the number goes up). Black market/Dark market is now running mostly on Monero I heard. So, if btc traders really cared about privacy they would have moved to monero instead.

If it's trusted exchange why not in my personal opinion. because indeed it's a big help incase of emergency, for example if you have funds in it and you want to recover your account, it's a requirements as well. But if its not licenced and trusted exchange, well obviously its not safe to pass KYC, wherein much better to find another platform that you can assure your private information is  totally safe from hacking and etc, as simple as that.

Not everyone is here because of privacy, there are so many people who enter the crypto world because of money, they think that it is way easier to earn money in the crypto world than in real life word and besides people want some free time in a way that they don't need to follow the rules of the company and don't need to wake up early, travel and go to the work. This is also what I want in cryptocurrency, I don't need to wake up early and there is no boss here but still I am earning money that makes me contented.

Privacy only matters to those big investors but for the beginners and those who are not yet a big investors they prioritize earning money than minding their privacy.

It wouldn't put me off still. I mostly use Binance exchange and I have did KYC too of course. Because I trust the exchange about not using my private info with bad things. And I trust it like I trust banks also. Because not all the banks belong to governments. There are private ones also. And we use them a lot too. So it is very similar to an exchange with a high score in the market.

Show me any "credible" exchange and I will show you an instance of that exchange losing customer data through leaks, hacks, or selling it on.

There is very little evidence that KYC does anything to prevent money laundering. Criminals in general aren't stupid enough to send stolen coins to their own KYCed accounts.

There is no such thing. Any and every time you complete KYC at any exchange or service, you risk loss and/or theft of your data.

It doesn't matter what the exchange is or isn't. One reason to be concerned is that the exchange can abuse your personal information. Another reason is that their database can get hacked, someone else gets hold of your information, and that person or group abuses your identifiable info. Don't make the mistake of thinking that an exchange values you of puts your interests and needs above theirs. They will always protect their own businesses and that means selling or sharing your data with government and law enforcement agencies if they are being required to do so. 

Let me answer your question with a question : Would you like it if people (not even people you know) ... could have access to your financial situation?

Example : Let's say for one moment any merchant you bought something from, can quickly go into your Bitcoin address and then see how much bitcoins is in that address or if you bought your neighbor's lawnmower and he can access the bitcoin address from where you send the bitcoins and see how much bitcoins you have in that address?

This is why pseudo anonymity in Bitcoin is important.... other people should not have access to your financial matters, when you do transactions with them. (When you give the neighbor $500 in cash for the lawnmower... he cannot see how much money is in your bank account or your wallet, so why should it be any different with Crypto currencies?)

Not enough.
People usually care about things only when they are affected personally or when someone knocks on their door.
All movement in world today is to abolish all form of privacy and make everything into ''Big Brother'' reality when you are constantly recorded and tracked 24/7.
I don't think that majority of people wants this, even if they are bribed with free stuff along the way.

Black markets or FREE markets existed long before Bitcoin ever existed, and they are impossible to stop, just like Bitcoin or torrents.
Government regulators may try to add more rules and regulations but they are only valid if people abide and live by them, so majority of people should just refuse them and change their governments, it's simple as that.
There is always going to be P2P trading and some form of decentralized exchanges and trading, so I really don't care so much what big centralized exchanges are doing.
It's more important what we as the people are doing.

The other issue is people do not understand how or why many things work. So when someone comes along and offers them "privacy" they really do not know what they are getting and how it really works.

Want a really secure encrypted device that can't be tracked because you are a criminal:
https://www.pcmag.com/news/fbi-sold-criminals-fake-encrypted-phones-that-actually-copied-their-messages.

How about just a phone that is secure that does not spy on you:
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/freedom-phone-security-issues/

Back to the discussion about BTC privacy. If you are doing a P2P trade F2F how are you sending your BTC to the other person. Electrum on a phone or laptop? Do you know what back end server you are connecting to and what it records? Unless you are running you own node you don't. Are you using Wi-Fi in a coffee shop? Are you 100% sure that there is no MITM attack going on?

How much do you know about the person you are trading with? How good is their OPSec?

I don't want to be that guy who says it can't be done, but I really think that it's a lot more complicated then a lot of people think.

-Dave

Yup. We see it all the time with exchanges which have hundreds if not thousands of complaints against them for arbitrarily freezing accounts or locking up coins, and you see an endless stream of users saying "Well, nothing's happened to me, so I think they are still fine/good/trustworthy/etc." Until next week when their account is locked and then the join the chorus of people complaining, and someone else tells them "Well, nothing's happened to me".

Wishful thinking. Most people most even change exchange when confronted with hundreds of complaints as I outlined above. And even if they do, they just hop from one centralized surveillance exchange to another.

I am genuinely curious just how bad centralized exchanges have to get for the majority of people to finally stop using them. Given all the KYC, spying, reporting to governments, freezing or seizing coins or accounts, insider trading, fractional reserve, horrendous fees, dumping scam coins, the list is endless, I would have expected most rational people to abandon them by now, but they continue to attract more and more users. Centralized exchanges frequently just close accounts and keep the coins which were on them, so outright theft isn't the limit. Coinbase actively sold customer data to third parties, so that's not the limit either. Maybe they have to send someone to your house to slap your mother?

Fake encrypted Anom gov phones is a really good example, but don't think that all other smartphones are much better, Apple can now scan your system for child abusing images.
Maybe I am old fashioned but I never liked or trusted this devices and all trend of using just one device - smartphone, that is only make people more stupid looking at them non-stop.

What do you know when you use big centralized exchanges?
You know they will leak your data to anyone without you ever knowing it, for example you should know that Coinbase is sending all customer data and analytics to China.
Digital Currency Groups owns huge part of Coinbase and owner of DCG is Li Ka-shing, richest man in Hong Kong, so better think about that.

Running your own Bitcoin node is not so complicated, and people only need to spent some time and learn how to do, but sadly I think that only a few people are running node even in bitcointalk forum.

I don't need to know much about them to do private trade with them.

Maybe it's more complicated than making your own popcorns or toast, but it's not rocket science.

This is one of the risks for me, using centralized exchanges. Especially those centralized exchanges that are required to undergo KYC.
Yep, most of the people nowadays don't care about privacy, even on non-crypto related. Even those people that already using Bitcoin, they still don't know how to value privacy especially when it comes sharing your personal information to random people or entity on the internet.
That's why decentralized exchanges these days are starting to pop, but for me, centralized will stay and regulation about KYC or AML will still continue and probably will become more strict in terms of cryptocurrency.

Many BTC users these days are just here to make profits from trading or investments and don't really care about privacy.
Some people don't even know the what bitcoin acutally is and what it was created for.
The number of such people will just increase in future as many people will jump into the same boat and keep sailing for profits.
I personally don't care about privacy as well because I am not doing anything wrong or illegal that I should worry of.
Talking about theft or hacks, I have made a decent security but anything can be hacked and so we cannot really guarantee no stolen funds but still can secure our coins in the best way possible.

Sorry to be a pessimistic here, but pri...what? LOL. That's a huge LOL and a half.

I guess those of you who defend to the death the privacy in the use of Bitcoin will pay almost everything in cash when you use fiat, right? I mean, I do, but I would find it contradictory if you were defending privacy to the death and then paying for everything by credit card.

People nowadays don't care about privacy. The most private way to use fiat is to pay cash and people are moving to massively pay everything by card, mobile, or smartwatch. $0.70 if needed, and if it's a small store and the shopkeeper says he doesn't have a POS or it's broken, they get angry.

If Bitcoin is going to be massively adopted, it will be precisely because people don't care about privacy, large institutions have to buy publicly and Average Joe when he buys Bitcoin will do it with a custodial service, Paypal, etc.

This is not only bad, if it were not so, this would be a thing of 4 geeks that would not have become so popular.

We still have a space for privacy, just like you have if you want when you use fiat, which is using cash.

So yes, virtually no one cares about privacy, but that's part of Bitcon's success, like it or not.

I'd rather do KYC than go to the black market, where the risk that often occurs if P2p is fraudulent transactions, For me As long as the cryptocurrency exchange I want to use is credible enough, there is no problem for me to share my personal information with them. because for my financial security

God, I'm getting so tired of seeing this argument parroted about on this forum.

There's nothing you want to keep private? You are that certain you aren't doing anything wrong? In that case you'll have absolutely no problem sharing your real name, links to all your social media profiles, and all your email addresses and their passwords so we can take a good look at all your communications and publicly share with your friends and relatives anything we find interesting. While you are at it, could you also share your entire browsing history, all your chat logs from Whatsapp/Telegram/Signal/Facebook Messenger/etc., your bank statements, your phone records, and a list of everything you've ever bought online. After all, you are not doing anything wrong so you don't care about privacy, right?

You are absolutely certain that in among all that information there is nothing your government or any other government which spies on people around the world (See 5-, 9-, 14-eyes for examples) might take an interest in? What about the next government in those countries? What about the governments in 40 years? You are absolutely certain that none of them will find nothing of interest in all your data?

If you give away your privacy, then you are resigning yourself to a life of servitude:

You sound like someone who has never actually traded P2P before. I am far less likely to lose my coins by using an open source and trustless mechanism such as Bisq's non-custodial 2-of-2 escrow than I am by depositing them to a centralized exchange and having an arbitrary algorithm decide to lock my account for unspecified reasons.

The context of privacy here is referred to BTC transactions. This does not mean I would give away my social media profiles, emails or passwords.
The pseudonymous nature of bitcoin makes BTC transactions private enough for me not to worry about adding extra privacy to it.
So by the phrase "don't care about privacy" I mean I don't have to add more privacy to make BTC transactions more secure or more private.
I hope you understand what I am trying to say.

The same principles apply. If you don't take steps to maintain your privacy, then pretty much all your transactions can be linked to your real name and address. Any coins which go to or from an exchange where you have completed KYC are extensively tracked and thoroughly investigated by multiple blockchain analysis companies. They then link these to your other addresses, other services you use, when and where you spend your coins, how much you are holding, and so on. Even if you are doing nothing illegal, do you really want a bunch of complete strangers (and anyone they sell their data to - governments, marketing agencies, political groups, social media companies, etc.) knowing exactly how much bitcoin you own, knowing that you use a gambling site and how much you win from it, knowing where you spend your coins, knowing that you regularly send coins to a family member in another country, etc.

KYC has become a thing of the day even on this platform, don't we see projects that come in here to advertise their projects and make bounty hunters do work for weeks and some time months, and when it is time for payments turn round to request for hunters to perform KYC that was not initially requested before the work started? and most of these projects are managed by some Big accounts that were supposed to kick against that type of action by project ownners? You would realize that sometimes, investors even when they know the importance of not KYCing don't have a choice and would rather take the risk even with these exchanges too. 

If the only option is black market, i will prefer to do KYC. But there are some people who really insist if not want to to KYC, i think it is not a problem because there a lot of Decentralized exchange that can be use. If in my country, there are some local seller that accept bitcoin and people in here can trade it to fiat. So it can directly sold without access any exchanges.

I think a very small population of our community is concern about privacy nowadays. Most exchangers really require KYC, hence, we have no other option but to adhere to the rules and policies that our chosen exchanger imposes. Otherwise, our movement in trading such as buying and selling cryptocurrency coins will be limited. There are certain categories on which we may opt to verify our account, if you are uncomfortable of undergoing KYC, then don't do it. But also know the possible consequences if you won't undergo such. It's just really a matter of sacrificing for the short-term or long-term. We just need to choose our hard. There are risks and disadvantages in both options anyway.

Not doing KYC on the black market doesn't mean it's more safe and maybe it could be more dangerous because black market sites usually are planted with phising or malware that could damage our PC or even could access our PC if we are not careful clicking anything on the websites and they could steal our wallet.
I will definitely do KYC in a big and trustful exchange, there are a lot of good exchange with exposed CEO and teams, so if we know the owner of the exchange why it's so bad if the owner know the user ? i think it's normal to know each other in any business, except we are doing a money laundrying or doing anything wrong of getting the cryptocurrency.

I gave this a lot of thought over the years,,, and I have to admit, I care about a certain amount of privacy, but I do not (yet) have the compulsion to keep every single thing private.

My BTC address for example is public, and I do KYC on one or two exchanges (because forced to) but if possible I try very hard not to give my documents elsewhere because the legal situation in my country is not clear.

I like that BTC does give you freedom to expand or contract on your privacy :)

It doesn't really matter how many, because there's definitely few of them, and it's not that worrisome that there's only a few that cares about their privacy, people will that are in here for the profit will eventually learn about caring for their privacy.

It's not that people don't care, it's that there aren't any alternatives, especially when it comes to KYC. A lot has been discussed on this forum and around the cryptoverse on how bad KYC is when it comes to privacy, and that might spark some future development that could bring about more secure options, but for now, KYC is still the norm.

Very well said! The majority don't even care about security and probably they are totally ignorant, if they aren't they would learn more about how to protect themselves, and maybe they would realize how privacy can be important as well!

Nice point with mentioning peer-to-peer exchanges! Who searches will find a way to bypass the KYC rule... I don't use exchanges and casinos (where I am mostly active online) that have a mandatory KYC rule... who cares about them, I just delete them from my browser and forget about them!

I think you are right most people who have invested into Bitcoin do not understand it or care why it could be revolutionary instead they only care about how much it is worth. I think this is confirmed by the amount of topics we have talking about the price and not the fundamentals that make Bitcoin great. This place is  filled with anxiety whenever the price goes down which makes me think they do not understand why and they do not understand why Bitcoin should recover. Bitcoin is not a good crypto if you want to act anonymously and I do not think that is one of the draws to Bitcoin like you say Monero has that advantage over Bitcoin.

Peer to peer trading is not the same as the black market, and is perfectly legal and very safe. Let's not perpetuate the nonsense that governments want us to think.

As someone who has only ever traded peer to peer, and has never be scammed, phished, hacked, or otherwise lost coins even once, i would argue that peer to peer is far safer than trusting a centralized third party completely with both your data and your coins.

At least by using peer to peer you are reducing the amount you can lose. If you have a bad experience with one trader then you can find a different trader and only lose the amount that you were trading. If a exchange exit scams you will lose all the money that you have stored on that exchange and they could sell your data as well. Of course you should not be storing all your Bitcoin on a exchange and should only store what you intend on trading but I bet most people do not listen to this advice and store all of it because it is easier.

In terms of p2p, I only trust binance p2p so far. Haven't tried others. Even if they require KYC, that's fine for me. At least, I know that platform is a trusted one. I care for privacy but I won't entrust my funds to other sites which you have no insurance, in case hacking or any trouble is met by the site. But I do agree, only small percentage of crypto users really do care about their total privacy. I guess, a lot here at some point submit their kyc to their local exchange or other exchanges.

Why? What have they done to earn your trust? Binance have been hacked for coins on more than one occasion, and they've also been hacked for thousands of users' KYC information.

That's the beauty of real decentralized exchanges, and not the fake marketing ploy "DEX" that Binance runs; you don't need to entrust your funds to anyone. There are no central wallets or deposit addresses, and no one can freeze your account or seize your coins. Depending in the DEX, you put your coins in some kind of escrow - 2-of-2 between buyer and seller in the case of Bisq, decentralized smart contract-esque in the case of LocalCryptos. The exchange doesn't need to be trusted since they can't touch your coins and never request your data. Bonus points if they are open source as well.

Using a p2p exchange that requires KYC defeats the point of using p2p imo. If you want to avoid mass data collection then Binance and Coinbase should be the ones to avoid. You should be directly trading with another person with minimal data collection as possible because p2p is usually more expensive in fees then centralized exchanges. I only use p2p because there is no data collection usually I would recommend changing to a different platform and avoid giving your information up. I am not sure why Binance has one of the best reputations for exchanges because imo they have been one of the worst at handling compromised coins and have made mistakes which should not be happening for a exchange which holds millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin on their platform.

Another thought on this is what do we define as a user?

If someone buys BTC today during the drop @ $44,000 and intends to sell it at $50,000 when it goes back up. Are they a user or a trader?
If they are a trader they don't care about KYC since they are not going to hide the profit and will report it to the IRS, or whoever taxes income in their country, and pay their taxes and move on.

If the same person missed the $50,000 sell window and sells at $55,000 since it's still going up but they decide to keep some BTC since they made their profit and then they go and buy stuff with it are they still a trader or are they now a user. If they are a user, does privacy even matter to them now?

And so on.

A better question might be, if people do care about privacy how much effort will they put in before they say "meh, whatever" and let some of their info be known.

-Dave

The technical definition would be they are using Bitcoin even if they are only using it for a small time to withdraw back into fiat but you bring up a good point these types of people who are already slaves to fiat probably do not care about KYC because their data is already compromised by any of the services that they use with their fiat money. This is a hard metric to find out if a person is a trader or a user because I think most people who are invested in Bitcoin today are looking to withdraw back into fiat.

My money is legal and I don't mind doing KYC. I believe there are few people who really care about KYC. If they want to be safe, they can wrap their Bitcoins and trade them on distributed platforms. That is legit and satisfies their trading needs.

This is annoying when people think that if you are avoiding KYC you are using your money illegally when that is not the case! I have a right to privacy and KYC breaches my privacy right as a person. I still declare my taxes like everyone else when using peer 2 peer exchanges I am not cheating the system in any way. I hate that people like me are branded being a criminal because we try to avoid KYC. KYC is not good and if you enjoy being exploited and having your data sold off then that is your choice but do not try to legitimatize your way of doing it and trying to make us sound like criminals.

There is nothing wrong about seeking for privacy, but personally I think it's like drying ice: you make a lot of effort and in the end don't reach to any result, as we don't really know how far the government's tentacles and their spying methods goes. The technology, knowledge and informations disponible for the masses are limited on purpose. The digital stuff we have access nowadays has been used by governments since a lot earlier, so what guarantee do we have countries like USA and China don't have exclusive top tier technologies able to track us through another ways (your address, wage, family roots, etc...) even though we avoid KYC verification?

I'm inclined to believe anonymity is an utopia and to try reaching it at all costs will make your experience in crypto universe less enjoyable, as there are many useful services which enforce KYC verification process.

Many people do not realize that they have entered a dangerous realm and easily steal their data assets because they arbitrarily verify their personal data. Nowadays, it is not possible to use large centralized exchanges. and reputable. So privacy is exposed when you are using one of them which requires KYC. If you trade P2P then there will be liquidity and fee issues. Worry more, you won't find your desired trading pair. Only holders can prevent their privacy who is not associated with any centralized exchange. Personally I would use centralized exchanges to hide my coins. it's the best way not to be bothered by the crypto laws in my country.

since bitcoin creation anyone using common sense would realize that the final destination would be KYC, so getting used to it is the best option. governments will not change their minds about KYC on the contrary the laws will only be stricter in the future


people in the end will need banks, they will need centralized exchanges, so anonymity is already becoming obsolete

We would really be heading there whether we do like it or not.KYC is on the way and we are currently seeing on whats happening with Binance on where all users should verify their accounts

or else you wouldnt really get the full function of such account.So you wont really be having any choice but to verify if you do wish to continue but if not then you c an always leave because

if you do push up on trading with DEX? Its hard considering that fiat/crypto pairs arent that possible.

I do not really agree. People have been doing p2p for a long time, not just for Bitcoin, but for other currencies, simply so that they can set their own fees, and earn or buy/sell in between the spread of regular brokers.

P2P like Localbitcoin was really big and still so popular in some countries especially where I am because you are not looking exactly for anonymous people but actual people (besides if you do p2p you still see their name sometimes depending on your method anyway).

What do you mean by black market? I am a registered user of more than a dozen exchanges, although I haven't used any of them for almost three years. On the other hand, it is relatively easy for me to convert my cryptocurrency to fiat using a P2P platform (which doesn't have any privacy requirement). And even for mainstream exchanges, their KYC process is not very strict. I know a few guys who are using exchange accounts that are registered in the name of others. Also, KYC documents are easily available in the dark market and you can use them to set up a fake exchange account.

It is impossible for bitcoin to be regulated by anyone which means the blockchain system can be accessed by anyone. KYC is one of the regulations from the government in certain countries that aims to avoid money laundering but it does not make it difficult for investors or someone to transact in the crypto market because KYC in the application is not too difficult to process, I also agree with this KYC policy on Bitcoin because of this have a good purpose to protect our money and asset crypto

KYC will probably be measurable on bitcoin asset owners on the exchange. but for those who have a personal wallet or even an offline wallet, I think it will be difficult to measure it.
the government may still find it difficult to regulate even have data for every crypto asset owner. maybe but not all.

I care about privacy and take a lot of steps to ensure that my privacy remains intact, to an extent.  I use the signal app, which the best encryption app out there for calls and texts and other privacy measures during my daily life.  That said, I have always stated that I think bitcoin becoming private would be the worst thing ever for it.  I know that's not necessarily the topic at hand, but it's to the point that I think we need to make sure things dont become too private otherwise the gov will shut things down. simple as that.

It is difficult to know the number of Bitcoin users that really care about their privacy most Bitcoin users that care about their privacy are user who are welcome information of the benefit and people who are member of crypto community (like this forum).

No, for every problem have it own solution and the last time I checked we have p2p exchange site and it is easy to find a buyer/seller on this forum while do anyone make use of black market site which would land her into trouble.

It would be safer to use KYC, although buying in the dark market without an identity, but it can threaten incoming files very hard to believe. KYC takes a bit of time but it will make us comfortable in transacting.

If it is one of the best exchanges that we are talking about, then I don't make it a big deal. I already made KYC for Binance exchange for example and I'm using the exchange in many ways happily. We already give our private information to many places. Who knows who has our information now in their hands. As long as we continue to be careful, they shouldn't be much problem.

Blockchain uses a decentralized system that allows efficiency. When someone buys Bitcoin coins, a computer system connected to the Blockchain network will record and provide validity automatically. So, minimal errors, faster, cheaper and easier. By using google verification I will it's already very secure.

All Bitcoin transactions are public, traceable, and permanently stored in the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin addresses are the only information used to define where bitcoins are allocated and where they are sent. These addresses are created privately by each user's wallets.
Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that uses cryptography to secure transactions. ... Hackers can steal bitcoins by gaining access to bitcoin owners' digital wallets.

I think the reason we are btc users is because we care about security and privacy

wouldn't it be safer to use KYC to make an exchange. KYC is a rule that is applied to find out the identity of users which aims to prevent fraudulent use. for me if KYC becomes a mandatory rule will also not let me go, some major exchanges require KYC of course to complete it is the main choice to be fully functional in using it.

Unlike the characteristics of "public" and "permanently stored" however,,, "traceability" for Bitcoin exists in different levels. Some wallet addresses are marked and everybody knows they belong to exchanges but with the use of several tools such as coin mixing, or even layer 2, or coinjoin, traceability becomes harder and harder.

And this is how the question is important for us.

if all that KYC thing comes around in the future , then i will definitely grab that Black market chances though maybe when that time comes i don't need to buy or purchase bitcoin because i already has what i wanted to earn .
years from now i maybe off buying bitcoin instead will be focusing in altcoin then.

To protect our privacy, we should use a new Bitcoin address each time we receive a new payment.we can use multiple wallets and BTC users actually care about privacy.

Yes, right now mostly are doing this all for money or more profit so just because of this if some exchange implementing KYC we have nothing from community because large number of members now feeling without this they can't stay here, so they're done this all very quickly without any issue even we have still many problems steal of data or assets.

In early days crypto was much better as we were able to do this all freely and have no issues with this all still many those care about their privacy they are doing this all through P2P even they are facing some fees issues, but they are still happy because they are doing this all freely and have no issues with privacy.

There are still there are many of them, P2P exchange will be the answer of those who care about their privacy, there is no need to go to the black market which is full of scammers and has no security for every transaction. But if you think it is basic KYC, there is nothing wrong with that as long as it does not involve uploading documents like valid ID. You can purchase bitcoin even without revealing your true identity.

I think as of now, it is a part of bitcoin adoption to face government legalization. Time will come, the concept of decentralized will become a centralized one.

if all CEX needed to use KYC, I would probably pick one exchange, and probably the most popular at the time. however, if there are still CEXs that don't use KYC, I'll probably use that. although there is a daily WD limit, but I think it's quite worth it. well, this is for the worst thought. other than that, I might still be able to find bitcoin sellers and make transactions directly if all CEX use KYC.
other than that, we don't know how many people actually hide their identity, because as far as I know, nowadays most crypto users will KYC to make trades, or withdrawals if it needs to be done.

That's certainly true, mate. A very small number of people actually care about their privacy. The rest are simply ignorant of what's happening in the real world. Convenience/ease-of-use is what matters most in today's society. It's no wonder why centralized exchanges and centralized wallet providers are dominating the crypto/Blockchain space. If people actually cared about privacy and decentralization, centralization wouldn't had prevailed by now.

Things aside, I believe that P2P platforms and decentralized exchanges are excellent for preserving your privacy. But they're often constrained by low liquidity and somewhat-high fees. At least, it's better something than nothing. As long as it's possible to achieve privacy with Bitcoin, there should be nothing to worry about. Just my opinion :)