Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin ATMs? (8% fee)
LocalBitcoins.com?  (Is this safe?  How are the prices?)

Are there any other private methods of buying either Bitcoin or altcoins?

And what about selling?  Selling privately sounds even more difficult.  (And I don't trust Tether enough to hold my funds in it).

You're dealing with other people, so it's on a case-to-case basis. It's generally safe though. Prices shouldn't stray too far from exchanges, but exchanges are often better value-wise in my experience. You just have to check both when making deals.

The most private way to buy that I know of is to trade with fully anonymous crypto. Get Monero, exchange it for your coins of choice, and your identity should be fairly obscure. You could probably also do this in reverse if you're selling.

Private being defined as what exactly? Are you talking about general privacy, privacy from government prying, privacy from social engineering or data compilation and correlations? Are you talking about user-friendly privacy or fool-proof privacy?

There are endless situations, contingencies and considerations that would need to be clarified before a serious answer to your question could be considered.

You can purchase coins from a 3rd party exchanger here on the forum, then mix your coins with something like ChipMixer back to yourself and you're essentially a ghost. You can use exchanges that don't require KYC, or use an exchange that does require KYC depending on what you mean by "private". You might not realize it, but your question needs to be more specific or all you will be getting are opinions from each user about what works best for their situation, not yours.

trading face to face and with cash.

there are two problems with this method though.
first and obvious one is the risk of trading like this, because you have to trust the other person to not physically attack and rob you. the solution is pretty simple, trade in a public place and you can always bring someone with you. they say you can even do the trade in a police station, they allow this.

second is finding such person. this may be a little harder because you have to search the internet for them. and then find the best rates for the trade and then find someone who is close enough that can come to a location to do the trade.

Buying crypto's privately or anonymously can be done with face to face trading. Localbitcoins is a website that allows for this, although many vendors now require a for of ID verification.

Some websites allow for cash deposits which are kind of anonymous but most require you to at least verify a phone number.

there is no such thing exist. you can buy or sell using crypto exchanges like binance, bittrex, poloniex. Moreover, the other way to buy and hold is keeping your coin in private wallet and sell when you want.

localbitcoin is a fairy good way to sell/buy crypto, as far as I know, it is one of the best way, as you are in control of how and if you funds should be released to the seller/buyer.

it works as an escrow service, a place where buyers and sellers meet.

Once a trade is initiated, the bitcoin is saved to a middle man account,the localbtc server, and if you're trade isn't successful, you can cancel.

anyway, its what I use, don't take full advice from me though.

I'm not a trader there

The most private way to buy bitcoins is through other people using localbitcoins, but prices will be a lot bigger than market's prices.

I used it couple times and never had any problems, wasn't the easiest site to use, but definitely safe.

localbitcoins has removed the category for No ID in my country - Australia

Some of the sellers there do advertise with No ID in their ads but require a local phone number and IP address, so they aren't totally anon. It's more for their own records than KYC records though, but a trail will still exist.

Once you get some coins you also use DeepOnion for anonymous trades as well as some of the other suggestions above.

As I know as a newbie, one of the best ways to buy and sell crypto is localbitcoins.com (http://localbitcoins.com).

As many have said trading peer-to-peer is the most private way to buy and sell crypto. Note that it appears LocalBitcoins.com now requires ID from advertisers:

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7uclc7/localbitcoinscom_is_now_requiring_id_verification/

We've recently launched a peer-to-peer trading site at TrustedCoinTrades.com (https://trustedcointrades.com) as well, and ID is not required as we have other ways to identify trustworthy traders.

There are a variety of ways to buy and sell anonymously, including using gift card codes, meeting in person, or sending safe payments, such as money orders, by mail.