The rise of the no KYC exchanger

[alani123]

Very shortly after bitcointalk banned advertising, promotional threads and linking to mixers, there appeared a plethora of no-KYC exchangers advertising at the same or similar rates of payment towards their members.

If there's so much demand for no-kyc exchanges then why don't we see any decentralized finance platform advertising here? Instead we only see some wholly centralized closed source sites doing so. In the meantime anyone could go to 1inch.io or openocean.finance and access in USD billions worth of liquidity across dozens of different blockchains with varying degrees of trustlessness and none of them requiring KYC to access all of their liquidity.

Centralized no KYC exchanges have 0 competitive advantage to decentralized platforms. In a way, we're already close to Satoshi's vision in that regard thanks to the solutions that are available, and yet here on bitcointalk advertising is dominated by centralized platforms. Kinda ironic. The only advantage I see to centralized no-KYC exchanges is that you're able to deposit BTC on-chain and withdraw on the same chain simply with the funds coming from another address. If the goal was to exchange funds from one crypto to another then there would be absolutely no reason to use a centralized clearing house. But that's clearly not it.

While I personally have nothing against this type of promotion, it's quite obvious that this is a simple re-branding of the centralized mixer advertising campaigns. So it's not a question of if, but when will the feds start going after these types of websites too. Arresting their founders, seizing all user funds, pursuing aggressive extradition procedures, giving the administrators extremely long sentences by throwing the book towards them in court etc.

inb4 I want to clarify something:
I'm not making this thread to bash anyone. I respect that there's demand for these services so if they offer funds for promotion it's perfectly ethical in my book to promote them. After all it's not the act of transferring money that endangers lives. And nevertheless nearly all of the world's money laundering happens in USD, not BTC or crypto in general.
I just know that FEDs are ruthless and wanted to say what's on my mind. Maybe when the first no-KYC exchanger gets shutdown you'll remember me.

[tbct_mt2]

Very shortly after bitcointalk banned advertising, promotional threads and linking to mixers, there appeared a plethora of no-KYC exchangers advertising at the same or similar rates of payment towards their members.

If there's so much demand for no-kyc exchanges then why don't we see any decentralized finance platform advertising here?

There are some no KYC exchanges are advertising here but with some restrictions from theymos related to rules applied in Mixers ban months ago.

Mixers to be banned. See definition of a mixer in the announcement.

It's because in cryptocurrency market, numbers of true decentralized exchanges are limited. You can have many Decentralized exchanges from Coinmarketcap or Coingecko but true DEX are less than what they list.

Find true DEX there https://kycnot.me/

[OmegaStarScream]

Very shortly after bitcointalk banned advertising, promotional threads and linking to mixers, there appeared a plethora of no-KYC exchangers advertising at the same or similar rates of payment towards their members.

If there's so much demand for no-kyc exchanges then why don't we see any decentralized finance platform advertising here? Instead we only see some wholly centralized closed source sites doing so. In the meantime anyone could go to 1inch.io or openocean.finance and access in USD billions worth of liquidity across dozens of different blockchains with varying degrees of trustlessness and none of them requiring KYC to access all of their liquidity.

The problem here is with the assets. Sure, there are decentralized non KYC platforms but you can't use Bitcoin with the mentioned platforms. You can use WBTC, but not bitcoin. You can also not use privacy-based coins like Monero. It's just Ethereum (or EVM) based tokens.

I'm pretty sure that whoever is interested in non KYC platforms and only wants to swap tokens, is already using the platforms you mentioned.

[dzungmobile]

you can't use Bitcoin with the mentioned platforms. You can use WBTC, but not bitcoin. You can also not use privacy-based coins like Monero. It's just Ethereum (or EVM) based tokens.

WBTC and similar tokens are bad and very risky to use. They are not bitcoins like you said. Their value pegs to Bitcoin value can lose anytime, we can not know about future and pegs of these altcoin tokens. They are tokens, not coins.

Their pegs to bitcoin can be lost if some technical problems happen with these blockchains on which those tokens deployed or with problems from these token projects. At least there are two big risks, not only one.

Newbies will be confused with those Bitcoin tokens and don't know about these risks.

Definition of tokens

[alani123]

Very shortly after bitcointalk banned advertising, promotional threads and linking to mixers, there appeared a plethora of no-KYC exchangers advertising at the same or similar rates of payment towards their members.

If there's so much demand for no-kyc exchanges then why don't we see any decentralized finance platform advertising here? Instead we only see some wholly centralized closed source sites doing so. In the meantime anyone could go to 1inch.io or openocean.finance and access in USD billions worth of liquidity across dozens of different blockchains with varying degrees of trustlessness and none of them requiring KYC to access all of their liquidity.

The problem here is with the assets. Sure, there are decentralized non KYC platforms but you can't use Bitcoin with the mentioned platforms. You can use WBTC, but not bitcoin. You can also not use privacy-based coins like Monero. It's just Ethereum (or EVM) based tokens.

I'm pretty sure that whoever is interested in non KYC platforms and only wants to swap tokens, is already using the platforms you mentioned.

That's kind of my point though.
Those looking to swap cryptocurrency from coin A to coin B, as the front for these operations claims, no one would be using them as there already exist cheaper and faster DEX solutions.
Since the purpose is to deposit BTC and mix it for most of their clients, a DEX won't do because the coins in many occasions have to pass through a centralized "wrapping" and "unwrapping" contract that could very well be pressured to enact blocks on certain addresses. Much like many Ethereum nodes now enforce OFAC compliance on the validator level.
Ofc there are also chains that have tried to decentralize their bridging process and make it more immutable but we don't see that discussed here probably because BTC to BTC mixing is more marketable.

[joker_josue]

While I personally have nothing against this type of promotion, it's quite obvious that this is a simple re-branding of the centralized mixer advertising campaigns. So it's not a question of if, but when will the feds start going after these types of websites too. Arresting their founders, seizing all user funds, pursuing aggressive extradition procedures, giving the administrators extremely long sentences by throwing the book towards them in court etc.

Sometimes there is a lot of focus on decentralized elements without KYC or services without KYC, which could be in the path of authorities.

Not exactly. What prompted the authorities to attack some mixers was the fact that they clearly knew they were being used for illegal purposes. It's one thing for anyone to go to the mix and make an exchange, it's another for a criminal group to privately ask the mix to exchange 10BTC, offering a bonus of 1BTC to the owner of the mixer to do so.

[JeromeTash]

Very shortly after bitcointalk banned advertising, promotional threads and linking to mixers, there appeared a plethora of no-KYC exchangers advertising at the same or similar rates of payment towards their members.

Not even close to how it was back when Mixers were still allowed here

Look through the list of such services being advertised. It's just only one services that is new here, the other 2 were here even before the Mixer ban took effect, so It doesn't seem like "rebranding" as you insinuate.

If there's so much demand for no-kyc exchanges then why don't we see any decentralized finance platform advertising here?

Who wants to trade BTC ERC20 tokens or BTC TRC20 token when they have the real BTC?

Instead we only see some wholly centralized closed source sites doing so. In the meantime anyone could go to 1inch.io or openocean.finance and access in USD billions worth of liquidity across dozens of different blockchains with varying degrees of trustlessness and none of them requiring KYC to access all of their liquidity.

Centralized no KYC exchanges have 0 competitive advantage to decentralized platforms.

The same DeFis have made some people lose lots of money due to "Vulnerabilities"

Another thing is, centralized platforms do have lots of liquidity and are simple to use as compared to Dexes. This is the bitter truth, and it's why most people who are new in crypto continue to use them even if they require KYC

[alani123]

If there's so much demand for no-kyc exchanges then why don't we see any decentralized finance platform advertising here?

Who wants to trade BTC ERC20 tokens or BTC TRC20 token when they have the real BTC?

Cross chain trading is a thing. You can trade in your BTC and have it pass through several chains to be traded to any coin or token you want on any almost chain. These solutions exist, and one site I linked in the OP (openocean) also has a mutli-chain widget.

The tech exists. And there's also some solutions being in various states of functionality for decentralized swapping of btc with monero and other coins. Some of these are also linked in the first response this thread received (kycnot.me). But the issue with these platforms is that they're not marketable if they're decentralized. For instance, atomic swaps for BTC<->XMR are in the main Monero wallet since 2021: https://www.getmonero.org/2021/08/20/atomic-swaps.html

That should mean that swapping of different cryptocurrencies is viable in a fully anonymous, untraceable decentralized manner. What's the place for centralized clearing houses without KYC then? Of course having a competitive disadvantage means that they need the advertising. But let's not pretend that there aren't better solutions.

[tranthidung]

Cross chain trading is a thing. You can trade in your BTC and have it pass through several chains to be traded to any coin or token you want on any almost chain. These solutions exist, and one site I linked in the OP (openocean) also has a mutli-chain widget.

The tech exists.

The tech and solution exist but they're unsafe.

Risk of cross chain bridge hack is not small and there are some big hacks on cryptocurrency bridges. If you want safety and security, you will not choose this option.

Vulnerabilities in Cross-chain Bridge Protocols Emerge as Top Security Risk.

I would prefer to do some middle steps to be safe than using cross chain bridges directly with higher risk.

Are you aware that a lot of DeFi services ask you to do KYC in order to access a number of features?

It is another thing for consideration. Hilarious that DeFi services ask KYC but it makes sense because their founders can be requested by governments. DeFi platforms with well-known founders, big risk that KYC might come anytime.

[NotATether]

Are you aware that a lot of DeFi services ask you to do KYC in order to access a number of features?

[Lucius]

Very shortly after bitcointalk banned advertising, promotional threads and linking to mixers, there appeared a plethora of no-KYC exchangers advertising at the same or similar rates of payment towards their members.

I don't see similarities in pay rates if you are referring to sig campaigns and not something else - mixers used to pay over $200 a week for Hero/Legendary, and today the maximum any member can get is $120 a week.

inb4 I want to clarify something:
I'm not making this thread to bash anyone. I respect that there's demand for these services so if they offer funds for promotion it's perfectly ethical in my book to promote them. After all it's not the act of transferring money that endangers lives. And nevertheless nearly all of the world's money laundering happens in USD, not BTC or crypto in general.
I just know that FEDs are ruthless and wanted to say what's on my mind. Maybe when the first no-KYC exchanger gets shutdown you'll remember me.

What you actually want to say (and you didn't write) is that the admin should preemptively ban no-KYC exchanges because the forum could be under the magnifying glass of various agencies that think that privacy is something that should be sought and destroyed in every possible way?

I think you are going a bit too far in your speculations, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion...

[cabron]

No government yet tried to shut down Yobit.com. The exchange still doesn't ask for KYC and is operating as good as it was back then. The only problem they have is that it's banned here. They have issues with altcoins withdrawal and some other accusations, other than that the exchange works fine as users are still using them. I reckon US authorities couldn't stop the exchange

The exchange today claiming no KYC seems not true even the ones claiming they are decentralized, it's still reachable by the government especially if they have the CEO tweeting on x.com. The government could just visit the guy and turn over their exchange.

[holydarkness]

Oh come on, are we really going to go down this path, again? We're going backward from what the forum we envisioned a couple years ago. Wait... cross all that. Just in case I jumped into a wrong conclusion, allow me to be the one to "allow" you to clarify what you're trying to say here, because I've read your opening post several times, and the impression I get is as what I wrote on my first sentence. Unless I am wrong and that's not what you try to convey with this thread? What's the real message of this thread, again?

[BlackHatCoiner]

Centralized no KYC exchanges have 0 competitive advantage to decentralized platforms.

I disagree. First of all, the only truly decentralized exchange is Bisq, any other I've seen is either semi-centralized, or requires you to buy a shitcoin. Second of all, here's how a centralized swap service might compete:

• It has plethora of options to trade your bitcoin with. In Bisq, the options for altcoins are less than 10.
• It is instant.
• It usually has sufficient liquidity.
• Can be accessed via a browser anonymously, without installing any software.

People use them, so that definitely speaks for itself. There is need for these services, apparently.

[alani123]

Are you aware that a lot of DeFi services ask you to do KYC in order to access a number of features?

No, I've used maybe hundreds of DeFi platforms but I've never encountered this.
Bitcoin is my #1 forever but I'm not a purist. I know DeFi's weaknesses but I'll use things where there's opportunities for money to be made.
Care to elaborate on what you mean though as I'm curious?

Very shortly after bitcointalk banned advertising, promotional threads and linking to mixers, there appeared a plethora of no-KYC exchangers advertising at the same or similar rates of payment towards their members.

I don't see similarities in pay rates if you are referring to sig campaigns and not something else - mixers used to pay over $200 a week for Hero/Legendary, and today the maximum any member can get is $120 a week.

It is comparative. Still the highest paid campaigns are of this kind. It would be too much of a coincidence that these services started coming around one after another and paying the most only after mixers ceased.

What you actually want to say (and you didn't write) is that the admin should preemptively ban no-KYC exchanges

No please don't make assumptions like that about people's opinions.
I even said the opposite in the OP. And to take it a step further, the stricter this forum becomes on what are permissible uses of crypto the more harm it does to the community and even to the general spirit of using BTC.
But banning mixers was a necessary evil for this forum which I understand completely.

It's my predictions that no KYC exchangers will eventually start getting hunted down as notorious markets.
The amount of money that gets "washed" there is minuscule compared to cash transactions. But for the FEDs it's also a reputation issue.
Like for instance with z-library or thepiratebay or megaupload, they keep going after the initial owners even so much time later and so viciously, for mere piracy of movies that in no conceivable way could do harm.

If something gets labeled as a notorious market, it means it disturbs the status quo too much and American FEDs are tasked with taking the operators out of the way. We've seen countless examples in our own space as well. BTC-e is one of many. If you read the history what I'm saying is not out of the ordinary. It's a travesty actually. I hope it doesn't happen, but I also think it's unrealistic to not expect it.

Centralized no KYC exchanges have 0 competitive advantage to decentralized platforms.

I disagree. First of all, the only truly decentralized exchange is Bisq, any other I've seen is either semi-centralized, or requires you to buy a shitcoin. Second of all, here's how a centralized swap service might compete:

• It has plethora of options to trade your bitcoin with. In Bisq, the options for altcoins are less than 10.
• It is instant.
• It usually has sufficient liquidity.
• Can be accessed via a browser anonymously, without installing any software.

People use them, so that definitely speaks for itself. There is need for these services, apparently.

So much for these advantages. Other than the no KYC aspect I'll recognize that it requires no account. I've used a few of them to test the water and I noticed by the addresses that send/receive coins oftentimes are associated directly with Binance.com. So there's little innovation here, it's just an intermediary for using a real exchange with a fee added on top.  

DeFi is catching up fast. Surely it's not pefect and there's a distinct lack of anonymous on-ramps. But these issues apply to most of crypto still to this day. Even in terms of buying BTC. What gives me hope is that also Atomic swaps are in fashion again. Monero is testing direct atomic swaps with ETH. Once this gets more liquidity we'll have a perfect untraceable and actually anon way to on-ramp onto DeFi. So the decentralized solutions are gaining ground faster than many people here realize.

[Stalker22]

If there's so much demand for no-kyc exchanges then why don't we see any decentralized finance platform advertising here?
~

The decentralized platforms are cool and all, but they are limited in what they support crypto-wise. The thing is, those platforms dont work so well with assets like actual Bitcoin or Litecoin - just Ethereum-based tokens and wrapped versions.  So I guess that explains why those centralized exchanges fill that niche for people wanting to trade stuff like Bitcoin without KYC.  And Im not really sure that there is a No-KYC exchange that is promoted here that supports exchange for the same asset you deposited, as you claim.

[FinneysTrueVision]

Decentralized exchanges don’t advertise on BitcoinTalk probably because it is easier to reach their core demographic through other means. They get much more bang for their buck by incentivizing users for completing tasks on Zealy or Galxe. A signature campaign just won’t get you that same level of engagement.

The tech and solution exist but they're unsafe.

Risk of cross chain bridge hack is not small and there are some big hacks on cryptocurrency bridges. If you want safety and security, you will not choose this option.

Vulnerabilities in Cross-chain Bridge Protocols Emerge as Top Security Risk.

I would prefer to do some middle steps to be safe than using cross chain bridges directly with higher risk.

That Chainalysis article is two years old and security has greatly improved since. I can’t remember the last time there was a significant hack involving a cross-chain bridge. Centralized instant exchanges also get hacked. Shapeshift was once the most popular of these exchanges and they were famously hacked by one of their employees. FixedFloat suffered two major exploits this year alone.

Are you aware that a lot of DeFi services ask you to do KYC in order to access a number of features?

There are hundreds of DeFi services out there and KYC is non-existent in 99% of them. There might be certain things like 1 Inch or Metamask branded debit cards that require KYC but these are issued by traditional financial institutions and don’t have much to do with DeFi. KYC-only pools are possible on Uniswap through third party plugins but I am not aware of any that are currently active.

[LoyceV]

there appeared a plethora of no-KYC exchangers advertising at the same or similar rates of payment towards their members.

I haven't seen any offers that get even close to $300 per week lately.

Centralized no KYC exchanges have 0 competitive advantage to decentralized platforms.

If that would be true, nobody would use centralized exchanges. I just checked the first decentralized platform I could find: it requires me to download, trust and run software. I'm not going to do that.

The problem here is with the assets. Sure, there are decentralized non KYC platforms but you can't use Bitcoin with the mentioned platforms. You can use WBTC, but not bitcoin.

And that's the next problem indeed. The company that created "WBTC" loves pretending it's real Bitcoin, because they earn money from it. Meanwhile, that company is hiding in the Seychelles. It doesn't matter if the exchange is decentralized as long as the tokens are centrally controlled.

That's kind of my point though.
Those looking to swap cryptocurrency from coin A to coin B, as the front for these operations claims, no one would be using them as there already exist cheaper and faster DEX solutions.
Since the purpose is to deposit BTC and mix it for most of their clients, a DEX won't do because the coins in many occasions have to pass through a centralized "wrapping" and "unwrapping" contract that could very well be pressured to enact blocks on certain addresses.

You're missing the point and started from the wrong assumption. You assume people want to mix their coins, I assume people don't want to touch anything "wrapped". The word itself is a scam. Lost "wrapped" coins are no longer a donation to everyone, they're a donation to the wrapper. Would you accept "LoycedBitcoin" if I told you it's exactly the same?

The same DeFis have made some people lose lots of money due to "Vulnerabilities"

Anything that calls itself "DeFi" and uses a centralized website is a scam. I've always considered it to be just the next hype after the previous hype, and it's already replaced by several other hypes. All of it has one thing in common: it's created to make the creator richer.

Are you aware that a lot of DeFi services ask you to do KYC in order to access a number of features?

Lol. That's less De, more Fi.

It's my predictions that no KYC exchangers will eventually start getting hunted down as notorious markets.

Many of the exchanges (and casinos for that matter) that didn't ask KYC when I started in crypto, ask for it now. Regulatory pressure and growing too big made them change their business. But it's like torrent sites: new ones are created every day. Some of them are scams, some use KYC as an excuse to scam, and some just do what they promise (at least for now).
TL;DR: I agree that they'll feel an increasing government pressure, but I expect a never ending cat and mouse game.

[NotATether]

Are you aware that a lot of DeFi services ask you to do KYC in order to access a number of features?

No, I've used maybe hundreds of DeFi platforms but I've never encountered this.
Bitcoin is my #1 forever but I'm not a purist. I know DeFi's weaknesses but I'll use things where there's opportunities for money to be made.
Care to elaborate on what you mean though as I'm curious?

If you use any of these service as an on-ramp for buying crypto or an off-ramp for selling crypto to fiat or ordering a card then their partners require you to verify your identity.

[Lucius]

No government yet tried to shut down Yobit.com. The exchange still doesn't ask for KYC and is operating as good as it was back then. The only problem they have is that it's banned here.
~snip~

Do you expect the country where that CEX is located to do anything about it? Well, they are corrupt from the top of the pyramid down to the clerk in the post office. I don't know what makes you conclude that they still work as well as before? I've had several hundred refs there since the day they were promoted on this forum, none of them are active anymore.

Very shortly after bitcointalk banned advertising, promotional threads and linking to mixers, there appeared a plethora of no-KYC exchangers advertising at the same or similar rates of payment towards their members.

I don't see similarities in pay rates if you are referring to sig campaigns and not something else - mixers used to pay over $200 a week for Hero/Legendary, and today the maximum any member can get is $120 a week.

It is comparative. Still the highest paid campaigns are of this kind. It would be too much of a coincidence that these services started coming around one after another and paying the most only after mixers ceased.

How can it be comparative if mixers paid $200 to $250 per week or even up to $300 per week (CM), and today the maximum is $120 for staff, while the others have a maximum of $100 - we are talking about more than a 50% reduction in pay rates - the same as they pay for gambling sig campaigns.

What you actually want to say (and you didn't write) is that the admin should preemptively ban no-KYC exchanges

No please don't make assumptions like that about people's opinions.
I even said the opposite in the OP. And to take it a step further, the stricter this forum becomes on what are permissible uses of crypto the more harm it does to the community and even to the general spirit of using BTC.
But banning mixers was a necessary evil for this forum which I understand completely.

It's my predictions that no KYC exchangers will eventually start getting hunted down as notorious markets.
The amount of money that gets "washed" there is minuscule compared to cash transactions. But for the FEDs it's also a reputation issue.
Like for instance with z-library or thepiratebay or megaupload, they keep going after the initial owners even so much time later and so viciously, for mere piracy of movies that in no conceivable way could do harm.

If something gets labeled as a notorious market, it means it disturbs the status quo too much and American FEDs are tasked with taking the operators out of the way. We've seen countless examples in our own space as well. BTC-e is one of many. If you read the history what I'm saying is not out of the ordinary. It's a travesty actually. I hope it doesn't happen, but I also think it's unrealistic to not expect it.

I drew a conclusion from what you wrote and that's my opinion - otherwise what's the point of a discussion if we can't try to conclude what your motive is for opening this topic? Something similar happened in the months before the mixers were banned from the forum, and some "prominent" members obviously had a role in this because they sent their "warnings" to all possible addresses.

As for politics, will the day come when we have to ask for permission to mention Bitcoin at all because some old fart will decide so in the country where all decisions are made? Some people obviously live in great fear of centralized systems that they have completely forgotten that they have a perfect tool for financial decentralization.