How to buy/sell bitcoins without giving your ID

In my article, Which cryptocurrency exchange is the cheapest, I compared some centralized exchanges that allow you to by bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies at the lowest cost. The main problem with that is that you must give one or several proof of your identity. This requirement, resulting from mandatory compliance with local regulation, is called KYC for Know Your Customer. You must at least give your full name and a scan of your ID card or passport but in most case they ask even more. Let’s list what they will collect:

• Full name
• Scan of ID
• Complete residential address
• Scan of an utility bill as proof of residence
• Mobile number (often justify for the second factor authentication or recovery of account)
• Selfies photo of yourself holding your ID or even sometimes you must conduct a short video interview
• Bank account number and name associated with it
• How much you plan to invest and what is the source of these found
• Net worth and income to prove the above
• … and that is not even counting every other information they will gather on you like
• IP address form everywhere you login
• Login time
• Amount of cash and cryptocurrencies hold in account
• Trading history
• And possibly even much more when using their own mobile app

Some will argue that you have no choice, you must comply with regulation and they need to confirm who is using the account for security reason or something. Sure but do they really need to collect and keep that much data? And for how long?

Do you trust the company running this exchange to keep your data securely and not abuse them for their own profit in anyway? Maybe you trust Kraken, Bitstamp or Coinbase. Sure they have a pretty solid reputation in the industry. Just like FTX did until last November. Or like MtGox or BTCe in the early days of Bitcoin exchange.

Any company could turn to the wrong side, or got victim of a hack and all your data could be release to the best bidder online or even free to view by anyone able to search 5min on some Tor Onion websites. And of course government have in most country (including Switzerland) to ask information about any customer with or sometimes even without suspicion. Better be sure you filled up all your tax form properly since you start using cryptocurrency exchanges. All of this happened and will continue to happen even more in the future.

Non-KYC bitcoins

Fortunately there is an alternative. In Switzerland and many country it’s still legal to buy and sell bitcoins without giving away your identity. The use of non-KYC exchanges is on part with the Bitcoin philosophy which value privacy and anonymity and tend to create a decentralized and trustless system for financial transactions. While it usually don’t come with the lowest cost (see my article, Which cryptocurrency exchange is the cheapest?), buying Bitcoin without giving away your identity could be more valuable than the saving in fee from KYC exchange.

For residents of some less open countries or people in specific situations, it might be better that their government, bank or potential attacker should not know about if and how many bitcoins they own. Money could be confiscated, individual could face fines, bank account blocked or closed and even in extreme cases physical integrity threatened. There are countless examples that happened in all countries around the world for all of if and much more.

Here I will give a non exhaustive list of app and services, to buy and sell bitcoins without KYC. I tested them personally and they are quite trusted by Bitcoin communities (depending on the regions they are operating in). I try to list the potential information collected, but I will not go in detail about what can be collected by the app or website, like IP address, device information,… I tested at least once each of them to have a feeling of the UX and sorted them by the most user friendly to the more advance solution from my point of view.

Bity

Exchange type: centralized with non-KYC option
Services: buy and sell bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies at market price
Payment methods: bank transfer
Fee: 0.8% + 0.4% for non-KYC guest user + margin on exchange rate + network fee
Limits non-KYC: 1’000 CHF/day, 100’000 CHF/year
Platform: mobile app (Android and iOS)
Potential information collected: Bank account and full name associated to it.
Operating from: Switzerland

Pros: Easy to use, bitcoin only, app act as a non-custodial wallet (backup with a seed phrase) but it’s possible to receive the bitcoins directly on our own wallet (like a hardware wallet, multi-sign wallet or any wallet of our choice).

Cons: No control over the exchange rate which can vary a lot between the initiation of the bank transfer and the actual exchange time. Additional fee for non-KYC users. The exchange rate comes with a significant margin over the average Bitcoin price and it can adds quite a lot of hidden fee to the final cost.

Relai

Exchange type: centralized with non-KYC option
Services: buy and sell bitcoins at market price
Payment methods: bank transfer, credit card (with a surcharge)
Fee: between 1% to 2.5% (+ 1.5 to 3% for credit cards) + some margin on exchange rate
Limits non-KYC: 1’000 CHF/day, 100’000 CHF/year
Platform: mobile app (Android and iOS)
Potential information collected: Bank account and full name associated to it.
Operating from: Switzerland

Pros: Easy to use, bitcoin only, app act as a non-custodial wallet (backup with a seed phrase) but it’s possible to receive the bitcoins directly on our own wallet (like a hardware wallet, multi-sign wallet or any wallet of our choice).

Cons: No control over the exchange rate which can vary a lot between the initiation of the bank transfer and the actual exchange time. The advertise 1% fee can only be reach under several conditions (refer a friend or get referred, buy more than 100CHF at a time, setup a recurring buy order).

MtPelerin

Exchange type: centralized with non-KYC option
Services: buy and sell bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies
Payment methods: bank transfer, credit card (with a surcharge)
Fee: between 0 and 1.3% for bank transfer (1.20 CHF base fee + 2.5 to 3.4% for credit cards) + some margin on exchange rate
Limits non-KYC: 1’000 CHF/day, 100’000 CHF/year
Platform: mobile app (Android and iOS)
Potential information collected: None if paid at Post Office. Bank account and full name associated to it if paid with your bank account directly.
Operating from: Switzerland

Pros: First 500CHF per year are free, then it’s 1.3% and goes down with yearly volume up to 0.9% minimum. App act as a non-custodial wallet (backup with a seed phrase). Possibility to buy without revealing your bank account by paying a standard bill at any Swiss Post office. It offer Bitcoin lightning with LN address (but it’s custodial, see cons).

Cons: No control over the exchange rate which can vary a lot between the initiation of the bank transfer and the actual exchange time. Could be slightly intimidating and potentially confusing for new users to have several cryptocurrencies and blockchain all in the same app. Bitcoin is available non-custodial on-chain or custodial on Lightning network (which is not clearly stated) and it’s not possible to swap between on-chain and Lightning directly.

Peach

Exchange type: P2P non-KYC with centralized coordination
Services: buy and sell bitcoins P2P with escrow service
Payment methods: Revolut, Wise, Twint, PayPal, bank transfer (SEPA instant only) and more regional options for some countries. Possility to do face to face exchange during meetup (cash in hand) using Peach as escrow.
Fee: 2% + seller choose a premium rate over the market price
Limits non-KYC: 1’000 CHF/day, 100’000 CHF/year
Platform: beta mobile app (Android and iOS)
Potential information collected: None, everything is only stored on your device and send encrypted to the other peer. But like all other P2P solutions, you must share with the buyer/seller (a complete stranger) your payment information, like your Revolut username, mobile number of Twint account, IBAN number of SEPA instant account.
Operating from: Switzerland

Pros: Easy to use, several payment options (only instant), possibility to buy/sell a fixed amount or any amount within a range. You can confirm the conversion rate before accepting an offer, no bad surprise you know exactly how much you will get before you accept it.
The high premium from the offers (see cons below) makes it less interesting to buy but still interesting to sell if you can sell with 5-8% premium (which is still getting fulfilled in a day) or even higher if you are more patient.

Cons: Low liquidity for some currency and payment options, mostly Revolut in EUR or GBP is used. If you place an offer with Revolut in EUR/GBP/USD, you should get a matched offer in a few hours, maximum a day, which could be seen as slow compare to other options.
Risk of getting your Revolut account blocked (it happened to many users that did several transactions in a short period, never happened to me after several transactions). Possibility same risk for other payment option depending on the company policy. You must share your Revolut username or your mobile number (Twint) with a stanger.
There was no fee during the beta phase but now there is a 2% fee for Peach on top of the premium from the seller. In the beginning, when there were no fee, I was able to buy some Bitcoin with low premium (0 to 4%) but these last days, since the new update, I never see any offer below 10% premium (so I guess 8% for seller + 2% for Peach), which I consider way too high. It should improve with popularity increasing.

RoboSats

Exchange type: P2P non-KYC accessible over Tor optionally self-hosted
Services: buy and sell bitcoins over Lightning Network P2P with escrow service
Payment methods: anything instant like Revout, Wise, Twint, PayPal, bank transfer (SEPA instant only), WeChat Pay, AliPay, Venmo, PayPal, N26, GPay, M-Pesa, Amazon gift cards and many many more I never heard about. Including as well other cryptocurrency like Monero and USDT and possiblity to setup a face to face exchange using RobotSats as an escrow.
Fee: 0 but seller choose a premium rate over the market price
Limits non-KYC: 1’000 CHF/day, 100’000 CHF/year
Platform: mobile app (Android and iOS)
Operating from: unknown

Pros: You can self-host the service, no (lower) risk that it get offline, censored, closed. Accessible using Tor onion address for more privacy and no need to install an app. You can generate as many identity (account) as possible without sharing any information and you can manage multiple identity in parallel.
There is a lot, I mean a ton, of payment options but the liquidity can stay low for most methods (open offers and how fast a new offer get matched).
When using with Revolut in EUR, the premium on offers when you want to buy Bitcoin is usually lower than Peach.

Cons: Slightly more complicated to use as you need Tor browser and Bitcoin Lightning, the later require you to have enough liquidity on your Lightning channels if you use a non-custodial wallet with self managed channels (as you should). Similar risk than Peach to get your Revolut (or other payment accounts) flagged as suspicious and potentially closed. You must share with a stranger your Revolut username or Twint mobile number.
The user interface is not always clear when an offer is to buy or sell or if you want to place an offer to buy or sell and what will be the premium (above or below market price).
The user interface might be buggy from time to time with all images glitching, but it might be only on my device.

Bisq

Exchange type: P2P non-KYC using fully P2P app for coordination
Services: buy and sell bitcoins P2P with optional escrow service
Payment methods: almost anything like Revout, Wise, PayPal, bank transfer (SEPA, SIC,…), other cryptocurrencies, gift cards, but not Twint (yet)
Fee: buyer and seller choose a premium rate over the market price for placing the order
Limits non-KYC: not applicable
Platform: mobile app (Android and iOS)
Operating from: anywhere, everywhere and nowhere
Website: https://bisq.network

Pros: Fully free and open source.
There is no centralized server to make the network working, so even if the authors would be pressured to put the website offline, you would still be able to run the software and connect with other peers to do exchanges.
The app offer almost any payment methods you can imagine and if one is missing you can suggest to thee devs to add it from the app repo.

Cons: It works only on desktop, not on mobile, and you must let the software run to keep your offers online and available. It’s not even running on ARM, so forget about using a cheap, small, energy friendly Raspberry Pi or similar to run the app. You need an intel/amd Linux, MacOS or Windows machine that run if possible 24/7 to use it properly. You can still take offer listed and switch off once the transaction is completed, thus spend less time with your machine running, but you will be forced to keep it on until the transaction is confirmed. Also taking offer imply that you must accept the high premium request from sellers/buyers that keep their machine running to have an open offer to take.
Additionally you still have the same cons as other services, need to give you Revolut username, phone number and in some case you IBAN and real name, to a complete stranger to make/take a transaction. And you also have the risk of getting your Revolut and other banking account closed if the company/bank behind decide that they don’t like it.

Conclusion

There are several options to buy and sell Bitcoin without (or with limited) KYC. Non-KYC bitcoins are precious in the way that it’s much harder to get linked back to you in case your government want to size your bitcoins or whatever. Just be careful to keep them on a wallet that is not linked with KYC bitcoins, otherwise it will loose most of it’s interest. It’s also a good way to buy/sell bitcoins without have the risk that some centralized exchange get hacked an leak all your personal information, name, address, email, ID photo, net worth, revenue, …

Easy of use, payment methods accepted, fee and premium greatly vary among the services and apps. I would recommend to use Bity, MtPelerin or Relai to buy with a reasonable fee the market is not moving too sharply when buying. Special mention to MtPelerin for offering payment by QR bill that can be pay completely anonymously at any Post Office in Switzerland.
If you want to use alternative payment methods or when the market is moving fast it might worth paying some extra premium to buy on Peach or RoboSats, even if I would not buy in fast moving market personally.
If you want to sell Bitcoin, you should definitely give Peach or Robosats a try as there is opportunity to sell with a pretty good premium over market price.
If you have a machine to run Bisq 24/7 it could be a good opportunity to buy and sell at a premium as well.

In any case I would recommend anyone to try 2 or 3 of these services/app to be ready to use them in the future if you really need it. You never know, you bank might go bankrupt tomorrow and you would need a fast way to get some cash to pay your bills. Or your cryptocurrency exchange might be a massive fraud that run with your money (hopefully not during the few days you had cash/crypto on it) and you would need another option to buy your next bitcoins without giving your ID, face picture and scan of your first born child birth certificate.

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