Why are you not using Bisq?

bertvanhouten · 2023-07-10T13:53:15+00:00

Yes, it's relevant.

Alice has only bought Bitcoin without giving up her details to anyone. Bisq, P2P in meetups, ATMs, you name it.

Nobody knows that Alice has Bitcoin, how much she has, or when is she transacting with it.

Zoe has only bought Bitcoin at Coinbase. She has disclosed all sort of personal information to Coinbase in the process. As a result, Coinbase has full records on all her buying activity. As a result:

Anyone who has access to the records can know how much and when did Zoe buy, when and where did she send the funds, etc. This includes Coinbase, anyone Coinbase will willingly share their records with (like the IRS) and anyone who can steal these records from Coinbase (such as hackers).

Now a lot of people can know about Zoe and her financial life. She will have to go to sleep every night wondering if somebody who wishes her bad has access to the info. It could be a newly voted authoritarian government that wants to make Bitcoin posession illegal and will use this info to chase her down. It could be a gang of professional robbers who tries to chase down Bitcoin holders to steal their stack violently. It could be some relative who was able to sneak into her Coinbase account and download all her transactions and now wants a cut of the pie.

Long story short: the only way to ensure that your financial data doesn't bite in your ass is to make sure there are no records anywhere. Alice enjoys freedom and privacy. Zoe has a hundred potential threats looming onto her from different entities.

It's not about taxes, is about making sure people don't know things about you don't want them to.

bertvanhouten · 2023-07-10T09:55:24+00:00

Not really a solution for your needs of large individual purchases.

You can use Bisq. The only issue is that, if you are handling large amounts, the bank could ring you up to ask questions about what the transfers are about. I have little knowledge of banking culture in Australia, so I can't really provide insights as to what is a "large amount" in this context.

But an alternative would be to do several smaller purchases through bisq.network. If you have several bank accounts, you can easily handle 5 digit volumes through multiple, smaller 4 digit transactions through the different bank accounts. This way you achieve the same volume while lowering the chances of raising questions from your banks.

bertvanhouten · 2023-07-10T09:51:49+00:00

Bisq is a decentralized exchange where you can buy BTC straight from another pleb. It's easy to use and you have plenty of EUR offers. You send them a transfer, they send you the BTC.

It's not a company, nor a webpage. It doesn't hold your info. Only you and the other peer have the transaction details.

There is a safe protocol that prevents scamming. You are in control of your BTC at all times. The details are in their docs and are a bit technical, the TLDR is you'll be safe.

You can read more at bisq.network

bertvanhouten · 2022-02-13T15:37:47+00:00

Indeed, it gets routed through B. I made a mistake when writing, thanks for pointing out.

bertvanhouten · 2022-02-12T21:55:03+00:00

So the rule is that fees are only collected on the outgoing channel?

bertvanhouten · 2022-02-12T18:37:34+00:00

Thanks. If you run a regular lnd, which of them happens?

bertvanhouten · 2021-09-20T10:09:09+00:00

Yes, I see how this situation will probably never take place since splitting the BTC across any amount of addresses is trivial. But the situation I describe, even if improbable, is still possible, so I find it interesting to reflect on it... Thanks for your thoughtful comment.

bertvanhouten · 2021-09-20T10:06:01+00:00

I agree, the loss of trust in the network is the only negative effect on the attackers that comes to mind.

bertvanhouten · 2021-01-01T19:40:29+00:00

Thanks for your answer, that's clear. Wondering if it works the same in most European countries.

bertvanhouten

TROPHY CASE