The whole point of me making certain payments with crypto is for it not to be attached to my name. obviously the crypto service company has my cc details. whats the most privacy friendly one? ty :)
Im not a big crypto person, but ive owned some in the past.
Isnt any reputable wallet pretty much the same? From my understanding, especially when using something like monero, the privacy falls apart at the exchange, not the wallet.
You’re right. Use a centralized exchange (CEX), and you’ll be KYCed and de-anonymized. That’s why most privacy-coin users prefer DEX. For normal persons, if privacy is important, using anonymous gift cards or prepaid credit cards, which you can easily buy without ID, is more practical, much better than KYC’ed crypto.
If you can somehow get KYC-free coin, maybe from DEX, i.e. if you can get it personally from your friend or peer without showing ID etc., then and only then, you have real private crypto. There are two popular ways for this (Bisq and LocalMonero). Another option called Haveno is hopefully usable soon, but that is still iffy.
Using DEX is not essentially difficult, much safer than you might imagine due to a mechanism called multisig, but maybe this option is not for normal people. When you feel experimental, you might want to try to buy a small amount via DEX, to see what it’s like. If you’re a popular programmer or artist, accepting donations in crypto is also an easy way to get no-KYC coin. Another option is p2pooling—you can get a few Euro worth of XMR relatively easily; yet this last option is time-consuming and not very effective. Many of p2pool users or full-node people are privacy-advocating volunteers, maintaining/participating the Monero network for philosophical reasons, fully aware it’s not profitable in terms of money. This might be part of the reason why Monero tx fees are almost zero (like 1/100 of that of BTC). At the same time, there are many sketchy people around crypto too 😟 Be careful and stay safe!
Let’s say I’m selling you a book B and accepting a crypto payment. What if you sent me your crypto C trusting me, but I exit-scammed, vanishing without sending you B you’re trying to buy? That’d be bad. But what if I sent you B first, trusting you’ll send me C as soon as you receive B? Now you could cheat and vanish without paying. That’d be bad too.
To prevent any of those things from happening, there are a few methods. One is a 2-of-3 escrow service. Another is 2-of-2. Both based on multisig. A simplified example follows.
The book costs you 100€. You’ll send, say, 200€ to address A controlled by both you and me via multi-signature. I too will send 100€ to A. Now Wallet A has 300€. When 2 persons (you and I) sign, there will be a 2-output transaction from A to you (100€) and to me (200€), but any single person can’t move fund from A. That’s multisig.
Now I must send you the book in a good condition, because I don’t want to lose my 100€. So I’ll act carefully and honestly, and sign when I ship the book. You too will be willing to sign when you receive the book, because otherwise you can’t retrieve your 100€ (you deposited 200, when the book only costs 100). Sometimes an unexpected accident may happen, but usually something like this will work pretty well. This is one way how a P2P platform works (not very accurate, but I hope you get the idea).
Most people use custodial wallets (they don’t really hold the coins) and multiple wallets have had hacks (or ““hacks””) where a lot of user funds were stolen.
I personally like
Electrum for Bitcoin
Feather for Monero
Guarda for Ethereum based coins because it allows you to generate a new address each time.
For privacy purposes, you probably want a wallet where you hold the keys in cryptocurrency yourself.
Custodial wallets are usually provided by a cryptocurrency exchange, but the other kind…
Non-custodial wallets do not require the outsourcing of trust to an institution, so no institution can refuse to complete transactions… users must remember that if they lose the private key, the coins in the wallet are essentially lost forever.
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Im not a big crypto person, but ive owned some in the past.
Isnt any reputable wallet pretty much the same? From my understanding, especially when using something like monero, the privacy falls apart at the exchange, not the wallet.
You’re right. Use a centralized exchange (CEX), and you’ll be KYCed and de-anonymized. That’s why most privacy-coin users prefer DEX. For normal persons, if privacy is important, using anonymous gift cards or prepaid credit cards, which you can easily buy without ID, is more practical, much better than KYC’ed crypto.
If you can somehow get KYC-free coin, maybe from DEX, i.e. if you can get it personally from your friend or peer without showing ID etc., then and only then, you have real private crypto. There are two popular ways for this (Bisq and LocalMonero). Another option called Haveno is hopefully usable soon, but that is still iffy.
Using DEX is not essentially difficult, much safer than you might imagine due to a mechanism called multisig, but maybe this option is not for normal people. When you feel experimental, you might want to try to buy a small amount via DEX, to see what it’s like. If you’re a popular programmer or artist, accepting donations in crypto is also an easy way to get no-KYC coin. Another option is p2pooling—you can get a few Euro worth of XMR relatively easily; yet this last option is time-consuming and not very effective. Many of p2pool users or full-node people are privacy-advocating volunteers, maintaining/participating the Monero network for philosophical reasons, fully aware it’s not profitable in terms of money. This might be part of the reason why Monero tx fees are almost zero (like 1/100 of that of BTC). At the same time, there are many sketchy people around crypto too 😟 Be careful and stay safe!
Not sure what you’re on about with the safety being created by multisigs, quite unrelated
Let’s say I’m selling you a book B and accepting a crypto payment. What if you sent me your crypto C trusting me, but I exit-scammed, vanishing without sending you B you’re trying to buy? That’d be bad. But what if I sent you B first, trusting you’ll send me C as soon as you receive B? Now you could cheat and vanish without paying. That’d be bad too.
To prevent any of those things from happening, there are a few methods. One is a 2-of-3 escrow service. Another is 2-of-2. Both based on multisig. A simplified example follows.
The book costs you 100€. You’ll send, say, 200€ to address A controlled by both you and me via multi-signature. I too will send 100€ to A. Now Wallet A has 300€. When 2 persons (you and I) sign, there will be a 2-output transaction from A to you (100€) and to me (200€), but any single person can’t move fund from A. That’s multisig.
Now I must send you the book in a good condition, because I don’t want to lose my 100€. So I’ll act carefully and honestly, and sign when I ship the book. You too will be willing to sign when you receive the book, because otherwise you can’t retrieve your 100€ (you deposited 200, when the book only costs 100). Sometimes an unexpected accident may happen, but usually something like this will work pretty well. This is one way how a P2P platform works (not very accurate, but I hope you get the idea).
Ah, sorry, thought you were talking about ETH-style onchain DEXed. All good then!
Most people use custodial wallets (they don’t really hold the coins) and multiple wallets have had hacks (or ““hacks””) where a lot of user funds were stolen.
I personally like
For privacy purposes, you probably want a wallet where you hold the keys in cryptocurrency yourself.
Custodial wallets are usually provided by a cryptocurrency exchange, but the other kind…
https://www.coindesk.com/learn/custodial-wallets-vs-non-custodial-crypto-wallets/
The exchange and the wallet become the same for a lot of people that never really move money between their personal bank and places like coin base.