How to Buy Bitcoin Anonymously

There are different ways of getting bitcoin anonymously, including mining and buying the most popular digital asset in the world. But while profitable mining requires special hardware to run your computer continuously and be rewarded with a new block, buying is a more practical way. For that purpose, there are several brokerage platforms and peer-to-peer marketplaces that you can use to buy Bitcoin anonymously and even without verification.

In this guide, we are going to cover all the questions regarding how to buy bitcoin anonymously in the United States and worldwide. 

How to Buy Bitcoin Anonymously

Best Brokers to Buy Bitcoin Anonymously in September 2024

As you will look for a brokerage platform to buy bitcoin, you will find several of them. But to help you in this process, below, we have rounded up a list of the best brokers and exchanges to buy Bitcoin anonymously. We included all these brokers considering crucial factors such as privacy, fees, safety, etc. 

Coincorner

Founded in 2014, this cryptocurrency exchange platform is the first crypto broker that supported buying bitcoin with a credit card. One of the key points of CoinCorner is that buying Bitcoin on this platform is very quick and can be done via a simple process.

In terms of cost, CoinCorner has two kinds of fees – deposit fees and trading fees when you buy or sell bitcoin. However, costs vary depending on which payment method you use and how much bitcoin you will buy and sell over the long term. CoinCorner is a regulated platform, so you need to go through the KYC process to buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. However, you can buy a limited amount of BTC without ID verification. 

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Coinbase

Coinbase is certainly one of the largest and most famous cryptocurrency brokers in the United States and globally. Apart from Bitcoin, you can buy almost 50 cryptocurrencies with Coinbase and use its top-notch cryptocurrency wallet. Further, Coinbase is a licensed and fully-regulated platform, so you can be sure about the safety of your trades. Also, the platform has a good reputation and low deposits, although it charges relatively higher fees than other brokers and exchanges. 

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Changelly

Changelly is a cryptocurrency exchange platform where you can buy, sell, swap or exchange more than 170 cryptocurrencies, including, obviously, Bitcoin. The platform stands out with its quick transactions, multiple payment methods, and good customer service.

It has two different accounts – one for beginners and a pro account for advanced traders. It’s also a fairly cost-effective option as it offers competitive fees with a transaction fee of 0.25%, plus network fees for transferring coins to your wallet. 

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Capital.com

Capital.com is the first-ever AI-based brokerage platform that uses Machine Learning technologies to help users get trading insights. The broker, which was founded in 2016, also has a wide selection of assets to offer in the form of CFDs, so, you can only buy bitcoin through Contracts for Differences without paying fixed trading commissions and the need to store your coins on a crypto wallet.

Therefore, Capital.com is considered a cost-effective platform as it doesn’t charge any commission fees, and it sets only buy and sell spreads, plus lower overnight fees. At last, this broker is fully licensed and regulated by several financial entities around the world. 

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Libertex

Libertex is another CFD trading platform that has a good reputation with almost 30 industry awards to its name. But, unlike Capital.com, it doesn’t charge buy-and-sell spreads but instead, it charges competitive commissions that vary depending on the asset you trade. To allow you to trade on its platform, Libertex requires a minimum deposit of $100, and it supports multiple payment methods, including wire transfers, credit cards, and several e-wallets. 

Plus, you can trade not only on the Libertex platform but the broker also gives you access to the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 trading platforms. Libertex is based in Cyprus and is heavily regulated by CySEC.

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Plus500

Plus500 is another trustworthy brokerage platform that allows trading only through CFDs. It’s a very safe platform that is regulated by three tier-1 and four tier-2 authorities. Generally, Plus500 stands out with its easy-to-use platform and provides one of the best mobile apps for mobile trading. When it comes to trading fees, Plus500 does not charge fixed trading commissions and charges the market spread only.

Visit Plus500

Binance

Binance is one of the leading brokerage platforms in the cryptocurrency industry that accepts customers worldwide and offers very competitive fees (around 0.1% per trade) both for beginners and experienced traders. As to buy Bitcoin anonymously, Binance requires an ID verification and proof of address to verify your account, however, you can buy limited amounts of bitcoin without verifying your identity. It also provides a peer-to-peer trading platform on which you can buy bitcoin directly from the seller without the involvement of a third party. 

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In general, there are two crucial factors that you need to take into account while selecting these cryptocurrency exchange platforms as the best brokers to buy bitcoin anonymously.

First and foremost, it’s your privacy and the second one is their fee policy. Notably, ll the platforms in our list are heavily regulated by top-tier authorities, which means that the safety of your trades is guaranteed. Although you must provide your ID in order to buy bitcoin, they won’t share your data with a third party, neither they’ll be able to follow how you later spend your bitcoin, as Bitcoin is anonymous by nature. 

Secondly, most of these platforms charge either commissions or spreads, which are pretty competitive compared to the rest of the market. Coinbase, for example, charges higher fees, but this platform stands out with its super safety. 

Some additional factors that you need to pay attention to while choosing a broker/exchange include their reputation, non-trading fees, what payment methods they accept, their user interface, platform accessibility, and simplicity. 

Most importantly, as long as the platforms are trustworthy and have a good reputation, they won’t sell your data to a third party and they cannot track how you, as you can later use other methods to anonymize your bitcoins. 

In fact, buying bitcoin and staying fully anonymous is almost impossible, even when you mine it. The problem is that all the transactions that you make are registered on the blockchain, so it’s possible to track your transactions with your bitcoin address. P2P marketplaces cannot be a good option too as the problem is that even if the platform does not require you to verify your ID, sellers may require you to do this to make a contract with you. And secondly, these marketplaces are not always regulated, which means there can be lots of scams and frauds. 

Some peer-to-peer marketplaces that require ID verification allow you to buy bitcoin without ID but in limited amounts, like Binance or Paxful. Binance, for instance, does not require you to verify your account to purchase bitcoins, but still, the daily amount of bitcoin you can withdraw with this platform is limited. Plus, recently, Binance announced reducing the daily withdrawal limits of bitcoin from 2 BTC to 0.06 BTC/per day if you don’t verify your account.

Taking the above into consideration, there are always pluses and minuses with each platform: some of them assure your safety and require ID, while others don’t require verification but aren’t regulated.

How Bitcoin Works – Is It Anonymous?

Most people think that bitcoin is fully anonymous, and when you make a transaction using a pseudonym, no one can ever reveal what you have done. It’s not actually like this – There is always some possibility that what you have done with your bitcoins can be revealed, although it’s not so easy to find out the person behind a bitcoin purchase.

When we talk about bitcoin, it would be correct to use the term pseudonymous instead of anonymous. It’s because bitcoin isn’t fully anonymous, and all the transactions users make in bitcoins are registered on a ledger known as the blockchain. With the amount of bitcoin that was sent or received, the ledger contains information about the address of the sender and receiver. 

But, the good thing is that you don’t have to provide your real name and you can use a pseudonym. in case you reveal your identity through your bitcoin address, all your transactions can be traced on the ledger. Thus, if someone finds your identity linked to your bitcoin address and has enough time and resources, it is possible to track all your transactions and to reveal the addresses you bought and sold your bitcoin, how many bitcoins you had in all those transactions and when you made your transactions. 

To prevent this, one of the solutions was offered by the inventor of bitcoin, known under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, which is to use a new address for each transaction. Simply put, this is the same as releasing a new song, poem, novel, or something else, each time using different pseudonyms. So, when people reveal the actual owner of one poem, your other poems cannot be linked to you as they are under various pseudonyms. 

You can find more information about the history of bitcoin and how cryptocurrencies work in our guides on Buying Cryptocurrency and Buying Bitcoin.

How to Buy Bitcoin Anonymously without ID

One of the ways to buy Bitcoin anonymously without going through any account verification or identification processes is using prepaid cards. This is because these cards already have a loaded balance and are not linked to any of your personal accounts. You can obtain prepaid cards quickly at any supermarket and use the money loaded on them to buy bitcoins on peer-to-peer marketplaces without giving any vital card information to your seller. 

To do that, you can find a P2P marketplace that does not require ID verification, use it to get in touch with sellers, and buy bitcoin directly from the sellers. In this way, you don’t give any personal information either to the exchange platform or the seller. However, you should take into consideration that this is not a preferable method of buying bitcoin as it’s not regulated and there can be many threats to your funds’ safety. Plus, sellers most often prefer buyers with verified IDs. 

Buying Bitcoin Anonymously without Verification

To buy bitcoin anonymously without verification, you need to find a cryptocurrency brokerage platform or P2P marketplace that allows you to use its services without verifying your account. Usually, these P2P marketplaces are not regulated, which can harm the safety of your trades. 

Otherwise, you can find some regulated platforms where you can buy bitcoin without ID verification with daily limitations on the amount of bitcoin you can withdraw from your account. One such marketplace is Paxful that allows buying bitcoin without ID in some countries. But with Paxful, you can only purchase bitcoin worth $1000. 

Binance is another peer-to-peer marketplace that allows buying BTC without ID, but recently it decreased the amount of bitcoin you can withdraw from your account daily. Now, you can withdraw 0.06 BTC/per day with Binance, while before the restrictions, it was equal to 2 BTC/per day.

How to Anonymously Buy Bitcoin with Credit Card

Generally, providing your credit card details to a cryptocurrency exchange platform can be dangerous. So, before making the final decision on which platform you want to trade, it’s better that you carefully examined if the exchange/broker is trustworthy and will ensure the safety of your personal information and trades. 

In that matter, several licensed and regulated brokerage platforms allow you to buy bitcoins with your credit card and transfer them to your cryptocurrency wallet. All brokers included in our list are fully regulated, so you need to select the one that accepts credit cards as a payment method. 

Buying Bitcoin Anonymously – Data and Privacy Policies

As previously mentioned, buying bitcoin and remaining fully anonymous is sort of a risky process. In any case, you need to provide some personal information to the exchange platform or a peer-2-peer marketplace, not to mention the scams that can happen when your broker is not regulated.

So, more importantly, when you give your data to a brokerage platform, you need to ensure that your information won’t be sold or shared with a third party. Most reputable trading platforms, such as Coinbase Capital.com, have data and privacy policies in which they ensure that they won’t ever provide your details to third parties. For example, ID and address verifications that Coinbase requires to allow you to trade on its platform are necessary by the law as Coinbase is a fully regulated platform. In fact, it’s used in your favor to help you safely trade on the platform and avoid scams. 

The bottom line, data and privacy protection are vital factors to consider choosing a brokerage platform. Therefore, in most cases, the brokers that we recommend possess data privacy, and they are entirely trustworthy. If you want to remain anonymous, you can transfer your bitcoins to a cryptocurrency wallet after buying it on Coinbase, and then, the broker will not trace how you use your coin later and what happens to them. 

How to Store Bitcoin on a Crypto Wallet

Transferring your bitcoins to a cryptocurrency wallet is a must-do step if you want to keep them safe and avoid being hacked. For that matter, there are two kinds of Bitcoin wallets to keep your coins – cold wallets or hot wallets. Cold wallets, also known as hardware wallets, are external devices to keep your coins safe and are considered the best options for storing your coins safely.

Hot wallets, on the other hand, are software apps. This means that you can also use cryptocurrency wallets to send and receive bitcoins and other cryptos, though you need to understand that the exchanges technically don’t hold your coins like wallets hold cash. Instead, they act just like private keys through which you get access to the part of the blockchain where your bitcoin is stored. 

Buying Bitcoins Anonymously with No Registration

There are also some cryptocurrency exchange platforms that allow you to buy bitcoin anonymously with no registration. Anyway, even on those platforms, you need to provide some information to confirm the payment, which may include your email, phone number, and bitcoin address. Another way of getting bitcoin with no registration is using Bitcoin ATMs near your location. But this is not a very popular method as there are not too many bitcoin ATMs, so you may not find them so easily. Plus, they charge high fees for transactions.

From our research, the best option to buy bitcoin with no registration is to find someone who sells bitcoin and is willing to send it directly to your wallet or buy bitcoins instantly from miners. 

How to Protect Your Anonymity Online – With All Activity

As we already mentioned, all the bitcoin transactions you make are registered on the blockchain, which is open to the public and is fully transparent. That is to say, they are accessible for everyone, so by tracing your bitcoin address and linking it with your identity, anyone can see how you spent and received your bitcoins and the exact timing of the transactions.

Nonetheless, it’s essential that you do the maximum possible to protect your anonymity online. In the first place, you need to be careful not to reveal your bitcoin address. If you decide to do that, you must be ready that all your transactions can be disclosed. Another possible solution is to use a new address every time you make a transaction. In this case, even if one of your addresses is revealed, it cannot be linked to the other addresses you used. 

Taxation of Bitcoin Earnings in the US

If you trade bitcoin in the US, it’s essential to know that cryptocurrencies are also taxed in the same way as property. Like stocks, every exchange or sale you make in bitcoins is taxed as a capital gain or loss. Therefore, you need to inform the IRS when you have a capital gain to be taxed appropriately. Still, this does not mean that they require you to provide all the transactional data that you conducted. Hence, you are still anonymous. 

Anonymizing Bitcoins – How Does it Work?

There are multiple ways of anonymizing your bitcoins which vary depending on how much resources and effort you are ready to put into that process. Sometimes they can be pretty complicated and may take lots of time, so you need to choose between convenience and effectiveness. 

One of the most popular solutions is Tor, an internet browser that you download and install on your device. The good thing about Tor is that it conceals your IP address by replacing it with a completely different address. Once you explore Tor and get familiar with how to remain anonymous, you can create a bitcoin wallet and link it with Tor.

If you already own some bitcoins and want to anonymize them, you can do that with mixing services (cryptocurrency tumbler). In this process, you send the bitcoins that you want to make anonymous to a mixing service. The mixing service later sends you back your bitcoins but to another address, though you need to consider a fee that you need to pay for the new address. 

One disadvantage of mixing services is that they get your data, and you don’t really know what they do with it. Another minus is trustworthiness: to ensure they send your bitcoins back to you, you need to find a very reliable mixing service. 

How to Withdraw Your Bitcoin Earnings and Remain Anonymous

There are several ways of withdrawing your bitcoin earnings anonymously. One of the methods is using the above-mentioned mixing service, which will send your bitcoins to a completely different address from which you can withdraw your bitcoins. Another method is to use the Tor browser, which helps conceal your IP and transfer your anonymous bitcoins to your new wallet. 

Using a Bitcoin ATM for this purpose is also a possible solution. You can find the map of bitcoin ATMs on the Internet, choose the nearest one, and withdraw your bitcoin earnings. Finally, Peer-to-peer marketplaces can also help in this process – with the help of Binance, for example, you can get in touch with the buyer and send your bitcoins directly to him and get paid. 

Trade Bitcoin Anonymously with Bitcoin Robots

Bitcoin robots are designed for users who don’t have too much time and interest to research the market but want to still profit from trading bitcoin. Simply, it is software that uses algorithms and calculating methods to analyze the crypto market and decide the right time for buying or selling bitcoin. 

These robots are becoming increasingly advanced and, allegedly, more accurate. You don’t need to be concerned about your data privacy, as Bitcoin robots will keep all your data private, including your withdrawal information. To get started, all you need to do is to select a reliable and good Bitcoin Robot.

Conclusion

To conclude, you can find several methods of buying bitcoin anonymously, but some of them can be risky regarding your data privacy and the safety of your funds. Hence, you need to be very careful and choose a reliable platform to do that.

We recommend Binance as minimal verification – just a fake name and an email address – is required to withdraw up to 0.6 BTC per day, and at the second level of verification – up to 2 BTC per day – a selfie is still not required, unlike on Coinbase.

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