
Ask HN: Is there a place to buy Bitcoin almost anonymously? - antocv
So with the recent surge in bitcoin I went and wanted to buy some.<p>I havent yet found a market place which doesnt require me to have an email address, a phone number with SMS validation and to tell them my real name. bitcoin.de WTF? Might as well give them a blood and DNA sample?<p>Why is this so? Isnt bitcoin supposed to be pseudonomous?
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mynewwork
> Isnt bitcoin supposed to be pseudonomous?

Yes, but the rest of the world isn't. Financial companies still must comply
with laws (tax evasion, money laundering, etc) regardless if they're going
dollars to euros or dollars to bitcoins. Much of the current hype around
bitcoins comes specifically from recent comments regarding regulation of
bitcoin transactions.

Also, you want to buy because the price recently spiked? That's rarely a good
idea (whether in stocks, real estate or bitcoins).

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antocv
So basically there is no good way to get bitcoins without revealing ones
identity right now? Since mining is not quite possible?

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lSiWsPmgNeXEXOZ
Yes and no. Unless it is illegal to buy Bitcoins in your
country/state/city/area/etc. then buying Bitcoins is fine. Coinbase and the
like are more or less established businesses now. If you intend on using them
for things that you wouldn't want traced back to you, there are quite a few
Bitcoin tumblers/launderies/what-have-you. Once they come out the other side,
you have plausible deniablity.

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27182818284
I would love to here Coinbase (YCS12) talk about this.

I honestly feel the same way. I want to play around by, say, buying $100 in
Litecoin but I find all of the different avenues pretty invasive. The closest
I found was buying Litecoin in person, but none of the listed sources were
anywhere close to me geographically.

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MarkPNeyer
the markets that can take credit card or do bank withdrawal require that id to
protect themselves from fraudelent buyers.

if you're going to buy bitcoins anonymously, you'll probably have to do it
locally with cash.

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javis
It may seem backwards, but the only real way to buy Bitcoins anonymously is to
buy them in person using cash.

Check out: [http://localbitcoins.com](http://localbitcoins.com)

But you can just buy them through somewhere like Coinbase, then use Bitcoin
Fog to make them anonymous.

[http://bitcoinfog.com/](http://bitcoinfog.com/)

If you leave them in Bitcoin Fog for a couple of days / weeks, there is very
little chance they'll be traced back to you.

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humbledrone
Whoever runs bitcoinfog might want to revise this statement on their gateway
page:

> And once again, running through Tor makes it not likely for us to be shut
> down under pressure from the authorities. When in doubt about this, consider
> Silk Road.

When I consider Silk Road, it makes me less confident that this service won't
be shut down.

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wmf
You just need to venture further into the dark alleys of the Internet where
stuff like MoneyPaks are used.

