I'd like to know which is more private/anonymous for paying for a service like Proton Mail, for example.
My threat model is to hide the transaction info from my bank, just for reference.
Appreciate all feedback thanks!
Bitcoin vs No KYC Pre-Paid Gift Card for Private/Anonymous Purchase
They accept Monero?
I pay Mullvad with monero
ChemicalWonka1 Unfortunately proton only accepts Bitcoin.
maybe try to buy some bitcoin online using monero?
If you are in the US, a prepaid gift card bought with cash will generally be the better choice for privacy. Especially if you don't bring your phone with you while making the purchase and wait 90 days for the cameras to get wiped.
Consider a service that doesn't fuck over their users with this bitcoin or credit card only bullshit like Proton does.
trashaccount what else could be used instead? Tuta?
If they accept Bitcoin only, you can pay it with Monero via coin exchanging services. Monerujo app has this feature by default.
DeletedUser85 Theres a plethora of mail services.
I never quite understood this KYC fear thing. So if I transfer coins from a regulated broker to a wallet, the wallet then gets marked with my ID? How would this even work/be legal? Who keeps the database?
DeletedUser125 So if I transfer coins from a regulated broker to a wallet, the wallet then gets marked with my ID?
The broker knows who you are, and they know the address that the funds were transferred to. They may be legally required to share this information with tax or other financial authorities. They will certainly retain this information in their records, which might also get leaked in the future.
In the case of Bitcoin, that address is on a public ledger, and literally anyone can see the address, how much it holds, the address it came from, and any addresses it is sent to in the future.
The only thing not public is who owns that address. You are really trusting the broker, and anyone they share that data with to keep that information private.
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Probably9857 Yeah they "know" all that. Tax and AML compliance are a given in any financial transaction. Beyond this I'm not sure it's lawful any other use of the data without a warrant. As for blockchain transaction tracking, once you transfer to another address even if you own it, it won't be possible to efectively prove it belongs to you, so what would be the usefulness in tracking kyc'd wallets?
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DeletedUser125 Beyond this I'm not sure it's lawful any other use of the data without a warrant
There is also unlawful use of the data. There are also places where "lawful" can have a flexible meaning.
DeletedUser125 As for blockchain transaction tracking, once you transfer to another address even if you own it, it won't be possible to efectively prove it belongs to you
The courts in the US have recently disagreed. (Reference available if you want one.)
There are companies whose entire business model is using probability analysis to track this. Chainalysis is probably the best known.
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Probably9857
What about buying BC on a Decentralized or P2P Exchange? Wouldn't that be very near or 100% anonymous?
Edit: I believe it is the preferred way to buy Bitcoin without ID.
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Yes, that would be more or less anonymous. Or at least could be. Probably depends somewhat on the platform, payment method, etc.
It is possible to deanonymize yourself when spending or transferring too, so you also need good ongoing opsec.
And it is probably illegal in some jurisdictions, so do your own research first.
DeletedUser85 yes Tuta could be an alternative, you can pay with Monero using a third party vendor. In general paying with cash/vouchers is still more private and anonymous, as any digital payment leaves a trail that might eventually be tracked back to you. Monero can be cracked in the future, Bitcoin is pseudonymous already and one mistake away from making all your transactions common knowledge.
But in the end it's up to you. For most threat models, Proton is perfectly fine, and so are Bitcoin payments. Proton Mail is much more private than Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo etc.
Biggest cons of Proton for me are the lack of Notification support (if Sandboxed Play Services are not installed) and some Account banning when using ProtonVPN. I opted for Tuta + Mullvad for now which solves that for me.
Biggest pros of Proton is their design and the ease of aliasing via Proton Pass. Also Proton Drive is a pretty good deal for private storage and Proton Mail supports PGP (Tuta doesn't).
Pick your poison, both are good for privacy, one is probably better for your specific situation.
Bitcoin is inherently not suitable for privacy respecting, anonymous, transactions.
Using a pre-paid card bought with cash is very easy to make anonymous. For virtually all threat models, turning on airplane mode (or leaving your phone home), walking into a gas station, paying cash, and then waiting a month or so to use the card will make you essentially completely anonymous.
Stores don't keep video surveillance for all that long unless they have a specific reason to do so. Their purchase records would provide an exact time and date of the purchase but without a phone on you, correlating that to you is incredibly difficult (when its possible at all).
Incidentally, the Bitcoin wallets you transfer to for Proton are known and I guarantee that intel agencies watch those wallets and trace the bitcoin going into them as a matter of course
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rellhom what kind of timeline would this be expected at the current rate of hardware advancement? in our lifetimes?
Nobody knows... And it might never happen. My point was more about cash with good opsec being always more private than any digital payment with good opsec. And that for the vast majority of threat models, it won't make a difference whether you use Proton vs. Tuta or cash vs XMR privacy-wise.
Everyone that uses proton correctly should be inherently more private than anyone else using one of the big tech ones...