Now that we have our wallets set up in this lecture and the next lectures, we're going to discuss how
to buy bitcoins anonymously.
Now, there are a number of ways to buy bitcoins, but not all of them are anonymous.
So if we go back to our wallet right here, you can see that if we click on the receive, you'll see
our receiving address.
This is the only piece of information that you'll be sharing when you want to receive money into your
wallet and when you receive money into this.
Like I said, this will be stored in a public ledger in the blockchain.
Therefore, anybody can come in and analyze the blockchain and see who sent you money.
So if you send money to this address using your bank account or using a service that verifies your identity,
then your identity will be linked to this address.
And then any transfer you make from this address will be known and again will be traced back to your
real identity.
So, so far we're anonymous because this address is not linked to anything.
But if you use an anonymous way of transferring money into this wallet, then this wallet will be linked
to your identity.
And then whenever you use this wallet, all the transactions could be easily traced back to your real
identity.
Therefore, it's very, very important that you buy your bitcoins anonymously.
So the first way of doing this is to create bitcoins yourself.
And to do that, you're going to have to mine bitcoins.
So if you remember when we spoke about how bitcoins work, we said that there are computers right here,
the yellow ones, and we call them miners.
And these computers keep a copy of the blockchain and they use their computation power to keep the blockchain
working.
They do this by solving mathematical problems and calculating hashes so that the blockchain functions
as it should.
Now, these mathematical problems and the calculations, they take a lot of computation power and a
lot of electricity.
Therefore, not anyone can afford to do this.
But if you can afford to do it, then it is a really good way of generating bitcoins anonymously.
Now, we're not going to go into this because we can literally make a big course just on how to mind
bitcoins properly.
So we're not going to cover it here.
The next option is to use an exchange.
Now, using exchanges is not anonymous, because when you use an exchange, they will ask for your bank
information and they will ask you to verify your identity.
So using an exchange is not anonymous, but we can combine using an exchange with what's known as Bitcoin
tumblers or mixers.
These are services that attempt to mask where the money is coming from.
There is a lot of debate of how good or how anonymous this is.
It adds an extra step when you're transferring the money.
Therefore, it's a little bit complicated.
And because of all of this debate, I do, I wouldn't feel very secure or very anonymous by using this
method.
But this is a really good method because exchanges work all over the world.
So if you couldn't get bitcoins any other way, then you might have to use this way where you use an
exchange with a tumbler or mixer.
Now, if you just go on Google and look for a Bitcoin exchange, you'll see a lot of websites that will
allow you to do this.
Now, on Bitcoin website itself, you can see that they're recommending the following exchanges.
You can just click any of them to open their website.
Now, the most popular one is Coinbase, which I already have open right here.
Like I said, this is really, really easy to use.
All you have to do is click on Get Started.
It will take you through a number of steps where you create a new account.
It will automatically create a web wallet for you.
So a wallet that you use on this website, it will ask you to verify your ID.
So like I said, this is not anonymous.
But once you do, once you create your account and buy some bitcoins, you can use a Tumblr service
and we'll talk about Tumblr services and mixers later on in the course.
And when you do that, it will add a layer of anonymity and it will make it harder to link this account
that you're going to create in here with your Bitcoin wallet that you're going to transfer the money
to.
Transferring the money is always the same.
You literally just have to put the receiving address that you have in here, in the wallet that you're
going to create on this website.
And the money will go to your Bitcoin wallet.
Now, don't worry about this too much because like I said, if you're going to use this, you'll need
to use a tumbler or a mixer and I will cover tumblers and mixers later on.
So even if you want to use this option, keep it in mind.
Don't use it right now.
Only use it after I cover the tumblers and mixers.
The next option that we have is to use a Bitcoin ATM.
Now, this is a really, really good option because some of these ATMs even accept cash.
The only problem is not all countries have bitcoin ATMs.
So to check if your country have a Bitcoin ATM, you can go on this website.
I'm going to include its link in the resources.
It's coin, ATM, radar, dotcom, and all you have to do is just put your address in here.
Or if you want, you can go down on this map right here.
I'm going to maximize it and look for your country, zoom in on your country and see if there are any
ATMs.
Now, I will talk about this in more details in the next lecture where I'm going to teach you how to
use Bitcoin ATMs in details.
And you'll learn how to convert real currencies such as dollars and euros to Bitcoins anonymously using
Bitcoin ATMs.
Last but not least, we can use peer to peer services to buy bitcoins.
Now, peer to peer services allow us to buy bitcoins directly from the seller.
So unlike coin exchanges, there is no middleman.
There is no middle institution.
And if the seller is willing to give us bitcoins using an anonymous method such as by giving him cash,
then this will be perfect.
Now again, going back to the Bitcoin website, you can see that they list a number of peer to peer
services.
Now, pretty much all of these services will either require to verify your identity or they will only
use services that require your identity, for example.
Bit quick right here will not ask you to verify your identity, but in most countries the only method
of transferring money would be a method that would require your identity.
So you're pretty much back to the start.
Local Bitcoin used to be a really good service that would allow you to buy bitcoins in cash, so you'd
literally meet the person and give them cash and they transfer the money to you.
Unfortunately, recently they stopped this and you can't buy bitcoins with cash with local bitcoin and
they also started verifying IDs.
So again, this service is not very anonymous anymore.
Paxful, on the other hand, is a really good peer to peer service that still allows you to get bitcoins
by literally giving cash in person to the person that will give you the bitcoins.
So it's really, really good if you can find peers in your country.
And I will actually cover this in future lectures.
So that's it for this lecture.
I just wanted to give you a breakdown of the most common ways that you can buy Bitcoins anonymously.
And in the next lectures, I'm going to show you how to specifically buy Bitcoins from an ATM and how
to specifically buy bitcoins using a peer to peer service.
And both cases will be used in cash, so it will be as anonymous as possible.