WEBVTT 00:00.480 --> 00:06.510 Now that we have our wallets set up in this lecture and the next lectures, we're going to discuss how 00:06.510 --> 00:09.060 to buy bitcoins anonymously. 00:09.930 --> 00:15.000 Now, there are a number of ways to buy bitcoins, but not all of them are anonymous. 00:15.510 --> 00:22.860 So if we go back to our wallet right here, you can see that if we click on the receive, you'll see 00:22.860 --> 00:24.420 our receiving address. 00:24.450 --> 00:30.510 This is the only piece of information that you'll be sharing when you want to receive money into your 00:30.510 --> 00:33.870 wallet and when you receive money into this. 00:33.870 --> 00:39.180 Like I said, this will be stored in a public ledger in the blockchain. 00:39.300 --> 00:46.000 Therefore, anybody can come in and analyze the blockchain and see who sent you money. 00:46.020 --> 00:53.910 So if you send money to this address using your bank account or using a service that verifies your identity, 00:53.910 --> 00:57.510 then your identity will be linked to this address. 00:57.510 --> 01:04.560 And then any transfer you make from this address will be known and again will be traced back to your 01:04.560 --> 01:05.820 real identity. 01:06.000 --> 01:11.100 So, so far we're anonymous because this address is not linked to anything. 01:11.100 --> 01:19.110 But if you use an anonymous way of transferring money into this wallet, then this wallet will be linked 01:19.110 --> 01:20.310 to your identity. 01:20.310 --> 01:27.660 And then whenever you use this wallet, all the transactions could be easily traced back to your real 01:27.660 --> 01:28.620 identity. 01:28.650 --> 01:34.440 Therefore, it's very, very important that you buy your bitcoins anonymously. 01:35.070 --> 01:40.250 So the first way of doing this is to create bitcoins yourself. 01:40.260 --> 01:44.100 And to do that, you're going to have to mine bitcoins. 01:44.400 --> 01:50.880 So if you remember when we spoke about how bitcoins work, we said that there are computers right here, 01:50.880 --> 01:52.920 the yellow ones, and we call them miners. 01:52.920 --> 02:01.410 And these computers keep a copy of the blockchain and they use their computation power to keep the blockchain 02:01.410 --> 02:02.100 working. 02:02.130 --> 02:09.300 They do this by solving mathematical problems and calculating hashes so that the blockchain functions 02:09.300 --> 02:10.530 as it should. 02:11.280 --> 02:17.550 Now, these mathematical problems and the calculations, they take a lot of computation power and a 02:17.550 --> 02:18.920 lot of electricity. 02:18.930 --> 02:21.990 Therefore, not anyone can afford to do this. 02:21.990 --> 02:29.430 But if you can afford to do it, then it is a really good way of generating bitcoins anonymously. 02:29.970 --> 02:36.360 Now, we're not going to go into this because we can literally make a big course just on how to mind 02:36.360 --> 02:37.560 bitcoins properly. 02:37.560 --> 02:39.450 So we're not going to cover it here. 02:40.480 --> 02:43.930 The next option is to use an exchange. 02:43.960 --> 02:49.900 Now, using exchanges is not anonymous, because when you use an exchange, they will ask for your bank 02:49.900 --> 02:54.810 information and they will ask you to verify your identity. 02:54.820 --> 03:03.160 So using an exchange is not anonymous, but we can combine using an exchange with what's known as Bitcoin 03:03.190 --> 03:04.750 tumblers or mixers. 03:05.080 --> 03:10.210 These are services that attempt to mask where the money is coming from. 03:10.450 --> 03:15.640 There is a lot of debate of how good or how anonymous this is. 03:16.090 --> 03:19.600 It adds an extra step when you're transferring the money. 03:19.600 --> 03:21.790 Therefore, it's a little bit complicated. 03:21.790 --> 03:28.480 And because of all of this debate, I do, I wouldn't feel very secure or very anonymous by using this 03:28.480 --> 03:29.110 method. 03:29.290 --> 03:34.720 But this is a really good method because exchanges work all over the world. 03:34.720 --> 03:40.090 So if you couldn't get bitcoins any other way, then you might have to use this way where you use an 03:40.090 --> 03:43.090 exchange with a tumbler or mixer. 03:43.870 --> 03:50.500 Now, if you just go on Google and look for a Bitcoin exchange, you'll see a lot of websites that will 03:50.500 --> 03:51.820 allow you to do this. 03:51.880 --> 03:58.260 Now, on Bitcoin website itself, you can see that they're recommending the following exchanges. 03:58.270 --> 04:01.450 You can just click any of them to open their website. 04:01.480 --> 04:06.610 Now, the most popular one is Coinbase, which I already have open right here. 04:07.150 --> 04:10.150 Like I said, this is really, really easy to use. 04:10.180 --> 04:12.960 All you have to do is click on Get Started. 04:12.970 --> 04:16.900 It will take you through a number of steps where you create a new account. 04:16.930 --> 04:20.050 It will automatically create a web wallet for you. 04:20.050 --> 04:24.860 So a wallet that you use on this website, it will ask you to verify your ID. 04:24.880 --> 04:27.550 So like I said, this is not anonymous. 04:27.550 --> 04:33.280 But once you do, once you create your account and buy some bitcoins, you can use a Tumblr service 04:33.280 --> 04:37.660 and we'll talk about Tumblr services and mixers later on in the course. 04:37.660 --> 04:44.860 And when you do that, it will add a layer of anonymity and it will make it harder to link this account 04:44.860 --> 04:50.470 that you're going to create in here with your Bitcoin wallet that you're going to transfer the money 04:50.470 --> 04:51.100 to. 04:51.760 --> 04:53.890 Transferring the money is always the same. 04:53.890 --> 04:58.780 You literally just have to put the receiving address that you have in here, in the wallet that you're 04:58.780 --> 05:00.370 going to create on this website. 05:00.370 --> 05:03.700 And the money will go to your Bitcoin wallet. 05:04.270 --> 05:08.620 Now, don't worry about this too much because like I said, if you're going to use this, you'll need 05:08.620 --> 05:13.630 to use a tumbler or a mixer and I will cover tumblers and mixers later on. 05:13.630 --> 05:16.600 So even if you want to use this option, keep it in mind. 05:16.600 --> 05:17.890 Don't use it right now. 05:17.890 --> 05:21.370 Only use it after I cover the tumblers and mixers. 05:23.080 --> 05:27.880 The next option that we have is to use a Bitcoin ATM. 05:27.910 --> 05:33.760 Now, this is a really, really good option because some of these ATMs even accept cash. 05:34.210 --> 05:38.500 The only problem is not all countries have bitcoin ATMs. 05:38.830 --> 05:45.430 So to check if your country have a Bitcoin ATM, you can go on this website. 05:45.460 --> 05:48.010 I'm going to include its link in the resources. 05:48.010 --> 05:54.470 It's coin, ATM, radar, dotcom, and all you have to do is just put your address in here. 05:54.490 --> 05:57.910 Or if you want, you can go down on this map right here. 05:57.910 --> 06:05.110 I'm going to maximize it and look for your country, zoom in on your country and see if there are any 06:05.140 --> 06:06.070 ATMs. 06:06.910 --> 06:12.520 Now, I will talk about this in more details in the next lecture where I'm going to teach you how to 06:12.520 --> 06:15.250 use Bitcoin ATMs in details. 06:15.250 --> 06:23.050 And you'll learn how to convert real currencies such as dollars and euros to Bitcoins anonymously using 06:23.050 --> 06:24.550 Bitcoin ATMs. 06:26.010 --> 06:31.740 Last but not least, we can use peer to peer services to buy bitcoins. 06:32.520 --> 06:38.100 Now, peer to peer services allow us to buy bitcoins directly from the seller. 06:38.430 --> 06:41.940 So unlike coin exchanges, there is no middleman. 06:41.970 --> 06:43.920 There is no middle institution. 06:43.920 --> 06:50.760 And if the seller is willing to give us bitcoins using an anonymous method such as by giving him cash, 06:50.760 --> 06:52.590 then this will be perfect. 06:53.370 --> 06:59.850 Now again, going back to the Bitcoin website, you can see that they list a number of peer to peer 06:59.880 --> 07:00.850 services. 07:00.870 --> 07:08.670 Now, pretty much all of these services will either require to verify your identity or they will only 07:08.670 --> 07:13.250 use services that require your identity, for example. 07:13.290 --> 07:20.340 Bit quick right here will not ask you to verify your identity, but in most countries the only method 07:20.340 --> 07:24.890 of transferring money would be a method that would require your identity. 07:24.900 --> 07:27.150 So you're pretty much back to the start. 07:27.540 --> 07:33.810 Local Bitcoin used to be a really good service that would allow you to buy bitcoins in cash, so you'd 07:33.810 --> 07:38.820 literally meet the person and give them cash and they transfer the money to you. 07:38.910 --> 07:45.510 Unfortunately, recently they stopped this and you can't buy bitcoins with cash with local bitcoin and 07:45.510 --> 07:47.910 they also started verifying IDs. 07:47.910 --> 07:51.570 So again, this service is not very anonymous anymore. 07:51.960 --> 07:58.050 Paxful, on the other hand, is a really good peer to peer service that still allows you to get bitcoins 07:58.050 --> 08:02.970 by literally giving cash in person to the person that will give you the bitcoins. 08:03.150 --> 08:07.680 So it's really, really good if you can find peers in your country. 08:07.680 --> 08:11.040 And I will actually cover this in future lectures. 08:12.430 --> 08:14.230 So that's it for this lecture. 08:14.230 --> 08:21.840 I just wanted to give you a breakdown of the most common ways that you can buy Bitcoins anonymously. 08:21.850 --> 08:27.910 And in the next lectures, I'm going to show you how to specifically buy Bitcoins from an ATM and how 08:27.910 --> 08:32.050 to specifically buy bitcoins using a peer to peer service. 08:32.050 --> 08:37.900 And both cases will be used in cash, so it will be as anonymous as possible.