Privacy of finances was the norm. It is like a privilege now that you have to struggle to keep. This was not meant to be the case, but in the crypto world, here we are with the majority of large exchanges requiring passport scans and utility bills and selfies before they will allow you to purchase even a token. When you went down that road and walked away disillusioned, or just because you just feel queasy about putting your most sensitive documents in the hands of a company whose security record you can do without checking yourself, read more because there are indeed alternatives solutions that do not require you to compromise privacy in order to get involved in digital finance. The alternatives are not ideal, both have trade-offs that are worth being familiar with but they are available and they are more available than most people are acutely aware of.

P2P trading is a place where the majority of individuals first find themselves, and quite rightly so, it is a straight forward, flexible, and does not require a centralized gatekeeper who may want to have your papers. You are linked up with another human being who would like to sell crypto, settle on a price and the exchange is processed via an escrow system where money is held till both parties confirm that the deal has been completed correctly. The list of possible payment methods is quite impressive, including bank transfers and cash deposits, prepaid cards and personal contact cash exchange. This is a real freedom, and so is the responsibility that it entails. The vetting process is all you have left so you have to carefully read trade histories, worry about the age of checking accounts and treat suspiciously good deals with the kind of skepticism that they nearly always warrant. A seller who has hundreds of successful deals and years of good record is a complete difference between the one that seems to have been on the site last week.

Bitcoin ATMs are an effective solution to a particular issue, namely the translation of hard currency into crypto in a very short period of time, with little verification required below a certain amount of purchases. Numerous machines need as little as a phone number in order to carry out smaller transactions. Go up to a machine, feed in, type in a wallet address, get crypto. The situation of fees is really agonizing, as it can reach eight to twelve percent, occasionally more, depending on the place. However, speed and privacy do not come free and to those who consider it important to keep their identity unlinked to their economic endeavor, paying such a premium is not only a conscious and rational decision, but also not a nonexistent failure to shop. There is also a significant increase in the number of ATM machines in the convenience stores, grocery stores, and other day-to-day locations that did not have them several years ago.

Decentralized exchanges reduce the equation to bare minimum. None, no company, no compliance team, none, none. The wallet is linked to self-custody and directly exchanges assets using smart contracts that run automatically on-chain. It sincerely lacks a way of maintaining who you are since it was not designed to care. The only trickle-down side is that DEXs can only operate in the crypto environment – you cannot bring cash with you. Most people enter the completely decentralized swapping by first solving that initial on-ramp by conducting a P2P cash trade or an ATM purchase. The privacy image becomes much more different when you are in.