Spend Bitcoin privately

Thoughts and tips on how to spend Bitcoin privately.

Privacy has many different meanings. For some, it is the ability to not be connected to a digital identity. For others, it can be a way of choosing which information and to whom, will be revealed about the individual. For complete privacy maximalists, it is the option to stay off the grid all the time.

Privacy can thus be viewed as a spectrum, one which also relates to the financial world. If one wants to remain private in that world of finance, Bitcoin can become a helpful tool for transacting value, if done properly.

Privacy as a spectrum

Privacy is a spectrum. While some consider privacy as a state of not being connected to all of its capital, for others, privacy means complete anonymity, disconnect from real identity or usage of nyms and pseudonyms.

Thus, it is very difficult to give a broad guide or outlook on a topic such as this, as privacy can mean a hundred different things to a hundred different people. And this is even more exacerbated in the world of Bitcoin. In the world, which is perceived as anonymous, but that is hardly true due to the open-source and decentralized nature of blockchain technology, privacy is very personal.

The spectrum of privacy related to Bitcoin and its transactions can be perceived again, from many perspectives. For some, sending Bitcoin that is non-KYCed is more than enough to consider it as a private option. For others, the option of sending Bitcoin through its own nodes, with unknown or untraceable IP through a CoinJoin is still not private enough.

Why should anyone think about privacy?

There are countless different reasons as to why anyone should start thinking about their privacy in the financial world. Some might think that keeping financial privacy needs to immediately translate into doing malicious stuff or illicit activities. However, this cannot be further from the truth. Here is a list of just few reasons why anyone might want to use Bitcoin privately:

• Make anonymous donation to charity
• Pay for private medical procedure or services
• Pay for adult-related content or services
• Prevent hackers from accessing your details
• Stop advertisers from tracking your spending habits and targeting campaigns on you

Obviously, there are many more reasons as to why anyone would be, and frankly speaking, should be concerned about privacy in the financial sector. When looking at Bitcoin, the privacy can be improved thanks to the three easy tips and tricks that we explore below.

Keep Bitcoin private - non-KYC

One of the best pieces of advice to keep in mind, when talking about Bitcoin privacy, is simply to make sure that all the bitcoins connected to any wallet are ideally non-KYCed. That means that the real-life identity of any Bitcoin wallet or address owner is not known. If the users are able to achieve that, the Bitcoin transactions will already be more private and anonymous.

There are several different ways to do that. We have written on these topics extensively and here are just a few of the articles that can help you.

• Buying Bitcoin anonymously
• Best wallets for privacy
• Using Bitcoin privately

However, there are also other solutions to how one can spend Bitcoin privately. While, yet again, it needs to be stated that privacy of Bitcoin is relative depending on the person who wants to maintain the privacy, there are some tools and options that can help with improving privacy and anonymity.

Lightning Network and off-chain transactions

Lightning Network is a layer-2 network that is built on top of Bitcoin. It is one of the best off-chain solutions that are currently being used and still developed to use Bitcoin, but not congesting the on-chain with all the transactions. And here is the secret to why Lightning Network can help spend Bitcoin privately.

Due to the fact that LN does not transmit the transactions directly to the chain, but keeps them off-chain, the transactions are not public. This means these transactions cannot be tracked back to the sender or receiver. Thus, LN can offer a pretty simple way of spending Bitcoin in a private manner.

Whir as another possibility

Another pretty simple solution is to use Whir. Whir allows anyone to mix, send or spend Bitcoin protocol in a private and secret manner. Thanks to the utilization of CoinJoin technology, which obscures the transactions, Whir provides an easy solution for anyone to send their funds privately.

This provides an additional layer of privacy on top of Bitcoin, while keeping the transactions fast, cheap and most importantly, private. With minimal fees, Whir allows for an easy solution for anyone, who wants to send or receive Bitcoin while maintaining their identity to themselves. Plus, it is as easy as sending any other Bitcoin transaction.

Conclusion

Remaining private in the financial world is important for countless different reasons. Everyone should take this into account when dealing also with Bitcoin. Its network can be used to improve privacy of the users, but they need to be smart about it and take advantage of different tools, platforms or services that are privacy-oriented. One of those tools is Whir, which has privacy at its very core.

Disclaimer: This article does not serve as a piece of financial advice or encouragement and inducement for the usage of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Its primary role is informative, explanatory, and educational. The readers have to decide themselves whether to use or not to use these types of services.