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Comment by neuro_imager | Hacker News Reader

I'm new to cryptocurrency and it astounds me the amount of information I have to hand over just in order to buy currency on an exchange. Presumably this is a source of de-anonymization? I thought the whole point was that you don't have to give away information to a third party?

Does anyone know how to get cryptocurrency without going through this process? Is there a way just to buy cryptocurrency with a simple credit card transaction?

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US KYC law mandates all that. And exchanges have US customers, so they follow KYC. BTC-e didn't, and the US took them down. So hey.

But anyway, it doesn't matter that your initial cryptocurrency purchase is totally not anonymous. Just use mixing services. And do that through Tor. After a couple mixes, you will have totally different Bitcoin or whatever, with no association with your initial purchase.

You can always use a site like localbitcoins for buying directly from someone. At least before you could occasionally find people willing to sell for money exchanged in real life.

Alternatively you can buy btc from bitcoin ATMs (tho some but not all ask for ID) depending on where you are.

In the US all Bitcoin ATMs are required to ask for picture ID

You mine it; either with raw compute power, or by providing services fulfilling a contract.

Of course, if you then want to sell those coins, to "cash out" into a fiat currency, you'll need to comply with the KYC laws.

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