RoboSats: Exchanging Bitcoin Easily, Privately And KYC-Free

This is a viewpoint editorial by Okada, mechanical engineer and contributor to Bitcoin Magazine.Generate a robot avatar today and exchange Bitcoin over the Lightning Network (LN) with easy and KYC-free RoboSats. When utilizing RoboSats– short for Robotic Satoshis– no compromises are necessary in between benefit, security and absolute privacy.Note: Users ought to always validate for themselves the integrity of a job prior to utilizing it. RoboSats is completely practical however is still thought about a speculative Lightning application, suggesting users need to only negotiate in percentages. Users can de-anonymize themselves utilizing methods of payment that need AML/KYC checks like credit cards which are not recommended.The jobs principle, motivated by P2PLNBot, stresses offering end-users an easy, snappy user interface without hindering personal privacy and security. The fully open-source community project uses Lightning hold invoices as fidelity bonds and trade escrows to optimize security and lessen intrusion of privacy with a near custody-less trade pipeline. If users encounter dispute, then RoboSats staff will assist deal with the dispute.On the frontend, the peer-to-peer exchange functions similarly to eBay or Craigslist in terms of flawlessly assisting in consumer-to-consumer sales in between complete strangers online. Unlike RoboSats, the widespread issue with modern e-commerce and centralized exchanges alike is the collection of sensitive user data in the very first place which is prone to exploitation by cybercriminals and hackers. Removing the requirement to sign up real-world identification supplies users a “personal privacy by default” experience and ultimately a higher degree of security.This article discusses the risks of KYC-only exchanges, how RoboSats works and a light guide to using RoboSats yourself! For readers wanting to specify, click the Onion Link with Tor or connect using I2P listed below to begin buying and selling KYC-free bitcoin (getting in touch with other browsers is not suggested): Onion Link: http://robosats6tkf3eva7x2voqso3a5wcorsnw34jveyxfqi2fu7oyheasid.onion/I2P: http://robosats.i2p/?i2paddresshelper=r7r4sckft6ptmk4r2jajiuqbowqyxiwsle4iyg4fijtoordc6z7a.b32.i2pKYC Bitcoin Hurts Users And The NetworkThe ability to offer and buy bitcoin independently is a basic requirement for a genuinely complimentary Bitcoin environment. Bitcoiners need to take advantage of any privacy services offered to enhance both their specific sovereignty and the fungible homes of bitcoin. Exchanging fiat for bitcoin and vice versa is easily structured for the average purchaser or sellers benefit with centralized, custodial exchanges. This practical on/off-ramp to the Bitcoin network comes at a significant sacrifice to ones personal privacy and ultimately decreases the fungible, permissionless nature of the Bitcoin network.These exchanges impose Anti-Money Laundering and Know-Your-Customer (AML/KYC) laws, where users must first send identifying documents to the exchange as a requirement for using their services– successfully negating any meaningful personal privacy the Bitcoin network has to use. Bitcoin sent to and from ones account on an AML/KYC exchange becomes linked to that users real-world identity and allows vectors for possibly wicked entities to track costs practices, blacklist specific bitcoin addresses and determine ones net bitcoin wealth. As an effect, such vectors can damage human rights activists and interests worldwide.Increasingly intrusive AML/KYC procedures executed by exchanges stress the importance of regularly utilizing non-KYC alternatives without requiring to forego availability, user friendliness and cheap charges; undoubtedly, RoboSats intends to accomplish simply that. While there exist a number of non-KYC options, these are reasonably technical, slow and pricey to typical users looking for convenience and simplicity. For big amounts, it is still suggested to use on-chain escrow services such as Bisq whereas RoboSats is perfect for smaller amounts over the Lightning Network.Given the abundance of exchange hacks, break-ins, outright frauds and even thievery by the traditional banks themselves, the dependence on centralized custodians as a guardian of ones possessions might trigger more damage to the end-users privacy and wealth rather than in fact protecting it.Furthermore, per the U.S. Department of the Treasury, using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for illegal activity stays “far listed below that of fiat currency and more conventional methods,” where illicit activity accounted for 0.15% of all cryptocurrency deal volume in 2021. In other words, necessary AML/KYC look at the staying 99.85% truthful bulk introduce the danger of your private data being dripped and subsequently costing you possibly thousands of dollars in monetary damage to resolve theft of jeopardized individual information.An exchange that does not collect your info cant lose that info to hackers or malicious employees on the within. At a basic level, RoboSats works to completely empower the end-user and make private sovereignty more available for all by leveraging the speed and security of the Lightning Network. Furthermore, RoboSats is very easy for anyone to utilize as revealed in the following example of our fictitious users Alice and Bob.How RoboSats WorksBelow is a technical flow diagram of the robotic avatar generation procedure that makes sure personal privacy and security while utilizing RoboSats:(Graphic/RoboSats)Upon filling the RoboSats homepage (accessed by means of Onion or I2P), a fun robot avatar is produced with a random pseudonym (nym) for Alice. The random nym (e.g., ImportedNoise683) represents a private token for recuperating that special nym in the future. Securely keeping the personal token is important in case Alice requires to recuperate her nym and gain access to orders connected with that nym. RoboSats will instantly produce a new, special avatar each time the homepage is freshly accessed to maximize user personal privacy– so back up your token!Once Alice has her unique avatar and has also safely saved the corresponding private token, she is prepared to make an order on RoboSats or satisfy an order already made by another robot nym. Alice picks making a new order to buy 100,000 satoshis (0.001 BTC) with euros at a wanted premium and supplies any technique(s) of payment that she wishes to accept, however must first lock a little hold invoice prior to publishing the order, known as the maker bond. Alice must think about accepting payment approaches that are fast and are likely to match with a peer who likewise accepts the same payment methods.Bob, after also generating his unique nym, wishes to sell his satoshis for fiat and discovers Alices robot nym in the order book. Bob decides that the payment method(s) in euros and the premium selected by Alice appropriate for him and will take Alices buy order. Bob should likewise lock a small hold billing before transacting with Alice, known as the taker bond. Now both purchaser and seller have actually posted a little bond utilizing LN to show they are genuine users. The contract is finalized and Bob posts the 100,000 satoshis he is offering with a hold invoice while Alice sends her payout invoice.After Bob takes the order, Alice and Bob share a private, encrypted chatroom to coordinate and verify the exchanged amount. Alice and Bob need to keep their chat succinct and short to avoid offering non-essential and possibly determining information aside from what is strictly essential for the fiat payment technique. Obviously, like any other online chat space, being following and polite general social etiquette will make for an easier and more pleasant peer-to-peer interaction.RoboSats locks the billing till Bob confirms he received Alices fiat payment completely and after that Bobs trade hold billing is charged the 100,000 satoshis, which get launched to Alice. The maker and taker bonds originally posted are immediately returned because Alice and Bob played by the guidelines. The bonds are just charged (lost) in the occasion of a peer unilaterally canceling an order after the contract is finalized or a peer trying to cheat another peer (lost disagreement). After the peer-to-peer, KYC-free transaction is completed, Alice and Bob can easily generate another unique robot nym to independently buy or offer more bitcoin! At no point did Alice or Bob have to delegate the bitcoin to each other. If Bob tried to cheat Alice by never ever sending his satoshis, then Alice can open a dispute; however, at the expiration of the order contract, if Bob never validated he received Alices fiat payment, then a conflict is instantly opened and Alice can make the initial payment plus the fidelity bond by sending suitable proof of fraud to RoboSats staff.The technically inclined can review the GitHub page for even greater info at the codebase level of RoboSats. With a standard understanding of how RoboSats works to match peers, stacking sats is just a few clicks away.Getting Started RobostackingThe brief guide listed below is a light intro to using RoboSats where we see how to buy bitcoin with fiat step by step. In-depth video tutorials are offered by BTC Sessions, Ian Majors and Einundzwanzig (German). RoboSats also has a practical visual and written guide as well.First things initially, you require a Lightning wallet compatible with RoboSats that is ideally non-custodial. If using your own LN node like a Raspiblitz, you will need channel peers connected to the greater Lightning Network in addition to sufficient inbound or outbound channel liquidity for buying or offering satoshis, respectively.Outbound channel liquidity can be obtained by opening a channel to a well-connected peer. Incoming channel liquidity can be acquired through buying incoming liquidity, swaps or finding a well-connected peer who will open a channel to you. Once your node has the methods to get a lightning or send payment of at least the amount youre trying to exchange plus the quantity for the maker/taker bonds, you can start developing or fulfilling orders on RoboSats.Navigate to the aforementioned RoboSats Onion Link or I2P website to begin. The webpage will show a freshly generated robot avatar with an unique nym. For this session, I am your friendly area robotic WoundingFreeman911: The user is greeted with their nym (1 ), associated robot avatar (2) and the distinct token (3) to recover that robot nym. Users can generate/recover a robotic nym (4) or continue with the already-generated robot nym to make an order (5 ), read extra details (6) on how to use RoboSats successfully or view the live order book (7 ). The special token used to deterministically create a matching robotic nym must be securely kept to allow future healing of that specific robotic nym. If you close out of the internet browser, lose connection or refresh the page throughout your session, then you can input your securely kept token to recover and produce any formerly produced robot nym.You can view your nyms profile (8) and the amount of readily available public buy orders (9) or offer orders (10 ). The variety of active robotics (11) is displayed along with the expected premium (12) a user can probably anticipate to pay or gather for non-KYC bitcoin, currently 4.62% at time of screenshot. The anticipated premium is a weighted typical by volume of deals, not a weighted mean, making it resistant to outlier orders and likewise prevents huge players coming and scooping big orders with severe premiums that are not representative of the retail market sentiment.There is a selection of offered languages (13 ), robotics can find public support by connecting to a RoboSats community (14) and users can see some stats of RoboSats (15 ). A neat series of insightful infographics of the exchange over its lifetime can be discovered here.Users can filter the order book by clicking whether or not they wish to buy or sell and with which currency. Since we are looking to purchase bitcoin, we find there are five other robotics with differing quantities, currencies, payment methods and premiums. Not your average exchange liquidity at the moment, so making your own order might be needed if there are no existing orders that work for you. Easily, my payment and currency choices line up with RoutineDrunkard532 as seen listed below: The fastest route to exchanging bitcoin on RoboSats is taking an existing order rather than creating an order and subsequently waiting on a peer to compare with you. The typical taker spends about 7 minutes in RoboSats– from very first producing a robot to lastly receiving the bitcoin or fiat quantity in a self-custodial way– making it substantially quicker to negotiate and self-custody compared to centralized exchanges.If no existing order matches your choices, develop a new order to show your favored quantity, currency, fiat payment techniques and premium. For this guide, I take RoutineDrunkard532s order and decide to pay with a cash-bought Amazon present card. Notification the Amazon logo design with a United States flag in the lower left corner of the payment method icon. If I am to take an order utilizing an Amazon gift card, then I need to acquire an Amazon present card that works for the country suggested– in this instance, an Amazon USA gift card.We exist with the order box, a sneak peek of the makers order before verifying I wish to take it. The sellers robot avatar has a green dot in the top right corner, implying the seller is most likely and online to respond in a prompt style. In this order, my peer is selling $100 worth of bitcoin at an 8% premium. While I might look for a more competitive premium, paying with an Amazon gift card is extremely practical for me and the above average premium deserves it if I can utilize the gift card as a payment method. RoboSats will reveal a Lightning invoice after taking the order and then I will send out a Lightning payment for the taker bond: The taker bond is 12,575 sats in overall, or 3% of the dollar amount of bitcoin Im buying. The bond will be returned to me upon conclusion of the transaction, presuming I behave like a good robotic and do not try to cheat my peer or unilaterally back out of the order. Using my Lightning wallet, I send out the payment quickly using the Lightning invoice that was offered. RoboSats has me verify a Lightning or on-chain address to guarantee I am able to get the funds prior to sending my peer the fiat payment: And listed below, I again utilize the Lightning wallet to submit a legitimate invoice for the 418,460 satoshis ($100 worth of bitcoin at an 8% premium) I will be getting in exchange for fiat: I have set the billing expiration to match the expiry of the orders deposit timer at 3 hours, offering the seller appropriate time to send out bitcoin to the sent Lightning billing. The next step is chatting with the seller to collaborate the exchange of bitcoin for fiat: Keeping the discussion concise is ideal and, most importantly, do not share any identifying info besides what is definitely essential for the selected fiat payment method. With a cash-bought Amazon gift card, there is no determining details related to it, I only require to share the redemption code on the back of the present card with the peer so they can validate the code is indeed legitimate. At any point during the chat, I can “audit PGP” and validate the privacy of this chat using any tool based upon the OpenPGP requirement. I can ask for a “collective cancel” of the transaction with my peer and our bonds are returned. If you close non-collaboratively, then you will forfeit your bond and lose those satoshis. If anything smells fishy, I could likewise look to “open a conflict” for the RoboSats team to evaluate. My peer, RoutineDrunkard532, was really respectful and made for a simple experience: After sending the fiat payment, I click the button to “confirm USD sent” as seen in the image above. The peer will verify they have received my fiat payment and verify on their end by clicking a similar button on their screen. The trade is finalized and my Lightning wallet got the bitcoin I bought utilizing an Amazon gift card: It actually is that basic. My taker bond was unlocked and I got 418,460 sats totally KYC-free through a near custody-less trade pipeline. Omitting time spent withdrawing cash and purchasing the present card face to face (about half an hour), the exchange transaction took less than 10 minutes from start to end up. As evidenced by my transaction, the entire point of RoboSats is to improve the experience to the max while also reducing the opportunities for any end-user error. After obtaining your (possibly very first) KYC-free bitcoin, take pleasure in the sovereign individual lifestyle!Another possible usage for RoboSats is as a peer-to-peer swap market for Lightning and on-chain BTC. Rather of utilizing fiat to sell or purchase, users can switch on-chain bitcoin for Lightning liquidity and vice versa. Shown listed below, the proposed order is seeking to buy 0.022 BTC off-chain in exchange for on-chain BTC. Furthermore, swap liquidity providers can carry out a wanted premium (i.e., 0.3%) and acquire a net revenue as the liquidity provider.The smooth frontend of RoboSats makes the process absorbable and extremely easy for newbie users. Making and taking orders is easy and will likely be sufficient for any casual user. Nevertheless, advanced alternatives tailored toward innovative users and larger liquidity service providers benefit more specific order requests. In the above example, a sell order is tailored with sophisticated choices allowing the taker to select a quantity within the selected series of $100 to $300 and an increased minimum fidelity bond from 3% to 5%, consequently needing more skin in the video game but greater assurance of safety from scammers.Allowing bondless takers is prepared as another alternative for orders of 50,000 satoshis or less however likewise carries increased threat. Newbies to LN without capital or limited financial capability to install the funds for a fidelity bond could take orders allowing bondless takers in exchange for a higher premium due to the included counterparty risk.The expiration timers specifying the time of expiration of a public order are likewise customized from the optimum 24-hour public period and the three-hour escrow deposit time-out, both of which are the default expiry timers for a non-custom order. For my example order above, Ive chosen a 12-hour public duration expiry because I am not awake 24/7, and a five-hour window for escrow deposit time-out due to the fact that I may not be at my computer for hours at a time throughout the day.Such advanced functions can pose design obstacles for a user interface stressing straightforwardness and simplicity. When browsing the order book which might cause info overload and hinder insecure newbies, certain innovative options will require to be noticeable. Naturally, some individuals value such features and a way to filter the order book in between innovative and easy orders could alleviate the prospective confusion for newbie users.Limitations Of RoboSatsRoboSats can supply enormous advantages for securing user privacy and shows demand exists for a private, peer-to-peer, KYC-free exchange over LN. RoboSats isnt a magic elixir for privacy and users need to be mindful of the platforms limitations before assuming sovereign invincibility.Your deals are just as personal as you make them. Payment approaches, although totally up to the order maker to specify, can end up being checkpoints for AML/KYC registration like Venmo, Cash App and PayPal. It is essential to note that with PayPal, an extensively utilized fiat payment technique, a purchaser can act fraudulently utilizing PayPals purchaser defense policy by producing a refund request in PayPal after the trading procedure in RoboSats is finished, taking both fiat and bitcoin all for themselves. This type of fraud can be avoided by concurring with the purchaser to send the cash utilizing the alternative to “send out money to a buddy or household member.”If a user is certainly cheated by their peer and looks for arbitration through filing a disagreement, then the user will depend on the RoboSats customers for mediation of any disputes and claims of scamming. This is the plain truth of using a totally open-source and still-experimental exchange in lieu of a businesss centralized exchange. Interestingly enough, RoboSats has actually presently seen over 8,000 orders and only 30 disagreements have actually been started where simply one(!) order was identified as fraud.Limitations enforced by the Lightning Networks typical channel capacity limits RoboSats ability to transact in bigger quantities. At time of writing, the max single trade size on RoboSats is 3,000,000 satoshis (0.03 BTC) to restrict Lightning routing failure. The instant payment system over LN stands out at sending out and getting micropayments whereas large amounts are better suited for on-chain payments using non-KYC platforms like Bisq. On the other hand, using RoboSats is very quick and economical for small, incremental stacking over LN compared to on-chain. The benefit of utilizing LN and hold billings enables any unsettled Lightning hold billing to instantly go back to you even if RoboSats goes down permanently or suddenly vanishes. Approved, funds could be permanently lost if RoboSats vanishes throughout a very little window (about one second) in between the seller validating the fiat payment approach was received and the minute the purchaser really gets the satoshis launched by the hold billing. Having adequate incoming liquidity can help prevent routing failures and consequently reduce any such window for opportunity.Buyer and seller need not trust each other at any point throughout the transaction procedure due to the fact that of Lightning hold billings, but minimal trust on RoboSats is required because connecting the sellers hold invoice and purchaser payment is not atomic (research ongoing). RoboSats could just not launch the satoshis to the buyer, yet this could likewise be argued as a conflict of interest for the platform because this would completely harm its own track record for a fairly unimportant payout.Until RoboSats matures from an experimental task to a more robust marketplace, for their own security, users must trade in small amounts that they are comfortable with. There are limitations, none of which minimize the functionality of the platform, RoboSats needs absolutely no compromises between the users benefit and privacy when engaging with the free, peer-to-peer market. Added trust can be developed by examining the RoboSats source code and validating the jobs integrity.Stack RoboSats And Stay RoboHumbleFirst openly revealed on the Bitcoin subreddit on February 27, 2022, the nascent project has actually currently surpassed 12 BTC worth of lifetime contracted volume. The platform displays excellent possible and is an advance in matching significant centralized exchanges with ease of usage, minimal fees and outright personal privacy. While there is always space for enhancement, users will discover that RoboSats offers a straightforward and user-friendly platform to anonymously exchange bitcoin peer-to-peer. No other exchange permits a different identity in every deal, there is no registration needed, chatroom are private with auditable PGP-encrypted interaction and RoboSats only operates with Tor or I2P– all in an effort to maximize end-user privacy without compromising ease of use. Utilizing RoboSats and non-KYC alternatives will help enhance the fungibility of the Bitcoin network through stabilizing build-up and circulation of non-KYC bitcoin in lieu of KYC-only bitcoin.Curious designers are motivated to support the project by adding to the GitHub repository. Pull ask for brand-new functions can be made qualified for making sats where the contributing developer submits an LN invoice related to their pull demand. The little revenue the platform makes assists pay back the contributors who are voluntarily investing their time in the task. An example of compensated contribution can be discovered here and the features that are qualified for earning sats are marked accordingly.Interested users without shows knowledge can also assist by producing tutorials, opening outbound LN channels towards the RoboSats node, telling others to try RoboSats and directing newbies in the RoboSats telegram groups (EN [main], ES, RU, PT, CN). Eventually, the job is bit without the user base who brings the biggest impact merely by utilizing RoboSats routinely. Take a look at the job and get going stacking anonymously with RoboSats!PS: Many thanks to Reckless_Satoshi and the RoboSats contributors for their time reacting to user questions and their impassioned commitment to this promising open-source project.This is a guest post by Okada. Viewpoints expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily show those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

The expected premium is a weighted average by volume of transactions, not a weighted mean, making it resistant to outlier orders and likewise discourages huge gamers coming and scooping large orders with extreme premiums that are not agent of the retail market sentiment.There is a selection of offered languages (13 ), robotics can find public support by reaching out to a RoboSats neighborhood (14) and users can view some data of RoboSats (15 ). Easily, my payment and currency preferences align with RoutineDrunkard532 as seen listed below: The fastest path to exchanging bitcoin on RoboSats is taking an existing order rather than developing an order and subsequently waiting for a peer to match up with you. The typical taker invests about 7 minutes in RoboSats– from first generating a robotic to finally getting the bitcoin or fiat amount in a self-custodial manner– making it substantially quicker to transact and self-custody compared to centralized exchanges.If no existing order matches your choices, produce a new order to reflect your preferred amount, currency, fiat payment methods and premium. If I am to take an order using an Amazon gift card, then I require to buy an Amazon present card that works for the country suggested– in this circumstances, an Amazon USA present card.We are provided with the order box, a preview of the makers order before confirming I want to take it. Newcomers to LN without capital or restricted monetary capability to put up the funds for a fidelity bond could take orders permitting bondless takers in exchange for a higher premium due to the included counterparty risk.The expiry timers specifying the time of expiration of a public order are also customized from the optimum 24-hour public duration and the three-hour escrow deposit time-out, both of which are the default expiry timers for a non-custom order.