The reason given was "Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for certain sexually oriented materials or services or for items that could be considered obscene". This is wrong/false on so many levels. We used PayPal only as a means to receive voluntary donations from people who wanted to support further development of Voat and to help pay for our hosting fees. This is beyond crazy.
According to PayPal User Agreement, our funds can be kept by PayPal for 180 days. I requested further clarification from PayPal, but I would like to advise everyone who planned to donate to Voat - to NOT do so via PayPal.
Honestly, I don't know what I expected when I trusted PayPal with our donation money. I apologize to everyone who donated to us through PayPal and I will badge everyone who did so even if the funds are never released by PayPal.
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ooze ago
Coinbase for relatively easy bitcoin purchases/transfers
SilverBanana ago
I read their privacy policy. While it seems easy to use, they store my information including who I sent money to/recieve from. And since they are in the UK, they are subjected to quite heavy regulation.
Does anyone know any truly private alternatives?
itweeb ago
Keep an offline bitcoin wallet and buy locally with cash. Any place you purchase BTC from online is going to want identification to make sure you're not screwing them.
The point is, Coinbase can't just say "sorry, some moralfags claimed to be butthurt by your site, so we're keeping your money". Once the transaction is through, it's done.
SilverBanana ago
I see that advantage, but I want privacy. Hypothetically, if UK goes nuts and declare that people who bought buttplugs need to be put on Public Pervert Registry I want wallet company that will not be able to give them history of my transactions. I do not mind so much that there is banking record of me sending money to BTC exchange if nobody can prove what I was doing with the money after I sent them there.
itweeb ago
Okay then, you should be able to just transfer the BTC back to your own personal offline wallet after purchasing via an online service (Coinbase). Of course, you're also trusting that the person you are sending the BTC to isn't keeping records that expose your identity after the transaction is complete, assuming the seller needed to send something to you or some other reason. In the case of Voat, they would never possess your info, so you should be fine.
SilverBanana ago
So I would be basically using Coinbase as an exchange service and sent money to my encrypted wallet for actual use. Hmmm, I see what you are saying.
AlLnAtuRalX ago
Yes. Send it through something like CoinJoin (shared send, https://sharedcoin.com/) to make it impossible to trace through the blockchain. It sounds complicated but once you do it once it will be second nature. Bonus points for doing it through Tor for an extra level of deniability.
If you really want to go tinfoil hat you can look into combining this approach with "darker" tumblers like BitcoinFog and Helix or even with BTC <> altcoin <> BTC exchanges with a privacy-preserving altcoin in between (a la Monero using ring signatures, or ZeroCash for a ZKP-based coin).
Let me know if you need any help, spending without tracking on the Internet is a human right.