How to Accept Payments Anonymously - A Digital Currency Guide

by Max Vendor

You wish to sell something.

You don't want anybody to know who you are.  Maybe you don't want to be at risk to rampant civil litigation or exposed to fraudulent buyers, or perhaps your competition is completely evil and will come after you for infringing upon their monopoly.  Or you could live in a country blacklisted by the western corporate structures of modern financial payment systems such as PayPal, Visa/MasterCard, Moneybookers, etc.

Or you are Julian Assange and don't want your donations stolen.

In what the media likes to refer to as the "post 9/11 world," we are all at the mercy of the U.S. government, who for the past decade or so has been pursuing a policy to extend the global reach of their lobbyists' claws to pretty much everywhere on Earth.

Basically every country must give up personal data and conform to identification regulations for transactions under the guise of security or protecting copyrights.  Noncompliance means sanctions, and a variety of other strong arm tactics, so eventually almost all of the world's governments have caved to these reporting requirements.

It's not like all our countries aren't filled with the same corporations buying off the same technocrats we call leaders anyways.  This was bound to happen eventually with the growing cancer of corporatism.

Remember personal Swiss numbered accounts?  Long gone.  Cayman Islands offshore protection?  Same.  They've even gotten all those micro-countries in Europe like Jersey, whose only income was probably offering a tax haven.  Even they caved.

Transfer systems such as PayPal in some situations can have your linked bank accounts frozen, and they give away your info to practically anybody who faxes them a legal letterhead.  If you can cut-and-paste some legal website's logo and use an online fax service, you can probably get anybody's info, or have their account held, or demand further verification.

The harassment potentials have no bounds.  There are online lawyers everywhere now who do this for only $50.  The MPAA probably has a button they push that freezes accounts upon request.

Instead of buying fake ID and scans from vendors on shady carding forums and exposing yourself to Secret Service or INTERPOL honeypot traps, there are in fact methods to conceal your identity and still sell something without undesirable people knowing who you are, people like lawyers, secret police, the media, organized religion with lawyers, corporations, or rival porn studios run by the mob.

Whatever the reasons, it is now very easy for anybody in the world to buy digital currency and pay you with it.  The days of complicated and expensive bank wire transfers to Central or South America just to fund an account with 12 percent fees taken by middlemen along the way are gone.  Rejoice!  Let's punt some junk on the Internet and be anonymous.

Before I begin, every time this topic is brought up, somebody immediately reacts loudly that anonymous currency must only be used for heinous criminal activity like terrorism, and therefore should be controlled.

Yet they probably use cash every day which is (OMG) anonymous - though not for long.

In 20 years, we'll most likely be forced to have cash credits traded on cards that log every transaction.  Tell them criminal gangs use stolen cards, logins, and professional laundering services like ePharma merchant account resellers to cash out with layers of shell companies and casinos.

Terrorists use a cash honor-based system that has been around since the eighth century called hawala (which is actually a pretty awesome idea when you read up on it).  They also get their money by skimming cash from all that so-called rebuilding money floating around Afghanistan and Iraq.

Besides, you don't even need money to be a terrorist.  Remember the Unabomber?  He lived in a wooden shack without running water or electricity.  The 9/11 guys didn't need a bunch of money to buy box cutters and one way tickets.

Child porn traders and other morally repugnant vendors at the shallow end of the human gene pool do not actually sell anything.  Sure, there may be sites appearing to sell this stuff saying you can buy their illegal porn, but it's either a trap, or the RBN who is going to hold your info ransom after payment to extort more money out of you.  Do not believe the myth that there is some sort of global child porn profitable empire in 2011.

This is created by the media and fictional cop drama television, and perpetuated by our governments so they can get an excuse to monitor financial transactions.  When that excuse doesn't work they'll find some other reason, which they already have - called intellectual property rights.

Your road to digital e-currency begins at the Talkgold.com and Bitcoin.org forums which list legitimate exchangers.

Here's a breakdown of some of what's currently available and easy to use:

LiqPAY (Liquid Payments Inc.):  Based out of the Ukraine.  With a phone and a credit card, anybody can send you up to $200 per transaction and the payment can't be charged back.  Use an SMS forwarding gateway or a burner phone (see The Prophet's previous 2600 article on a TracFone) to receive the payments.  Exchange the LiqPAY into another digital currency with the many exchangers in Russia, Vietnam, Singapore, and the Ukraine.  Cash out - nobody knows who you are if you've used a virtual Visa or anonymous card for verification (they block the card with a small transaction, then ask you to enter it as confirmation).  Be warned: sometimes LiqPAY seizes accounts if they are suspected of selling Ukash vouchers or other digital currency, otherwise you shouldn't have any problems with transactions under $200.  It's free to receive and move money around.  If you live in a former Soviet Bloc/CIS country (or can get a card from there), you can cash it out directly to any Visa.

WebMoney:  A Russian digital currency based in Costa Rica.  Sadly, this used to be a good anonymous currency, but they have turned into the PayPal of Russia, freezing and seizing accounts for whatever reasons.  However, you can buy WMZ (WebMoney in USD) prepaid card codes from BuyWMZ and other exchangers with a credit card, and then email them to somebody.  That person converts it to something else and cashes out anonymously.  You don't even need a WebMoney account.  Exchange Zone is a good place to find other people willing to do this at 1:1 cost.

Liberty Reserve:  One of the original e-gold currencies based out of Costa Rica.  You can make as many Liberty Reserve accounts as you want, and easily move money around.  The only currency more anonymous than this is Pecunix and Bitcoin.  Don't like the JavaScript login?  Rent a remote desktop for 5-10 dollars a month or make your own with a cheap VPS.  Your customers don't even need Liberty Reserve accounts, they can simply pay an exchanger to fund your account directly.  It's up to the exchanger to verify buyers, not Liberty Reserve.  They simply provide a site to move the money around, not to buy in or cash out directly.  This is probably the most accepted payment system going, and they allow private transactions to hide your details when transferring to another account.  No chargebacks allowed, has USD and Euro accounts.  Always move money around before withdrawing, and use different exchangers to keep anonymity.

Perfect Money:  Based in Panama and supposedly Zürich allows third-party wires directly to your account or free account funding via bank wire.  This is also a great currency to fund your Liberty Reserve account with.  Make an account, fund it (free), then use exchangers like superchange.ru to convert it into Liberty Reserve for a low fee.  Adds an extra layer of anonymity.

C-Gold:  Based in the Seychelles and Malaysia, has been around since 2001.  They have some odd rules, but otherwise it's an excellent system if you don't mind paying the typical 6-10 percent exchanger fees.  Some exchangers such as Aurum Exchange allow you to withdraw directly to an ATM card.

Pecunix:  Based in Panama, is entirely based on gold reserves.  You trade in gold units.  They offer excellent anonymous protection if you move payments to a different account to cash out.  No JavaScript.

Bitcoin:  Is an encrypted, decentralized, truly anonymous currency.  Using the Bitcoin tumbler on Tor, it is completely impossible to figure out who paid you money from where.  Numerous Bitcoin exchangers such as Liberty Reserve exist who will convert it into cash in the mail, or another e-currency with an ATM card.  Tell your customers to mail cash to a Bitcoin vendor with your Bitcoin address for direct third-party funding.  The best part about Bitcoin is that there are no rules.  It is the future of money.  Bank on it to survive any crackdowns and protect your identity at all costs.

How can your customers use these systems?

Through exchangers who allow in-person cash bank deposits in most major banks (up to $1000 a day, no ID needed), with mailed cash such as Nanaimo Gold, with bank wires, with credit cards, with Western Union, or by converting Ukash and Paysafecards they buy at gas stations and corner stores.

The possibilities are nearly endless.  You can even exchange Skype vouchers into Liberty Reserve now.

What is not anonymous?

Well, for starters, MoneyPak, unless you hire a runner to cash it out.  Chargebacks are also possible - you can phone them and have them cancel the codes.  Same goes for Ukash, Paysafecards, CASHU, and other voucher-based systems.

The key here is to receive it to one account, convert it to another currency, and then cash out through somebody else.  You have hopefully used three or four different countries at this point and the trail is difficult to follow.  You can do this for under ten percent, which, if you think is high, think of all the merchant fees charged for accepting Visa/MasterCard or money lost to chargebacks.  Accepting Western Union as a direct payment is probably the most foolish way besides PayPal for selling on the Internet.

The secret question/answer method no longer works in most countries, and Western Union will report you for constantly receiving transactions over a certain amount.  Anelik, iKobo, and other wire transfer systems are equally dangerous and prone to held transactions.

How can you be your own exchanger?

If you're in the U.S., don't even bother.  The media will claim you enable child pornographers or al-Qaeda.  The Secret Service will be all over you as MasterCard will dispatch them to shut you down.  Some clown who purchased Liberty Reserve through you will try to sue you in Florida for enabling his gambling addiction.  Instead, register an International Business Company (IBC) in the Seychelles or Belize to open up bank accounts to accept customer wires.  You can register IBCs for only $900 through various company formation sites.

Check them on Safe or Scam or Talkgold Forums first to make sure they are legit.  Or be an independent anonymous exchanger.  e-cardone.com is the largest wholesaler of Liberty Reserve, and currently their authorized site to apply to be an exchanger.  Just be careful with enabling the Liberty Reserve API - it would be safer to do manual transactions to prevent getting robbed (which has happened - read the Trainex Service blog about it).

You will probably also require DDoS-proof hosting (or Tor), and a domain that isn't registered by any U.S. company to prevent it being yanked.  When controlling large amounts of digital currency, you should use something like The Amnesic/Incognito Live System to log into your own private desktop that you preferably set up yourself (or VPN), combined with an encrypted USB drive from the German Privacy Foundation or IronKey.

Make TrueCrypt containers on those drives and keep your digital accounts' passwords on them.  If really paranoid, you can use something like Shamir's Secret Sharing to split the key up into two drives that both need to be accessed in order for it to work.

Make sure if withdrawing from your offshore business account, you aren't using the debit card it comes with.

Fund a third-party card and use that so they can't trace back to your bank in Cyprus, Latvia, wherever if you would not like to report your income due to various reasons.  In Moscow, it's downright dangerous to pay your taxes.  Once the organized mob calling itself the Moscow City Council finds out you have money, they just come to extort as much more as possible.  In some countries, it's best if your government doesn't even know you exist.

Writer's update: Liberty Reserve is now actually dangerous to use, due to Costa Rican banking laws recently changing.  "HD-Money" and Bitcoin are now the chosen currencies for best anonymous payments.