About KYCnot.me

Updated

What is this page?

KYCnot.me is a directory of trustworthy alternatives for buying, exchanging, trading, and using cryptocurrencies without having to disclose your identity, thus preserving your right to privacy.

What is KYC?

KYC stands for Know Your Customer, a process designed to protect financial institutions against fraud, corruption, money laundering and terrorist financing.

The truth is that KYC is a direct attack on our privacy and puts us in disadvantage against the governments. True criminals donā€™t care about KYC policies. True criminals know perfectly how to avoid such policies. In fact, they normally use the FIAT system and donā€™t even need to use cryptocurrencies. Banks are the biggest money launders, the HSBC scandal, Nordea or Swedbank are just some examples.

Chainalysis found that only 0.34% of the transaction volume with cryptocurrencies in 2023 was attributable to criminal activity. Bitcoinā€™s share of this is significantly lower. Illicit transactions with Euros accounted for 1% of the EUā€™s GDP or ā‚¬110 billion in 2010. [1] [2]

KYC only affects small individuals like you and me. It is an annoying procedure that forces us to trust our personal information to a third party in order to buy, use or unlock our funds. We should start using cryptocurrencies as they were intended to be used: without barriers.

Why does this site exist?

Crypto was born to free us from banks and governments controlling our money. Simple as that.

When exchanges require your ID and personal information through KYC, they undermine the core principle of cryptocurrency: privacy. Not everyone possesses an ID, and not everyone resides in a ā€œsupportedā€ country. Small businesses often struggle with the burden of compliance and the fear of hefty fines. Moreover, exchanges are targets for hackers, putting your sensitive data at risk of theft.

KYC turns crypto back into the system weā€™re trying to escape. Thatā€™s why I built this site - to help you use crypto the way it was meant to be used: privately.

Why only Bitcoin and Monero?

Bitcoin: Itā€™s the initial spark of the decentralized money. A solid project with a strong community. It is the most well-known and widespread cryptocurrency.

Monero: If youā€™re looking for digital cash thatā€™s truly private, Monero is it. Itā€™s designed for privacy, works like real cash (fungible), has low fees, and is supported by a dedicated, long-standing community.

While the main focus is on Bitcoin and Monero, youā€™ll find that many of the listed services also accept other cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum or Litecoin.

User Accounts

You can create an account to suggest new services or share your feedback on service pages.

User accounts do not require any personal information. Your username will be randomly generated to prevent impersonation and protect your privacy.

When you create an account, you are given a login key. Login keys are displayed only once. Be sure to store it securely, as it cannot be recovered if lost. It is recommended to use a password manager like Bitwarden or KeePassXC.

User Karma

Users earn karma by participating in the community. When your comments get approved, or when making contributions. As your karma grows, youā€™ll unlock special features, which are detailed on your user profile page.

Verified and Affiliated Users

Verified users have proven their identity by linking their account to a specific website. This verification confirms they are legitimate representatives of that site, whether itā€™s a personal website, blog, social media profile, or service page. You can request verification in your profile.

Affiliated users are users who represent a service listed in the directory, such as owners, support staff, or team members. If you represent a service and want to become affiliated, you can request it in your profile.

Account verification

To prove your account represents a listed service:

  1. Add a TXT record to the serviceā€™s domain with the value kycnotme-verify=<your-username>, replacing <your-username> with your KYCnot.me username.
  2. Send a verification request including your KYCnot.me username and the domain where the TXT record is published.
  3. Once we confirm the TXT record matches your username, weā€™ll mark your account as affiliated with the service.

The TXT record can be removed after we confirm. The affiliation persists.

Listings

Suggesting a new listing

Suggest a new listing by visiting the service suggestion form. Provide the most accurate information for higher chances of getting approved.

Once submitted, you will get a unique tracking page where you can monitor the suggestion status and communicate directly with moderators.

Listing Requirements

To list a new service, it must fulfill these requirements:

KYCnot.me focuses on end-user services and tools, not meta-services. We avoid recursive directory-of-directories listings because they confuse users who come here to find a service.

Not eligible:

Suggestion Review Process

When you submit a new service, it gets the COMMUNITY_CONTRIBUTED status and the unlisted visibility level. The service will not appear in search results, but it can be viewed with a direct link.

Reviews are not on a schedule. Approvals and upgrades happen when we are confident in the evidence, not on a fixed cadence. That can take weeks or months, and some stages may sit untouched until we decide to revisit them. Asking about timing does not move a service forward.

First Review (Unlisted -> Public)
Second Review (Community Contributed -> Approved)

Approved means we did a limited, recent review and found enough public history to treat the service as more than just an unknown listing. It does not mean the service is fully trusted, future-proof, or safe from a later exit scam.

We are intentionally strict here. Approved services show more prominently and users naturally trust them more. Because of that, a clean-looking website is not enough, and a few recent successful tests are not enough either. If a service has little or no public history, it usually stays Community Contributed until more evidence exists.

In short: Approved is for services that look real both on their own site and outside of it.

A service is generally eligible for Approved when all of the following hold:

For swaps and exchanges these tests will usually be swaps; for VPNs, VPS providers, AI providers, and other categories the tests should match the core user workflow.

Public wording for Approved:

Passed limited checks on specific dates and showed enough public history for approval. This does not guarantee future safety.

Final Review (Approved -> Verified)

Verified means the service showed consistent behavior over time and kept passing repeated checks. It does not mean the service is fully trusted, future-proof, or incapable of an exit scam later.

This status is stricter than Approved. Approved means we saw enough evidence to move the service out of the ā€œunknownā€ bucket. Verified means the service kept behaving consistently over a longer period, both in our own checks and in what we can observe publicly.

A service is generally eligible for Verified when all of the following hold:

Verified is not permanent. If serious new evidence appears later, the status can be removed or downgraded.

Public wording for Verified:

Passed repeated checks over time and kept showing consistent behavior. This is still not a guarantee.

Verification Steps

Services will usually show the verification steps that the admins took to reach the verified (or not) status. Each step will have a description and some evidence attached.

Service Attributes

An attribute is a feature of a service, categorized as:

You can view all available attributes on the Attributes page.

Attributes are classified into two main types:

  1. Privacy Attributes ā€“ Related to data protection and anonymity.
  2. Trust Attributes ā€“ Related to reliability and security.

These categories directly influence a serviceā€™s Privacy and Trust scores, which contribute to its overall rating.

Service Scores

Scores are calculated automatically using clear, fixed rules based on the attributes of the service (See all attributes). We do not change or adjust scores by hand. The scoring system is open-source and anyone can review or suggest improvements.

Privacy Score

The privacy score measures how well a service protects user privacy, using a transparent, rules-based approach:

  1. Base Score: Every service starts with a neutral score of 50 points.
  2. Privacy Attributes: The sum of all privacy points from attributes categorized as ā€˜PRIVACYā€™ is added to the score. See all attributes.
  3. Final Score Range: The final score is always kept between 0 and 100.
Trust Score

The trust score represents how reliable and trustworthy a service is, based on objective, transparent criteria.

  1. Base Score: Every service begins with a neutral score of 50 points.
  2. Trust Attributes: The total trust points from all attributes categorized as ā€˜TRUSTā€™ are added to the score. See all attributes.
  3. Final Score Range: The final score is always kept between 0 and 100.
Overall Score

The overall score is calculated as (privacy * 0.6) + (trust * 0.4) truncated. This provides a combined measure of privacy and trust.

Terms of Service Reviews

KYCnot.me automatically reviews and summarizes the Terms of Service (ToS) for every service monthly using AI. You get simple, clear summaries that highlight the most important points, so you can quickly see what matters.

We hash each ToS document and only review it again if it changes. Some services may go a long time without a new review, but we still check and scrape their ToS every month.

We aim for accuracy, but the AI may sometimes miss details or highlight less relevant information. If you see any error, contact us.

Events

There are two types of events:

You can also take a look at the global timeline where you will find all the serviceā€™s events sorted by date.

Listing Statuses

Each service has one status. Upgrade criteria for Approved and Verified live in Suggestion Review Process; the descriptions below summarize what the status means for a reader.

Legacy listings. Some services were granted Approved or Verified under earlier standards, before the current check-publishing requirements existed. They remain listed because they have a long, clean public history. Published check history will be backfilled over time. Until then, treat the absence of evidence as missing information, not endorsement.

Unlisted

Initial state after submission. The service does not appear in the list or search results and is only reachable via a direct link. We do an initial check for spam and basic eligibility before promoting it.

Community Contributed

The service is listed but not yet reviewed by our team. The information may be inaccurate, incomplete, or fraudulent. Use with caution.

Approved

The service passed a limited, recent review (see criteria). This reflects specific checks on specific dates, not a long-term safety guarantee.

Verified

The service kept passing checks and showing consistent behavior over a longer period (see criteria). Stronger than Approved, but still not a guarantee against future problems or exit scams.

Scam

The service is a scam. User reports, negative reviews, failed internal testing, or other red flags were found. Evidence lives in the service pageā€™s verification section.

Archived

The service is no longer available. It may have been shut down, acquired, or otherwise discontinued. Still visible in the directory for reference.

Reviews and Comments

A comment is any post on a service page. A review is a comment that also carries a one-to-five star rating. You can post multiple reviews for the same service; only the latest active one is shown as your current rating.

If youā€™ve used the service, you can attach an order ID or other private proof, visible only to moderators. You can also flag a comment as reporting a KYC issue or blocked funds.

Reviews do not move the service score

This is important to understand:

Reviews are easy to game in both directions, by competitors, affiliates, or coordinated groups. We try to make abuse harder and we moderate, but a fake review is rarely something we can prove. Read comments carefully and do your own research before deciding.

Trust-weighted display rating

The displayed average rating is weighted by per-reviewer trust, so a five-star review from a long-time active user counts more than a five-star review from an account created five minutes ago.

Reviews from established users, verified accounts, and comments with approved private proof carry more weight. New accounts, low-activity accounts, suspicious comments, and service-affiliated accounts carry less. Some ratings do not count at all.

When the system detects a coordinated wave of similar comments from fresh accounts on the same service, those comments are auto-muted: the text usually stays visible, but the star ratings are not counted. A human moderator reviews each one afterward.

If a service does not have enough trusted feedback yet, the page says so instead of showing a weak average.

Each review shows its rating weight next to the stars. Comments can be sorted by Newest, Upvoted, Lowest, Highest, or Trusted (sorted by review trust weight). User badges add context: New account, Single review, Active user, Trusted user.

Moderation

Moderation is light and best-effort. We do not promise to catch every bad comment, and we do not pretend to.

The flow is two-stage:

  1. AI first. Every new comment is read by an AI with the surrounding context: the service, recent activity, account age, and similarity to other recent comments. The AI takes the decision when it is clearly safe to approve or clearly trash to reject.
  2. Human on holds. When the AI is not confident, or when the comment includes private proof, claims KYC issues, claims blocked funds, or looks like part of a coordinated wave, it is held for a human moderator.

The AI never has the last word on a comment that includes private proof.

Comments from users affiliated with a service are automatically approved on their own service page.

To see comments waiting for moderation on a service, toggle the switch in the comments section. Pending comments show on a yellow background with a ā€œpendingā€ label.

Comment Guidelines

The rule is simple: comments should help other users understand the service. First-hand experiences are best. Questions, corrections, and useful replies are welcome.

Comments are rejected when they contain:

For reviews with a star rating, the rating should reflect your own experience with the service. A rating may be muted (the comment stays visible, the stars donā€™t count) when:

Muting a rating does not mean the comment is bad. It means we do not want that star rating shifting the public average.

API

You can access service data through our API. An API key is required for all requests. You can create one from your account settings once an admin has granted you access.

You can donate to support our work:

Monero

83g1QHgQkbJeHr7m1wpDnNFsJcFMaFx6W7DsH4HuSR5ZHPRkeGErJAjYkHrJgBhq4TUrNrCimXNqwYTV1ywB6Rv86Z8iCAu

If your wallet supports OpenAlias (i.e. CakeWallet) you can input kycnot.me in the address field.

Contact

New approvals and verification upgrades happen only when Iā€™m personally confident about a service, and that takes time. Pinging us about it does not move it forward.

Use the right channel for what you need:

What we donā€™t do

We donā€™t mediate between you and a service. We canā€™t recover funds, unlock accounts, push a service to refund you, or settle individual disputes. Those are between you and the service.

The only reports we act on are exit scams and terms-of-service violations. We have no leverage beyond what we publish.

You may notice direct contact channels are gone. The pattern was always the same: services chasing us about when theyā€™d be listed, approved, or reviewed, sometimes with offers to pay for priority, which will never be accepted. Our last email address was buried in spam, SimpleX was brigaded by anonymous accounts, and Element became the latest channel to fall to the same pattern.

Social Networks

Downloads and Assets

For logos and brand assets, visit our assets page.

Disclaimer

This website is strictly for informational purposes regarding privacy technology in the cryptocurrency space. We unequivocally condemn and do not endorse, support, or facilitate money laundering, terrorist financing, or any other illegal financial activities. The use of any information or service mentioned herein for such purposes is strictly prohibited and contrary to the core principles of this project.

By using this website, you acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for your actions, due diligence, and compliance with all applicable laws. You use the information and any linked services entirely at your own risk. The operators of this website will not be held liable for any losses, damages, or legal consequences arising from your use of this site or any services listed herein.