News
Editorial notes on the world of anonymity: tool releases, law changes, incidents — and what they mean for people who value privacy.
Appeals court upholds Bitcoin Fog conviction, accepts Chainalysis tracing with no known error rate
On 25 September 2026 the D.C. Circuit affirmed Roman Sterlingov's 150-month sentence for running the Bitcoin Fog mixer. The opinion concedes that Chainalysis Reactor was never peer-reviewed and that its error rate is unknown, and admits it anyway.
Read on →
France logs 70+ crypto kidnappings in eight months as 80,689 Trezor buyers' home addresses leak
On 20 September four masked men held a crypto worker's family in northern France until €40,000 was transferred. Two weeks earlier Trezor said a shipping firm had exposed the names and home addresses of 80,689 buyers, data it had been told was deleted.
Read on →
Brazil now reports self-custody transfers of $10,000 or more to its financial intelligence unit
Since 1 October 2026 every transfer of US$10,000 or more between a Brazilian exchange and a wallet you hold yourself is reported to the financial intelligence unit. The trigger is the amount alone; no suspicion is required.
Read on →
Revolut handed customers' ID files to impostors posing as a government agency
Nobody hacked Revolut. Fraudsters sent requests from a real government e-mail domain, and the bank replied with passports, selfies and transaction histories. Revolut calls the number affected "limited"; the attackers claim about 680 people.
Read on →
Any Android app can leak your real IP past an always-on VPN, Mullvad warns
With Android set to block every connection outside the VPN, an ordinary app can still send packets around the tunnel and reveal your IP address. Google closed the report without a fix. GrapheneOS has shipped one.
Read on →
No-KYC crypto debit card: the limits are set by law, not by the seller
A card you load with crypto and spend anywhere, issued without a document, is advertised everywhere. Two rules decide how much such a card may hold: €150 in the EU, $1,000 in the US. Anything above that is identifying you somewhere, or will not last.
Read on →
Peach Bitcoin gives up its escrow key and limits who can sell after a regulator's letter
Peach ran a KYC-free peer-to-peer market under a Swiss arrangement since 2022. On 31 August 2026 its founder said the regulator wants that arrangement reconsidered. Peach no longer signs the escrow, and new sellers need KYC or a long track record.
Read on →
CoinEx, BitMEX and Orionx close within three weeks: the withdrawal deadlines
Three exchanges announced or completed a shutdown in September 2026. CoinEx users have until 22 December to withdraw before a 5% monthly fee starts. BitMEX balances are being charged already. Orionx has frozen withdrawals for more than 100,000 people.
Read on →
The market's best week belonged to a coin exchanges are removing
Zcash rose about 40% in a week, passed $1,200 for the first time since 2016 and took ninth place by market capitalisation — while the venues that would list it keep shrinking.
Read on →
CoinJoin did not die. It lost its head and grew several.
Two coordinators were shut down by force and one by lawyers. The technique survived all three, and the shape it survived in is the interesting part.
Read on →
The trial that decides what a developer owes moved to 2027
Write privacy software and you may be answerable for who uses it. That question now has a court date, and it has just moved a year further away.
Read on →
Europe set a date for anonymity: 1 July 2027
Anonymity in European crypto now has an expiry date, and it is printed in a regulation rather than guessed at in a forum thread.
Read on →
Seventy exchanges dropped Monero. It went to $500.
Delisting is supposed to kill a coin. Two years and seventy venues later, the experiment has produced the opposite result, and it is worth understanding why.
Read on →
Monero got a new way out, and it is not an exchange
The week after the delisting headlines, a decentralised network quietly did the thing the delisted exchanges used to do.
Read on →
The safest place for your passport scan is nowhere
In August alone, two crypto companies told their customers that the identity files they were required to hand over are now in someone else's hands.
Read on →
Best no-KYC crypto exchanges: what the levels actually say
Most lists of the best no-KYC exchanges are written by exchanges. Here are the numbers instead: of twenty-five exchange-type services in this catalogue, nine ask for nothing at all — and the rest ask only sometimes, which is the whole story.
Read on →
Anonymous crypto wallet: what it hides and what it does not
A self-custodial wallet never asks for ID — and that is the least interesting thing about it. What separates a private wallet from an ordinary one is whose server learns your addresses, whether it speaks over Tor, and where the coins came from.
Read on →
nokyc.watch - Privacy-friendly and no-KYC crypto services
Every year it gets harder to spend money without explaining yourself. This catalogue answers three questions about a crypto service — will it demand your documents, what will it learn about you, does it work right now — and shows how each answer was checked.
Read on →
