Your Sovereign Family is a website about how to achieve freedom for parents and their children. We talk about bitcoin, birth and peaceful parenting.
But one of the most foundational building blocks of the sovereign family is the idea of voluntary relationships. This means being intentional about who you allow around your children—and understanding that all adult relationships are ultimately optional.
You Don’t Owe Anyone Access to Your Family
The only relationships you’re bound to are with your spouse and children. Everyone else—friends, relatives, neighbors—is optional.
That means it’s not just okay to cut ties with toxic people—it’s your responsibility. Your role as a parent includes being a gatekeeper, protecting your family from harmful influences.
Set Clear Standards For Who Enters Your Circle
Your standards for adult behavior should rise when children are involved. People in your child’s life should reflect your values—especially your values as a peaceful parent.
Too many adults carry unresolved trauma, use violence as discipline, or belittle children for simply being themselves. Your children deserve better.
Common Types of Abuse to Guard Against
You can’t raise sovereign children in a toxic environment. Here are some common forms of abuse that must be recognized and rejected:
Physical Abuse
At least 35% of American children are hit by their parents. Hitting is often a triggered response to a child’s pure, unfiltered behavior—and it breaks trust between parent and child.
Verbal Abuse
Yelling, mocking, gaslighting, and passive aggression are all verbal assaults on a child’s innocence. These behaviors may seem subtle but can have lifelong psychological effects.
Sexual Abuse
The most disturbing form of abuse, and one that must be acknowledged. Any sexual contact or behavior between an adult and a child is abuse, no matter how “mild” it seems. Read Protecting the Gift by Gavin de Becker to learn more about how to spot abusers.
Neglect
Neglect includes physical, emotional, or educational abandonment. Today, many children are neglected emotionally or left with screens to avoid parenting challenges. It’s damaging—and easy to miss.
Positive Parenting Values to Build Around
As a sovereign parent, it is your responsibility to look after your children. To do this effectively, you must constantly learn and grow. You need to be informed about medical care, birth, nutrition, education, technology, finance, and philosophy—everything necessary to raise your children into healthy, sovereign individuals.
It’s also essential to understand your own childhood experiences so you can avoid lashing out or lying to your children. Modern parenting is in a bad place, and it’s crucial to recognize where your parents went wrong. Empathy is key, especially if your parents failed to offer it.
Therapy and self-reflection can go a long way to help with this process.
As a sovereign family, peaceful parenting should be at the heart of your values. If you’re raising your kids without yelling, violence, and manipulation, you’ll want to surround yourself with people who share this philosophy.
For example, if you homeschool instead of sending your kids to daycare or public school, it can be harmful to expose them to children who are subjected to those environments.
Check out this video on The Truth About Daycare and how it can affect a child’s health and well-being.
You may also want to spend time with people who embrace rational authority—those who convince their children by setting a positive example instead of ordering them around.
Some of the best people I know embrace both peaceful parenting and bitcoin. It takes a certain pro-social and philosophical mindset to champion both causes.
Peaceful Parenting Values
Here are the main pillars of peaceful parenting:
No Aggression – We treat our children without hitting, yelling, or coercion of any kind. Violence destroys the loving connection between parent and child.
Children Are Rational Beings – Many parents treat their children like property, managing them all day. But children are rational and need to be reasoned with. Otherwise, they won’t learn to think or treat others with respect.
Relationships Are Voluntary – All adult relationships, including family relationships, are voluntary. If a relationship is toxic—even with parents—you have the option to cut ties. The only obligations you have are to your spouse and children.
No Punishment – Any form of punishment, including timeouts, is a form of domination, which is unethical and unloving. Children are rational and want to be good. You should lead with curiosity and reason.
Parents’ Self Work is Essential – To parent well, you need to take an honest look at your own childhood—what worked and what didn’t. If you haven’t come to terms with your own experiences, it’s hard to respond to your kids with the clarity, strength, and patience they need.
Choose Your Relationships Carefully
Voluntary relationships mean that love is earned and maintained through virtue, not obligation. Love isn’t something you owe—it’s something that arises naturally in response to goodness. When virtues aren’t present—when someone is manipulative, cruel, or abusive—love simply can’t exist. Pretending it does isn’t virtuous; it’s self-betrayal. And you’ll teach your children to betray their own values as well.
That’s why it’s important to be true to your standards—not just for your own peace of mind, but because your children are watching. You’re showing them what self-respect looks like. You’re showing them that relationships should be chosen, not endured. And you’re showing them how to walk away when someone violates your values.
Ultimately, the people you bring into your family’s life shape your children’s understanding of love, self-protection, and connection. Choose your relationships wisely. Raising sovereign children in a sovereign family starts with the courage to say no—and the clarity to say yes only when it truly aligns with your values.
Why is the USD price of bitcoin going up forever, and how can this help you achieve family financial sovereignty and become a better parent? Give me a few minutes, and I’ll explain exactly why this is happening—even in July 2025, with Bitcoin at $118,000.
The Difficulties of the Modern Economy
Have you noticed how unaffordable the basics have become for young families over the past decade? A home in a major city—or even in the suburbs—is often out of reach for a single-income household.
But here’s the problem: a dual-income setup is deeply at odds with raising children, especially for families seeking sovereignty. You can’t be sovereign and raise happy, self-reliant children if both parents are gone all day. Kids need their parents present. The alternative many parents choose is to send their children to daycare and public school.
Babies and toddlers who spend their time in daycare have their hearts broken. And children in public school often have their souls and imaginations crushed.
So it becomes your responsibility to be there—to raise and educate your own children. But in today’s economy, how are you supposed to make that happen?
Having kids is life’s greatest pleasure and purpose. It’s easy enough to have them—but what’s hard is setting your family up to thrive financially.
In order to do this, you’ll have to break all the conventions.
As I explained in my “Bitcoin Investment Strategy” post, fiat currency is a rigged game you’re better off not playing—and today, there’s a way out.
Bitcoin For the Sovereign Family
Your boomer parents probably told you that owning a home is virtuous and financially wise. Of course they did—that’s how they beat inflation. But now they’re convinced, almost by default, that a house is an investment.
Take a look at the picture below. While the average home price in America has steadily risen, Bitcoin holders have seen their purchasing power grow far more dramatically.
After all, Bitcoin has a very low inflation rate and a very limited supply. That’s why a house cost hundreds of Bitcoin just nine years ago. But today, with Bitcoin at $118,000, you can buy the same house for less than 5 BTC. How much Bitcoin do you think you’ll need to buy that house in 2029?
When you invest in the traditional financial system and live a debt-based lifestyle, it can be hard to outpace inflation and save a substantial amount of money. You’re basically forced to gamble in the stock market just to keep your wealth from being eaten away by inflation.
But bitcoin has proven itself unequivocally as deflationary money and a powerful way to build wealth. Especially if you’re an early adopter, which you can still be in 2025, you can grow your wealth exponentially.
Bitcoin and Parenting
If you buy bitcoin with your fiat savings and grow your wealth, what will that mean for your family?
The modern Westerner is propagandized into believing that children are expensive, but the truth is that taxes are extremely high and the financial system is rigged. And that’s why everything’s getting so unaffordable.
The whole system is designed to steal from and demoralize us. But hold bitcoin for a few years, and you will become radically more optimistic about your future.
Check out this video by Forrest Hodl of “Bitcoin Not Crypto”. He talks about how bitcoin helped him imagine a world where things are actually getting cheaper, especially if you acquire bitcoin early.
Bitcoin gave him hope for the future, and “you have to have hope for the future to bring somebody into the world.”
All of a sudden, your 5-figure nest egg has grown to 6 or even 7 figures, and you’re no longer trapped in a pit of debt. You might even be able to bypass the most common debt instrument, the mortgage, and buy a house in cash. Or at least you’ll be able to reduce your mortgage with a more substantial down payment.
Do you know how much a mortgage really costs? If you buy a $700,000 home in Canada, you’ll end up paying around $400,000 in interest over the life of the mortgage.
Mortgages are really expensive! But so is dropping $700,000 in cash to buy a house. You might be better off just renting, but that’s your decision to make.
The reason I mention housing is because this is the biggest expense that any family needs to work out. Your kids need a place to live. But if you grow your wealth exponentially with bitcoin, you’ll be able to relax and have as many kids as you want.
No more worrying about the cost of your beautiful children, and no more needing to forgo family formation altogether as a reaction to the rigged financial and tax system.
With bitcoin, you can focus on what matters, instead of agonizing over your investments and spending your whole life working without saving.
Your kids just want to exist and spend time with you, but this is threatened by high taxes and inflation. So I encourage you to study bitcoin and money, and make moves that will allow you to have kids and spend as much time with them as they need.
How To Have Your Sovereign Family
Bitcoin can ease your family’s financial stress and support financial sovereignty—an essential step toward true independence.
If you grew up with parents who were constantly stressed or preoccupied with money, you likely remember how deeply that affected your sense of well-being.
Today, with the cost of living soaring and household debt at record highs, financial sovereignty is more crucial than ever. If Bitcoin offers a solution to inflation and long-term wealth preservation, it can free you and your spouse to focus on the other vital aspects of family sovereignty—like health, education, and values.
Sovereignty Over Birth, Health, and Education
You can focus on how to be medically sovereign by doing your own research, especially about childbirth. You don’t need to blindly submit to the opinions and manipulations of medical professionals. It’s your family and you need to be able to make informed decisions on birth, health and wellness.
Once you have children, you can choose how to parent and educate them—rather than leaving it up to the State. It’s every parent’s nightmare to spend all day, five days a week, rushing kids off to school while working themselves to the bone, never seeing the results they need in order to truly thrive. The dual-income life is incredibly stressful and often joyless. Bitcoin fixes this.
You can take charge of your children’s education and actually enjoy more time with them—every single day.
And if you’re thriving financially, you won’t be so stressed that you snap at your children—or worse. You and your spouse can calmly define your parenting values and raise your children in a peaceful home, free from constant conflict. Bitcoin can free up your emotional bandwidth, allowing you to spend less time worrying about investing and more time focused on your children.
Money is our life’s energy—it’s stored time. When the government and financial system steadily erode its value, it pushes parents into survival mode. Bitcoin puts the power to save and build wealth back in your hands. By embracing Bitcoin, you take a vital step toward family financial sovereignty. If you put in the work to deeply understand it, you can reclaim your sovereignty—and raise happy, healthy children.
If you’re ready to buy bitcoin, I recommend visiting a bitcoin ATM with limited-KYC near you (find one at coinatmradar.com, look for SMS verification only and use one of the SMS services I mentioned in this article) or buying from an exchange that respects your privacy. All exchanges require KYC verification to some extent, but some are better than others. Stay away from the big exchanges like Coinbase and Binance unless you want your data on the dark web and your privacy compromised forever.
If you’re in the USA, I generally recommend looking into River.com or Bitcoinwell.com, but in Canada and Europe (and Mexico and Costa Rica), Bull Bitcoin is the best exchange.
Bull Bitcoin is bitcoin only, so if somehow my article has convinced you to buy an altcoin, look elsewhere.
But if you want bitcoin, Bull offers many useful features:
Best-in-class customer service – unlike most large exchanges, you get to speak to a real bitcoiner who can walk you through the process.
Multiple ways to fund your account – Bank transfers, e-transfers, SEPA, or even buy with cash in-person at Canada Post.
Lightning, Liquid and DCA – Save on fees and increase privacy with bitcoin buys and on lightning and liquid networks. You can even set up hourly, daily or weekly dollar-cost-average buys.
Pay Bills with Bitcoin – You can sell bitcoin directly to any credit card, bank account, or bill payment invoice. Bull Bitcoin allows you to live on a Bitcoin Standard.
Respect For Your Privacy – Bull Bitcoin never sells your personal information to governments or chain analysis companies.
If you’d like to make your first purchase on Bull Bitcoin, use my referral link to save 0.25% on all bitcoin buys, and help me get a small commission to stack a few extra sats.
Whether you’re a new or experienced bitcoin investor, you might be unsure about how to manage your bitcoin investment in 2025. Is the price going to explode, or has it already topped out?
Well, here’s 3 magic words for you to study, memorize and build your investment around:
It doesn’t matter.
I will make the argument for why this is true, how the experts are investing and what you can do to enjoy bitcoin’s maximum potential in the years to come.
Bitcoin’s Price Doesn’t Matter
Why would you buy bitcoin? For many people, it’s to accumulate more dollars, but the purpose is different for a sovereign individual. Sure, you want to increase your purchasing power and that’s why you need to hodl bitcoin in the first place. But it isn’t about maximizing your dollar profit.
Fiat currency is a lost cause. The dollar is going to zero — just like every other fiat currency that’s ever existed. This is inevitable when governments and central banks are in control of the money supply. Money printing, or inflation, is the process they use to maximize government revenue by devaluing your savings. They make savers poor in order to fund warfare, welfare and propaganda (i.e. public school education).
Look at this 1990s McDonald’s menu for example.
Today, everything on the menu is ~350% more expensive. Houses and cars are unaffordable for young families and household debt is at an unsustainable level — just so the average family can survive.
Bitcoin is how we stop the theft. When you hold bitcoin in self-custody, the government can’t steal it, through inflation or otherwise. So why would you care about the short term USD price of bitcoin?
Instead, you need to look at the medium to long term trend. Then you’ll see the reality — bitcoin is always going up.
Sure, you would benefit even more if you always bought the dips, but look at what happened in 2017 on this chart. Today, it looks like a tiny price bump, but back then, it was a 20x increase from $1000 to $20,000. If the price is going up forever, and short term action is inconsequential, then how should you invest in bitcoin?
Buy Early and Hodl
Imagine if someone convinced you to buy bitcoin back in 2017. They told you which wallet to download and how to buy it and you simply followed their lead. What would have happened?
You could have purchased some bitcoin in June for $2400 or at it’s December peak of ~$19,000. It would have hurt like hell if you bought the top and experienced a paper loss of over 80%, but bitcoin’s done incredibly well since then.
If you ever made a mistake and bought the top, all you’d have to do is keep buying, hold through the pain for 3 or 4 years, and you’d be golden. For example, 4 years after the $19,000 peak in 2017, the bitcoin price was around $50,000. And today, almost 8 years after the 2017 peak, 1 bitcoin is near its all time high at $108,000.
If you’re going to make a bitcoin investment in 2025, forget about the USD price for a few years. Think big. What do you think the price will be in 2029? Bitcoin is the most scarce resource that’s ever existed and soon enough, everyone is going to want some. What will that do to the price?
If you’re going to invest in bitcoin, just be patient and focus on the trend. If you’re thinking too short term, and you’re nervous about price action, remember this expression:
When in doubt, zoom out
Zoom out and look at the long term trend instead of what’s happening over days or weeks.
How the Experts Are Investing in Bitcoin
Way back in 2018, when the bitcoin price was $3500 USD, Bob Loukas released his first video on the bitcoin 4-year journey. He described the 4-year cycle, a common pattern observed in asset price action, especially bitcoin.
This cycle begins when bitcoin hits the bottom of a bear market. Price is low, and sentiment is poor. The last time this happened was in late 2022 when the price was sitting around $16,000 (75% down from the 2021 high of $65,000). Fear was high and sentiment was extremely negative. Some people even thought bitcoin was dead.
And yet, the USD price almost tripled in 2023, before reaching the unimaginable price of $100,000 in 2024.
That’s the way the 4-year cycle works.
Year 1: Sentiment is low, many people think bitcoin is dead.
Year 2: Sentiment and price gradually increase while investors accumulate cheap bitcoin.
Year 3: The year of the bull market, which has historically resulted in a euphoria-driven blow off top.
Bob Loukas usually buys a lot of bitcoin at the bottom and holds until year 3, as near to the blow off top as possible. Then he sells a portion of his holdings and tries to buy back even more at the next low. You can watch his first video for a more detailed explanation.
How Should You Manage Your Bitcoin Investment?
Do you want to follow Bob Loukas and try to maximize your bitcoin holdings by timing the 4-year cycle? Maybe this is the best strategy for you.
But some people, myself included, feel a little gross when exiting a bitcoin position for fiat. You end up with a large amount of cash in your bank account, and a massive capital gains tax bill. Perhaps you’re wealthier at the end of the day, but as a sovereign individual, you might prefer to just buy and hold forever.
Have you seen this Matrix bitcoin meme?
It’s a stone cold classic, and it illustrates a beautifully optimistic outlook on bitcoin’s future.
If fiat currency is going to 0 and bitcoin is going up forever, there will be a time in the future when you don’t have to sell your bitcoin for dollars. Bitcoin is the ultimate form of money, and everyone will be forced to accept it someday. Why would you sell? What if you accidentally mistime the market?
So don’t bother worrying about the price. Forget about charts and all the technical analysis noise on youtube. You can certainly try trading your way to bitcoin riches, but you don’t have to. When you hold fiat currency, you absolutely must gamble just to stay ahead of the constant pillage of inflation, but bitcoin is different.
With bitcoin, all you have to do is work, save and learn.
The Ultimate Bitcoin Investment Strategy
Ultimately, everyone has to choose how they invest, but holding bitcoin is a superpower for the sovereign individual.
So if you’d like to buy and hold bitcoin without the stress, consider this — just buy and hold and don’t worry about the price.
If the price goes down, buy some cheap bitcoin and if the price goes up, buy more anyway. Spend it too when you can. Buying goods and services with bitcoin is an amazing experience.
If you’d like to time the market, study Bob Loukas’ videos on youtube, but if you just want to buy, hold and learn, here’s what you need to do.
Download one of the top bitcoin wallets and buy a Coldcard hardware wallet to keep your holdings secure.
Buy some bitcoin privately from an atm or peer-to-peer exchange. Alternatively, buy bitcoin from a KYC exchange that respects your privacy.
Learn as much as you can about bitcoin and continue investing accordingly.
Take your time, stay calm and never invest emotionally. No FOMO or panic selling.
As a sovereign individual, understand that when you get into bitcoin, you are choosing to take full responsibility over your wealth. Take it seriously and free your wealth from its banking prison.
If you’re ready to buy bitcoin, I recommend visiting a bitcoin ATM with limited-KYC near you (find one at coinatmradar.com, look for SMS verification only and use one of the SMS services I mentioned in this article) or buying from an exchange that respects your privacy. All exchanges require KYC to some extent, but some are better than others. Stay away from the big exchanges like Coinbase and Binance unless you want your data on the dark web and your privacy compromised forever.
If you’re in the USA, I generally recommend looking into River.com or Bitcoinwell.com, but in Canada and Europe (and Mexico and Costa Rica), Bull Bitcoin is the best exchange.
Bull Bitcoin is bitcoin only, so if somehow my article has convinced you to buy an altcoin, look elsewhere.
But if you want bitcoin, Bull offers many useful features:
Best-in-class customer service – unlike most large exchanges, you get to speak to a real human being.
Multiple ways to fund your account – Bank transfers, e-transfers, SEPA, or even buy with cash in-person at Canada Post.
Lightning, Liquid and DCA – Save on fees and increase privacy with bitcoin buys and on lightning and liquid networks. You can even set up hourly, daily or weekly dollar-cost-average buys.
Pay Bills with Bitcoin – You can sell bitcoin directly to any credit card, bank account, or bill payment invoice. Bull Bitcoin allows you to live on a Bitcoin Standard.
Respect For Your Privacy – Bull Bitcoin never sells your personal information to governments or chain analysis companies.
If you’d like to make your first purchase on Bull Bitcoin, use my referral link to save 0.25% on all bitcoin buys, and help me get a small commission to stack a few extra sats.
Owning bitcoin is a superpower. Over time, it changes your mindset — and your financial reality.
Instead of watching your money lose value to inflation, you begin to see it grow. Hold bitcoin long enough, and you’re no longer just trying to get by — you’re building real, lasting wealth.
Bitcoin gives you the tools to thrive financially, with the kind of long-term growth fiat could never offer.
It’s also a giant middle finger to the banking system and the government’s fiat currency — systems that have quietly eroded people’s wealth for generations.
Bitcoin has a way of turning spendthrifts into radical savers. You start measuring your net worth in sats, not dollars. That new phone you bought in 2020? It sure seems like a rather expensive device when priced in bitcoin instead.
Just look at what happened to the COVID stimulus checks — what seemed like “free money” at the time could’ve become so much more if converted to Bitcoin and held.
Let’s say you bought bitcoin with your COVID stimulus money in April 2020. How much would that be worth today, just over 5 years later?
Well, look at that. An increase of 1500% in only 5 years. Bitcoin has performed this way for its entire history, and according to hardcore bitcoiners, it’s going up forever.
So if you’ve been investing your monthly surplus into Bitcoin, there may come a time when you want to enjoy the rewards of your foresight — without sacrificing the privacy you’ve worked hard to protect by buying anonymously and learning to transact privately.
Now the question is, what can you buy with bitcoin? And what’s the most efficient, and private way?
In this article, we’ll look at some of the best ways to spend bitcoin without KYC (no ID verification) and I will show you how many options you have in 2025.
Aqua Wallet’s New Dolphin Visa Card
Aqua Wallet is one of the best self-custody bitcoin wallets that exists today. You can save and spend bitcoin using a combination of on-chain, lightning and liquid.
On-chain bitcoin refers to transactions that are recorded directly on the Bitcoin blockchain — the public ledger that tracks all Bitcoin movements. This is a normal, “layer 1” bitcoin transaction. The transaction fees are typically higher than lightning/liquid, and transactions are much less private.
Lightning and liquid, known as “layer 2” bitcoin, are the best ways to spend bitcoin in 2025. They are cheaper and more private.
Aqua’s Dolphin Card is a prepaid Visa debit card that you can use for many online purchases.
It is a non-KYC way to spend your bitcoin, so none of your purchases will be tied to your name. For this, they charge a 1% fee for every transaction.
I’ve been waiting many years for something like this, and so far, I’m impressed.
Whenever I want to make a purchase, I will send bitcoin from my Coldcard hardware wallet to the Aqua Wallet to fund my Dolphin card, and use it for the majority of my online purchases.
Aqua’s Dolphin Card is still in beta, but soon it will be widely available, and there will even be a physical card for in-store purchases.
Unfortunately, some stores still don’t accept prepaid cards like this one, and it isn’t available in some countries so your mileage may vary.
But if you can use it, Aqua’s Dolphin Card is a fantastically private way to use your bitcoin for online purchases.
Bitrefill
Bitrefill is a very useful alternative to the Dolphin Card. You can buy anonymous gift cards for many of the biggest retailers in the world. Walmart, Amazon, Uber, Home Depot, AirBNB, Target, Safeway, Steam and many more. If you’re in the US, you can also buy a prepaid Visa gift card, similar to the Dolphin Card.
It’s the most popular way to spend bitcoin for good reason. You can buy gift cards to use anywhere in the world, and they accept both bitcoin and lightning.
Bitrefill is like buying gift cards for cash — cheap and private. You don’t even need to make an account or use an email address. And if you pay with lightning, you get your gift card code immediately.
All you have to do is choose the fiat value of the gift card you want to buy from Bitrefill.com and select between on-chain and lightning bitcoin.
Scan the QR code with a wallet like Aqua, Phoenix or Bull Bitcoin, send the payment, and you will receive the card immediately (with lightning), or once your bitcoin transaction has been confirmed (if you pay on-chain).
It’s so ridiculously easy. You might even start feeling angry about all your inefficient and restrictive past banking experiences.
This is why we buy and spend bitcoin — to free our wealth from the banking prison.
Spending Bitcoin Locally
Depending on where you live, you may be surprised to see how many local stores accept bitcoin. And why shouldn’t they accept the best form of money ever known to man?
Whether they hodl the bitcoin or immediately convert it to fiat, there’s absolutely no downside for them. It’s a great way to invite bitcoiners to their store.
If you’d like to find these businesses, visit btcmap.org. Here’s an example. I just opened the map and took a look at Central America.
And what the heck is going on in Costa Rica? So many businesses there accept bitcoin! That’s what happens when bitcoiners build a circular economy.
A bitcoin circular economy is a system where individuals and businesses earn, spend, and save in bitcoin without needing to convert it into traditional currencies. It promotes self-sustaining economic activity entirely within the bitcoin ecosystem.
In Costa Rica, a community-driven organization called The Bitcoin Jungle has been promoting the use of bitcoin by locals, tourists and expats. They are based in Costa Rica’s “Golden Triangle” which includes the towns of Uvita, Ojochal, Dominical and more.
This is a place where you can live entirely on The Bitcoin Standard.
Bitcoin circular economies will continue to grow as more people recognize its superiority over fiat currency.
Another example is Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador, one of the first circular economies. Even in Canada, adoption is growing — in Vancouver alone, over 90 businesses now accept bitcoin. Check the map to see how many businesses in your area accept bitcoin.
This is a grassroots movement, and you can be part of it. If you want a business to accept Bitcoin, just ask — you might be surprised by who says yes.
Tools for Digital Privacy – Paid with Bitcoin
While most major retailers still don’t accept Bitcoin, there are many products and services you can purchase directly with it. For the most part, these products and services are privacy-focused. These days, privacy-oriented companies seem to be among the few that respect their customers enough to accept bitcoin. Let me show you the products and services I use.
Mullvad VPN – Still the only VPN I’ve found that truly respects your anonymity — no account, no email, just an account number. Especially if you’re a bitcoiner, it’s essential to encrypt your internet usage and helpful to adopt an IP address from a different country. They accept both on-chain and Lightning Bitcoin payments.
Tuta Mail – This email service is very private, and they make it easy to pay with Bitcoin. They’ve partnered with proxysto.re to sell their premium service via gift card, which you can pay for directly with Bitcoin. This is the email provider we use for our website.
Cryptomator – Also available on proxysto.re, Cryptomator is software you should use to encrypt all personal documents on your computer. This way, if anyone gains access to your device, they won’t be able to see your sensitive personal information. Cryptomator is free on desktop, but you can support them by buying a license for their Android app. You can also use Veracrypt, a free service, to encrypt entire drives, external hard drives, or flash drives. K3tan’s written an excellent blog post on Cryptomator if you’d like to learn more.
Brax.me – This company, run by popular YouTuber Rob Braxman, accepts Bitcoin payments for various services like VPNs, email, and VOIP numbers. Their VOIP service is fantastic for receiving texts and making calls without KYC (Know Your Customer).
Sync.com (encrypted cloud storage) – You can ditch iCloud and Google Drive since they don’t respect your privacy. Sync isn’t quite as user-friendly as these big tech cloud storage options, but it uses end-to-end encryption and accepts Bitcoin for payment.
Silent.Link – Use this service to buy a no-KYC eSIM card for your phone. You can get data-only plans or options with a phone number for SMS. Silent.Link gives you access to data worldwide without handing over your personal information. Prices are as low as $1–$2 per GB.
Textverified – The OG SMS verification service where you can load your account with Bitcoin to get temporary phone numbers for all those invasive companies that require phone verification for registration.
Coldcard – Still the #1 hardware wallet you can buy and worth every satoshi. Coldcard’s Q and MK4 are both excellent, feature-rich options for storing your Bitcoin without ever touching an internet-connected device. The Q model is especially user-friendly thanks to its QR code reader and full QWERTY keyboard.
Start9 – If you dive deep enough into Bitcoin, you might want to run your own node. Start9 has developed an operating system that’s perfect for building a plug-and-play server. Their Server One and Server Pure are powerful computers that let you run a Bitcoin node, Lightning node, self-hosted cloud storage, and more.
Parmanode.com – @parman_the on Twitter sells a variety of Bitcoin privacy products, including nodes, signing devices (hardware wallets), and server computers built from new and refurbished laptops. One of the best features of his hardware wallets is their incredible discretion — it’s just a laptop!
Luxury Bitcoin Products
Once you hodl bitcoin long enough, you might feel like rewarding yourself some beautiful artisanal products. Here are my recommendations:
The Leather Mint – If you haven’t seen one of these wallets, you’re missing out. This store runs fully on the Bitcoin standard — you can only pay with Bitcoin (on-chain or Lightning). They craft stunning, luxurious leather goods including wallets, belts, Coldcard cases, and bracelets. Many of their wallets are made from high-end Cordovan leather, sourced from a small artisan tannery in Japan.
Art by Madex – The creative genius behind Bull Bitcoin’s branding and graphic design, Madex is a true master of his craft. He creates fine art and regalia necklaces, available through his store at madex.art or directly from him at Bitcoin conferences.
Conclusion
If you value privacy and understand Bitcoin, you can take a real step away from the traditional banking system. Sell your dollars, buy Bitcoin, hold it securely, and spend it privately. Done right, it can be almost as private as cash, and there are plenty of ways to spend it — just make sure you’re always buying or earning back more. It would be a shame to enjoy cool things at the expense of your future Bitcoin stack.
But remember, Bitcoin isn’t truly anonymous, and privacy can never be bulletproof. It’s pseudonymous, meaning your Bitcoin address can be linked to your real identity if you slip up. That’s why I usually recommend using the Lightning Network for most transactions — Lightning payments aren’t recorded on a public ledger forever, offering better privacy.
Even though bitcoin privacy is imperfect, traditional finance can be so much worse…
When you use your credit card online, you’re exposing yourself to identity theft. Plus, Visa and Mastercard track your every move and likely sell your data. Breaking free from the big tech and banking prison we’re all trapped in can earn you a great deal more personal freedom.
If you’re ready to buy bitcoin, I recommend visiting a bitcoin ATM with limited-KYC near you (find one at coinatmradar.com, look for SMS verification only and use one of the SMS services I mentioned in this article) or buying from an exchange that respects your privacy. All exchanges require KYC to some extent, but some are better than others. Stay away from the big exchanges like Coinbase and Binance unless you want your data on the dark web and your privacy compromised forever.
If you’re in the USA, I generally recommend looking into River.com or Bitcoinwell.com, but in Canada and Europe (and Mexico and Costa Rica), Bull Bitcoin is the best exchange.
Bull Bitcoin is bitcoin only, so if somehow my article has convinced you to buy an altcoin, look elsewhere.
But if you want bitcoin, Bull offers many useful features:
Best-in-class customer service – unlike most large exchanges, you get to speak to a real human being.
Multiple ways to fund your account – Bank transfers, e-transfers, SEPA, or even buy with cash in-person at Canada Post.
Lightning, Liquid and DCA – Save on fees and increase privacy with bitcoin buys and on lightning and liquid networks. You can even set up hourly, daily or weekly dollar-cost-average buys.
Pay Bills with Bitcoin – You can sell bitcoin directly to any credit card, bank account, or bill payment invoice. Bull Bitcoin allows you to live on a Bitcoin Standard.
Respect For Your Privacy – Bull Bitcoin never sells your personal information to governments or chain analysis companies.
If you’d like to make your first purchase on Bull Bitcoin, use my referral link to save 0.25% on all bitcoin buys, and help me get a small commission to stack a few extra sats.
When you’re new to cryptocurrency investing, it’s crucial to understand the common Bitcoin mistakes that many beginners make.
For the first time, you’re using unfamiliar software and wallets and taking full responsibility over your wealth.
So if you make a mistake, you’re on your own. There is no crypto customer service that you can call (unless you’re using Bull Bitcoin) to help you get your money back.
When you lose your bitcoin by mistake, it’s gone forever, so let’s look at some of the top crypto and bitcoin mistakes that you need to avoid.
Investing in Bitcoin Without Doing Your Research
Any bitcoin mentor worth their salt will tell you to avoid over-investing without first learning how bitcoin works. Research is your first step, because without it, you are almost guaranteed to lose your coins at some point.
Here are some of the most important topics you need to understand before diving in:
Decide how you will backup your wallet and protect your seed phrase to secure your investment.
Learn more about Bitcoin’s economics by reading The Bitcoin Standardby Saifedean Ammous.
The list goes on and on. It takes many hours of study and practice to fully understand how to use bitcoin, and you should only ever invest an amount that matches your understanding.
Don’t put your life savings (or anything significant) into bitcoin until you’re extremely confident that you understand these basic concepts.
Otherwise, you are very likely to make bitcoin mistakes and damage your financial health.
Investing In Altcoins
An altcoin, also known as a shitcoin, is any cryptocurrency that isn’t bitcoin. This is an area of crypto investing where so many people make their first big mistake, and it’s a very difficult one to avoid.
There are thousands of crypto influencers all over the internet that want you to invest based on hype instead of fundamentals.
They try to sell you on the idea of their particular shitcoin by promising extremely bullish gains and superior technology, but these coins always underperform against bitcoin.
Bitcoin’s focus is on being the best form of money, and it achieves this by being the most scarce resource that’s ever existed. Bitcoin’s value keeps going up for good reason, while altcoins consistently decrease in value against it. Even though their USD value goes up, they have never been a good bet compared to bitcoin, the King of cryptocurrencies.
For a more in depth analysis of bitcoin vs shitcoins, read the following article:
When you download and set up your bitcoin wallet, you’re prompted to write down a list of 12 or 24 words. This is your seed phrase, and your seed phrase is the key to your bitcoin.
Here are the most common seed phrase mistakes bitcoin beginners make:
They write down the seed incorrectly. To avoid this mistake, check and re-check each word to ensure accuracy.
They store their seed phrase digitally. Internet-connected devices and cloud storage can be hacked. The best way to store your seed is on paper or stamped on a steel plate. The tweet below shows what can happen if you store your seed in a password manager.
They misplace their seed phrase. If your desktop or phone breaks or gets lost, you need these seed words to recover your funds. If you can’t find the seed, your bitcoin is permanently lost.
They only store their seed phrase at home. What if you have your life savings stored on one seed phrase, and your house burns down? You must have a contingency plan in case of disaster.
They password protect their seed phrase and forget the password. If this happens, your seed is worthless. If you use a password, make sure you have it safely backed up as well, in a different place than your seed.
Your bitcoin seed is precious and you need to be very careful with it. Back it up accurately and securely, or you’re likely to make a catastrophic mistake.
Reusing Bitcoin Addresses
Reusing Bitcoin addresses might seem convenient, but it’s a bad habit that compromises your privacy and security. Every time you use the same address, it becomes easier for others to track your activity, link transactions together, and potentially connect them to your identity.
Best practice is to use a new address for every transaction. Most modern wallets do this automatically, generating a fresh address each time you receive funds. It’s a simple step that helps keep your financial history more private.
Proper address hygiene and coin control are crucial to avoid having your transactions and balance easily tracked. For more details on bitcoin privacy, read this post.
Sending Bitcoin to the Wrong Address
One of the most common and irreversible mistakes in Bitcoin is sending funds to the wrong address. Unlike traditional banking systems, Bitcoin transactions are final—there’s no customer service, no chargebacks, and no “undo” button. If you mistype a Bitcoin address or accidentally copy the wrong one, your funds could be lost forever.
That’s why it’s crucial to double-check the address before you send. Always verify the full address (or at least the beginning and end of it), especially if you’re copying and pasting from somewhere. Be extra careful for high-value transactions. It only takes a few extra seconds to check, but it could save you from a costly mistake.
You can use a Coldcard hardware wallet to help you confirm addresses. Even if your computer is compromised, the Coldcard’s screen will always show you which address your bitcoin is being sent to.
Falling For a Phishing Scam
When you sign up for a service like Coinbase, or buy a bitcoin hardware wallet, you normally submit your email address and personal information.
This is very bad news for you, but very good news for hackers.
On June 28th, 2025, hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor warned their users to avoid falling for the latest phishing scam.
Here’s how it goes down:
You buy a Trezor and receive the order confirmation to your email address. Trezor’s email list somehow leaks, and then you receive an email claiming that you need to enter your seed on a fake web dashboard.
You follow the link to protect your bitcoin, and in a moment of panic, you enter your seed and the phishers immediately drain your wallet.
Watch out for this, and avoid the next mistake to harden yourself against phishing scams.
Buying a Hardware Wallet to Your Real Name at your Home Address
When you buy a hardware wallet, avoid using your real name, and if possible, ship it to a PO Box. And don’t receive the order confirmation email to an address like this: “Firstname.Lastname@gmail.com.
You will be unharmed by data leaks if you take these precautions. This bitcoin mistake is easy to avoid, and you should take it seriously, because the most popular wallet manufacturers (Ledger and Trezor) have had their email lists stolen by hackers and you must assume it will happen again.
Alternatively, you can buy a hardware wallet at a bitcoin conference. Regardless of where you purchase it, I recommend the Coldcard wallet. It’s the most feature-rich bitcoin hardware device, and they regularly delete customer information.
Several hardware wallet manufacturers have official stores on Amazon, but you need to carefully avoid buying a fake hardware device.
The fake wallets are compromised. They generate non-random bitcoin seeds, and your funds will be stolen if you send coins to an address generated by one of these malicious devices.
Just buy a Coldcard from the official website, but if for some reason you need to buy something from Amazon, I recommend the Blockstream Jade. Make sure it’s sold by the official Blockstream store.
Telling Everyone You Own Crypto
Being a bitcoiner is exciting. I get it. But your entire community doesn’t need to know that you bought some at $20,000. If you did, that’s fantastic, but when the price is $100,000 or $1,000,000, the people you were trying to orange pill shouldn’t know how much bitcoin you have.
Orange pill: Trying to convince people to invest in bitcoin.
Your wallet balance is none of their business. You don’t go around telling people what’s in your bank account, and sharing your bitcoin wallet balance is even worse. You’re painting a target on your house if all of your friends’ friends know you own a whole bitcoin and that it might be stored in your house.
I understand the desire to orange pill the people you care about, but be careful about letting on how much bitcoin you have in self-custody. It’s not worth it.
So if you’re a Coinbase customer, you can be certain that your personal information is floating around on the internet. Perhaps you’ve been receiving scam phishing emails from a fake Coinbase domain.
Beyond buying and selling, Coinbase will also hold your crypto for you in a custodial wallet, but this is a terrible idea if you want financial freedom. Always remember the common bitcoin adage, “not your keys, not your coins.” If you let someone else manage the keys to your cryptocurrency, it can easily be taken from you.
If you’ve never used a large centralized exchange like Coinbase, don’t start now. Buy bitcoin from a superior company like Bull Bitcoin instead. They never sell customer information and they respect their users’ privacy.
Chasing Yield On Bitcoin
Bitcoin has returned an average compound annual growth rate of 65% per year since 2019 (Jan 1, 2019–Dec 31, 2024), according to price-based community estimates.
Some bitcoin investors feel that 65% per year isn’t enough, and so they invest their bitcoin in a yield generating service. This is what Hodl Life Bitcoin decided to do. He made 1-2% per month yield on his bitcoin, but the investment company eventually ran away with his money and he lost everything.
Other investors sell their bitcoin to buy a dividend paying stock like MSTY, an ETF that uses options on MicroStrategy stock to generate high monthly income (4% to 19% per month).
This may seem like a great way to generate income from your investment, but it also removes your bitcoin from self-custody. Many people have lost their bitcoin by chasing yield in this way.
Bitcoin is freedom money for the sovereign individual, so if you’re going to chase yield, be very careful, and never invest 100% of your bitcoin.
Ignoring the Lightning Network
Bitcoin’s fantastic, but it comes with trade-offs—transaction fees can spike when usage is high, and regular, on-chain transactions aren’t private. These aren’t flaws, just characteristics of how Bitcoin works.
Fortunately, solutions like the Lightning Network help address both scalability and privacy in practical ways.
Lightning transactions are much cheaper, and they don’t appear publicly on the blockchain. If you only use on-chain bitcoin transactions, you’re missing out on the added privacy and lower fees that Lightning offers.
Lightning transactions are highly effective, and it’s well worth downloading a Lightning wallet to see how it works. More on Lightning here.
Overlooking Tax Implications
One of the most overlooked aspects of using and investing in bitcoin is the tax burden that comes with frequent trading. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of swapping between coins and chasing short term gains.
But every time you trade one crypto for another—even if it’s just trading bitcoin for a USD stablecoin—you’re creating a taxable event. Each of these events requires you to track your cost basis, calculate gains or losses, and report them properly. It’s not just tedious—it can significantly eat into your returns if you’re not careful.
This isn’t about evading taxes. The smarter approach is to structure your activity in a way that minimizes taxable events. That usually means not trading.
Bitcoin is the means to achieve financial freedom—trying to time the market is just a distraction. So the most tax-efficient strategy for most people is simple: buy, hold, and only sell small amounts when needed.
Sure, timing the market can make a lot of money in the short term. But that usually comes with higher risk, more stress, and a growing tax bill.
If you believe in Bitcoin’s long-term trajectory (and history suggests you should), then trying to outsmart the market often just results in giving more of your stack to the government—and losing some to bad decisions fueled by emotion or greed.
Sometimes, the most powerful move is doing nothing at all.
In a world where bitcoin keeps trending upward over time, staying focused on accumulation and long-term holding is both financially prudent and tax-efficient. Don’t let short-term noise or FOMO distract you from stacking and securing more Bitcoin.
Summary
Okay, we’ve made it to the end. Let’s review this list of 13 common bitcoin and crypto mistakes before you buy any significant amount of bitcoin.
Investing in Bitcoin Without Doing Your Research
Investing In Altcoins
Failing to Properly Secure Your Seed Phrase
Reusing Bitcoin Addresses
Sending Bitcoin to the Wrong Address
Falling For a Phishing Scam
Buying a Hardware Wallet to Your Real Name at your Home Address
Buying a Fake Hardware Wallet From Amazon
Telling Everyone You Own Crypto
Buying and Holding Crypto on Coinbase
Chasing Yield On Bitcoin
Ignoring the Lightning Network
Overlooking Tax Implications
Everyone’s made mistakes with Bitcoin, but if you’re starting out in 2025, there’s no reason to repeat them.
Bitcoin rewards patience and knowledge. As a sovereign individual, the responsibility is yours—so do the work, avoid costly mistakes, and free your money from prison.
Best Bitcoin Exchange in Canada and Europe
Are you ready to buy your first bitcoin? Here’s my recommendation for the best bitcoin exchanges in North America and Europe.
If you’re in the USA, I generally recommend looking into River.com or Bitcoinwell.com, but in Canada and Europe (and Mexico and Costa Rica), Bull Bitcoin is the best exchange.
Bull Bitcoin is bitcoin only, so if somehow my article has convinced you to buy an altcoin, look elsewhere.
But if you want bitcoin, Bull offers many useful features:
Best-in-class customer service – unlike most large exchanges, you get to speak to a real human being.
Multiple ways to fund your account – Bank transfers, e-transfers, SEPA, or even buy with cash in-person at Canada Post.
Lightning, Liquid and DCA – Save on fees and increase privacy with bitcoin buys and on lightning and liquid networks. You can even set up hourly, daily or weekly dollar-cost-average buys.
Pay Bills with Bitcoin – You can sell bitcoin directly to any credit card, bank account, or bill payment invoice. Bull Bitcoin allows you to live on a Bitcoin Standard.
Respect For Your Privacy – Bull Bitcoin never sells your personal information to governments or chain analysis companies.
If you’d like to make your first purchase on Bull Bitcoin, use my referral link to save 0.25% on all bitcoin buys, and help me get a small commission to stack a few extra sats.
If you’ve read The Sovereign Individual by Davidson and Rees-Mogg, you know the power of a global digital currency. In 1997, they predicted a system like bitcoin, ushering in an era where the sovereign individual can control their wealth without permission.
Bitcoin lets you carry your money anywhere, free from the State’s grip — a true path to financial independence.
Newcomes to bitcoin might be swayed by other cryptocurrencies that we lovingly call “shitcoins,” but bitcoin is more than just a financial technology. It’s a moral crusade against centralized corruption.
Here’s why bitcoin, not shitcoins, is the best choice for the sovereign individual.
Bitcoin’s Moral Purpose: A Response to 2008
On January 3rd, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto mined bitcoin’s genesis block embedding the following message:
“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks.”
This quote referenced the 2008 financial crisis, where subprime mortgages, excessive debt and systemic corruption crashed the global economy. The U.S. government’s $700 billion TARP bailout, signed on October 3rd, 2008, saved banks while retail investors suffered.
The reality is that these banks, fueled by fiat currency, were able to commit huge financial crimes, and were bailed out instead of prosecuted.
Bitcoin was Satoshi’s answer to this corruption. It’s a decentralized currency that empowers the sovereign individual by offering an alternative to the rigged financial system.
What is a shitcoin? Bitcoin maximalists consider it to be any cryptocurrency that isn’t bitcoin, but more accurately, a shitcoin is a token without any real utility, that promises innovative technology, or funny memes, and huge gains.
Unlike shitcoins that fuel crypto speculation, bitcoin’s supply cap of 21 million ensures safety from predatory inflation, and it gives sovereign individuals the power to control their own wealth.
Try to withdraw a large amount of cash from your bank account, and you’ll face scrutiny.
Use bitcoin instead, and you can enjoy real financial freedom. Nobody can tell you what to do or make you reveal your financial plans.
National Debt and the Exodus of the Sovereign Individual
The 2008 crisis pushed the U.S. national debt to $10.3 trillion. By the end of 2025, it’s projected to near $40 trillion—a surge of 400%.
And what has all this money been used for? War, welfare and increased government overreach in just about every aspect of life.
That’s the importance of bitcoin’s moral purpose. You can take control of your wealth, enhance your financial freedom…
And at the same time, you can remove your money from the government’s tyrannical financial system.
They print fiat currency to fund their immoral social programs, steal from their citizens, and spread bombs and corruption all around the world. Every western government does it.
By holding bitcoin instead, you reject a corrupt financial structure that steals wealth through inflation.
The Shitcoin Trap: Speculation vs. Sovereignty
Since bitcoin’s creation, grifters, crooks and liars have flooded the market with shitcoins to take advantage of this new financial system.
These tokens, often centralized and volatile, mirror the reckless bets of 2008, luring the greedy into crypto speculation. This is the shitcoin trap.
Bitcoin, with its security, decentralization and moral clarity, isn’t about quick profits — it’s about empowering the sovereign individual with a reliable, alternative way to store and transfer value.
There is absolutely no reason to invest in shitcoins. Bitcoin has a market cap of only $2 trillion, and if it catches on, you won’t want to miss out.
Why Shitcoins Fail the Sovereign Individual: Losing to Bitcoin Every Time
Shitcoin investors have been in a losing position for the past several years. Check twitter and you’ll see their constant pining for the next “altcoin season,” and their next 100x, but this hasn’t happened since 2022.
Maybe there will never be another altcoin season. You never know, but let’s look at some charts to explain how badly they’ve been losing.
Take Ripple (XRP), for example, but this goes for almost all shitcoins in 2025. If you look at the USD chart, XRP is doing very well.
However, the BTC chart looks entirely different. The difference between these charts is almost comical. On the USD chart, XRP is only about 35% below its all time highs, and it looks like its investors are making bank.
But on the BTC chart below, the price is flatlined.
What a difference. This is the reality for most shitcoin investors in 2025. Only the lucky few are making gains against bitcoin.
Sovereign Individuals value their investments in bitcoin. Understand that if you aren’t beating BTC, you’re better off buying and holding bitcoin only.
Below is the chart for one more shitcoin. This one is called Solana, and while it’s doing better than XRP this year, it’s still a far cry from its all time high in late 2021.
Unless you get lucky, you will become wealthier in the long term if you go bitcoin only. It’s the one with the moral purpose, high security and network effect. Shitcoins can be fun if you enjoy gambling, but don’t let yourself be driven excessively by greed.
Bitcoin’s Decentralized Security vs. Shitcoin Vulnerabilities
One of bitcoin’s greatest features is its “immaculate conception,” which I also mention in my article on why to invest in bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto anonymously created bitcoin before disappearing forever in 2011.
Without a central figure, bitcoin’s development is completely decentralized. There is no one organization or individual that can be targeted to undermine bitcoin. Nor is there anyone around who can pull the rug out from under us by abandoning the project, selling all their coins and leaving us with a worthless token.
That’s why bitcoin is such an excellent investment. It’s resistant to change by malicious actors. Bitcoin’s price is volatile, but the network is stable by nature.
Bitcoin’s proven itself as a store of value since its conception in 2009, and has seen incredible average annual growth in USD terms of ~60% since 2017.
On the other hand, shitcoins almost always have a central figure or organization. This is a major attack vector and it’s bad for stability and trust.
Many shitcoins also have premines.
Premine: when a portion of a cryptocurrency’s total supply is created and distributed before the network is publicly launched.
For example, Ethereum’s premine awarded ~16% of the initial coins to The Ethereum Foundation and the developers.
Does this sound fair to you?
The Case of Ethereum’s DAO
Here’s another example of shitcoins going wrong. Back in 2016, a crowdfunded “robo-bank” was made using smart contracts on Ethereum. It was called DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization), and it was meant to allow a decentralized group of people to collaboratively decide how to invest money.
Well, someone eventually found a loophole in the smart contract and managed to drain $60 million worth of ETH from the DAO. The organization had raised $150 million, so this was very significant.
People thought DAO was a decentralized project, but after the hack, the Ethereum community, including its creator Vitalik Buterin, voted to reverse the hack by rolling back the blockchain.
This decision led to a split in the Ethereum community and resulted in yet another shitcoin called Ethereum Classic.
DAO’s unfortunate fate was a turning point in crypto. It made people realize that some of these “decentralized” cryptocurrencies or smart contracts could be controlled by centralized organizations. So they were not really decentralized.
This is not the case with bitcoin and nothing like that can ever happen. Bitcoin doesn’t have any sort of centralized community or foundation that’s capable of changing the network.
If you’re a sovereign individual and want to exit the fiat system into financial freedom, bitcoin is the best and only way.
How Bitcoin Empowers the Sovereign Individual
As a sovereign individual, you are responsible for your own finances. Governments, banks and centralized crypto communities shouldn’t be able to control or steal your wealth. In order to stay sovereign, you must consider the implications of centralization vs. decentralization.
Bitcoin’s existence is the only thing that empowers us to take total control over our wealth, and for that reason, it behooves you to study it further.
Let’s look at some steps you can take to get started.
Practical Steps for the Sovereign Individual to Adopt Bitcoin
There are many things you can do to explore bitcoin before getting heavily invested. In fact, you shouldn’t make any significant investment before you thoroughly understand what you’re getting yourself into.
The best way to start learning is by reading and doing. Read a book like The Bitcoin Standard and then you can just start trying out some of the tools.
Do the work, and only then can you even consider investing. You can contact me if you need any guidance.
The Future of Bitcoin for the Sovereign Individual
The Sovereign Individual book described the future (our present), and accurately predicted the rise of bitcoin and the trend of location independence.
You are no longer trapped inside any particular border, where you have to tolerate being taxed at ridiculous rates. That doesn’t mean you have to leave your home country, but you have options.
Frankly, if bitcoin didn’t exist, this level of freedom wouldn’t be possible. Sure, you could start an online business or get a remote job, but sovereign individuals must be able to control their wealth. No banks, no money printing madness and no withdrawal restrictions.
It’s time to break your money out of prison and be free.
Best Bitcoin Exchange in Canada and Europe
If you’re in the USA, I generally recommend looking into River.com or Bitcoinwell.com, but in Canada and Europe (and Mexico and Costa Rica), Bull Bitcoin is the best exchange.
Bull Bitcoin is bitcoin only, so if somehow my article has convinced you to buy a shitcoin, look elsewhere.
But if you want bitcoin, Bull offers many useful features:
Best-in-class customer service – unlike most large exchanges, you get to speak to a real human being.
Multiple ways to fund your account – Bank transfers, e-transfers, SEPA, or even buy with cash in-person at Canada Post.
Lightning, Liquid and DCA – Save on fees and increase privacy with bitcoin buys and on lightning and liquid networks. You can even set up hourly, daily or weekly dollar-cost-average buys.
Pay Bills with Bitcoin – You can sell bitcoin directly to any credit card, bank account, or bill payment invoice. Bull Bitcoin allows you to live on a Bitcoin Standard.
Respect For Your Privacy – Bull Bitcoin never sells your personal information to governments or chain analysis companies.
If you’d like to make your first purchase on Bull Bitcoin, use my referral link to save 0.25% on all bitcoin buys, and help me get a small commission to stack a few extra sats.
If you’re getting into bitcoin for the first time, you might be wondering if you should use Coinbase or Binance exchanges. I’d imagine that you’ve spent quite some time on Google, trying to find the most essential information.
How does it work, and why are there 100 million different coins on coinmarketcap?
So, you go to Google, search “Where should I buy bitcoin?” and the beast of crypto immediately shows up at the top of page #1.
Is Coinbase Any Good?
Apparently, Coinbase is the most trusted cryptocurrency exchange. They are so legit, in fact, that they are the only crypto company listed on the S&P 500.
Wait a minute, does that make them more trustworthy, or less? Do you really want to buy bitcoin from a giant tech company?
How’s their privacy policy and security? Do they lock down your KYC data in a secret vault?
Problems With Coinbase
No, Coinbase customer service reps were successfully targeted in a social engineering attack as recently as May 2025. The hackers got customer’s full names, photo ID, physical addresses, transaction histories and wallet balances. That’s so dangerous!
If you’re a Coinbase customer, you’ve likely received several scam calls. It’s been a recurring issue for several years, and this data leak will certainly make it worse.
Big tech companies like Coinbase will often set up their customer service departments overseas to maximize profits at the expense of their customers.
If your crypto gets frozen while in Coinbase custody, good luck getting a quick response from customer service. Good. Luck. It is a supremely stressful experience to lose access to your own money, especially when you can’t get a proper response from a real human being.
Remember: Not your keys, not your coins!
Let me tell you about an experience I recently had with Coinbase Commerce.
I needed to subscribe to a keyword research tool to improve Your Sovereign Family’s SEO. As usual, I searched for a service that accepts payment in bitcoin, or in this case, crypto. This particular SEO Tool company accepts crypto using Coinbase Commerce.
I was surprised when I went to pay and I saw that I couldn’t pay directly to a bitcoin address. Instead I had to connect a wallet like Brave Wallet or Metamask (multi-coin wallets).
I thought, “Okay, I guess I’ll just get one of these wallets then and get this over with.”
Then I saw that Coinbase Commerce wasn’t even allowing me to pay with bitcoin. I was forced to use ethereum!
This is the kind of BS you have to put up with when dealing with Coinbase.
What About Binance?
Binance was founded in China in 2017, and is currently the most used crypto exchange in the world.
Like Coinbase, Binance also takes custody of your bitcoin/crypto. You can withdraw to your own wallet, but by default, they control your coins.
If you look into the reputation of their customer service, you’ll find many stories of people having their funds frozen, and trying to navigate through chat bots and useless customer service reps to try to correct the issue.
Fortunately, this Binance user from the above Reddit post was able to regain access to his money. With great relief, he reminded everyone to keep their crypto out of exchanges whenever possible.
Most users of Binance and Coinbase will never have their funds frozen, but when you trust your money with third parties like Coinbase, Binance, or a big bank, they have the ability to freeze your money.
In The Age of Bitcoin, why would any of us be willing to put up with this? This is bitcoin! You only have to download a wallet, buy btc directly into self-custody, and you become a financial sovereign. Nobody can freeze your funds or close your account.
Bitcoin, used properly, is pure financial freedom.
Cash Out of Coinbase
Coinbase and Binance are two of the most popular exchanges for new bitcoiners, but there are better options out there.
Take a look at this list of the most trusted crypto exchanges. Notice that Binance and Coinbase are in the top 5. Consider this list the “Top 50 Cryptocurrency Exchanges to Avoid at ALL COSTS!”
Bitcoin is an incredibly powerful tool for freedom — a beautiful gift for sovereign individuals and families.
But only if you’re smart about how you use it.
If you’ve never used Coinbase before, good. But if you’re a current customer, it’s time to cash out from Coinbase and all companies like Coinbase so you can take control of your own wealth.
When you buy bitcoin on Coinbase, they keep records of all your transactions and bitcoin addresses. They sell this information to governments and chain analysis firms, so you have to take the necessary steps to clean your coins of identifying information.
How to Get Your Coins Off Coinbase
This is very important if you care about your anonymity, so let’s look at your options for fixing this mess while staying invested in bitcoin.
Sell It All and Buy It Back Privately
The best course of action here, is to just sell all your cryptocurrency on Coinbase and withdraw the cash to your bank account. Keep in mind that this could leave you with a huge tax bill if you’ve made significant gains. If you can’t afford to sell your bitcoin and crypto, the next option will be for you.
If it makes sense for you to sell and cash out, you’ll now have a bunch of trashy fiat in your bank account. What now?
Buy bitcoin from an ATM, or a company that respects your privacy. There are several options that are better than Coinbase. They have superior customer service, they don’t sell scammy altcoins, and they encourage self-custody.
Most importantly, they don’t sell your KYC information.
My top recommendation for Canadians and Europeans is Bull Bitcoin. They are incredibly feature rich, and they have best-in-class customer service who will actually put in the time to guide you through the process.
If you’re in the US, I recommend River or Bitcoin Well. Check them out and see which you prefer. As long as you always take self-custody of your bitcoin, you can’t go wrong with either.
Coinjoin and Layer Hopping
If you can’t afford to sell your bitcoin due to massive gains — first off, congratulations. There is still an effective option for you take back your privacy.
You need to break the connection between your name and your bitcoin addresses so that you can have forward privacy, and the best ways to do that are coinjoins or swaps into lightning.
A coinjoin is a collaborative bitcoin transaction, where all participants combine their chunks of bitcoin (utxo) together to obscure the link between addresses and identities. It can effectively anonymize your UTXO, but the process is very expensive.
You need to run your own bitcoin node, or download wasabi wallet to do a coinjoin. This is a more advanced privacy technique, but very effective, so it’s worth exploring.
Another option is layer hopping, which refers to swapping from bitcoin to lightning, and then back. This method is cheap and easy, but not necessarily as private. Still, it should provide some privacy if you need to withdraw your bitcoin from an exchange like Coinbase or Binance.
Summary: Coinbase vs. Binance
In the battle of Coinbase vs. Binance, choose neither. These companies and other major exchanges are very harmful to bitcoin privacy, have awful customer service, and they have the ability to freeze your coins on a whim. If you want to be sovereign, you need to avoid them at all costs.
They are very convenient, and the majority of bitcoin buyers will gravitate to them, but that’s only because they don’t know about the vastly superior alternatives.
Either that, or they’re degenerate altcoin gamblers. Or perhaps they aren’t willing to take on the responsibility that comes with self-custody.
But if you’re reading this blog, you aspire to be sovereign, and bitcoin self-custody is a powerful tool for financial freedom, location independence and privacy.
Don’t make the mistake of using Coinbase or Binance.
Bitcoin. What is it, and what are some of the most common questions and concerns? I am going to provide some answers in this article so you can decide if you should invest in bitcoin in 2025.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is a complicated and confusing topic, especially because of the sheer volume of noise on the internet.
The reality is that most curious bitcoin newbies end up finding all the wrong information. They end up gambling, and making common, frustrating mistakes that lose them money.
So let’s get on with it. These common and essential bitcoin questions should put you on the right path.
Before we begin, take note of this rule:
Do your own research on bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and invest accordingly. Take responsibility and don’t let other people tell you what to do with your money. I will provide some basic information, but ultimately, it’s your decision to make.
What Is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is decentralized digital money and a payment network — very simple answer. But what makes it money, and why is it a very special form of money?
Well, to answer that question, we need to look at how well bitcoin possesses the characteristics of money.
Durability – It’s easy to preserve and difficult to destroy. Bitcoin is digital and so it doesn’t decay.
Portability – Bitcoin is infinitely portable because it has no physical form. You can hold bitcoin on your phone, computer or hardware wallet. You can even write it down a piece of paper!
Fungibility – Each unit of money must be interchangeable with any other unit. For example, all $100 bills are equal. In some ways, gold coins are less fungible than dollars, because scratches and blemishes can decrease their value. Bitcoin, like dollars, are highly fungible.
Divisibility – Bitcoin is the absolute King of divisibility. It can be broken down into 100 million units. The smallest unit of bitcoin is called a satoshi, or a sat.
Acceptability – Bitcoin isn’t the best at acceptability in 2025. In America, you can buy anything with the Dollar, but bitcoin isn’t widely accepted, and so it isn’t often used as a medium of exchange. However, bitcoin’s acceptability is trending upward.
Scarcity – Unlike the Dollar, which can be printed by the Federal Reserve on demand, bitcoin has a very predictable supply schedule, and it is one of the most scarce resources known to man. There will only ever be a maximum of 21 million bitcoins. Nobody controls its inflation and nobody can print it to infinity. So when you hold bitcoin, its value will actually increase over time rather than decrease.
Why Bitcoin Matters
As you can see, bitcoin has the characteristics of money, and besides acceptability, it is often considered to be the ultimate form of money.
Anyone can buy and sell bitcoin, 24/7/365. It is permissionless. It is fair. No government, organization or corporation can change the rules to their benefit and our disadvantage.
Bitcoin is limited in supply but limitless in its possibility. What other form of money is as fair, just, portable and useful? In The Age of Bitcoin, it is as easy to send and receive money as it is to send an email.
In the video below, Michael Saylor describes how bitcoin is the only asset that can’t be taken from you. It is money that you can take to your grave.
Bitcoin is something you can truly own. It’s a bearer asset, meaning that ownership is determined by physical possession. Since bitcoin isn’t a physical asset, and it isn’t controlled by banks or governments, it is the cheapest and easiest way to keep total control of your wealth.
In many ways, it is the only way to keep total control of your wealth. Everything else can be taken from you. Your bank account can be frozen, your gold bar can be stolen, and your house can be repossessed or taken by eminent domain.
Why Invest in Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin?
Can you see now why you, as a sovereign individual, may want to own bitcoin? It is unconfiscatable, private, easy to hide, and deflationary.
Deflationary – “associated with or tending to cause decreases in consumer prices or increases in the purchasing power of money.”
Since the supply is so limited, bitcoin’s purchasing power increases over time as its demand increases. Imagine that. Unlike dollars or euros in the bank, bitcoin actually increases in value over time.
So if you invest in bitcoin, you don’t have to gamble in the stock market just so you can barely beat inflation. You can just hold bitcoin, and watch your wealth grow over time — especially if you buy it before it thoroughly catches on.
This is one of the great Satoshi Nakamoto quotes from the early days. That’s bitcoin’s creator and there are many interesting quotes worth reading here.
What’s the Best Cryptocurrency to Buy Today?
If you’ve looked around on the internet, checked coinmarketcap.com or been on “Crypto Twitter,” you must have noticed just how many cryptocurrencies exist. How do you decide which one to buy?
The bitcoin maximalists argue that bitcoin is the only crypto worth buying and that other cryptos are akin to gambling.
Proponents of alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) want you to believe that bitcoin is old technology. It is slow, and it isn’t suited to a modern economy. It is the “MySpace” of crypto.
The Arguments For Bitcoin-Only
Let’s look at some of the main arguments of the Bitcoin Maximalists:
Bitcoin is the one, true cryptocurrency – Bitcoin is better due to its first mover advantage, security, decentralization and “immaculate conception.” This refers to the mysterious origin of bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi did humanity a great service by creating bitcoin before disappearing forever. Now, there is no central figure that can be manipulated or forced to make changes to bitcoin in service of governments and central bankers.
Fixed Supply – Bitcoin will only ever have 21 million coins. For reasons beyond the scope of this article, this supply cap is unchangeable. It means that bitcoin can never be inflated against its users’ interests. Read this article by River for more information.
Network Effect – Bitcoin has the largest user base, the most mining power, and, by far, the largest market cap. According to bitcoin maximalists, money is winner-take-all, and bitcoin is way further ahead than any other crypto.
Bitcoin Knows What it is – Bitcoin is the best money ever created, and it isn’t trying to be anything else. Altcoins are supposed to be technically superior and more feature rich, but bitcoin solves the problem of fiat currency, and it does so exceedingly well.
The Arguments For Alternative Cryptocurrencies
Now let’s look at the arguments of those that bitcoiners lovingly call “shitcoiners”
More Innovative – Altcoins can be used for financial transactions just like bitcoin, but they also offer innovations such as smart contracts and faster transactions.
Scalability – Many altcoins claim to handle more transactions per second than bitcoin, and so they can be used by more of the global population.
Diversification – Altcoins offer a way for investors to diversify and possibly outperform simple, boring, old bitcoin.
There’s plenty of opportunity in Crypto to invest in a variety of exciting coins, memes and technologies, but they don’t often (or ever) live up to expectations.
For example, ethereum is supposed to be a global computer, but it hasn’t provided much of a use case beyond being a casino for memecoins and NFTs.
Point #2, scalability, hasn’t been a problem on bitcoin since the popularization of lightning, and altcoins have historically underperformed bitcoin by a lot, so it’s been a terrible strategy for diversification.
You can watch this video by Bitcoin University for more on scalability.
In summary, you need to do your own research, but it would be prudent to exercise caution before following the hype into an altcoin investment.
Anyway, if you decide to move forward and invest in bitcoin, the next question is obvious and the answer is not always clear.
How Much Should You Invest in Bitcoin?
This is a very personal question that you need to answer yourself. Some people invest a small percentage of their wealth into bitcoin, while others go 100% all-in. They think that bitcoin’s value proposition speaks for itself, and the price history has proven their thesis.
These people who go all-in want to be positioned for hyperbitcoinization — the time when bitcoin becomes the global dominant money. They think this is inevitable. Do you? Or are you still figuring out what you believe about bitcoin?
Many people tell new bitcoiners to only invest what they’re willing to lose.
Other experienced bitcoiners suggest that bitcoin is a vehicle for savings, and recommend the complete opposite, like this tweet by Rajat Soni.
My advice is to do your research and invest accordingly. Whatever you do, make sure you’re able to sleep well at night.
I recommend that you stay away from large exchanges like Coinbase, but there are some excellent alternatives for you to check out.
Best Bitcoin Exchange in Canada and Europe
If you’re in the USA, I generally recommend looking into River.com or Bitcoinwell.com, but in Canada and Europe (and Mexico and Costa Rica), Bull Bitcoin is the best exchange.
Bull Bitcoin is bitcoin only, so if somehow my article has convinced you to buy an altcoin, look elsewhere.
But if you want bitcoin, Bull offers many useful features:
Best-in-class customer service – unlike most large exchanges, you get to speak to a real human being.
Multiple ways to fund your account – Bank transfers, e-transfers, SEPA, or even buy with cash in-person at Canada Post.
Lightning, Liquid and DCA – Save on fees and increase privacy with bitcoin buys and on lightning and liquid networks. You can even set up hourly, daily or weekly dollar-cost-average buys.
Pay Bills with Bitcoin – You can sell bitcoin directly to any credit card, bank account, or bill payment invoice. Bull Bitcoin allows you to live on a Bitcoin Standard.
Respect For Your Privacy – Bull Bitcoin never sells your personal information to governments or chain analysis companies.
If you’d like to make your first purchase on Bull Bitcoin, use my referral link to save 0.25% on all bitcoin buys, and help me get a small commission to stack a few extra sats.
The financial system is rigged. Money printing and high taxes are forced on us to prevent us from getting rich and our finances are completely tracked and traced. Financial sovereignty is impossible in the banking system.
Banking and investing is the opposite of financial freedom for most people. Our financial life should be private, and our money shouldn’t be printed and controlled by powerful bankers.
Since 2009, when The Bitcoin White Paper was first released, bitcoin has made financial sovereignty possible for everyone on Earth.
If you haven’t yet taken advantage of this innovation, now is the time. In this article, I will explain why bitcoin privacy matters, why full anonymity is impossible, and what you must learn so that you can take full advantage.
Bitcoin is, in fact, pseudonymous. You use a bitcoin address as a sort of identity, and you need to put in some work to avoid linking your address to your real name.
We’ve already discussed that you can buy bitcoin anonymously and hold it in a wallet on your own device. However, sending bitcoin risks exposing your wallet balance and transaction history to recipients, governments and criminals. Here’s the problem with this:
Once you lose your bitcoin anonymity, there is no going back!
Exchanges like Coinbase permanently link your wallet address to your name, and you can only reclaim your privacy by selling your entire stack.
But if you sell all your bitcoin, you could miss out on a once in a lifetime wealth transfer. If bitcoin catches on widely, you’re not going to want to miss out on this explosive growth.
You can also try to break the links to your real identity with a coinjoin. That is a type of bitcoin transaction where multiple people join their chunks of bitcoin together to obscure the links between addresses and identities.
Coinjoin is an option and it’s something you can look into, but it can be quite expensive.
So the best thing to do, is to start buying, selling, saving and sending your bitcoin anonymously from the beginning.
Why Bitcoin Privacy Matters
The entire financial system opposes your privacy and freedom to transact as you choose.
They want to link your financial actions to your identity so that governments can tax you properly. They want to make your bitcoin experiences difficult and invasive so that you give up and stick to their rigged financial system. Using bitcoin anonymously is the last thing they want for you.
Criminals and scammers also don’t want you to be able to buy and sell bitcoin without ID, because they highly value your personal information. Cryptocurrency crime is a multi-billion dollar industry, and they can’t profit from your pain when you use bitcoin anonymously.
Are you with me? You hurt yourself and enrich criminals when you disregard your privacy by using Coinbase to buy and sell bitcoin. Instead, buy bitcoin anonymously to stay untraceable and financially independent.
If you aren’t careful, you’ll actually become less private by using bitcoin than by keeping all your wealth in the bank’s hands.
But if you keep your money in fiat currency, you will certainly lose. You’ll have to do like everyone else and gamble in the stock market so you can keep up with inflation.
That’s the challenge for the sovereign family in the age of digital finance — you must be wealthy and maintain your financial privacy in order to be free.
Let’s see what you need to learn and do so that you and your family can enjoy bitcoin’s full benefit.
Master Bitcoin
Sadly, greed is the main driver of most people who get into bitcoin and cryptocurrency. They aim to buy the “right crypto” — the memecoin that’s expected to 100x in 2025. But memecoins are gambling, and bitcoin isn’t about getting rich. It’s about financial freedom.
Yes, bitcoin’s price will likely rise, multiplying your wealth. Perhaps you will become rich in the process, but if you let greed guide you, your finances will suffer. You might make mistakes. You might forget passphrases and lose coins permanently. Or maybe you will gamble on a “shitcoin” and lose your shirt. I get it — it can be very tempting to chase the massive gains.
But in the long term, they all trend toward 0 against bitcoin.
Look at this chart, for example. Ripple (XRP) has been hyped up for years, and still it under performs bitcoin by a lot.
There is so much noise in the cryptocurrency space, but as a leader of a sovereign family, it’s your job to sort through the hype to find the signal.
You have to learn how bitcoin works and how experts use it so that you can become a power user.
Let’s look at the top bitcoin topics that you need to study so that you can make the best decisions.
Bitcoin Basics
First, you need to learn the essentials. Download a wallet. Buy some bitcoin, and try sending some transactions. Ask some questions about bitcoin such as what is it and who controls it? What is the blockchain and how does it work? Why should you even bother buying bitcoin? What are the most common mistakes people make?
You need to do your research and invest accordingly. You will have problems if you rush into it without a full understanding.
Look out for my next article on these topics.
Next, master these key principles:
Not your keys, not your coins. Avoid storing your bitcoin with third party custodians like Coinbase. Many new bitcoiners trade control and responsibility for convenience. Many people have lost bitcoin when exchanges fail or go bankrupt.
Always use fresh addresses for advanced Bitcoin privacy. Bitcoin’s blockchain is public, and every transaction is recorded forever. Reusing addresses links all transactions to it, revealing your balance and transaction history to anyone who analyzes the blockchain.
Bitcoin only. Bitcoin’s the standard. In the long-run all cryptocurrencies trend toward 0 against BTC. Many of them are also pump-and-dumps that take advantage of peoples’ ignorance and greed. Ignore the hype.
HODL for the long-term. Bitcoin is an highly volatile asset. Navigate its price discovery phase by thinking long-term. When in doubt, zoom out.
Practice Bitcoin. Receive transactions. Send transactions. Test your backups. You’re way more likely to make a catastrophic mistake if you over-invest in bitcoin and never practice using it.
Back up your recovery seed carefully. Your list of 12 or 24 words are the keys to your bitcoin. The #1 way people lose their bitcoin is by failing to properly write down or store their seed. Also, NEVER enter your recovery seed anywhere online.
Whatever you do, make sure you can sleep well at night. Your bitcoin and recovery seed backup shouldn’t stress you out.
Advanced Bitcoin Concepts for Power Users
You can learn advanced bitcoin concepts as you go. These are tools and ideas that are essential for you to optimize your bitcoin experience.
You need to become a power user in order to use bitcoin anonymously, avoid scams, and future proof your stack.
The first concept we will explore is coin control.
Coin Control
Also known as “UTXO Management”, coin control is essential for privacy, transaction fee management and organization.
A UTXO (unspent transaction output) is a chunk of bitcoin in your wallet that hasn’t been spent yet.
Think of it like cash in your wallet — say, $20 from a friend, and $50 from a job. Each amount is a separate UTXO, recorded on Bitcoin’s blockchain and tied to a different public address.
When you spend bitcoin, your wallet selects one or more UTXOs to cover the cost. So if you pay $30 for dinner, your wallet would select the $50 UTXO. It would send $30 to the restaurant and $20 would go back to you as a new UTXO (like change).
If dinner costs $60 instead, your wallet uses both UTXOs. The restaurant gets a UTXO worth $60, and $10 returns to you as a new UTXO.
What if you don’t want those UTXOs to be mixed together because one of them came from a KYC exchange and the other was from an ATM?
That’s where coin control comes in.
You can use coin control to improve your privacy by keeping chunks of bitcoin separate in your wallet.
Bitcoin wallets like Sparrow and Nunchuk allow you to manually select which UTXOs to send in a bitcoin transaction. That’s how you can segregate your KYC and non-KYC coins.
This image shows the coin control feature on Sparrow wallet. You can choose which UTXO(s) to spend when you send bitcoin.
Coin control is also necessary for managing transaction fees. A transaction fee is required to send bitcoin, and the fee depends on how many UTXOs you are sending.
The rule of thumb is that you should keep your long term bitcoin holdings organized into UTXOs of 0.01 bitcoin or higher. That way, when transaction fees are high, you won’t be priced out of sending your bitcoin.
You can’t reasonably spend a $100 UTXO when transaction fees are $50. But the calculation is different if your UTXO is worth $1000 or $10,000 instead.
Coin control and UTXO management are absolutely necessary for future proofing your stack. It’s also a requirement if you are trying to use bitcoin anonymously.
Using Lightning For Anonymous Transactions
Bitcoin lightning is another way to transact in bitcoin that’s cheaper and more private by default.
You can send and receive lightning without having to think about coin control.
A good lightning wallet is another tool of the bitcoin power user, and definitely one to familiarize yourself with.
Running a Bitcoin Node
Node running is the ultimate sign of the bitcoin power user. A bitcoin node is a computer that’s used to verify the blockchain and broadcast transactions to the bitcoin network.
They allow you to trust the bitcoin blockchain directly without relying on third parties.
To run a node, you have to download the bitcoin software and download the blockchain (~670 GB right now). Then, you connect your wallet to your own node.
There are some excellent plug-and-play bitcoin nodes on the market such as Start9’s Server One. I will explain this further in a future article.
Coin control, lightning and nodes. The bitcoin rabbit hole runs deep, and you have to jump in if you want to be a sovereign individual.
Summary
Are you satisfied with the modern system, or would you prefer to experience more financial sovereignty?
How do you feel about withdrawal limits or having to tell bank tellers what you plan to do with your money?
Today, there is a new, better way to save and grow your wealth. Bitcoin is a powerful tool to help you achieve financial sovereignty for your family.
Next, why should anyone care to use bitcoin anonymously?
It’s a question you must ask before you dive in, because you have to practice privacy from the beginning if you want to be anonymous.
Well, are you okay with putting yourself at risk and enriching bureaucrats and criminals? With that in mind, the ONLY reasons for giving up your bitcoin anonymity are convenience and ease of use.
Privacy or convenience… What’s the better choice for your sovereign family?
Research bitcoin deeply and invest accordingly.
The Best Bitcoin Exchange in Canada and Europe
If you’re ready to buy Bitcoin, check out your nearest ATM or sign up for Bull Bitcoin (Canada, Europe and Mexico only).
Bull Bitcoin requires KYC, but they respect their customers’ privacy and they only hold customer data as required by law (unlike some exchanges that over-regulate so that the government gives them a pat on the head or something).
Use my referral link to Bull Bitcoin for a 0.25% discount on all Bitcoin purchases (I will receive a small commission).
The reality is that bitcoin lacks anonymity and offers little utility for criminals, but you can use it privately if you’re careful.
How Bitcoin Transactions Work
To understand why privacy is difficult, let’s break down the way Bitcoin transactions work. The Bitcoin network has all its transactions on an open ledger, which you can view on a ‘blockchain explorer’ like mempool.space.
So you can buy bitcoin anonymously, hold it privately in your wallet, but bitcoin itself isn’t anonymous? What gives?
When you buy bitcoin anonymously, it is attached to your public bitcoin address, which does not necessarily link to your name.
However, if you buy Bitcoin through a KYC exchange like Coinbase, your name is linked to your address permanently.
Privacy Risks In Action
Here’s how this can go wrong in real life. So if you send some bitcoin to buy a coldcard, for example, anyone who has access to your Conbase history, such as Coinbase, the IRS, and hackers, can see how much Bitcoin you sent.
Here’s another example of how bitcoin can ruin your privacy:
You buy a laptop from someone off of Craigslist, and you pay with bitcoin. You send it to them from an address where you have $50,000 worth of bitcoin. If you do this, they can see that you have $50,000 minus the cost of the laptop. How is this the case?
When you send money to buy the laptop, you also pay a small transaction fee to the bitcoin network, and the rest of your money is returned to you in a change address.
If you send $500 in Bitcoin for a laptop from a wallet with $50,000, the seller can see your remaining $45,000 and track your past and future transactions on a blockchain explorer by looking up your bitcoin transaction ID.
Protecting Your Privacy
Understand that you can never achieve permanent privacy on bitcoin, but you can stay anonymous with a few steps. There are many ways to send and receive bitcoin privately, but let’s start with some beginner-friendly tips. (A quick note: a UTXO, or unspent transaction output, is just a chunk of bitcoin in your wallet from a past transaction, like a $1000 piece from a previous purchase. Think of it as cash in your wallet—you choose which bills to spend. Here’s how to keep things private:
Use a new bitcoin receiving address for every transaction.
Avoid KYC exchanges like Coinbase. If you need to use a KYC exchange, choose more trustworthy companies like Bull Bitcoin or River.
Keep KYC and non-KYC UTXOs separate. If you mix them together by mistake, you eliminate the benefit of buying bitcoin without KYC.
Use small UTXOs for payments and keep your larger holdings separate and private. For example, if you’re buying a $500 laptop, send from a UTXO with just enough bitcoin (like $600), not one tied to $50,000. Wallets like Nunchuk and Sparrow let you view all the UTXOs in your possession with a tool called “coin control”.
Don’t talk about bitcoin with people you don’t trust — especially details like your wallet balance or recent transactions. This can make you a target.
Up next, we’ll look at some alternative tools for sending bitcoin anonymously — specifically using the lightning network.
Tools For Sending Bitcoin Anonymously
We’ve determined that bitcoin isn’t private by default but it’s still possible to send and receive transactions anonymously if you’re careful.
Let’s look at an alternative tool for sending bitcoin in a way that’s more private, and much cheaper.
What Is The Lightning Network?
The lightning network is a payment protocol built on bitcoin to enable faster, cheaper and more private transactions. It’s a very cost effective way to send and receive btc (including micro-payments) when bitcoin transaction fees are high.
Bitcoin is completely transparent on the blockchain, but lightning obfuscates your transactions. So when you buy a $500 laptop from a stranger on Craigslist, they can’t access your balance and entire transaction history. It’s a very effective way to send bitcoin anonymously.
Lightning transactions are also instant, whereas bitcoin takes ~10 minutes to confirm on the blockchain.
I like Bitcoin for saving and lightning for spending. Here’s why:
Bitcoin is more expensive to transact than lightning.
Bitcoin isn’t private, and if you’re not careful, you can leak your financial information. Lightning is way more private.
Bitcoin takes time to confirm. Lightning is instant.
You can keep a small amount of money on your mobile lightning wallet, and whenever you run out, you can reload it from any bitcoin wallet.
Best Lightning Wallets
There are a few factors to consider when choosing a lightning wallet. It needs to have an excellent user interface, it needs to be self-custodial, and it needs to be easy to convert between bitcoin and lightning.
I’ve used two wallets that meet these criteria, and they’ve been a pleasure to use — Phoenix Wallet and Bull Bitcoin Wallet.
Phoenix Wallet is lightning-only, it’s self-custodial and it’s very simple to use. All you have to do is send bitcoin to a deposit address and it automatically swaps it to lightning.
Bull Bitcoin offers a more fully-featured wallet. You can hold and transact in both bitcoin and lightning, and you can swap between them in-app.
Either of these wallets would serve you well if you want to get started with Bitcoin Lightning.
How To Buy Bitcoin on the Lightning Network
You can swap your Bitcoin to Lightning on Phoenix or Bull Bitcoin Wallet, buy it on Robosats, or use an exchange called Boltz.
Another option is to purchase Lightning Bitcoin directly on the Bull Bitcoin exchange. When you buy Lightning from a KYC exchange like Bull Bitcoin, they still get your full name, address, and the amount of your transaction, but you keep your Bitcoin receiving address to yourself. When you can avoid tying your name to your bitcoin addresses, It’s a big win for privacy preservation.
Summary
Bitcoin is not private, but you can still send Bitcoin anonymously if you follow these important guidelines and use the right tools.
Avoid KYC whenever possible
Practice UTXO management
Use VPNs
Use Lightning Bitcoin
If you’re ready to buy Bitcoin, check out your nearest ATM or sign up for Bull Bitcoin (Canada, Europe and Mexico only). If you’re not yet convinced of bitcoin’s value proposition, read this.
Bull Bitcoin requires KYC, but they respect their customers’ privacy and they only hold customer data as required by law (unlike some exchanges that over-regulate so that the government gives them a pat on the head or something).
Use my referral link to Bull Bitcoin for a 0.25% discount on all Bitcoin purchases (I will receive a small commission).
In 2025, buying and selling bitcoin usually requires KYC (know-your-customer). This means that any time you sign up for a major crypto exchange (like Coinbase), you have to submit your full name, ID, selfie, home address, phone number and occupation. They need to know EVERYTHING about you.
You might say, “What’s the harm? I haven’t done anything wrong,” but when an exchange gets hacked like the recent Coinbase data leak, hackers and scammers gain access to all your personal information.
Now the criminals know where you live and how much bitcoin you own.
Additionally, exchanges like Coinbase are known to hand over customer data to government organizations such as the IRS.
I’m going to show you the best ways to buy and sell bitcoin with no ID or verification so that you can stay private.
It’s your money, and your data. Read this if you don’t know yet by privacy matters
Do not give away your KYC information and allow your bitcoin to be tracked and traced by governments and criminals.
Let’s see how you can buy bitcoin privately and avoid these serious risks.
Buying Bitcoin Privately
Although it was much easier to buy bitcoin privately in the 2010s, it is still possible today, and it is very much worth your time to do it.
We are going to look at the top 3 ways you can buy bitcoin anonymously in 2025 — without needing to submit your ID and personal information to some shady crypto exchange. And yes, Coinbase is shady.
Bitcoin ATMs for Cash Purchases
Bitcoin ATMs are by far my top choice for buying bitcoin anonymously.
You’ve probably seen them in convenience stores, shopping malls or coffee shops. In some cities, they’re everywhere!
Coin ATM Radar (the go-to website for finding bitcoin ATMs near you) lists over 30,000 ATMs in The United States, 3600 in Canada, 1850 in Australia and thousands more all around the world.
If you live in one of the 67 countries where there’s are Bitcoin ATMs, you can use them to convert cash to bitcoin anonymously.
How to Find and Use a Bitcoin ATM
All you need to use a Bitcoin ATM is an app like Nunchuk or Cove wallet installed on your phone, and a pocket full of fiat currency.
Here are the steps to buy bitcoin (or crypto) with cash:
Find an ATM near you on Coin ATM Radar that doesn’t require verification.
Visit the location with cash and your phone.
Make sure that no verification is required (sometimes Coin ATM Radar doesn’t have the most up-to-date information).
Feed your cash into the ATM, and have the bitcoin sent to your bitcoin address.
Limits and Verifications At Bitcoin ATMs
Bitcoin ATMs are really easy to use. Try to find an ATM that’s light on ID/Verification requirements, and you can trade your dirty fiat currency for bitcoin.
As you can see in the image above, some ATMs on Coin ATM Radar don’t require any verification at all. As long as you keep your purchase below $990, there is absolutely no personal information required to buy bitcoin with cash.
You can even do multiple transactions if you want to buy more than $990 worth of bitcoin.
The next best thing is an ATM that only requires SMS verification. You can avoid using your real phone number by grabbing a private VOIP number from a service like Brax.me, or a temporary number for SMS verification from Textverified.
Bitcoin Well is the best ATM provider in Canada. You don’t need to provide ID nor SMS verification at most of their machines.
Downsides of Using Bitcoin ATMs
There are also some downsides of using Bitcoin ATMs for you to consider.
First, the fees are much higher than buying on an exchange.
There is a fat premium for buying bitcoin with cash anonymously. These ATMs generally charge a fee of 8% to 20% on each transaction. So for a purchase of $990 in Canada, you might get ~$870 worth of bitcoin.
It’s not cheap!
Second, you are buying bitcoin in a public place. People might see you at the ATM, which can be risky in sketchy areas.
Tips for Private ATM Purchases
Best thing to do then, is to find a bitcoin ATM in a low-traffic area. Don’t use the one that’s smack-dab in the middle of a shopping mall.
Instead, find one in a gas station, convenience store, or coffee shop that’s tucked away in a corner.
These spots let you use the ATM privately, without nosy people looking over your shoulder.
I highly value bitcoin that isn’t tied to my identity, and that’s why I’m willing to put up with the cost and inconvenience of using Bitcoin ATMs.
You’ll have to decide if it’s worth it to you.
I’ll write an article soon on why I think anonymous Bitcoin is worth it.
How to Buy Bitcoin Anonymously on P2P Platforms
Peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges are another way to buy Bitcoin anonymously, no ID or verification needed.
Plus, you can do it from home—in your underwear, relaxing in your office chair.
The only downside is that the seller gets to see your full name when you send them money using a payment method like Wise or Paypal.
It’s still much more private than giving up all your personal information to a large corporate exchange.
Personally, I don’t like revealing my identity to a stranger when buying bitcoin, so I rarely use this option, but it’s still a popular option.
Here are the best p2p exchanges to buy bitcoin and crypto:
Robosats
Robosats lets you buy Bitcoin anonymously. You can only access it on a tor browser, and there is no registration — even an email address is not required.
Instead, Robosats assigns you a secret token and a cute little robot avatar.
On Robosats, you need to use Bitcoin Lightning (learn more about lightning here) and you can buy it with popular banking platforms like Wise, Paypal and Revolut.
Bisq
Bisq is another decentralized option for buying bitcoin anonymously. It also runs on Tor and allows you to trade peer-to-peer, keeping your data off of central servers.
This exchange is bitcoin only and uses escrow for your protection. The price you pay is generally a bit lower than ATMs, but it depends on the seller you choose.
You have to download a desktop app to use Bisq and the setup is a bit technical, so expect a learning curve.
Hodl Hodl
Hodl Hodl is very similar to Bisq, but you can access it from a browser instead of downloading an application.
If you want to try Bisq or Hodl Hodl, just download both and see which one has better prices and the most offers for your location.
Similar to Bisq and Robosats, it isn’t the most user friendly option for buying and selling bitcoin, but take your time, click around the platforms and you’ll find out if a P2P exchange is right for you.
Buy Bitcoin From a Trusted Contact
This is perhaps the best and cheapest method for buying bitcoin privately, but it’s also the trickiest to organize.
You have to actually meet a fellow bitcoiner who is willing to sell. The best place to meet someone is at your local bitcoin meetup. It’s a big win-win for you and the seller because you both get to avoid giving up your ID.
Selling Bitcoin Anonymously
Someday in the future, if you decide to sell your bitcoin, I’ll be the first to tell you that there aren’t many options for selling it privately.
That’s because the government and the banks have made it increasingly difficult to do so.
In 2025, the best way to sell bitcoin is on a P2P exchange, to a trusted individual, or using the only company I know that lets you sell bitcoin privately without KYC.
Once again, Bitcoin Well comes to the rescue…at least if you live in Canada. American customers are still required to do KYC on Bitcoin Well for all transactions.
Bitcoin Well’s lite account allows you sell bitcoin with a limit of $950 CAD per transaction and up to $3000 CAD per day, without ID, a selfie, or even your real name.
You only need an email address (don’t use one that’s tied to your name), and you can sell bitcoin anonymously for a 3% fee. Not bad at all.
How to Spend Bitcoin Anonymously
It’s actually much easier to spend your bitcoin privately than it is to buy or sell because buying and selling often requires you to use your bank account and banks are strictly against privacy.
But Bitcoin is a decentralized network that allows you to use your money however you see fit. Nobody can censor you, or freeze your bitcoin wallet…but they can freeze your bank account.
You can spend your bitcoin on many things these days.
Just the other day, in fact, I paid for my keyword research tool with bitcoin so I could learn how to do SEO.
You can also buy gift cards, bitcoin hardware wallets, laptops, beautiful leather products and much more.
Here are some of the best ways to spend bitcoin anonymously:
Bitrefill
Bitrefill is the best place to buy gift cards and anonymous prepaid credit cards with bitcoin, lightning bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
You can buy gift cards for many different companies and services, such as Walmart, Amazon, Best Buy, gas stations, grocery stores, e-sim cards and the list goes on.
You don’t need to make an account or even use a real email address and you will receive your gift cards very quickly.
You can buy a variety of electronics on Newegg with bitcoin such as laptops, computer parts and electronics.
Silent.Link
I’ve been using Silent.Link for awhile for their anonymous e-sim service. You can use their service in Canada, the USA, and many other countries for $2-$8 per gigabyte of data.
Private e-sim cards are very useful, especially when travelling.
Mullvad VPN
Mullvad is one of the top VPNs used by people who value their privacy and you can pay for it with bitcoin.
The Leather Mint
The Leather Mint is a Canadian company that only accepts bitcoin for their timeless leather products. They have the most beautiful leather wallets I’ve ever seen. They’re pricey, but if you’re looking for something special, this is an excellent place to spend some bitcoin.
The Best Bitcoin Exchange in Canada
Buying bitcoin anonymously takes more effort than going through an exchange. It’s not for everyone.
Bitcoin ATMs are extremely private, but they’re also expensive and time consuming.
If you want to buy bitcoin, and you’re okay with KYC, I highly recommend Bull Bitcoin. They operate in Canada, Europe, Mexico and Costa Rica and they are the best of the best.
Bull Bitcoin requires KYC, but they respect your data and your privacy. They’re also very feature rich.
I’ll post a full Bull Bitcoin review soon to explain why it’s the only exchange you should use.
If you’d like to check out Bull Bitcoin, here’s my referral link. You will get 0.25% off all your bitcoin purchases, and I will get a small commission as well.
Summary
It’s possible to stay anonymous when you buy, sell and spend bitcoin and I think it’s worth it to keep at least part of your bitcoin stack KYC-free.
Bitcoin gives you financial freedom. We are so lucky that it exists.
Don’t let the bankers stop you from using it privately. Buying bitcoin without KYC is the first step.
Get your wallet downloaded, and then you’re ready to buy some bitcoin.
Why You Need to Study Bitcoin
If you’ve made it to this post on the best bitcoin wallets, maybe you already know why you might need bitcoin, but for those who don’t, now is the time to learn.
Money has already moved online, and there’s no reason why you should need to ask for permission to save and spend your own wealth.
This isn’t about getting rich. It’s about freedom.
If you are new to the world of bitcoin and crypto, you probably have more questions than answers, and it can be very confusing to figure out what will actually get you the most control, freedom and ease of use.
But I will help you find the best-in-class bitcoin wallets in each category — mobile, desktop and hardware for cold storage. But first, we must ask the question…
What Makes a Bitcoin/Crypto Wallet Good in the First Place?
Now, we will ignore crypto wallets for now, since bitcoin is the best option for sovereign individuals and families, and I will explain why in a future post.
In the bitcoin space, there is a popular saying:
Not your keys, not your coins
When choosing a wallet, you must ensure it is a self-custody wallet. That means that you, instead of a company, are in control of your money. You hold the keys to your digital vault.
I also recommend wallets that have an excellent user experience, and tons of options for control over how you use your bitcoin.
Best Bitcoin Wallet for Beginners on Android
For android, the go-to wallet is called Nunchuk. This is one of the most secure, feature-rich bitcoin wallets available.
It’s very simple to use, just like the others I will recommend below. All you have to do is create a key, create a wallet, and then you can send/receive bitcoin transactions.
Nunchuk is the only bitcoin or crypto wallet you need on android if you’re serious about financial freedom.
Best Bitcoin wallet for Beginners on iPhone
iOS users haven’t always had the easiest time choosing crypto wallets due to Apple’s restrictive app store policies, but these days, if you use an iPhone, you’re in luck.
A new option just released on the App Store, and it’s clean, easy and free — just like Nunchuk.
Cove Walletis an excellent bitcoin wallet for beginners.
It is very intuitive to use. Send, receive, scan QR codes and that’s all you need to manage your self-sovereign bitcoin stash.
Best Bitcoin Wallet for Beginners on Desktop
This wallet is my #1 choice for all bitcoin and crypto wallets, so if you prefer to manage your money on desktop, you’re in a for a treat.
It’s called Sparrow Wallet and it’s the most feature rich of the bunch.
As a beginner, all you need to do is send and receive bitcoin, but it has a variety of other useful features that you will want in the future, such as labeling and coin control.
Best Bitcoin Hardware Wallet for Cold Storage
A bitcoin hardware wallet is a device you need in addition to a wallet like Sparrow, Nunchuk or Cove. You will use these “software wallets” to manage your money, while the hardware is used to approve (sign) your transactions.
The Coldcard wallet by Coinkite is my pick for best hardware wallet. Just like Sparrow, it is feature rich but easy to use for beginners.
Coldcard keeps your private keys offline, meaning they never come in contact with an internet connected device.
It will keep you safe from malware, phishing attacks and scammers of all sorts.
So if you were ever worried about making a mistake and losing your bitcoin, this is the silver bullet that will keep online criminals off your back and out of your wallet.
When it comes to financial freedom and self-sovereignty, Coldcard wallet is the ultimate tool and one of the best bitcoin wallets you can use.
So write it down carefully, check and double check that you’ve done it correctly, and then hide it away in a safe place.
If you ever lose access to your phone, desktop or coldcard, you can enter these words into any bitcoin wallet to recover your funds.
One more thing…
NEVER enter your recovery seed phrase into an unknown website or tell it to anyone, even if a man with a strange accent calls you on the phone and tries to scare you into giving it up.
As a beginner, you’re seen as an easy target for scammers, so if you’re ever unsure about something, or if you have any questions, you can contact us anytime for some level-headed guidance.
Summary
Ready to get started on your bitcoin journey?
Download one of these recommended wallets for Android, iOS or Desktop and try sending and receiving bitcoin.
It’s an amazing feeling when you realize that you can use your money without permission.
Bitcoin lets you be your own bank and it really is the most incredible tool you can use to become sovereign.
If you have any questions, contact us and I can walk you through the process.
