Cash
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
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Not exactly what I asked for, but yes.
It's the only one. There is no way to send digital payments that is privacy focused.
Except for crypto, and then only if you put in a lot of effort to make it so.
Is this correct though, in terms of a confidentiality or non-repudiation guarantee? For a ledger system -- blockchain or not -- every unit can be traced back through the history, to one or more sources. Yes, multiple transactions can serve to obfuscate the sources, but the real source is within that subset of all possible sources. So unless obfuscation takes place by involving all possible addresses, there's still going to be some amount of knowledge revealed about the relationship of some source and some destination address.
But I think non-repudiation could be more damaging in a cryptocurrency context. Imagine a corrupt politician that takes a cash bribe. Unless the briber recorded the serial numbers, the politician can plausible repudiate any connection with the briber, because the cash could have come from anywhere else.
Whereas with cryptocurrency, if the briber's wallet address is ever revealed (eg. by hack, by change of heart, by blackmail, or by cryptographic collapse), then there's a line which can connect the briber to the politician. They cannot deny that it's possible to have received the bribe, which is a scandal unto itself. Probably not good enough to convict of a crime, but enough to do political damage.
Ultimately, I'm of the opinion that a ledger system still isn't as strong on confidentiality as cash, because cash records nothing at all, so there's nothing to accidentally reveal. To be clear, bribery is a stand-in for any sort of payment that would cause adverse effects if revealed. Other examples include secret child support, for a secret pregnancy, for a secret abortion, or anything else that people don't want to reveal to the world. The whole point of privacy, I maintain, is to have a choice on what other people get to know.
Monero is untraceable because it uses zero-knowledge proofs and ring signatures. The identity of neither party is known to the other, nor can the amount sent be seen by any outside party.
Monero
You'd be surprised how public your crypto transactions are
Edit: After looking more deeply into Monero, I gotta say, they are doing something that gets about as close as you can get. Good for them, and thanks for bringing this up.
"about as close as you can" = literally untraceable lol
Monero is legit. The technology is fucking impressive.
It's not literally untraceable (unless you mean figuritively literally) it's just effectively untraceable.
Also important to note that your transaction is essentially as private as you are, which assume that the user is taking precautions to not broadcast to the world what website they are going to and at what time and for what. So obviously the biggest flaw is still user behavior (using a sketchy exchange, using the same Monero wallet for multiple transactions, connecting your Monero wallet to another non-private wallet, and leaking metadata outside of the block chain are all things that can and do happen and make this not literally untraceable.
But yes, it gets about as close as you can.
Another heuristic examined in the study is the Coinbase output heuristic. This method identifies mining-related outputs in transaction rings and assumes that these outputs are less likely to be actual spends. Since regular users rarely mine Monero, researchers can often use this strategy to eliminate decoys. While it’s not a foolproof method, when combined with other techniques, it can sometimes improve traceability in investigations.
https://www.trmlabs.com/resources/blog/the-rise-of-monero-traceability-challenges-and-research-review
Monero, the crypto, is untraceable. Any user error is unrelated to that.
using the same Monero wallet for multiple transactions
You can use the same Monero wallet as many times as you want. I'm not sure where you got this idea that you can't use the same wallet more than once, but it's simply not true.
connecting your Monero wallet to another non-private wallet, and leaking metadata outside of the block chain
I honestly don't know what you are even talking about? There are no "non-private" Monero wallets. It's not possible. And how does one "leak metadata outside of the [Monero] blockchain"?
Interesting link. Hmm you know, let me look up who this "TRM Labs" company actually is...
Oh wait that's weird, they seem to be directly aligned with the goals of the Trump administration. Huh.
Just a coincidence that you used them as your source I'm sure. I'm certain you have other sources corroborating those claims and have no problem posting them here.
Heyheyhey, I'm not fighting with you here. You use Monero or not, I'm going to be sticking with cash and trade.
Not trying to fight, I was just struck by how wrong you were that's all.
I didn't even say that I use it.
If you use the same wallet for multiple transactions, you create a forensically-discocerable trail. It doesn't give any information in and of itself, but can be used to determine frequency of use, which can be used to trace you. This is, like very basic opsec, just in terms of what you should and shouldn't trust. That's what I'm saying here, and you're missing it because you want to defend a coin that you
didn't even say that [you] use
?
Monero uses stealth addresses that cannot be linked back to a wallet. They are generated new with each transaction.
Here, read the answer here for a better explanation: https://monero.stackexchange.com/questions/13285/using-multiple-wallets-for-anonimity
I suggest you do some research before saying things with such certainty
Edit: here you know what I'll just paste it here:
Unlike Bitcoin Monero is by default very anonymous and paranoid so you are basically wasting your time doing that. If someone could see amounts and recipients from all transactions Monero would be no more. The whole idea of it is to be anonymous, safe and decentrialized.
(Do I need 6 different accounts to have 6 different wallets?)
a) No you dont't. By default senders create stealth addresses for your public address so that nobody can see on ledger who sent monero to whom. New stealth address is created for every transaction. Also transactions are signed with ring signatures so it is very unlikely to anyone see who made the transaction. Signatures are collected randomly from the blockchain.
*And yes you can have multiple different accounts on single wallet. They all have their own public addresses but they share the same private keys.
(Say I have $5,000 worth of XMR. Do I need to split that up in my transactions to increase anonymity?)
b) You don't have to do that either. Amounts being transferred are heavily encrypted and cannot be decrypted easily. If you look the blockchain you cannot possibly tell anything else than blockreward amounts and amount of transactions (tx) in the block in question.
The "cannot be decrypted easily" is this person hedging as it's literally never been done.
They all pretty much have know your customer requirements for anti money laundering reasons. Unless you go via crypto payments and those have their own dangers with how often exchanges are hacked or just straight up scams.
Ah, I'd forgotten AML. That's a good point.
I'm in the process of moving many of my accounts to European apps in order to take advantage of the better data privacy regulation, and it just occurred to me that I haven't pursued whether or not there's a useful payment aggregator headquartered there. I'll have to continue looking.
The closest thing to PayPal in Europe is probably Klarna, albeit they put a stronger focus on their credit product, you can use it to just pay up front.
Wero is being rolled out slowly as an alternative to the Visa/MasterCard duopoly, but that's a bit different to what you're asking
Edit: I'd forgotten, but Curve bank could be a viable option, but I'm not sure if you can get it outside the UK
The financial regulations in EU are draconian. There is no concept of privacy whatsoever.
They took the worst disadvantages of a blockchain and made them a feature.
There is something called privacy.com that gives credit card numbers but i think they do not protect you from police, idk.
Been using privacy.com for years. You can enter any ZIP code, any name and the seller won't know anything about you unless you're shipping to your home, I guess. Some markets will see the cards as gift cards and won't accept them, but that is rare.
I use it wherever I can, especially for services that always used to end up with a stolen CC#. The cards can be single use or locked to a single merchant. I used a single use card on PSN three years ago and still get fraudulent charge attempts to this day, but the card stopped working after one use, as designed.
Holy crap, that sounds fantastic.
I'm just getting more diligent about my privacy in the face of the US tech empire going balls to the wall with stealing people's data, and it looks like this might be a helpful addition in that regard.
I could be wrong but privacy.com is USA only.
Edit: from their faq
"Who can use Privacy and do you need a bank account?
Privacy is currently available to US citizens or legal residents with a checking account at a US bank or credit union, and who are 18+ years of age."
You can't avoid all of the surveillance, but this helps a lot.
Revolut offers the exact same service (one-time-use credit cards). They're an EU company. They do a ton of KYC though (much more than your normal physical bank, as they have much more anti-fraud concerns being online-only). Also only available in their app which is an atrocity, their website is not functional for banking separately.
Worth noting that privacy.com has KYC.
What is this? EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer
Know your customer or know your client (KYC)^[1][2]^ laws, regulations and guidelines in financial services require regulated businesses and professionals to verify the identity, suitability, and risks involved with maintaining a business relationship with a customer. These procedures fit within the broader scope of anti-money laundering (AML) and counter terrorism financing (CTF) regulations.
This makes sense re: my intuitive understanding that it protects you from giving your information to other businesses, but it won't protect you from the police if the police subpoena privacy.com and ask them about you specifically.
Privacy.com is still currently on the point of the enshittification curve where they are making a good free service for customers, but I don't doubt that once they have enough people locked in, they'll make the service worse by pivoting first to helping their advertisers and then to helping themselves and their financial backers at the expense of everyone else.
Know Your Customer. It's where the company keeps a record of your personally identifiable information on record and linked to your account.
I recommend read Extreme Privacy by Michael Bazzell. Hell, purchase it. It is an incredible value for the cost and will help you immensely with trying to get more diligent about your privacy. You don't have to do everything, but Bazzell is incredibly well though out.
Please stop buying from Amazon
That's really interesting -- any theories as to why/how PSN leaks yor CC info?
No. Payment providers are legally obligated to collect your creditendials, screen you for fraud and report all of transactions above $10000 as well as all that they deem suspicious to authorities.
Only cash payments and crypto give you varying levels of privacy
You can use Monero to buy gift cards. I think there's a way to get a card linked to a Monero wallet, but I'm less sure about that one. Cake Wallet has some options for that.
That's basically your only option for private online payments (unless whoever you're buying from accepts crypto), other than mailing cash.
Paysafecard perhaps?
Not anymore. If you buy a PaySafe Card for cash and want to pay with it online, you have to make an PaySafe account, enter your credit card information and full name, put the PaySafe Card Code as funds on the account and pay through that. It's absolute dogshit.
I just put in the code and buy my steam games tho... (Maybe it depends on your country)
GNU TALER? (sparsely available and centralized tho)