No KYC” is becoming a pretty useless description of a Bitcoin market

By shadowbip September 4, 2026

I’ve been comparing Peach, Bisq, RoboSats and Mostro after everything that’s happened with Peach recently.

The more I looked at them, the less useful the label “no KYC exchange” became.

They solve completely different trust problems.

You can use a market without giving it your ID, but pay by SEPA and reveal your name to the counterparty.

You can use Tor, but still depend on one coordinator.

You can be fully self-custodial, but later merge the P2P UTXO with a known KYC withdrawal and create the link yourself.

And a market can be P2P while still having a company that regulators can pressure.

So maybe the better questions are:

Who learns what?

Who controls the bitcoin during the trade?

Who can stop the market?

And if that party disappears, can I replace them?

I ended up mapping Peach, Bisq, RoboSats and Mostro around those questions, plus what happens to privacy after the trade.

Full write-up here (part of it is paid):

Curious how stackers here think about this.

When you choose a P2P market, what matters most to you: privacy, liquidity, UX, or how replaceable the infrastructure is?