While scrolling through the endless rabbit hole that is Twitter, I came across an interesting platform called RoboSats — a Lightning P2P exchange.
I had been meaning to take advantage of the recent dip, and these guys preach everything you want to see from a company in the space: they’re anti-KYC, they’re open source, and they utilize the Lightning Network — needless to say, they pass the “are you the Fed?” test. So, I fired up the old Tor Browser and decided to give it a try.
Related reading : KYC Is The Illicit Activity
Thinking to myself, “It’s just a completely anonymous platform that utilizes state-of-the-art technology to exchange currencies between strangers from all around the world — how hard could it be?”, I decided to start this venture without any outside resources. Looking back, using something like this guide would have been helpful, but I digress.
After launching their site, I was prompted to generate a token and was presented with a bot who goes by the name of “MuchHitch469.” This robot was meant to represent me in the transaction and was not tied to my identity in any way, shape, or form (until just now, when I shared it on the internet for everyone to see).
I was then able to enter the marketplace so I could finally get my hands on some more of those cold, hard sats. There were dozens of robots in the marketplace, all with equally ridiculous usernames and all looking to sell or buy various amounts of bitcoin. I honestly felt like I was in the Mos Espa market on Tatooine looking for the next Anakin Skywalker.
Eventually, I came across an order maker that went by “TastelessNoodle0” (a much cooler name than my bot’s), who was looking to sell anywhere from $50-$600 USD worth of bitcoin. They were looking to receive payment via Strike, but RoboSats also allows payments through several other platforms — including CashApp, Zelle, and Revolut.
Related reading : Strike Embraces In-House Bitcoin Custody, Leaving Third-Party Intermediaries Behind
Something interesting about RoboSats is that each transaction has a bond. Essentially, this is collateral that both sides of the transaction put up to ensure fair play. In most cases, each side contributes about 3% of the transaction value for the bond. If the transaction is successful, both sides receive their bonds back.
So, I started the transaction by paying the bond with my Lightning wallet and submitted my invoice to receive sats from the mysterious “TastelessNoodle0.” Once Tasteless paid his bond, we were put into a PGP-encrypted chat room where I was given their Strike username.
Up until this point, I was still weary about the possibility of getting scammed, as I would be paying on Strike before receiving my bitcoin from our friend Tasteless. I went ahead and paid him anyway because what the hell, it’s just fiat, right? Right??
After confirming that I had submitted the Strike payment, I was presented with an option to file a dispute, which did put my mind at ease while I waited for Mr. Noodle to confirm that he had received said payment. About 30 seconds later, the payment was confirmed and those precious sats were sent to my Lightning wallet.
In the end, it was an easy process that went much smoother than I expected and I will likely use the platform again in the future. Although, I can’t imagine being on TastelessNoodle0’s side of the transaction; who would want to sell bitcoin for fiat?
