Swap Bitcoin (BTC) with no KYC

Bitcoin address types

Bitcoin has four address types in common use. They all hold the same BTC on the same network. You do not need to convert between them.

• Legacy (P2PKH) addresses start with 1. They use Base58Check encoding. This is the oldest type.
• Script hash (P2SH) addresses start with 3 and are 34 characters long. The address is the hash of a script, such as a multisig script or a SegWit script wrapped in P2SH.
• Native SegWit addresses start with bc1q. They use Bech32 encoding. A single key address is 42 characters long, and a script address is 62.
• Taproot addresses start with bc1p. They use Bech32m encoding and are 62 characters long. Taproot activated at block 709,632 in November 2021.

Addresses that start with bc1 have a checksum that always catches up to four wrong characters. They are all lower case or all upper case. A mix of the two is not a valid address.

Taproot addresses use Bech32m on purpose. Software that only knows the older Bech32 rules cannot send to a bc1p address. When Bech32m was designed, tests found that many wallets and services could not send to newer address versions. If you are not sure the sender supports bc1p, give a bc1q address.

Your Bitcoin history is public

Every Bitcoin transaction is stored on a public ledger. Anyone can look up the balance and history of any address in a block explorer. Your name is not written on the chain. But once someone links an address to you, they can follow the coins that moved through it. The link can come from a payment, an account that knows your name, or an address you posted.

Bitcoin tracks coins as unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs). Each amount you receive stays a separate piece. When you send, your wallet uses one or more pieces as inputs. A transaction with several inputs shows that they belong to one owner. The Bitcoin whitepaper already named this limit.

A new address for each payment makes linking harder. Taproot adds some privacy in a different way. When a Taproot output is spent, only the spending path that was used is published, not every possible path.

For the strongest privacy, swap part of your BTC to Monero, which hides amounts, senders and receivers by default. HiddenSwap works as an anonymous Bitcoin exchange: no account, no email and no ID, and swap records keep no name and no IP address. Read how Monero privacy works before you choose a coin.

Fees, confirmations and replaced payments

Bitcoin fees pay for block space. The fee depends on the size of the transaction in virtual bytes, not on the amount you send. A transaction that spends many small received amounts is larger, so it costs more. Fees change with demand for block space, and many wallets let you set the fee.

A new block comes about every 10 minutes on average. The time is random, so one confirmation can come much sooner or much later. If your fee rate is below what the network is taking at that moment, the first confirmation can take much longer. With a floating quote, the rate can change while your deposit waits.

Six confirmations is an often cited norm, and each service sets its own number. It is a network norm, not our crediting time. Your order page shows the progress until the deposit is credited.

An unconfirmed payment is not final. The sender can replace it with a new version that spends the same coins and pays a higher fee. This is called replace-by-fee (RBF). Bitcoin Core 28.0 was released in October 2024. Since that version, its nodes accept these replacements by default, even when the first version did not signal it. So an unconfirmed payment should not be treated as received.

If your deposit is stuck, check what your wallet offers. RBF sends a new version with a higher fee. Keep the same deposit address and amount in the new version. Child pays for parent (CPFP) spends coins from the stuck payment in a new transaction with a high fee, so miners have a reason to include both. For a deposit, you can use CPFP only if the stuck payment sent change back to your wallet.

Before you swap BTC

• Send native BTC on the Bitcoin network. Wrapped BTC tokens on other networks are separate tokens.
• Send the exact amount in one transaction. Use each deposit address once.
• If your coins are on an exchange account, withdraw to your own wallet first and send from there. The swap form needs the address you send from, and an exchange’s address is not yours.
• Save your order ID and follow the swap on your order page. A deposit can take a few minutes to show there, so do not send it again.
• To move from Bitcoin to Monero, see the BTC to XMR swap.