🟢 Trust Rating: High
Bisq is the closest thing to buying bitcoin the way you buy something at a flea market: cash for goods, no ID, no company holding your funds. It never touches your coins (deposits sit in 2-of-2 multisig you co-control), every node runs as a Tor hidden service by default, and there is no signup, no email, and no KYC. It is open source and governed by a DAO rather than a company. The catch is that all of that privacy costs you speed, liquidity, and usually a premium over spot. Read the drawbacks before you trade.
What is Bisq?
Bisq is a decentralized bitcoin exchange network: a desktop app you download and run yourself, not a website you log into. It matches you with another human who wants to buy or sell, and the two of you settle directly. There is no central operator holding a balance for you and no account to open. You buy and sell bitcoin for fiat or other cryptocurrencies, and every node is a Tor hidden service by default.
Because nobody is running KYC on you, Bisq is the go-to for people who do not want their bitcoin purchases tied to a passport photo and a bank-linked exchange account. That is also exactly why it is slower and thinner than a centralized exchange. You are trading with individuals, not an order book fed by market makers.
There are two generations running side by side. Bisq 1 (the classic desktop app, currently version 1.10.2) uses multisig escrow and security deposits. Bisq 2, including the newer Bisq Easy flow, drops the deposits in favor of a reputation model aimed at small amounts. More on both below.
Critical Privacy Concerns
⚠️ Read This Before You Trade
- The fiat leg is not anonymous to your counterparty. Bisq hides you from the network, not from the person on the other side of a bank transfer. If you pay by SEPA, Zelle, or a wire, that seller sees your name and account details. Bisq is pseudonymous toward the network, not toward the human you send money to. Plan for that.
- It has been exploited before. In April 2020 an attacker drained roughly 3 BTC and 4,000 XMR (about $250,000) from 7 users over a 12-day window in the XMR/BTC market. Bisq halted all trading and shipped a fix. Details below, and how they handled it matters.
- Thin liquidity and price premiums. Fewer traders means you often pay above spot to buy and sell below spot to sell. The privacy has a price, literally.
- Desktop-only for the real exchange. Bisq 1 runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. There is a newer mobile Bisq Easy app, but the full multisig exchange lives on your desktop.
Bisq 1: Multisig Escrow and Security Deposits
Bisq 1 is the battle-tested model. Both traders lock a bitcoin security deposit into a 2-of-2 multisig wallet that only the two of you control. Neither side can move the coins alone, which is what stops the counterparty from simply taking your money and vanishing. If the trade goes sideways, disputes escalate first to a mediator (who negotiates but controls no funds) and then, if unresolved, to arbitration: funds route to the Bisq DAO through a time-locked delayed payout transaction, 20 days for fiat trades and 10 days for altcoin trades. The arbitrator then pays the winning party directly in bitcoin and files a reimbursement request with the DAO, paid in BSQ, the DAO's token.
The security deposit is the whole point. It aligns both sides to complete honestly, because misbehaving costs you your own bitcoin. Understand it before you start: your deposit is locked for the length of the trade, so do not commit funds you need that afternoon.
Bisq 2 and Bisq Easy: Reputation Instead of Deposits
Bisq Easy is the beginner-friendly flow, and it works very differently. There is no multisig and no security deposit. The buyer sends fiat first, and after the seller confirms receipt, the seller releases the bitcoin. Security comes from seller reputation backed by burned BSQ instead of locked collateral. As a rough guide, a seller who has burned about $800 in BSQ can trade up to roughly $200.
That trust-the-seller design is why Bisq Easy is capped small. It carries a global trade limit around $600, with individual limits set by the seller's reputation, and buyers need no reputation at all. Treat Bisq Easy as a way to get your first small stack privately, not as a venue for moving serious size. For anything larger, Bisq 1's multisig is the safer structure.
Strong Monero Pairs
Bisq has long been one of the more reliable places to swap BTC for Monero (XMR) without an exchange demanding your ID. The XMR/BTC market is active enough to be usable, which is unusual for a no-KYC venue. If privacy is why you are here, Monero is probably part of the plan. Pair this with our Monero setup guide, and if you would rather skip the counterparty entirely, read up on Bitcoin to Monero atomic swaps. For the bigger picture on what chain surveillance can and cannot see, our crypto privacy reality check is worth a read first.
How the 2020 Exploit Was Handled
The bad news: in April 2020, a flaw introduced in Bisq v1.2 (October 2019) let an attacker redirect payouts. The software failed to verify that a trade's fallback payout address was actually the Bisq donation address, so the attacker could set other users' default addresses to a wallet they controlled. Posing as a seller, they started trades and let the time limit expire, and the funds plus the buyer's payment and deposit went to them. About $250,000 walked out the door across 7 victims.
The good news is the response. Developers disabled all trading using an alert key as soon as the exploit was discovered late on April 7, 2020, shipped the corrected v1.3.0 the next day, and resumed trading around 12:00 UTC on April 8. A Bisq DAO proposal aimed to repay the 7 victims from future trading revenue. It was a real failure, handled transparently and with a plan to make users whole. That is more than most centralized exchanges offer after a breach.
Technical Specifications
- Custody: Non-custodial. Bisq never holds your funds; deposits sit in 2-of-2 multisig (Bisq 1)
- Network: Every node is a Tor hidden service by default
- Identity: No registration, no email, no KYC
- Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux desktop; newer mobile Bisq Easy app
- Dispute handling (Bisq 1): Mediation, then arbitration via a delayed payout to the DAO (20 days fiat, 10 days altcoin)
- Governance: Bisq DAO, funded and voted with the BSQ token
Pricing Structure
There is no subscription. You pay a trading fee per trade, and you can pay it in BTC or, for a discount, in BSQ. Paying in BSQ runs roughly 40% cheaper. Remember these fees sit on top of the price premium you usually eat for buying no-KYC in the first place.
| Fee (per 1 BTC traded) | Paid in BTC | Paid in BSQ |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | 0.15% | 0.075% |
| Taker | 1.15% | 0.575% |
| Combined | 1.3% | 0.65% |
Trade sizes are capped and depend on the payment method's risk. As examples, SEPA tops out around 0.0624 BTC per trade, altcoin trades are capped at 0.25 BTC from day one, and for the riskier signed-account fiat methods your buying limit phases in over time (as low as 0.002 BTC in the first 30 days). The limits exist to blunt chargeback fraud.
Bisq vs. Alternatives
Bisq vs. Kraken
- Bisq: No KYC, non-custodial, Tor by default, but slower, thinner, and usually pricier per trade.
- Kraken: A centralized exchange with deep liquidity and fast fills, at the cost of full identity verification and custody of your funds while they sit there. Better for size and speed, worse for privacy. See our Kraken review.
Bisq vs. Coinbase (the anti-KYC counterpoint)
- Bisq: You are the account. Nobody freezes, reports, or closes it.
- Coinbase: The opposite end of the spectrum. Full KYC, custody, blockchain analytics, and a track record of sharing data with authorities. Convenient and beginner-friendly, and the least private option here. See our Coinbase review.
Whatever you buy, do not leave it on any exchange or on the Bisq app long-term. Move it to a hardware wallet like Trezor once the trade settles.
When to Use Bisq
Good Fit
✅ Buying or selling bitcoin without KYC, when you accept the tradeoffs in speed and price.
✅ Swapping BTC for Monero on one of the few active no-KYC XMR markets.
✅ People who refuse to hand custody to an exchange and want funds in multisig they co-control.
Poor Fit
❌ Anyone who wants to buy fast and cheap. Centralized exchanges win on both.
❌ Large size in a hurry. Thin liquidity and per-method trade caps make big buys slow and awkward.
❌ Mobile-first users. The full exchange is a desktop app.
The Bottom Line
Consider Bisq if:- Not linking bitcoin purchases to your identity is worth paying a premium for
- You want a non-custodial venue where you co-control the coins during a trade
- You need an active no-KYC path into Monero
- You want speed, deep liquidity, and the tightest price to spot
- You need to move large amounts quickly
- You only trade from a phone
⚠️ Final Assessment
Bisq earns high trust for the reasons that matter most: it never holds your funds, it does not know who you are, and it runs over Tor by default. It has been hacked once, in 2020, and handled it about as well as a project can, with a public post-mortem and a plan to repay victims. The honest catch is that privacy here is slow and it costs you: thin order books, premiums over spot, fiat trades that expose your name to the counterparty, and a desktop-only workflow. Start small, use a dedicated bank account, understand the security deposit, and it is the best no-KYC option going.