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YouBuyBitcoin FAQ
Plain answers about YouBuyBitcoin itself: what it is, who runs it, how it is paid for, your privacy, and how the site is written. Questions about the directory have their own page: The Orange Pages FAQ.
We sell nothing. Nothing here is financial advice. Free to use, forever.
Read it top to bottom, or jump to a section. If anything here is unclear or wrong, write to info@youbuybitcoin.com.
Before you start
Do you sell bitcoin?
No. We don't sell bitcoin or anything else, and we never hold your money. You learn and compare here, then buy wherever you choose.
More: About · Disclaimers
Who's behind this, and why?
One person, Marius, who has held the domain since October 2017, has been planning the site since 2023 and building it since 2026, so anyone can learn about Bitcoin without being sold to.
More: Building in Public
How is it paid for?
Marius pays the costs, and donations are welcome. Some Orange Pages listings carry a marked affiliate link that can earn a commission; the swap comparison earns nothing. No ads, no investors, no paid placement.
More: Building in Public · About
Will YouBuyBitcoin ever ask for my seed words, keys or money?
No. YouBuyBitcoin will never ask for your seed words or private keys, and never asks for payment: the only addresses are on the donate page, and a donation is voluntary. Anyone who contacts you claiming to be YouBuyBitcoin and asks for any of these is a scammer; tell us at info@youbuybitcoin.com.
More: Donate · What The Orange Pages never do
Why should I trust YouBuyBitcoin?
You don't have to take it on trust. It sells nothing, holds no visitor's money and needs no account; The Orange Pages show their rules, notices and dates, and every change to the site is in the public ship log. Check what you read against its sources, and tell us when something is wrong.
More: Ship log · The Orange Pages FAQ
What the site is
What is YouBuyBitcoin?
A free Bitcoin information hub: guides (Learn), a swap-rate comparison (Swap), a directory of Bitcoin services (The Orange Pages), market signals (Radar) and live network data (Dashboard), plus a glossary. More is on the way; building takes time. It is not an exchange, broker or financial institution.
More: About · Building in Public
Why the name "YouBuyBitcoin"?
It's what a friend answers when asked what to do about Bitcoin: "You buy Bitcoin." The name is a call to action, not a sales counter: the site explains, compares and lists, and you decide. It also holds the words people search when they want to buy bitcoin, so the site can grow by word of mouth and search without spending a sat on marketing.
More: About
Is it free? Will it stay free?
Yes. Everything is free to read and use, with no paywall, tiers or premium access, and it stays free whether or not you donate.
More: About
Do I need an account?
No. The site has no accounts, logins or user profiles, and none of the eight swap services compared on /swap asks you to open an account for a swap.
More: Building in Public · Privacy
Why only Bitcoin?
The site is about Bitcoin by design: the swap comparison points one way, from other coins to native bitcoin, and never to wrapped tokens; The Orange Pages lists businesses for what they offer for bitcoin.
More: Swap · The Orange Pages FAQ · Bitcoin vs Crypto
Is YouBuyBitcoin a company, a charity or a regulated financial service?
None of these. The site is a personal project of Marius Madar, a private person in Romania, and it is not a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA; a business entity will be registered when Romanian law requires it.
More: Who runs the site
Is the site in any other language?
Not yet. Translations are planned once more urgent work is done, and authors and contributors can help with them.
More: Contribute
Is the site accessible?
Making the site usable by everyone is ongoing work that never ends. The newer pages, such as the Orange Pages and the Glossary, meet WCAG AAA colour contrast.
Who runs it
Who is Marius? Is there a team?
Marius Madar, "Marius, The Master Of Disaster" on the site, runs it alone from Oradea, Romania, and is editorially responsible for it; the Authors page explains the nickname: "because I've failed more often than most people have tried." There is no team yet; the contributor profile on the Authors page is an example.
More: Authors · Who runs the site
How long has YouBuyBitcoin existed? What does "since 2017" mean?
Marius has held the domain youbuybitcoin.com since 15 October 2017. Someone else first registered it in 2015 and let it expire, so public domain records show 2015 as its creation date. The site itself has been built since 2026; "since 2017" on the site refers to the domain.
More: About
Is the code open source? What can I check myself?
Not today: the workers and build scripts are closed-source, and the site's design and code are under copyright. What you can check from outside is behaviour: headers, rate limits, response shapes and every request a page makes. Parts of the code may open later, for trusted auditors from the Bitcoin space.
More: Building in Public
What happens to the site if Marius stops?
There is no successor yet. In time YouBuyBitcoin is meant to become a community-owned project; until then Marius builds the foundation to outlast everyone involved. In Marius's words: "I am just the builder and keyholder to something that belongs to us all." The guides and the directory text are CC BY-SA 4.0, so anyone can carry them on.
More: Terms
Money and independence
Do you earn money from links on the site? Which ones?
Only through affiliate links on some Orange Pages listings. Each one is tagged Affiliate with a plain link beside it; if you sign up or buy through it, the service may pay a commission, which doesn't change your price or the listing's place.
More: The Orange Pages FAQ · Disclaimers
Does the swap comparison earn anything? What is the n.exchange code?
No. Since 5 October 2026 the comparison has had no affiliate links and earns nothing, and each rate is the provider's own. The one code in a link is n.exchange's referral code, set to 0%: n.exchange issues its price key only with one, it earns nothing, and it gets you the rate shown.
More: Swap · Disclaimers
Can a business pay to be listed or ranked higher? Do you take ads, sponsors or investors?
No. Listing is free and nothing is asked in return, the directory order never reads affiliate status, and no swap provider can pay for a better position; there are no ads or paid placements, a sponsorship is treated as a donation and buys nothing, and venture capital and investor funding are refused.
More: About · The Orange Pages FAQ
How do donations work, and what does a donation buy?
Donations are voluntary, in bitcoin (Silent Payments), Lightning, Monero or shielded Zcash, and they buy nothing: no placement, priority or say. They go to hosting, tools, the guides and The Orange Pages; no total is shown, they can't be refunded or deducted from tax, and donors are thanked by name only if they ask.
What is the 21% pledge? Has anything been paid?
A voluntary public pledge, not legally binding, to give 21% of net profits to Bitcoin education. The first payment comes once there is net profit, and each one is made in bitcoin and published with its transaction ID.
More: The 21% pledge
Does YouBuyBitcoin make money today?
The site is pre-revenue: Marius pays the costs, and the only possible income is affiliate commissions from marked Orange Pages listings and donations.
More: Building in Public
Has anyone donated?
The site doesn't publish a total: none of the four ways lets outsiders check what arrives, so a number would have to be taken on trust. The thank-you list names donors who ask to be listed.
More: Donate
How do I know a donation address really belongs to YouBuyBitcoin?
Use only the addresses on the donate page, and check that what you paste matches them. To double-check, ask on X (@YouBuyBitcoin) or by email at info@youbuybitcoin.com.
More: Donate
What counts as net profit for the 21% pledge?
Net profit means what is left after costs and taxes. If and when the site becomes profitable, 21% of that goes to Bitcoin education, paid in bitcoin and published with its transaction ID.
More: Terms
What does the site cost to run?
No figure is published. The domain, hosting, workers and tools are paid out of Marius's pocket, and in Marius's words the site has cost "everything I have, all my time, energy and money."
More: Building in Public
Any conflicts of interest?
Disclosed: two Orange Pages listings, Trezor and BitBox, carry Marius's affiliate link, and YouBuyBitcoin holds an account with FixedFloat, one of the compared swap services; the Disclaimer lists both. In Marius's words, the only interest is "to eliminate paywalls and accessibility gaps when it comes to information related to Bitcoin."
More: Disclaimers
Privacy
Do you use cookies?
No. The public site sets no cookies of any kind, which is why there's no consent banner; the only cookie is on the password-locked admin dashboard Marius uses.
More: Privacy
Do you store my IP address?
No. Like every website, the site receives your IP with each request, and Cloudflare's network sees it. Where a worker needs to tell visitors apart, it turns the IP into a short code that changes every UTC day, and nothing stored from it lasts more than a day; under the GDPR that code is pseudonymous during its day, so the site doesn't call it anonymous.
More: Same-day codes · Building in Public
What analytics do you use? Do you track me?
Visits are counted with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which uses no cookies and, in Cloudflare's words, no fingerprinting for its analytics; the site's own counters keep totals of reads, votes, Compare presses and searches without names, accounts or IPs. Nothing from Google, no pixels and no cross-site trackers load.
More: Privacy · Building in Public
What does the site keep in my browser, and is any of it sent to you?
Only conveniences in your browser's own storage, not cookies: reading progress, cached listings and rates, your last swap pick, saved listings and settings. None of it is sent to the site except a tag you add to a vote and a random tab number for the Orange Pages visits line.
More: Privacy · The Orange Pages FAQ
What happens to what I type into search?
The query goes to the site's Cloudflare worker, which matches it with an AI model inside the site's own Cloudflare account; the text isn't stored, logged or shared. Only whether the search found results and how long the query was are recorded.
More: Privacy
Who sees my data when I click through to a provider or listing?
While you compare, swap providers see only the site worker's Cloudflare address, never yours. Once you click through you are on that service's site, under its privacy policy, and it sees your IP like any website; an affiliate link also tells it the visit came through YouBuyBitcoin.
More: Who else handles data · The Orange Pages FAQ
Who is responsible for my data, and what are my rights?
Marius Madar is the data controller. Under the GDPR you can ask for access, correction, erasure, restriction or portability, or object, mostly relevant to emails you sent, by writing to info@youbuybitcoin.com; complaints can go to Romania's ANSPDCP or to the authority where you live.
More: Privacy
Has the site ever had a security incident or data breach?
No. The site keeps no accounts, passwords, IP addresses or visitor profiles, so there is very little to breach. The personal data it keeps longer than a day is what people give it (an email they send, or a name for the donor thank-you list) and the names of people behind Orange Pages listings.
More: Privacy
How the site is written and checked
Is this site written by AI?
Claude drafts the text and code at Marius's direction and does the research asked of it. Marius reviews each piece, corrects it until approving it, and only then does it go live; earlier articles were also researched with Perplexity.
More: Building in Public
Does an AI see my data?
Not your visits: nothing you do on the site, and no search query, goes to Claude or Perplexity, the tools Marius uses to write and research, and site search uses an AI model inside the site's own Cloudflare account. Emails are different. When Marius asks, Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic, reads emails sent to info@ to sort them and draft replies. It can't send anything; Marius reads and sends every reply. Anthropic processes those emails under its own privacy policy and, by our settings, doesn't train its models on them, except where that policy allows for safety reviews.
More: Privacy
How are facts checked? Is the content biased?
The rule is that every fact is paired with its counter, every quote attributed and every claim sourced, with primary sources checked first. No guarantee is given that everything is current or free of errors, so check the sources and report anything wrong.
More: Building in Public · Disclaimers
How do I know the live numbers are real?
The figures come from public services such as Binance, CoinGecko, CoinLore, Kraken and mempool.space, and each live figure shows how fresh it is, with a stale marker if a source fails. You can cross-check them on mempool.space or CoinGecko, or read the raw responses in your browser's network tab.
More: Building in Public · Dashboard
How often are the guides reviewed?
All the time, not on a fixed schedule: when something new happens, the guides it touches are checked and updated, stating only what can be verified, with sources from the community and open source. Every correction goes into the public ship log.
More: Building in Public
Using the tools
How does the swap comparison work, and who holds my coins?
You pick a coin and amount, the site's worker asks all eight providers for live quotes, and you finish the swap on the provider's own site, which sends the bitcoin to your wallet; YouBuyBitcoin never holds your funds. Your coins pass through the provider during the swap, any provider may pause a flagged swap or ask for ID, and ChangeNOW asks EU residents and 8 other places for ID first. SimpleSwap's and ChangeHero's terms restrict use from the EU, and some providers exclude other countries, such as the USA or sanctioned ones, so check a provider's terms before you swap.
More: Swap · Provider security history
Which swap providers are compared, how were they chosen, and how is the order set?
Eight services: ChangeNOW, SimpleSwap, FixedFloat, Exolix, SideShift, Godex, ChangeHero and n.exchange (DeFi mode only), chosen on rate competitiveness, no-KYC support and reputation. They are ordered by live quote, the "Best Rate" badge goes only to a quote within ±10% of the peer median when at least four of the eight have a quote, and known security incidents are listed in the Disclaimer.
More: Swap · How /swap checks its quotes · Provider security history
Can I buy bitcoin with dollars or euros here?
Not on the site itself: the swap comparison is for coins you already hold. For a first purchase with a card or bank account, /swap points to exchanges, on-ramps and cash options in The Orange Pages and shows a dated cost table (estimates as of 9 June 2026, not quotes), and the guide "How to Get Started" walks through the steps.
More: How to Get Started · Swap
How are Orange Pages listings chosen and ordered?
Anyone with a real connection to bitcoin can be listed for free once checks on the website, the claims and recent incidents pass; a listing means it passed those checks, not that the site vouches for the business. The order follows written rules (Bitcoin label group, open source first, a weekly rotation), never money.
More: The Orange Pages FAQ
What does Learn cover, and where do I start?
21 core sections in three tiers (Fundamentals 1–7, Intermediate 8–14, Advanced 15–21) plus 8 supplementary deep dives, about 8 hours 18 minutes in all. Newcomers start with Section 1, "What is Bitcoin?"; the Fundamentals path takes about 1 hour 5 minutes.
More: Learn · What is Bitcoin?
What is the glossary, and can I reuse what's on the site?
The glossary explains 112 Bitcoin terms in plain English, and the terms appear as tooltips on every education page. The guides, the glossary and the directory text are CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse, translate and remix them with credit, under the same licence; the site's design, code and branding are not covered.
Is there an app? Does it work on my phone?
There is no app. The site is built to work well on phones and on every screen size.
Can I reuse the live data? Is there an API?
There is no public API. The live numbers come from public sources named on the Privacy page, which you can use directly; automated access to this site needs permission first, as the Terms say.
Safety, contact, contributing
Is anything here financial advice?
No. Nothing on the site is financial, investment, legal or tax advice; it is educational and informational, and the decisions and their risks are yours.
More: Disclaimers
Are the services you list or compare safe? Do you vouch for them?
Being listed or compared is not an endorsement or a guarantee. Known security incidents are disclosed with dates and sources, in the Disclaimer for swap providers and affiliate listings and as notices on Orange Pages listings, and the site teaches self-custody because whoever holds your bitcoin can freeze it, lose it or be forced to hand it over.
More: Provider security history · The Orange Pages FAQ · Storing Bitcoin Safely
How do I contact you, and how fast do you reply?
Email info@youbuybitcoin.com (there's no phone); the aim is a reply within 48 hours, or up to 30 days for GDPR requests, and if nothing comes, write again. YouBuyBitcoin is also on X, Substack and Nostr.
More: Who runs the site
How do I report a mistake, a bug or a security issue?
Email info@youbuybitcoin.com with the page and what's wrong (for an article, the exact paragraph and your source); corrections are logged in the public ship log. Security issues go to the same address or through /.well-known/security.txt, with a 48-hour response window.
More: Building in Public FAQ · Ship log
How can I contribute?
Write, translate or suggest a listing by emailing info@youbuybitcoin.com; contributions are credited and published under CC BY-SA 4.0, and there are no monetary rewards yet. Code contributions aren't accepted from outside today.
More: Contribute · The Orange Pages FAQ
Which email address do I use?
Write to info@youbuybitcoin.com. Everything arrives there; any other address you may see is an alias of it.
More: Who runs the site
How do I follow updates? Is there a newsletter?
There is no newsletter or mailing list. Every change is listed in the ship log on Building in Public, and YouBuyBitcoin is on X, Substack and Nostr.
More: Building in Public