The case in front of me: a stablecoin transfer · the United Kingdom.
This is a planning question. I know what my options are; I do not know how to weigh them.
What I want is the minimum viable version, which I suspect is smaller than what I would design.
How do I make this decision on evidence rather than on feel?
The short version: every method leaves a record somewhere, the records differ in who holds them and for how long, and none of them is anonymous.
Merchant data breaches are the realistic exposure for most people, and the mitigation is minimising what the merchant holds rather than choosing an exotic payment rail.
On the detail: any method routed through a regulated exchange creates identity records at that exchange under standard customer-identification requirements, which is where most linkage actually happens.
Card scheme chargeback rules are published and provide a defined dispute mechanism with time limits, which no other common method offers.
Keep your own records whatever you use. You will need them.
Aggregated, published test results and vendor ratings built from submitted batches. Methodology stated, dataset browsable, no listing fees.
Browse resultsStated carefully, this is a question about record-keeping rather than about secrecy, and reframing it that way makes it tractable.
Public blockchain transactions are permanent, globally readable and linkable. Chain analysis routinely deanonymises addresses through exchange on-ramps, and the record does not expire.
Keep your own record of every transaction regardless of method: date, amount, reference, and what was ordered. This is the documentation you will need if anything requires resolving.
Customer identification requirements at regulated exchanges create the identity linkage that makes on-chain analysis effective.
The caveat is that legal exposure varies enormously by jurisdiction and nothing here is legal advice.
A chargeback is the only recourse mechanism in this space. Price that in.
Worth being precise here: whatever the method, keep your own records — they are what you will need if anything needs resolving.
Card payments create a record with the issuer, the acquirer and the merchant, and they carry a chargeback mechanism. That mechanism is the only consumer recourse in this entire space and it is not nothing.
Whatever a merchant says about not storing details, assume they do. Design around the assumption rather than the assurance.
Decide what you are protecting against first. Most of this question dissolves at that step.
The relevant point is that chargeback protection and privacy pull in opposite directions, and you cannot have both.
Bank transfers create a record with both banks, generally have no reversal mechanism once settled, and are the method with the least recourse for the most traceability — the worst of both.
Public blockchains are permanent and publicly readable by design; pseudonymity is not anonymity and the distinction is well documented in the chain-analysis literature.
A dedicated email address per merchant is free and genuinely useful.
edited 26 May 2024 by w_okoye — added a caveat about sampling
Mechanically, public blockchains are not private; they are pseudonymous ledgers that are permanent and searchable by anyone forever.
Using a dedicated email address per merchant makes any subsequent breach traceable to its source and costs nothing to set up.
Methods with no reversal mechanism give you no recourse at all if something goes wrong.
Public chains are permanent and searchable. Pseudonymous is not anonymous.
Ask PeptideStack is a static archive. Posting is closed, but the norms are worth stating: answer the question that was asked, show your working, cite the trial or the certificate, and say plainly where the evidence runs out.