How to pay for a VPN without giving your name.
State of things on 17 October 2026: Pevnost is in private beta. Accounts can be created and paid by bank transfer; Bitcoin and Lightning follow once our BTCPay wallet is connected, Monero and cash by post later. The first server is being installed and is not live yet.
Your account with us is a random ID. We never ask for a name or an e‑mail. The one place a name can enter is the payment, and it depends entirely on how you pay. This guide says what each method reveals, to whom, and for how long, in the same terms as our privacy policy. Nothing here is advice to hide from anyone; it is a description of what the data looks like.
What we keep about a payment
For every payment: the account ID it was for, the amount, the date and the method. For bank transfers, the record is our bank statement, which carries the payer's name and account number because that is how bank transfers work. We keep payment records as long as Czech tax law requires (currently at least three years after the tax year, up to ten), and they can be produced under a court order. That is the whole list; there is no customer database with names behind it.
Bank transfer (available now)
What you do: on the account page you see our bank account, the amount (120 CZK for 30 days, 1 200 CZK for a year), a ten‑digit variable symbol and your account ID as the message for the recipient. Send the money from any bank. We match the variable symbol to your account and activate it within one working day of the money arriving. The variable symbol is random and unique to your account; it is not derived from the ID.
What it reveals: your bank knows you paid "Jan Faltýsek" 120 CZK, and our statement shows your name, your account number, the amount and the variable symbol. So there is a link between a name and an account ID, held in our accounting records for as long as the law says. A transfer from a SEPA account abroad works the same way (IBAN on the account page), with the usual fee at your bank.
Good for: people who do not mind their bank knowing they bought a VPN, which is most people.
Card (later)
Not offered yet. When it is, the card processor will see your name, card number and the merchant; we will see a payment reference, the amount and the country. The processor's records are theirs, under their rules. We will say which processor we use before we switch it on.
Bitcoin on‑chain (soon, via our BTCPay Server)
What you do: press "Pay with Bitcoin" on the account page; our own BTCPay Server (running on our control server, no third‑party payment company) shows an address and amount; you pay from any wallet; the account is extended automatically when the payment settles.
What it reveals: Bitcoin is a public ledger. The payment is visible forever, from your address to ours. If your coins came from an exchange that verified your identity, the exchange can connect the dots on request; so can anyone with blockchain analysis tools and a subpoena. We generate a fresh address per invoice and keep only the invoice ID, the amount and the account ID. To us you are an invoice. To the chain you are an address.
Good for: keeping your bank out of it. Not for hiding from someone who can analyse the chain.
Lightning (soon)
Same checkout, but the payment goes over the Lightning Network: off‑chain, routed through intermediate nodes, no public record of the individual payment. Our node sees that it was paid and by which route, not who you are. Lightning is better for privacy than on‑chain, and much cheaper for 120 CZK. It still starts from bitcoin you obtained somewhere.
Monero (later)
Monero hides sender, recipient and amount on the chain by design. It is the method we will recommend to anyone who wants no link between a person and an account at all. It is not switched on yet; it needs its own node next to our Bitcoin node, and we will announce it on the account page when it works.
Cash by post (later)
An envelope with banknotes and your account ID on a slip of paper, to our postal address. The sender's name appears nowhere unless you write it. Czech Post sees an envelope. We see cash and an ID. We will open this once there is someone to open the envelopes every working day; until then please do not send cash.
Summary
| Method | Status | Who sees your name | What we keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank transfer | now | your bank; our bank statement | statement line (name, amount, variable symbol), tax retention |
| Card | later | your bank, card processor | reference, amount, country |
| Bitcoin on‑chain | soon | nobody by name; the chain links addresses | invoice ID, amount, account ID |
| Lightning | soon | nobody; routing nodes see hops | invoice ID, amount, account ID |
| Monero | later | nobody | invoice ID, amount, account ID |
| Cash by post | later | nobody, unless you write it | amount, account ID, date |
Whichever you choose, the rest of the system is the same: the account is a random ID, devices are random keys, and nothing about what you do with the connection is ever written down.