RoboSats primary-source snapshot
Fetched: 2026-05-01 UTC
1) Learn RoboSats homepage
Sources:
Selected excerpts from the official surfaces:
Exchanging P2P has never been faster! LN Hodl invoices serve as bonds & escrows for high assurance and speed.
Best privacy practices by default. Simple and KYC-free.
The exchange is Tor-only.
RoboSats is fully open source and will always be.
Additional signals from the source:
- Even the top-level project framing emphasizes privacy, bonds/escrows, and Tor much more than exchange-liquidity marketing
- The project clearly wants to be understood as a privacy-preserving trading mechanism, not a convenience brokerage
2) Quick-start guide
Source: https://learn.robosats.org/docs/quick-start/
Selected excerpts from the guide:
RoboSats is an easy way to privately exchange bitcoin for national currencies.
It simplifies the peer-to-peer experience and makes use of lightning hold invoices to minimize custody and trust requirements between peers.
You can also use RoboSats to perform peer-to-peer swaps.
To start using RoboSats, you only need a Lightning Wallet and a TOR-enabled browser.
Additional signals from the source:
- This guide is concise but it recovers the project’s core architecture very efficiently: Lightning wallet, Tor browser, peer-to-peer exchange, and custody minimization
- The fact that Tor is a prerequisite rather than an advanced option is an important categorization signal
3) Privacy guide
Source: https://learn.robosats.org/docs/private/
Selected excerpts from the guide:
No registration at all. With a single click you will generate a robot avatar: that’s all you need.
Every robot has a pair of PGP keys to encrypt the communication end-to-end.
Tor Network Only. Your location or IP address is never known to the node or your trading peers.
One identity → one trade.
Additional signals from the source:
- The single-use avatar model is one of the clearest clues that RoboSats is designing around unlinkability, not account growth or long-lived profiles
- The combination of disposable identities, PGP chat, and Tor routing makes the platform look more like privacy middleware for trade coordination than a standard exchange account system
4) Trade pipeline guide
Source: https://learn.robosats.org/docs/trade-pipeline/
Selected excerpts from the guide:
Alice makes a new order and locks a small hold invoice to publish it (maker bond).
Bob scans a small hold invoice as his taker bond. The contract is final.
Bob posts the traded Sats with a hold invoice. While Alice submits her payout invoice.
Bob and Alice’s bonds return automatically, since they complied by the rules.
The bonds would be charged (lost) in case of unilateral cancellation or cheating (lost dispute).
Additional signals from the source:
- This is the key source for understanding RoboSats as a bond-and-escrow coordination system rather than only an order book
- The rules are explicit enough that the docs themselves function as operational protocol documentation
5) Lightning guide
Source: https://learn.robosats.org/docs/lightning/
Selected excerpts from the guide:
RoboSats leverages the advantages of transacting off chain to provide users a quick and inexpensive experience!
RoboSats is experimental, and as such is currently supported by an experimental coordinator node.
The upcoming federation upgrade allows anyone to become a coordinator node and support the RoboSats federation, thereby creating a decentralized but unified order book.
It is highly recommended to use a non-custodial and FOSS wallet where only you hold the keys.
Additional signals from the source:
- The coordinator-to-federation roadmap is one of the strongest clues that RoboSats is better understood as infrastructure/protocol coordination than as a static website marketplace
- The docs also reveal the project’s values around FOSS and non-custodial wallet compatibility
6) Main GitHub repository
Source: https://github.com/RoboSats/robosats
Selected excerpts from the repository page:
RoboSats is a simple and private way to exchange bitcoin for national currencies.
Robosats simplifies the peer-to-peer user experience and uses lightning hold invoices to minimize custody and trust requirements.
The deterministically generated avatars help users stick to best privacy practices.
Always use Tor Browser and .onion for best privacy.
The Clearnet URL redirects to a third party Tor2web service. Your privacy cannot be guaranteed to be respected.
Additional signals from the source:
- The repo reinforces that the project’s core operating model is open source, privacy-oriented, and fundamentally tied to Tor
- The explicit warning against clearnet trading is a stronger privacy posture than most consumer apps would take
Notes
- RoboSats appears best cataloged as peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange / privacy-preserving fiat-Bitcoin coordination layer / Lightning hold-invoice escrow infrastructure.
- No canonical standalone whitepaper or litepaper surfaced in this pass.
- The most useful primary sources were the Learn RoboSats docs and the main GitHub repository.