You will find several ways for you to pay for your VPN subscription online. Some of these may be secure, while others are partially secure. Paying through these modes could expose you to online risks and can be a security risk to your payment credentials, or worst-case scenario – can leave you off-guard as you might eventually be at a loss as these cyberpunks hack your vital financial information online.

To afford your secure payment options online, Bitcoin is here to help you all the way.

What exactly is Bitcoin? How does it work?

Bitcoin is a P2P (peer-to-peer) open-source cash system that can be freely used at absolutely no cost to you. It uses digital currencies by way of a decentralized system. The main idea is that users don’t need to rely on any trusted third party or a central server for payment processing.

As it allows for instant cash payments to users situated virtually anywhere in the world, it likewise affords you an apparent solution to do away with unnecessary expenditure. The whole payment program is 100% guaranteed to be encrypted at all times.

The dangers of using credit cards for VPN payment

Paying for your VPN subscription by way of credit cards can make you susceptible to intruders who are eager to peek into your credentials, thus making your online data vulnerable to identity theft and other illicit cyber activities.

What’s more, several VPN users prefer absolute anonymity, exactly what you will not be able to accomplish with your credit card with your name on it and contains all your important personal information.

Advantages of using Bitcoin for VPN subscription payments

1. Making use of Bitcoin provides you the highest levels of protection as it hides your identity from cyber criminals with the aid of digital signatures.
2. Bitcoin utilizes blockchain which in turn is publicly distributed database that is apt for reducing double-spending risks. It likewise affords a primary role in confirming online transactions.
3. Bitcoin functions on a public key cryptography platform that allows users to have a digital wallet with encrypted key pairs. These keys are in turn converted into Bitcoin addresses which are made use of for receiving endpoints for all secured VPN payments.
4. This peer-to-peer payment allows you total anonymity on the web. The transactions are protected and sent to the appropriate party with the aid of cryptographic characters, which posses no information of the party making the transaction.

Owing to all the rigorous security measures imposed by Bitcoin, they have landed a notch higher as opposed to their other competitors in terms of paying for Bitcoin VPN services securely. Presently, the Bitcoin network was adopted by a lot of people in more than 32 countries the world over.

Bitcoin VPN providers

Most of the VPN providers accept nowadays Bitcoin, some of them through third-party providers (such as BitPay) or directly to their Bitcoin wallets. The checkout process is simple, and the transactions are processed within minutes.

Next, take a look at several VPN providers you can pay with Bitcoin:

• HideMyAss
• ibVPN
• PrivateInternetAccess

Don’t you have Bitcoins and you prefer other VPN payment methods? Let us know in the comments below.

VPN providers = bad guys?

The VPN industry itself is suffering from those “bad advertisement” since most people now associate VPN providers with the “bad guys.” So, as a simple VPN user, you may also be assimilated to a hacker. Indeed, even though you are only using a VPN solution to overcome some geo-location limitation, you may still be at risk of being considered as a “hacker.” You know, like the lambda user who wants to view Hulu or BBC iPlayer from their computer even though he is not located in an approved country.

If we look at it, to keep their business rolling, we can think that those VPN services must have some “secret weapon” that will allow them to seen as a “clean” player in this field – especially from anti-piracy entities. That may be one of the reasons why very few VPN providers dare mention that they don’t store any logs of what their VPN clients are doing over this connection that they are establishing. But, that’s still fine if your only use for VPN service is for overcoming geographical limitations.

Is still PayPal a good option?

But things are getting more “limiting” for VPN providers. Indeed, not so long ago, Paypal – one of the most used online payment processor/gateway have refused the use of their payment system to BtGuard. BtGuard is a VPN service which is known for providing a VPN service that is BitTorrent compliant.

BitTorrent is another system that is commonly assimilated to file sharing. And unfortunately for them, whenever people think of file sharing, they directly think of illegal file sharing. Although BitTorrent is also used for legally sharing files between peers – a lot of software vendors make their latest version available for download via Torrent.

Recommended reading: 12 Tips on How to Torrent Safely

So what’s the point here? It seems clear that to fight against piracy and hackers, most government entities, as well as big players, have decided to cut it from the roots: at the payment processing level. Indeed, Paypal is not the only payment processor that exists nowadays (PerfectMoney is somehow similar). But, since it’s one of the major player – whatever decision it takes against VPN providers will be a strong signal to the market.

What about Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies?

Have you been able to set up your Bitcoin wallet, buy Bitcoins and use them for VPN payment? From my personal experience, it is not as easy as it sounds and not easy to understand. But, it may worth the pain as it is probably the most anonymous payment option available at this time. Also, Ripple VPN payments are possible.

Some VPN services like ibVPN, PureVPN or Private Internet Access use the CoinPayments payment processors that accept more than 500 different coins. Thus, you may get a VPN account with virtually any (popular) cryptocurrency.

Can you use gift cards to pay for a VPN?

As oddly as it may sound, yes. At least one VPN service (Private Internet Access) allows you to pay anonymously with many major brand gift cards like Starbucks, Best Buy, or Best Buy.

How do you pay for your VPN account?

So this brings me back to my initial question at the title of this article: what is your preferred payment processor when buying a VPN package? As for me, having a Paypal option as the payment processor gave more trust to me into the provider (well, that’s not the only argument I’m looking for, but I do admit I scarcely go for a VPN provider that do not have Paypal payment facilities).

How do you make your VPN payment? Do you think this is one argument that will influence your VPN buying decision? Or do you think that it doesn’t matter not having PayPal option so long as you can pay via other alternatives (Alertpay, Plimus, Moneybookers, bitcoin, …)