hide.me review for crypto users
Last reviewed 2026-08-26
hide.me was audited in 2015, when almost nobody in this industry was, and it took nine years to commission the follow-up. Both facts belong in the same sentence, because together they describe the service.
The 2015 review by DefenseCode was among the earliest independent examinations of a VPN's logging claims. Securitum returned to the question in 2024, examining the no-logs infrastructure and the RAM-only server design, and concluded that the declared policy was applied and that nothing on the VPN container could compromise user privacy. The report is published. The nine-year gap between them is the honest criticism: annual cadence, which Proton and IVPN now maintain, gives a reader far more than two snapshots a decade apart.
The free tier is the standout. hide.me does not cap free users' data, which is unusual enough that the company markets the point explicitly against the free VPNs that fund themselves by selling traffic. The trade is throttled speeds, eight server locations and a single device. No credit card is required.
Malaysia sits outside the Five, Nine and Fourteen Eyes alliances and imposes no VPN retention mandate. Payment covers an unusually wide spread of coins, from bitcoin to Monero, and the refund policy runs thirty days on a first order without asking questions. An email address is required for the account, and hide.me states it is the only identifying data it stores, kept encrypted.
- Owned by
- eVenture Limited
- Jurisdiction
- Malaysia
- Eyes alliance
- Outside the Five, Nine and Fourteen Eyes alliances
- Price
- A permanently free tier, with Premium at about $2.59 per month on the 27-month plan and roughly $11.99 billed monthly.
- Money-back
- 30 days (First orders only: renewals do not qualify, and it can be claimed once per customer.)
- Free tier
- No data cap, 8 locations, one device, reduced speeds, no card needed
- Protocols
- WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, SoftEther
- Servers
- Vendor states roughly 2,600 servers across 92 locations, with free users limited to eight of them
- Pay with crypto
- bitcoin, monero, ethereum, litecoin, dogecoin, solana
The evidence for the no-logs claim
A no-logs policy is a sentence on a website until someone checks. This is what has actually been checked for hide.me, dated, with the primary source for each item.
Independent audits
Paying with bitcoin
Coins accepted
bitcoin, monero, ethereum, litecoin, dogecoin, solana
Processor
In-house
Anonymous signup
No
An email address is required to register and is, hide.me states, the only personally identifying data it stores, held encrypted.
The refund sentence that governs a crypto purchase, from hide.me's own policy:
“If you are not completely satisfied with our VPN services, and you notify us in writing via email within the first 30 days of your plan that you wish to cancel. You will be given a full refund of the contract amount in case you have 1) not previously claimed a refund, 2) not violated our Terms of Service, 3) made your first order with us (renewals do not qualify).” refund policy
What it does for a bitcoin user
- Audited in 2015, among the first VPNs ever to commission one
- Re-audited by Securitum in 2024 against the RAM-only infrastructure
- A free tier with no data cap at all, and no card required
- Malaysian base, outside the Five, Nine and Fourteen Eyes alliances
What it will not do: bypass KYC, hide on-chain activity, or make a geo-blocked exchange usable. Presenting a false location to an exchange breaches its terms of service and is how accounts get frozen with the balance inside. Details in the VPN guide.
Pros and cons
What works
- Independently owned, with no conglomerate parent and no sibling VPN brands
- The only free tier here with no monthly data limit
- Accepts a wide spread of coins including Monero
- Both audit reports are published rather than summarised
What to watch
- Nine years passed between the 2015 audit and the 2024 one
- An email address is required whatever the payment method
- Free-tier speeds are throttled and limited to eight locations on one device
- No seizure or court case has tested the no-logs claim in public
Frequently asked questions
Is the hide.me free plan really unlimited?
The data is not capped, which is what makes it unusual. The limits are on speed, the eight server locations available, and a single simultaneous device. No credit card is required to use it.
How often has hide.me been audited?
Twice: by DefenseCode in 2015, one of the earliest VPN audits anyone commissioned, and by Securitum in 2024 against the no-logs infrastructure and RAM-only servers.
Which cryptocurrencies does hide.me accept?
Bitcoin, Monero, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin and Solana among others, alongside conventional payment methods and some stablecoins.
Can I get a refund on a crypto payment?
The thirty-day guarantee covers a first order and is claimed by email, once per customer. Renewals do not qualify, and it can take up to ten days to arrive depending on the payment method used.