1984 doesn't carry the TLD I need — who else takes crypto and won't ask for a name?

Been registering through the Icelandic lot for years and I've got no complaints — crypto, nobody asks for a name, WHOIS proxy included, and it's been the boring reliable choice since about 2018.

Problem is they don't carry the ccTLD I need for a client project and won't be adding it. Fair enough.

So who else in this space actually carries a wide TLD list? Every privacy registrar I look at has about forty extensions, and forty is fine right up until the one you need is the forty-first. In 2014 you could get anything anywhere and the trade-off was that the registrar knew everything about you; now the trade-off is inverted and I'm not convinced it's an improvement.

Depends what you're running, but on ccTLDs specifically the answer is usually no, and it isn't about privacy.

Most ccTLD registries have local presence requirements or an accreditation process, and a small privacy registrar isn't going to accredit for a registry that'll sell them forty names a year. That's the whole reason the lists are short. It's economics, not policy.

Two options that sometimes work. The Swedish outfit that registers names in its own name carries a wider list than most, because the presence requirement is met by them rather than by you — worth checking your specific extension, that's exactly the case their model handles. Or the other Icelandic one, which has a similar list to the one you're already on and probably won't help.

If it's a strict-presence ccTLD you'll end up at a mainstream registrar with privacy bolted on, and then the question is what you're willing to hand over.

Which TLD? Half of this depend on which one and you not say.

Not saying, it identifies the client. Which I realise makes the question harder to answer, and I'd have the same objection in your position.

The registrar that owns the name is not a privacy upgrade for a client project. It is a control transfer.

You cannot hand the client the domain later without going through the registrar's process, and if the relationship goes bad, the party holding the asset is neither you nor them. For your own names that trade is often correct. For work you will hand over, it is a liability you are creating on somebody else's behalf.

Register it somewhere ordinary with proxy WHOIS and tell the client exactly what is and is not hidden.

That's the answer and it's the one I didn't want. Mainstream registrar, proxy WHOIS, client owns it, everyone knows what's shielded and what isn't.

Took me three days and a forum thread to arrive at what I'd have told a junior in four seconds.