How viable is crypto as a private medium exchange in the modern world?
I see the value of using cryptocurrencies as a form of digital cash (from both a personal privacy point of view and a broader political/economic point of view) but am also put off by a) all the scamming and speculation and moreover b) the friction and privacy tradeoffs involved in getting any of it.
One of the obvious problems is that not many sellers accept it as payment. I can accept that. But AFAICT, in order to pay those that do, I must either do the legwork of conducting a peer-to-peer exchange of fiat currency for crypto (PITA) or use an exchange, which will have records of my personal identity. I’m aware that I could launder exchange-bought crypto to obfuscate my ownership of it but that is also a PITA. I suppose I could also mine coins but that has the most friction of all options and is a poor use of electricity production in my view.
Is there a solution that I’m not aware of, where I can buy (or indeed sell) crypto easily and privately?
Monero and Tornado.Cash are probably the easiest ways of doing this
Crypto is a ledger making it inherently bad for privacy. It doesn’t have any real value, its just believe that holds its value (can’t be eaten or be used to create anything). Its really bad for the climate and wastes resources like crazy. Its not a better payment system and its unregulated, meaning you can get scammed and nobody can reverse the damage. Just why do people want it to be a thing, the issues are so many and solution few.
To correct some oversimplifications in this thread, let me just summarise some facts:
Crypto is exactly as worthless as money.
Not all crypto is bad for the climate, see for example Etherium and Solana.
Crypto has legitimate uses, especially as a replacement for traditional bank transactions, which to remind everyone, are basically made up numbers and ‘trust me bro’-s. And I will explicitly include smart contracts and NFTs here, just to annoy people who don’t get them.
Not all crypto is private. In fact, it was designed to be the opposite, hence most crypto isn’t private at all.
While not all crypto is private, even less ways to spend or exchange crypto are private. A simple and also very private thing is cash.
Not all crypto is private. In fact, it was designed to be the opposite, hence most crypto isn’t private at all.
It’s increasingly harder to exchange for fiat anonymously, especially when you consider XMR or other privacy coins. Once the people in charge of money realized they were a bit subverted, you got the huge crackdown.
I still use it for various things. Buy LTC from a legit licensed exchange. Move it around a bit. Change to XMR through an exchange that doesn’t care. Maybe move it around some more. It’s a giant pain, but I don’t know a better way. This method isn’t perfect, more of a balance of risk, but it’s better than just handing your entire entity over for a simple transaction.
I bought crypto and still own it, but over time I have come to the opinion that until stores and malls accept crypto, they will never grow betond being a commodity like gold. This is the highest price I’ve ever seen gold. That has me concerned of how volatile people’s finances are. The cost of living was a huge amount cheaper when gold was 65 to 70% cheaper than now.
If bitcoin ever hits $400,000, I see implosion and collapse being imminent. Crypto will never be worthlesss, at least crypto that casual observers have heard of before, but there’s no huge profit to be made from it without engaging in financial criminal activity.
So if you want to get into crypto, do definitely protect your identity at all cost before purchasing whichever currency, but also know for what principal you got it to it. If it is to get wealthy, you wasted your money. If it’s to hold on to something of value that you can trade for if economy falls off, then that could prove to be a wise decision in the future.
There’s more I could say, this might already be blah blah blah, but I hope that you understand my overall premise. I genuinelly don’t now why individual stores don’t accept crypto and then sell it almost in real time. If crypto stablized, a few people would take their pay in crypto instead of bank deposit, and just that would take money away from the elite global class if staff got paid in crypto to do their shopping.
I have come to the opinion that until stores and malls accept crypto, they will never grow betond being a commodity like gold
I don’t think they need to either. In the physical world, cash is the absolute best. Using crypto in the real world is like using cash by mail - cool gimmick but very impractical. Crypto is a way to buy your VPS, domain, email, etc - the purely virtual things.
My point being, as long as there is never any way to buy groceries with crypto, it will never be greatly valuable. It won’t be worthess, people will want it, but crypto will never grow into anything.
Because if that, not as many online services will every accept crypto because they don’t want to pay to exchange it. But if crypto became another form of payment for retail, then a lot more online stores and services will also accept crypto instead of being responsible for taking card information.
I have been buying my groceries with Monero since January of 2023. And I’m still alive, so it must work. Otherwise I’d be long dead of starvation.
Edit: I have found that the absolute most difficult things to pay are the things that require a direct ACH transfer such as your car payment, credit card bill, or mortgage. If anything at all accepts a debit card, it can be paid for with crypto.
You can walk to grocery store and pay with monero? I can’t find a way to buy monero without a credit card.
In Switzerland, yes, you absolutely can walk into a grocery store and pay with Monero at the checkout counter. In the United States, you can buy an Instacart gift card and get the grocery store to deliver your food or go pick it up and pay with Monero.
