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?

  • MajesticElevator@lemmy.zip
    1·
    1 day ago

    My “easy” solution for b) :

    1. Buy XMR from wherever you want (even KYC exchanges if you want and can)
    2. (if you’re already on a CEX and don’t want to bother, withdraw USDT/USDC/LTC/BCH… any crypto with not insane withdrawal fees and which is fairly popular, and then exchange it on a non-KYC exchange for XMR)
    3. Exchange your XMR at a non-KYC (or non systematical) exchange for your desired traceable cryptocurrency.

    I can recommend https://trocador.app/ - nice exchange aggregator that doesn’t require you to log into the exchange’s website, and that displays the level of privacy of each exchange.

    By using this method, you always have non-ML non-KYC crypto that can be used to buy anything

    For additional (and true) privacy, please churn the XMR while you have it. If you know, you know, but that’s a power user move.