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by vmception 1578 days ago
It's been over half a decade since that stopped mattering, for me.

I've bought goods and services directly with Monero plenty of times. I've paid invoices that the merchant put in Bitcoin, while using a third party to pay in Monero, which the third party then paid in Bitcoin.

Now in the 2020s I can swap Monero directly to SECRET network, a Tindermint/Cosmos blockchain where all smart contract executions are private (such as the amount and quantity of your erc20-style wrapped Monero), allowing further bridging over to the EVM ecosystem for all the liquid DeFi trading activities, and Tornado cash if desired.

and the times when I use KYC to convert it to fiat, I haven't cared either. I like that the OTC desk or exchange doesn't even receive the address I sent from, much more similar to wiring from another bank account, where the receiving bank can't look at all your prior records and balances at the source of money and just has to assume the other place is compliant. it should be obvious that someone with an illicit source of their Monero will need to reintegrate their value into the broader economy first, so that they can account for it properly. with access to the entire DeFi ecosystem now, that is extremely easy.

all crypto users should restore that level of privacy.

2 comments

> It's been over half a decade since that stopped mattering, for me.

It's certainly going to matter come tax season to businesses which are/will be forced to convert Monero to local fiat.

> I've bought goods and services directly with Monero plenty of times. I've paid invoices that the merchant put in Bitcoin, while using a third party to pay in Monero, which the third party then paid in Bitcoin.

What exactly do you buy with Monero?

US businesses and persons pay tax in income no matter what asset it was received in, and report capital gains or losses as well upon liquidation into another asset such as fiat

There is nothing unique about crypto or monero in that regard, what did you have in mind?

What are advantages of doing all those steps using Monero instead Fiat? I understand that you can hide your trances but if you buy legits things, who cares?
to the edited version of your question:

> What are advantages of doing all those steps using Monero instead Fiat? I understand that you can hide your trances but if you buy legits things, who cares?

I had a balance of Monero. It was convenient. Online payments are a lot easier when you don't have to fill in a bunch of information, what "steps" were you imagining? I didn't have to go get Monero, I had already accumulated it. Just like the Miners in the article have already accumulated it, just like anybody earning for Monero by providing a service had already accumulated it.

in any case, compared to attempting to pay with fiat, a crypto payment form typically lacks:

- First Name,

- Last name,

- Company Name,

- Street Address,

- City,

- State,

- Postal Code

- [] Is Billing Address the Same or Different.

- Card Number

- Security Code

- Expiration Date

Similar to how convenient Apple Pay is this decade. Crypto users had that last decade, Monero users had that and less leaking of their finances.

Aside from the pared-down user experience, I also like that the merchant isn't storing all that personal information just to process a transaction, but thats just icing on the cake, not really a motivating factor.

> last decade

Two decades ago actually, Bitcoin launched in 2009.

> what are legit things you bought with Monero

its been 8 years now, I guess off the top of my head:

groceries, domain names, registered agent services, compute instances, graphic design, press releases

Any reading you could recommend on Monero? Beyond wiki, subreddit, etc. Looking for more of an economics angle than cryptography angle, without generic crypto hype.
I have no insightful information to give you with regards to Monero, but to me what you're looking for is a good fit for Marginalia's text-centric search engine [0]. I get interesting results when I'm looking for authentic and elaborate opinions on given subjects outside the beaten path, which seems to be your goal. And especially useful when trying to flee the cesspool of results Google gives you when looking for topics with heavily financial undertones - good effing luck getting to a genuine article speaking of cryptocurrencies, stocks or any topic with financial incentives.

0: search.marginalia.nu

Thanks, this surfaced several interesting looking results. I'll try using it more often.
Thanks, saved both of those.
Not sure, one key aspect of the economics side in that community is “tail emission”

So looking up

Monero tail emission

might help, but I don't think there is more formal literate that just focuses on that, maybe some enthusiasts in university have something on SSRN