[lrvick]

I am one of those people that uses cash and bitcoin for privacy and reliability and for 100% legal use cases.

I have experienced bank accounts of mine and those I know be frozen, emptied without warning due to identity theft, a false criminal accusation, forgotten debts, etc. I also know very well that banks have data sharing relationships with Visa, etc, that form a full map of where and when you spend money to aid data brokers in selling changes in your behavior to advertisers. Do you really want metadata on every purchase you make at a sex shop or a pharmacy stored in databases and sold to the highest bidder?

Cash has limits though. It is impractical and unsafe to put cash in the mail when paying friends back for dinner after we all go our separate ways or if I am buying something online I wish to be anonymous like a VPN subscription. In those cases Bitcoin solves a problem and I have legitimately used it on a regular basis for many years. I never use venmo etc and friends and I regularly settle debts with Bitcoin.

I would prefer not to have to carry around cash all the time so when possible to use Bitcoin in retail, I do. I have used bitcoin to buy drinks at bars in Germany, electronics at big box stores in Japan, meals at various restaurants, and coffee hundreds of times. I can also get cash from Bitcoin ATMs worldwide without having to deal with a bank denying me my own money because I am in an unexpected country.

Bitcoin, when purchased with cash, gives me all the privacy of cash with all the portability of a visa card.

[TomSwirly]

> I have experienced bank accounts of mine and those I know be frozen, emptied without warning due to identity theft, a false criminal accusation, forgotten debts, etc.

Your bank account has been frozen and emptied at least four times?!

Surely the common factor in these incidents is you!

[lrvick]

I said those I know.

Mine was frozen once over a clerical error. I have also had mine frozen a number of times for trying to make medium sized cash withdrawals when traveling. This is a common anti fraud tactic but it is very annoying when I can not spend my own money. I do not carry a phone and even if I did waiting on hold with a bank in front of an ATM in a random country sucks.

Several people I know, including family, have suffered identity theft and had accounts drained that way. I know someone else who had an account frozen due to a false accusation.

Someone I know had theirs drained with no warning due to a decade old forgotten debtor getting a court order. I know others who have had accounts frozen or dismissed because the bank did not like the nature of their business. They commonly do this for legal cannibis, adult, gambling, or crypto asset business they consider a brand risk.

In short banks have a lot of nasty edge cases I like to avoid.

[sWW26]

How does it give you privacy when all your transactions are visible to all on chain?

[lrvick]

The same way Tor gives me privacy. The network knows what traffic went where, but it does not know the identity of the initiator.

Similarly when you get BTC in exchange for cash or p2p exchange without KYC then those transactions are no more tagged to you than the list of transactions in the register of each vendor you pay cash to.

Even when you use cash, serial numbers can be logged on withdrawal and deposit to track movements of cash and secret service does do this when they are targeting someone.

Being anonymous with cash and Bitcoin is similar. Do not identify yourself when you obtain or spend your cash/bitcoin and then logs of their use, which do happen, are at least not directly tied to you.

Bitcoin has the added advantage of each vendor usually generates random withdrawal addresses so no one from the public even can easily identify the recipients, unlike with a credit card transaction where both sides are IDed and logged.

Neither cash or Bitcoin will stop someone tailing me on foot and tagging transactions to me but my primary adversary is surveillance capitalism and it would not be profitable for them to go that far.

[newswasboring]

How are you purchasing bitcoin with cash? I know it happens but I don't know how it's happening. Is it safe?

[lrvick]

Bitcoin ATMs, and repayment from friends when I pay for things in cash. There are also p2p exchanges like LocalCoinSwap where you can meet people in person in public places to buy or sell an amount of BTC you are comfortable carrying. Some let you use escrow where you deposit cash to a bank account then you are sent BTC on receipt. None of these methods can be stopped no matter how much regulators demand KYC from the Coinbases of the world. Humans can always trade directly.

Similarly I am also paid directly in Bitcoin by some of my clients I do consulting for so neither side needs to fuss with bank transfers. Lastly I can always buy on an exchanges, convert to Monero, then back to Bitcoin to de-associate the Bitcoin to me.

[FabHK]

> convert to Monero, then back to Bitcoin to de-associate the Bitcoin to me.

So you do KYC and AML on one exchange, transfer BTC there, exchange to Monero, then transfer those to your own wallet, do KYC and AML on another exchange, transfer the Monero there, and exchange it back to BTC?