What are the options for increased privacy in how you pay for things where you live?

Cash is the obvious answer, but what about buying stuff online?

UK here. Thinking of ditching cards/contactless for good old cash. No idea about online payments - not doing anything illegal so might persevere with cards for now. Zero experience with crypto.

  • communism@lemmy.ml
    5·
    1 day ago

    Cash and Monero. I nearly never pay for things by card these days; it’s entirely possible.

    • jobbies@lemmy.zipOP
      1·
      19 hours ago

      How would a total noob get started with monero? I take it I need some kind of wallet and somewhere to buy it?

      • communism@lemmy.ml
        1·
        6 hours ago

        https://www.getmonero.org/

        Getting a wallet and setting it up is the easy part. Buying it can be more difficult depending on where you are—centralised exchanges are easiest but xmr-fiat centralised exchanges often have legal trouble and may not be available where you are. You can try a decentralised exchange like RetoSwap (fiat-xmr directly) or bisq (fiat-btc and btc-xmr). They can be a bit confusing for new users but I figured it out ok when I first bought Monero using bisq.

      • machiavellian@lemmy.ml
        2·
        17 hours ago

        It isn’t as hard as people imagine it to be. For starters you could watch a few entertaining videos by MentalOutlaw or listen to Opt Out and Watchman Privacy podcast.

        When you feel more at home with the terminology and understand the basic process behind cryptocurrencies in general and Monero, you could get a wallet, look some at some of their recommended guides, buy some Bitcoin at a decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange, trade it for Monero and badabim badaboom - you now have Monero.

        I recommend either Haveno Reto or Bisq. Nevertheless, always do your own research and make your own choice. This is a good place to start.

        You can use centralized exchanges as well as they make the process a bit easier but then you have to KYC yourself. Which isn’t a big problem because when you trade Bitcoin to Monero, all following transactions are anonymous.

        If you want to go hardcore from the start, you could use decentralized P2P exchange to get Monero for cash but this is a bit more advanced and comes with a premium.