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Comment by EscapeFromNY | Hacker News Reader

Monero is perhaps the only cryptocurrency that both works as advertised, and has gathered a self-sustaining userbase.

No $20 transaction fees. No influencer pump and dumps. No VCs who need to extract value. No fork drama. No unrealistic roadmap. No charismatic leader boiling the frog with scope creep. It's not trying to be an investment. It's actually private. It's actually anonymous. This is all a lot of us ever wanted from a cryptocurrency.

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I'm curious, what are people purchasing with it?

Mullvad accepts VPN payments in Monero.

The whole point of monero is that it's none of other people's business what I buy with my money.

Sorry maybe my question was not well asked. I don't want to know what you buy, but more generally what can be bought with it.

I didn't check the links and the list is from late 2022 but https://monero.observer/101-things-monero-can-buy

I did confirm at least one store: 3% discount for BTC and XMR https://shopinbit.com/electronics/tablets-smartphones/tablet...

Thanks! That seems to be a pretty good list (I haven't tried but I did check a bunch of the listed websites and they did say they accept Monero).

I'd still be a bit worried to use it to pay on a website that's not well known, as I assume you don't get disputes if the website doesn't deliver the service after you paid ^^

I pay for a VPN and hosting with it, and a few people I know IRL use it for settling small debts (like Venmo, except nobody is selling your transaction history). I think it's unlikely Monero will ever crack the chicken and egg problem of broad merchant acceptance, but all the same I'm glad something exists for the niche of privacy-oriented services.

Drugs. The answer is drugs.

Do you know which other payment methods people use to buy drugs? All of them.

Most people who buys drugs do it in really stupid ways

This directory contains around 1300 businesses that accept monero: https://cryptwerk.com/pay-with/xmr/

If you take away the "crypto services" and alike (600), you get around 700 businesses.

There's a real hobby around replica (ok, fake) designer watches. It's not always about ego and trying to present something you're not - though a lot of people use it for that. The real interest a lot of people have around it is the ~art~ of replicating something to the extreme detail that a lot of these manufacturers do. There are countless extensive posts of people reviewing the same watch from different manufacturers under microscopes and critiquing the build, quality, and accuracy to real watches.

And to be honest, I like them a lot too because they're very fashionable and look great and are iconic. But I also don't want to spend $12k+ on a watch. And also in honesty, I always present it as a replica when asked about it and usually provide the above context where appropriate.

I have no issue supporting replica manufacturers because they always represent their merchandise as replicas, and I also have no respect for intellectual property and the ridiculous practices of legitimate manufacturers.

All this to say (admittedly defensively) that Monero is used often in buying replica watches.

A friend of mine has also used it to buy drugs online (which was sent to labs for testing before using).

Anything someone wants to sell for it, just like any other currency.

I know youre getting frustrated with the vague responses, but that's really how it is, with all money, and Monero people are very hell bent on reminding anyone that asks about this.

You can check out https://monerica.com/ for a resource that lists services and goods and websites that accept it, not including the darknet ones, if youre into illegal drugs you'll have to find those yourself. Obligatory reminder that most illegal drugs are purchased with US dollars.

>We are seeing an emerging trend where ransomware actors first demand payment in Monero at a discounted ransom amount,

https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/252512142/Ran...

I've donated to some projects I like (e.g. Radio Paradise)

Personally, MDMA and cocaine.

If you look for purchasable things there isn't much. But the current US president is effectively identifying some of his political opponents as traitors [0]. it isn't that clear which exact opponents he is referring to (does it include Trump, who was a slim margin from being the US president?). We've seen bank account freezes deployed against that truck protest in Canada too and it isn't obvious why any of us have a more fundamental claim to safety from the government than a trucker. Trucking always seemed pretty respectable to me.

In such an environment, being able to donate money with anonymity quickly starts to look like a political necessity. And being able to support people directly if the financial system is further activated as a political weapon (I suspect not much has actually changed, just the records are more easily available - but for the sake of argument lets say this is a new phenomenon that we happen to have also just developed a method for resisting).

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/08/biden-mag...

Separately from the rest of your comment, I think you should look into how crypto was used in the trucker situation - it did not work at all, iirc a lot of money just vanished

I'm certainly interested, but a source would be helpful. If they're using an anonymous crypto I'd expect all the money to vanish.

https://coingeek.com/why-bitcoin-cannot-help-canadian-trucke...

This is on how their use if Bitcoin didn't help, and here is one on where the money went

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/freedom-convoy-donatio...

You should be aware that Coingeek is a propaganda site for a known charlatan. Any claim that Wright invented bitcoin should give it away immediately. His claims have been repeatedly, cryptographically proven false, for close to 10 years now:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/12/11/bitco...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/jpgq3y/satoshis-pgp-keys-are...

He is trying to use courts around the world to bully bitcoin developers into writing code that gives him 1.1 million bitcoin for free. So of course he'd like to spread the idea that governments have control over it.

Jesse Powell's point was not that governments can control bitcoin - it was that governments can control exchanges under their jurisdiction. Kraken cannot seize your coins if you keep them in self-custody. Kraken is not responsible for you - you are responsible for yourself.

I bought a car that was listed on Craigslist with XMR.

Pretty much anything: https://monerica.com/

For a long time I renewed my domain name with crypto because my bank's anti-fraud system got hung up on it for some reason (it does that with crypto too but buying more crypto is less time sensitive.)

I used it when originally trying jmp.chat out so I wouldn't have to worry about recurring charges/fraud etc.

I've bought some electronic components with it just to see it work.

It's one of the first technologies in history that enables completely private exchanges of currency. Whether you're a cryptocurrency hater or not, that's pretty cool.

> It's one of the first technologies in history that enables completely private exchanges of currency.

Monero pre-dates dead drops?

> one of the

But it's not.

I hate to burst the bubble but strategies to break Monero's anonymity have been known since 2019. It turns out that the general strategy of mixing a subset of outputs together is insufficient to provide robust privacy, even if the mix set is large (like in Lelantus).

The only strategies that can provide strong anonymity for on-chain crypto are full anonymity set currencies like Zcash.

ZCash is insecure by default. It is a honeypot for people who wish to use the default privacy settings of Monero.

> On June 8, 2020, Chainalysis added support for Zcash to their Chainalysis Reactor and "Know Your Transaction" (KYT) technologies.[22] This permits Chainalysis to trace and provide transaction values and at least the sender or receiver address for over 99% of Zcash activity.[22] Chainalysis explains that it is able to accomplish this since most Zcash users do not use privacy-enhancing features.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zcash

There have been some claims that Chainalysis has been able to make progress in de-anonymizing Monero. It’s hard to know what’s true. We’ve certainly seen where false information is used to steer people in certain directions. E.g. “Monero isn’t anonymous, so don’t use it.” When it reality it is anonymous, which is the real reason they don’t want you to use it.

Bitcoin was never anonymous. It just took an incredible amount of effort to follow the transactions, along with subpoenas to exchanges, that even the shady exchanges gave into. Chainalysis are credited with bringing down the biggest criminals that tried to hide behind Bitcoin. Who knows if they have also cracked Monero, because there was a short while where people thought Bitcoin was safe before it was known that Chainalysis was already at their door.

I don't think you're bursting his bubble. The post is 100% sinister marketing especially when it's a huge lie, and has been for 4+ years.

Ok, so where can I see a deanonymised version of the ledger?

Do you happen to have sources for this claim?

That would make sense if you knew who was putting Monero in the mix but you don't. This is a good reason why mixing Bitcoin mixing doesn't work.

And Monero’s relative lack of popularity shows how limited the market is for a cryptocurrency that actually works.

People don’t want private transactions. All they want is those pumps and unrealistic roadmaps and charismatic leaders and investment promises. They want to dream of massive financial success, not to pay for coffee anonymously through a clunky UI.

> No charismatic leader boiling the frog with scope creep.

LOL

> It's actually private. It's actually anonymous. This is all a lot of us ever wanted from a cryptocurrency.

Yes indeed. I sometimes daydream Satoshi knew about ZKP's early enough to integrate it into Bitcoin ... we would have had the perfect storm.

> No $20 transaction fees.

This one isn't a structural guarantee of Monero, but rather a side-effects of being a late-comer to the game. In other words, it might come to pass that tx fees get in the $20 range.

EDIT:

> This is all a lot of us ever wanted from a cryptocurrency.

Agreed, except maybe for this: I've come to value the finite supply of Bitcoin more than it's value/usefulness as an actual currency.

I initially loved the idea of cryptocurrencies as a currency that would be used in everyday life.

I've changed my stance on this completely: I think that Bitcoin (or something like Monero, with indeed a neat advantage over BTC) is way more valuable as a financial instrument with is own unique characteristics and super-sharp edges than it would ever be as a currency

> I've come to value the finite supply of Bitcoin more than it's value/usefulness as an actual currency.

I think finite supply is overrated [1] ...

[1] https://john-tromp.medium.com/a-case-for-using-soft-total-su...

>Yes indeed. I sometimes daydream Satoshi knew about ZKP's early enough to integrate it into Bitcoin ... we would have had the perfect storm.

Can't read SN's mind but I don't know if transactional privacy was a priority for him when developing bitcoin. One of the downsides of Monero's anonymity was that it quickly became a target of censorship so large exchanges like coinbase don't offer it anymore.

Before transaction fees increased, Bitcoin had a capability of enjoying a pretty good mixing feature that is now only practical with similar but lower fee proof of work cryptos.

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