Wanna get into Monero. 0 experience with crypto. Complete beginner. Any good reading materials / tutorials I should start with that you could recommend?
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The big thing to learn about monero is that to transact, you need to run a node. Technically you could find a public node that accepts external transactions, but those don’t really get advertised and if your goal is anonymity then you don’t want to depend on someone else’s machine.
So before you set up a wallet or anything, start downloading the monero blockchain. You can either find someone (you trust them?) to export their blockchain for you to download, or you sync the entire blockchain yourself. This can take many days depending on your computer specs and the settings you enable during sync. If you’re not planning to mine monero, you can save storage space (and time) by enabling settings that prune blocks.
Then you point your wallet software at the locally running node to transact. If your node isn’t running or isn’t synced, you’ll have to wait until it’s caught up before you can do anything.
Thanks. I don’t think I’m up for the task of running my own node, at least for now.
I suppose if I use something like Cake Wallet they will have a remote node already configured? What about the official Monero GUI / CLI? I would need to find my own remote node?
Never used cake wallet, but the official monero binaries do not offer a public node. Other software I’ve used to interact with monero also expects you to run your own node.
At most, monero-wallet-gui has settings to auto-start the node daemon for you, so it’s not that hard to get started. If you’ve never used any cryptocurrency before, it can seem overwhelming, but it’s really not too hard.
Crypto is great but you must understand that it’s not an investment. Monero is a currency that can be used to buy goods and services anonymously.
It’ll be harder to acquire Monero depending on where you live. For instance, Monero is banned on all UK exchanges. Don’t let that stop you though.
First, sign up to a service which allows you to buy Bitcoin. I wouldn’t recommend Binance (obviously) but OKX or Kraken or anything will do.
Second, purchase Bitcoin. I would recommend transferring it to a local wallet immediately. I use the Wasabi Wallet but there are alternatives.
Third, install the official Monero Wallet.
Finally, use a swap service like changenow.io to acquire Monero. Send Bitcoin to their address and they’ll send Monero to your wallet.
This is the process I use. A bit of effort but once you’re set up it doesn’t take that long. I use Monero to pay for my email, VPN and anything else that requires privacy.
People are scared of crypto for good reason. If you get an address wrong you could lose your coin. Double check everything and only hold what you can afford to lose.
Feels fucking great to pay for things outside the systemTM though. Good luck on your journey!
Interesting, thanks for the writeup
Couldn’t the gov track down my Monero wallet address through services like changenow or is that not an issue with Monero? Also if i’m reading correctly they do KYC:
ChangeNOW complies with applicable regulations using a risk-based approach. Suspicious transactions may trigger identity verification.
A monero wallet can generate as many transaction addresses as you want. It is not possible for an outside party to know if two addresses are owned by the same wallet. Even if you did reuse the same receive address, an exchange will only know about the transactions going into that address from their end and cannot discover what happens after that.
If you are concerned about KYC
Thanks, ill take a look.
I’ve never been asked for identification. I imagine that would trigger if you’re trying to swap very large amounts.
A monero transfer should be untraceable but you can always use a holding wallet for changenow to deposit into and then send it to a full anon wallet for extra layers of security.
fyi cake wallet supports monero so it’s super easy to just buy btc or eth and swap it for monero within the same app
Is Cake considered to be one of the most popular / trustworthy wallet apps?
I saw an interview with the founder but haven’t got around to watching it yet. Saw some other people talk about it as well.
Idk not something I’m super bothered with because I only use it every once in a while
Why not?
he scared
I wouldn’t.
I just started buying some off Kraken and transferred it to my private wallet (would look into setting up a crypto wallet)
Just curious, what’s your interest in Monero over Bitcoin? Presumably privacy based? I think the point that @mildseason@sopuli.xyz brings up about the boundary between Bitcoin and Monero is where you’re most likely to expose yourself. I might argue you’d have an easier time getting BTC with a result suitable to your needs
Yeah, I’ve heard Bitcoin is not private at all and can be easily traced.
Yeah Bitcoin can be traced and every transaction is visible on the blockchain. Monero uses some crazy algorithms to obfuscate the transactions. I believe it’s still possible for state actors to trace but that’s very resource intensive and there’s ways to avoid it.
As @padreug@programming.dev says, BTC is easier to acquire and may be sufficient. Depends on your threat model!
Be careful with Monero, when you want to cash out and it looks like money laundering because $50k appeared out of thin air. The blockchain is your friend, it proves it is clean money.
