Runs on the TOR network, fully P2P.
Monero has a disproportionally large energy usage and footprint on the environment. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0152-7
Please consider less wasteful alternatives. Every bit help, it's about keeping earth safe for human life.
Alternatives - like what? I understand the concerns but for now Monero is the closest we have to "digital cash". Hope there would eventually be a more energy-efficient successor.
Alternatives like actual cash, proof-of-stake cryptocurrency, or even EMV.
Most alternatives aren't completely anonymous payment methods, but Monero's anonymity isn't worth wasting so much resources.
I do use cash when possible indeed! But Monero is for things that you can't physically receive in a store's office, like a domain name. It's not a lot, but it is necessary. Gift cards are not available everywhere, and the ones available somewhere would not necessarily work in other countries.
I think cash-like anonymity is something we do really need in online payments. For me personally it is not critical. But I would still not like my VPS and domain name KYCed to me, for example if, say, something like censorship evasion is prosecuted retrospectively.
That doesn't have any of the privacy and anonymity features. I'd have to read more on this project, though - did hear about it before. Also, what's relevant right now is that it's not accepted as commonly as even Monero (which in itself is sadly not as common as Bitcoin).
alternatives are totally worthless for the only useful property of cryptocurrencies, which is private payments
I've used https://changenow.io/ several times to get XMR from LTC or vice versa. It's always worked for me, but I've heard of people's transactions being held if they were large amounts, so exercise caution.
This doesn't solve the problem of buying the initial crypto, which may or may not be difficult, depending on your jurisdiction.
If the initial swap is from Bitcoin, there is Bisq - that's been around for much longer than Haveno. Not tried myself, though.
Retoswap.com. You download the software similar to Bisq and you can transfer Fiat into Monero. Just this month it's had its first five million dollar month. And so it's increasing all the time.
Haveno reto
I'll miss the ability to buy using cash-bought gift vouchers as that seems the only straightforward way to preserve privacy.
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