Debunking myths about Monero

With regulation snapping at our heels these days, I became more interested in Monero because hey, it’s so robust that the United States IRS offered a $625,000 bounty to anyone who could hack Monero's privacy protocols. But no one has ever managed to crack these protocols. I compiled the following insights from Redditors. Thanks, guys!

Myth 1: It is difficult to get hold of Monero (XMR). Fact 1: There are many ways to buy XMR. Kraken offers it. Alternatively, you can send cheap coins like LTC or DOT to non-KYC platforms such as TradeOgre and localmonero.co. TradeOgre seems to be the favoured option because of its low 0.2% fee. Lastly, UnstoppableSwap lets you use an atomic swap to swap BTC for XMR.

Myth 2: It is difficult to store XMR. Fact 2: You can download the official Monero wallet from https://www.getmonero.org/downloads/. Cake Wallet also enables you to store XMR; it lets you convert crypto to XMR too, albeit at a higher rate compared to other avenues. Another thing to take note is that XMR transactions are UTXO based. This means that when you open your wallet, you won’t see the total of your XMR balance since the software has to scan all the blocks in the blockchain to locate your transactions and do the necessary addition/subtraction for your balance to be derived. It is hence recommended that you open your wallet every few days.

Myth 3: No one out there accepts XMR. Fact 3: An increasing number of merchants recognise the benefits of XMR and accept it as a form of payment. Just check out https://monerica.com/#businesses and https://cryptwerk.com/pay-with/xmr/

Myth 4: It is difficult to mine XMR. Fact 4: On the contrary, you can mine Monero using any CPU. There is no need for any Asics or GPU. You can get started by running a full node on your computer, which will contribute towards securing the network. One great thing about Monero is that it has tail emissions, so it will trend towards zero without ever reaching zero. Miners thus don’t have to worry that the XMR supply would be exhausted one day.