this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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Asklemmy
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You're buying pornhub premium, aren't you? Unfortunately, I also wanted to buy something from a site that only took crypto as payment.
I ended up creating an account on Coinbase, which required a whole bunch of personal information from me. That was very concerning, but they seem like one of the few crypto sites that aren't totally shady. It's apparently a law they must follow to tie my personal information to all my crypto trades to prevent crime or something. After they verified my government IDs and bank account details, which took a day or so, I was authorized to buy crypto.
I bought the exact amount I needed. It took about 35 minutes to confirm the transfer, and only then did I realize coinbase takes a fee, which means I actually had less than I needed. I buy slightly more crypto, wait another 30 minutes for all the super cool futuristic cryptoblock hashing to be completed, and now I finally have enough crypto to buy that $20 thing I wanted.
I tell coinbase to send my 0.0000018364929038484920385 coins to xhfhfosnjwifbgnsoahdbfiaojdbfidhsbdmfodhsbd and the site eventually confirms the transfer after yet another 30 minutes of hashblocking.
It took me about 2 days and $30 to buy something for $20 using crypto, and I have never hated crypto bros so much ever for believing this is how all payments will work in the future.
Edit: I forgot to add that ever since then I receive a dozen crypto scam emails a day.
Uh, noooo? Did my mom tell you that? She's always lying about me!
Joking aside, people pay for porn? Are there upgrades?
I'm getting an invite for my son for one of the private servers I'm a member of. There's a discount for Crypto and I've been trying to up my privacy online but it appears Crypto is not the way. I'll pay with a card.
In all seriousness, I do actually pay for a few things using crypto, one example of which is a privacy-focused VPN. It’s quite painless once you get the hang of what you’re doing.
The first thing to note is that almost all cryptocurrencies are approximately 0% anonymous. There are some privacy focused cryptocurrencies, but with those it’ll add a required step of creating a personal wallet to act as a bridge. So if privacy is your goal, just know it’ll be a bit more involved. If it’s BTC or LTC, it will be trivially easy to trace back to your verified exchange account.
The other thing to note is required hold times when depositing fiat currency (such as dollars or euros). Unless you’re wiring the money or using an instant / near instant transfer method, the cryptocurrency exchange will often prevent you from transferring cryptocurrency away until the money is fully cleared (usually ~3–7 days).
Finally, I would recommend Kraken over Coinbase, primarily because their fees are lower but I also trust them more.
If you do want to use cryptocurrency, I’m happy to walk you through it here in this thread (Never respond to a private message that is crypto related, though because they may have your best interests at heart or they may not).
All that being said, it depends on the discount you’re getting, if it’s like 5% off, probably not worth the hassle. If it’s $100, might be worth it to you. Happy to help either way (even as a learning opportunity). No sweat if it’s just not worth it to you, that’s definitely fair and I certainly pay for most things with my credit card because it’s a lot easier.
Is the VPN Mullvad? I’m just gonna mail them cash when I decide to buy it
Indeed, I found crypto far more convenient than cash for my personal situation
Your 20 step plan is far too many steps rather than stuffing an envelope with a $50, slapping stamps on it and mailing it
Did you miss the TL;DR where if you take out the opening and closing accounts, it’s three steps long?