WEBVTT 00:00.690 --> 00:04.920 Now that we know what Monero is and why it's so anonymous. 00:05.040 --> 00:10.200 In this lecture, I want to talk about how we can buy Monero anonymously. 00:10.770 --> 00:16.980 Now, this task was much more challenging when we were talking about Bitcoin because as mentioned before, 00:16.980 --> 00:21.250 Bitcoin's ledger or the blockchain is entirely public. 00:21.270 --> 00:27.960 Therefore, if our identity is linked to an address, any transaction sent to and from this address 00:27.960 --> 00:30.270 will be linked to our identity. 00:30.870 --> 00:32.690 This is not the case with Monero. 00:32.700 --> 00:39.960 As mentioned in the previous lecture, Monero uses ring signatures to hide the source of funds and stealth 00:39.960 --> 00:42.120 addresses to hide the receiver. 00:42.150 --> 00:48.780 Therefore, if the blockchain is analyzed, there will be no useful information regarding the senders 00:48.780 --> 00:49.980 and receivers. 00:50.550 --> 00:54.890 Not only that, even the sender wants the money is sent from the sender. 00:54.900 --> 01:00.780 The sender doesn't really know where the money is going again due to the use of stealth addresses, 01:00.780 --> 01:02.610 which are not the real address. 01:02.610 --> 01:08.010 So when you give a receiving address to a sender, this address is only used once. 01:08.010 --> 01:10.480 And it's not your real actual address. 01:10.500 --> 01:13.950 It's only an address to be used for a transaction. 01:15.290 --> 01:21.560 Therefore, if you think of it, you can actually buy Monero using any method and this method will be 01:21.560 --> 01:24.290 much more anonymous than using bitcoins. 01:24.620 --> 01:31.970 So even if you verify your identity when buying Monero, once you transfer your coins from the website 01:31.970 --> 01:39.560 that you bought it to your own local wallet, this money becomes untraceable and unthinkable to the 01:39.560 --> 01:42.050 account that you used to buy Monero. 01:42.110 --> 01:48.080 The only way that this can be linked to you is if you make a mistake, an opsec mistake and someone 01:48.080 --> 01:49.570 hacks into your computer. 01:49.580 --> 01:56.390 Or if you are forced by a law enforcement agency to give information about where you use that. 01:56.390 --> 02:01.910 Monero So they'll be able to see that you bought Monero on X website, but they won't know which wallet 02:01.910 --> 02:09.140 this Monero went to and what it was used for unless you go ahead and give them the information yourself. 02:09.970 --> 02:16.150 With that being said, there are some methods that would be more private and more anonymous because 02:16.150 --> 02:22.840 sometimes we just don't want to share our identity and our private information with online websites, 02:22.840 --> 02:26.320 even if this identity will not be linked to our wallet. 02:26.410 --> 02:27.800 It's just not ideal. 02:27.820 --> 02:29.590 What if that website gets hacked? 02:29.620 --> 02:35.950 What about the employees working in it and the list goes on again similar to any privacy concern. 02:36.590 --> 02:43.160 So just like bitcoin, the most anonymous way of getting Monero is to mine it yourself. 02:43.200 --> 02:50.420 Use a powerful computer to help maintain the Monero blockchain and with doing that you will be awarded 02:50.420 --> 02:57.080 Xlm or Monero coins and then use that to purchase or send funds to friends and family. 02:57.860 --> 02:59.740 Now doing that is not simple. 02:59.750 --> 03:04.400 I can actually make a full course on that and it's not feasible to everybody. 03:04.400 --> 03:07.160 That's why I'm not going to cover it in this course. 03:08.000 --> 03:13.550 The other option is, again, something that we discussed when we were buying bitcoins is to use an 03:13.550 --> 03:16.640 exchange so you can use any exchange you want. 03:16.640 --> 03:22.640 Like I said, even if the exchange requires you to verify your identity, that's fine, because once 03:22.640 --> 03:28.760 the funds leave the exchange, they will be untraceable and they won't be able to link your actual identity 03:28.760 --> 03:30.470 to your Monero wallet. 03:31.010 --> 03:37.340 Not only that, but some exchanges will not even require you to verify your identity if you're buying 03:37.340 --> 03:38.420 small amounts. 03:38.630 --> 03:45.680 Now, these exchanges change their policies all the time, so the ones that don't require identity verification 03:45.680 --> 03:48.380 now will probably require it in the future. 03:48.380 --> 03:52.130 And others that require it right now might not require it. 03:52.310 --> 03:56.860 Therefore, the best thing to do is to come to get Monero go to exchanges. 03:56.870 --> 04:02.480 I will include this link in the resources of this lecture and go over them, see which ones are allowing 04:02.480 --> 04:06.140 people to buy Monero without verifying identity. 04:06.140 --> 04:13.070 And if you can't find any, again, it's okay to verify your identity and buy one arrow because like 04:13.070 --> 04:17.480 I said, your identity will still not be link able to your wallet. 04:18.320 --> 04:26.360 Some popular ones in here are Bittrex, Binance, Bisque and Bitfinex. 04:26.390 --> 04:28.520 Now there are other good ones here. 04:28.670 --> 04:32.300 Like I said, go over them, read their policy before using them. 04:32.300 --> 04:39.070 But most of the ones that are listed here are pretty good anyway, and using them is very, very easy. 04:39.080 --> 04:40.310 It's usually the same. 04:40.310 --> 04:46.010 You click on the website, you sign up, you buy Monero and then you transfer it to your wallet. 04:46.010 --> 04:51.500 And I will explain how to transfer funds to and from your wallet in the next lectures. 04:52.270 --> 04:56.250 I'm not going to cover that, though, because like I said, it is not ideal. 04:56.260 --> 04:59.920 At the end of the day, you still might have to verify your identity. 04:59.920 --> 05:05.740 And even though it's not linked to your wallet, a lot of us might not want to share our identity with 05:05.740 --> 05:07.180 third party websites. 05:09.090 --> 05:14.430 Another really good option is to exchange an existing cryptocurrency with Monero. 05:14.940 --> 05:21.240 So with this option, we can use our bitcoins that we already obtained anonymously using a Bitcoin using 05:21.240 --> 05:28.260 a P2P service or a Bitcoin ATM or one of the other methods that we discussed earlier and then exchange 05:28.260 --> 05:29.120 it to Monero. 05:29.130 --> 05:34.980 So we already obtained our coins in an anonymous way, and then we're buying Monero, which is even 05:34.980 --> 05:39.560 more anonymous because it hides information about the sender, receiver and the amount. 05:39.570 --> 05:45.630 Therefore, the coins in our local Monero wallet will be very, very anonymous. 05:45.660 --> 05:49.290 This is a really good option and can be used in so many scenarios. 05:49.290 --> 05:55.020 You can even use it if you have coins that are not anonymous and exchange them to Monero to increase 05:55.020 --> 05:57.280 their anonymity and become more private. 05:57.300 --> 06:01.220 Therefore, I will spend a full lecture talking about how to do this. 06:01.230 --> 06:02.940 So stay tuned for that. 06:03.510 --> 06:09.480 Another option is to use an ATM similar to what we did with Bitcoin, and you can actually use the same 06:09.480 --> 06:12.840 website to find ATMs that sell Monero. 06:12.930 --> 06:20.040 So the same website coin atm radar dot com, you scroll down or you put your country in the search box 06:20.040 --> 06:27.240 and you can uncheck everything here in the left and only keep Monero checked to get the ATMs that only 06:27.240 --> 06:28.440 support Monero. 06:29.040 --> 06:30.990 Now, as you can see, there aren't many. 06:30.990 --> 06:32.790 There are much less than Bitcoin. 06:32.790 --> 06:35.400 And in my country, in Ireland, there aren't any. 06:35.400 --> 06:38.610 So this option might not be applicable to everybody. 06:38.610 --> 06:43.650 But if there is a Monero ATM, then this is a really good option if you can buy it with cash. 06:44.010 --> 06:49.560 All you have to do is just go put the receiving address of your wallet and you'll receive the funds 06:49.560 --> 06:50.280 in your wallet. 06:50.280 --> 06:53.270 Very similar to what we did with Bitcoin ATMs. 06:53.280 --> 06:56.160 Therefore, there is no point of covering it again. 06:56.160 --> 07:00.300 But you can go and revise the lecture where I use the bitcoin atm. 07:00.330 --> 07:02.580 If you want more information about it. 07:03.960 --> 07:07.620 Last but not least, you can use a peer to peer service. 07:07.650 --> 07:10.980 Again, we showed off a similar service for Bitcoin. 07:11.190 --> 07:13.200 For Monero, it's exactly the same. 07:13.200 --> 07:15.190 You just need to use a different website. 07:15.210 --> 07:18.300 The website is called Local Monero Dot Co. 07:18.600 --> 07:21.810 The way it works is very similar to the Bitcoin website. 07:21.840 --> 07:24.730 All you have to do is put the amount that you want to buy. 07:24.750 --> 07:29.910 For example, let's say I want to buy €25 worth of bitcoin. 07:30.030 --> 07:35.340 You put the country in my case, it's Ireland and we're looking for all online offers. 07:35.340 --> 07:39.570 So from this dropdown list, you can list all of the payment methods. 07:39.600 --> 07:43.190 As you can see, you can pay cash, which is very, very anonymous. 07:43.200 --> 07:46.350 You can do cash by mail, you can do cash at ATM. 07:46.350 --> 07:48.180 So there are a number of methods. 07:48.270 --> 07:55.230 Once you're happy with all the options, you click on search and you'll get all the local sellers that 07:55.230 --> 07:59.850 will allow you to buy Monero using the payment method that you selected. 07:59.910 --> 08:06.300 Now, as you can see, again in my country in Ireland of unfortunately there aren't any local sellers, 08:06.300 --> 08:13.890 but if you pick a bigger country such as the United States, you will actually see a number of sellers 08:13.890 --> 08:20.220 that will sell you Monero by cash, by mail and other anonymous payment services. 08:20.310 --> 08:24.150 Again, using this as very simple, all you'll have to do is click on Buy. 08:24.180 --> 08:25.410 Follow the instructions. 08:25.410 --> 08:30.300 Send the money to your local Monero address, which I will show you in the next lecture. 08:30.390 --> 08:31.680 And that's pretty much it. 08:31.680 --> 08:33.240 You'll have the money in your wallet. 08:33.240 --> 08:39.750 And because you're using Monero, the money is untraceable and unthinkable to previous transactions. 08:41.010 --> 08:42.430 So that's it for this lecture. 08:42.450 --> 08:47.280 Just wanted to list the main methods that you can use to buy Monero anonymously. 08:47.280 --> 08:52.740 And in the next lecture, we'll talk about how to exchange it with other cryptocurrencies and we'll 08:52.740 --> 08:54.990 see how to send and receive Monero.