As someone who’s a complete beginner to crypto, can someone please help me make this Monero payment for Mullvad VPN?

Questions
1

HI.

Hope you’re doing well.

Been looking at various VPN options and all the pros and cons and decided on Mullvad.

However, I want to pick the safest payment options that cannot be traced back to me and heard Monero is among the best ones.

But as a complete beginner to crypto, I downloaded the Monero.com app on iOS and I went on Mullvad‘s website and got the account number and one-time payment address and went to the pay with Monero page and clicked the “Open in wallet” button that took me directly to the Monero.com app, but all I get in the app when pressing the “continue” button is a “Transaction Error. No inputs provided, transaction cannot be constructed.”

Can someone please help? I could just go with ExpressVPN or NordVPN instead for simplicity, but I want to go the extra mile by going for the most privacy-friendly VPN with an anonymous payment method and Mullvad seems like a great choice, but only if I can pay anonymously. I know I could pay with cash, but it’d take longer and more of a hassle.

2

It is, but Mullvad VPN also accepts cash via mail:

3

I want to help you. Do you have Monero in your wallet?

4

‎‎‎‎

5

I see, I missed the trailing message.

6

No. I tried buying some using the Monero.com Cake Wallet app on iOS after I created a XMR wallet and I’ll give some more detailed info to help you understand:

  1. At the moment, after opening the app it takes me to the main screen and shows my Primary account, which says “0 XMR” and “EUR 0.00.”
  2. When I click on the “Buy” button that appears on this graphic, I get a page which says FIAT Amount and Crypto Amount. Both say 0.0000. Below this I get an Address with random letters and numbers that begins with “8B” and below this on a button it says “All Payment Methods” and below this is a warning that says “This currency pair isn’t supported by any provider or the selected payment method. Please choose a different pair or try changing the payment method.”
  3. But when I choose Bank Transfer from the payment methods, the app takes me to a page that shows Recommended and DFX.swiss and tags which say “Low KYC” and “BEST RATE.”
  4. When I click on Confirm button below this in the app, it takes me to DFX.swiss | Buy & Sell directly into your wallet and asks me to complete KYC and when I try to do that it asks for my personal information such as street address and phone number, which feels like kt defeats the purpose of trying to maintain my privacy.

So, any suggestions based on what I’ve described?

7

Any other help you could offer, kindly?

8

That’s unfortunately the easiest way to do it. As of now, there is not really an anonymous way to buy Monero itself, but it will be anonymous what you buy with Monero.

See also the discussion here: Cake Wallet: Monero via DFX requires KYC now. Alternatives?

9

It depends. Buying Monero with KYC does not compromise your future Monero transactions. Consider it like withdrawing cash from your bank. Your bank knows that you withdrew cash, they know how much cash you withdrew. They don’t know where, what, who, when, why, or how you spent it. This is the same for Monero, and therefore, I think it’s acceptable for most people to complete KYC on a centralized exchange (Kraken, Binance, DFX.swiss, etc), and withdraw that Monero to their wallet.

The risks of using a centralized exchange are the same as with any banking, there is the risk of data breaches (breaches of your identity documents), they log everything, etc.

There is not a real privacy advantage in avoiding KYC for a crypto to fiat exchange when you are already using a KYCed payment method (Bank account, p2p app, checks, credit cards, debit cards).

My recommendation, since it seems to me you are in the EU. If you are somewhere where Monero is not delisted, then simply replace Litecoin with Monero in steps 1-5, and you are done.

  1. Open a Kraken account, complete KYC procedures, don’t fake any info (remember, it doesn’t matter for your privacy once you get your Monero)
  2. Deposit fiat money into Kraken through credit card or bank account
  3. Purchase Litecoin on Kraken with your fiat currency you deposited
  4. Create a Litecoin wallet on CakeWallet
  5. Use the withdraw button on Kraken and enter a Litecoin address belonging to the wallet you just generated in CakeWallet
  6. Now, go to https://trocador.app/en/ in your browser. I recommend doing this in Tor browser.
  7. Enter your Monero address into Trocador and select the exchange you’d like to use
  8. Scan the QR code given by the exchange and send that Litecoin
  9. You will soon see the Monero arrive in your Monero wallet

I recommend Kraken because it is a reputable CEX and still lists Monero in some regions, unlike many other CEXs that chose to delist it, even when there is no law requiring them to.

I recommend Trocador because they have been around a while and it seems to be the easiest place to avoid high fees and feel safe with your transaction.

Cakewallet/Monero.com wallet are great and the company behind them has done a lot for Monero and they focus on security and adoption and are not scammy at all.

I have had good experiences with both.

I don’t think this section will be helpful for you right now, and I recommend ignoring it until your learn more. These are ADVANCED topics, and will just confuse you and introduce more friction. I highly recommend avoiding the topics discussed here until you understand more about Monero. Just follow my guide earlier in the post.

I am getting the sense that you are a beginner. I was in the same position, confused about how to acquire XMR.

Here are some things you should know

  • It is effectively impossible to buy crypto from an exchange, from fiat, without KYC
  • The KYC barrier is from fiat to crypto, and is only broken by using the advanced methods listed below
  • You can trade between cryptos without KYC for low fees, the barrier is getting your money into crypto in the first place

KYC:

  • Buying crypto with your bank account from an exchange
  • Buying crypto with your credit card from an exchange

No KYC (Very advanced, avoid for beginners):

  • Selling goods for crypto
  • Recieving donations for crypto
  • Working for crypto
  • Buying crypto from a friend with cash
  • Buying cyrpto from a friend with your bank account
  • Using Retoswap
10

Drop a Monero address and I will send you some[1] to ease your worries about using it.

  1. An insignificant amount ↩︎

11

You could just buy a voucher?

12

No, you already know you could pay with cash, but instead you would rather learn from the very beginning of how to pay with Monero, so I cannot offer you any further support.