Could someone familiar with VPN and crypto help with this whole process

Questions
1

Someone overseas accepts crypto for their consulting services. It appears to be a Stripe payment, were you are sent to the Calendly website to choose a payment method and pick a date for the consultation, they accept fiat and crypto, however sending fiat would be annoying due currency conversions plus lack of privacy, however I have never used crypto beyond some basic BTC transactions in a wallet called Electrum that comes pre-installed with Tails.

They accept ETH and some other tokens that appear to be stablecoins, like USDC or Dai.

What I would need:

-Their site does not seem to work with Tor, so I will need to buy a VPN. Please recommend a reasonable VPN that accepts payments. I currently have BTC in the Electrum wallet, but from what im seeing many privacy-friendly VPN’s are using XMR now?

-The BTC I have on the Electrum wallet is tied to my identity, so for increased protection, I would need to first swap them somehow, and then pay for the VPN. I would need thus a way to make these funds private before paying for the VPN, in a way that doesn’t put me in trouble (for instance, ending up with funds that are blacklisted by some chainalysis type of thing)

-Once I have the VPN working in Linux, I will need to get some ETH, Dai or USDC in order to pay. So once again, I would need a service, exchange, whatever is called, to get those funds in a private and safe way, in order to pay the consultation service. It is important to not end up with tainted funds, as when the company running the service goes and pays taxes on those funds, or deposits them on some exchange or something, they would be in trouble and may point to you as the source of these funds. So im not sure how you are supposed to avoid this (I guess unlikely) event from happening. The consultation is a phone call and if we go along we will establish a proper client-service relationship where im doxed, but these first consultations I prefer to not give away any unnecessary information, specially bank statements about for instance “offshore corp consultation” even tho it’s perfectly legal, but you want to avoid triggering any automatic annoying audits.

If anyone could recommend the best way to do these steps please let me know

2

Download Cake Wallet, create a Monero wallet. Save your 16 word seed phrase, obviously.

Go to Trocador.app in Tor Browser

Choose an amount to swap from Bitcoin to Monero

Enter a Monero address from your Cake Wallet to receive funds to on Trocador

Send the Bitcoin amount from your Bitcoin to the address Trocador provides

You will then receive Monero in your Cake Wallet

You can then buy either IVPN or Mullvad which are recommended and both accept XMR.

You can then either swap directly to the address they want you to pay them at using Trocador by entering their address in whatever crypto you choose, or you can create another wallet in Cake Wallet to swap Monero to and then send it again.

If you’re talking on the phone with a phone number you are not anonymous…

Feel free to ask any questions even if they seem dumb and I’ll help you.

Read about the recommended VPNs and Cryptocurrencies:

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/cryptocurrency/

About: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/advanced/payments/#cryptocurrency

VPNs: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/vpn/

3

Thanks, I wasn’t even sure on the difference between tumbler, mixers, and aggregators. Looks like this is an “aggregator” which works with exchanges and this is what provides that you get low risk AML coins? How do they check that your coins are high or low AML coins exactly?

I remember years ago it was normal to use mixers before paying but at some point they got a bad look and unfairly closed some random ones, so I guess this aggregator thing is a good workaround to get reasonable privacy and avoid unlucky AML coins being received.

The thing is, was looking at one website where they list similar services and it says Trocador is not available for USA and EU users? what about that?

Terms of Service Review

Geographic Restrictions

Services are prohibited for residents of the US, EEA, and sanctioned regions. OFAC-sanctioned wallet addresses are automatically rejected.

Server Access Suspension

Trocador reserves the right to investigate suspected terms violations and block user access to its servers without prior notice.

Non-Custodial Architecture

Trocador does not hold user funds at any point; trades are executed directly by third-party exchange partners.

Reimbursement Guarantee

Provides reimbursement if a partner exchange fails to complete or refund a trade, unless blocked due to high AML risk, legal orders, or police requests.

So not sure about that.

What you described would give me some XMR to pay for the VPN which is great, however the consultation service I need to pay only accepts either ETH or some stablecoins such as USDC or Dai. Which one do you think it’s best to use for this?

I could use Trocador to get these too since they show up in the list, however, im not sure about using the site since it says it’s not available for users under these geographical settings. I don’t want to put the person in trouble since they are running a service. Im just a random client making a small payment so I guess they wouldn’t care but they are a legit business. Im probably overthinking and nobody cares in practice but I would like to double check this and see if there are any alternatives or what the deal is. If not even aggregators are allowed then im not sure how you are supposed to use cryptos with any safety.

Btw, I would also need a wallet to receive the ETH, USDC or DAI (whatever you think it’s best to use). Not sure if Cake Wallet supports these tokens.

4

I don’t think CEXs are sending out “high risk” coins. Yeah Trocador aggregates CEX swap services.

I think people disregard that. Their TOS is not the law and based on the reviews on KYCnot.me it doesn’t seem like people have issues.

You can do the same thing to get your Monero to geth ETH or you can go Bitcoin → Monero → Eth. I suggested going your Bitcoin wallet → Trocador–> Your Monero wallet → Trocador to ETH with their payments address but you could also replace that last step with sending it to your own ETH wallet you can make in Cake Wallet.

I don’t think you would.

Cake supports ETH but you could also skip the ETH wallet creation step and go straight to paying them through Trocador.

5

Im not even sure if paying with crypto is safer than just a bank wire tbh. You would show up in some database as a “crypto user”. A regular bank statement is annoying because it shows up there but it does not stand out as much. And im assuming the service requires that you enter an actual name there.

The website basically asks for debit card or crypto payment. Then there is a form where they ask for Name, Surname and email, phone is optional. Also a small resume of the consultation reason.

So if I were to use crypto, I guess I need to give my real name, because if we go on with the service it would be weird if I gave a fake name.

Im just worried that long term it could be seen that I paid with crypto, when I have no known crypto to the taxman. The bank statement would show up that I have some interest in crypto or financial offshore services because their business name is quite obvious, im not a fan of that, however, im not sure if paying with crypto is going to be better. You skip the bank statement, but create a permanent record that you paid with crypto, to a real business that reports all transactions. The amount is low so it’s unlikely this is relevant, but I would be paying with non-taxed money (the crypto) instead of known money (the bank transfer).

So im not sure here how to proceed. Im supposed to live in a country with legal guarantees and so on, so making the bank transfer shouldn’t be a big deal even if the name may stand out next to regular purchases, however making a consultation shouldn’t be a problem, however the paranoid in my already thinks they have AI collecting any keywords on bank statements to profile people. This, in theory, may be solved by paying with crypto, however like I said before, when the service provider files taxes, and you pay with ETH or whatever, even if there would only be your name (because it seems they don’t ask for more) it would be there. Im not sure exactly what they file when they pay taxes, or what platform are they using since im not seeing it, I would need to confirm the consultation to get the payment link sent. Their fiat platform is Stripe, so im not sure if Stripe also allows for crypto, I guess I could ask first and ask for such details. But nonetheless, if I go on with the service, they will have my ID card anyway and so on to register as a full client, and it will be clear I made that initial payment with crypto which im not supposed to have… hope this is making sense. Im just trying to consider all angles before going forward with any of this.