I understand that Bitcoin isn’t actually anonymous and that Monero is one of, if not the only, truly private cryptocurrency. But getting it can be kind of complicated. The guide currently addresses that if our threat model allows it, we could get Bitcoin/Litecoin to then trade for Monero. This is very much the case for a lot of us, but it doesn’t go any further on how we should handle the Bitcoin/Litecoin for that period of time. It’s also pretty tricky to find a reliable guide for this on the wider internet because of the nature of the community around cryptocurrencies.
I’m pretty new to this, and I get that it’s not as private as just getting Monero directly, but a guide to handle the intermediate crypto would be nice to have. I’ve heard of some wallets like Samourai and would like to know if it’s useful at all for this.
Yes, the guide also mentions you could just directly buy Monero from a KYC exchange, but since the guide also mentions this method, I think some sort of small guide on this topic should be included.
Store in a non-custodial wallet, ie one off platform on a device you own.
If you have a lot of Bitcoin look into a hardware wallet, ie Trezor.
As Bitcoin is not anonymous, you really must shift it into Monero, first. That means when you shift it out of Monero back to Bitcoin, you’ll need to either use a CEX (Centralized Exchange) or DEX (Decentralized Exchange) and that should be done over Tor. This is of course assuming the vendor doesn’t take Monero.
Honestly though I detest Bitcoin because it has high transaction fees and is slow when compared to something like Monero.
On the topic of the non-custodial wallet, is there any specific one you would recommend? I like said, I’ve heard of Samourai which supposedly routes things through TOR(?) and claims to make transactions hard to track somehow? And some other bells and whistles for privacy I don’t really understand. I dunno how true their claims are given, like you said, Bitcoin isn’t anonymous and wasn’t built to be anonymous, but it definitely piqued my curiosity.
Or should I just stick with a regular wallet from F-Droid that seems trustworthy?
Hmmm i made a long answer here, and it seemingly got deleted.
I use samourai as my mobile wallet of preference for years now, but as I said it all depends on what might be your plan.
Non custodial is basically anything where you take full responsibility for the mnemonic that gives you access to “move” your funds.
The question here is, what case are you looking for specifically?
If it’s for a small amount samourai is perfect, it is Open Source so you could compile it from it’s source and review the code by yourself, it does indeed route the traffic through tor, and it can make your transactions more private but this isn’t something it does by default, the thing with Bitcoin as opposed to Monero is that privacy is an active practice, while in Monero every measure is taking from the beginning to increase anonymity as much as possible.
If it’s for a large amount that you don’t plan to move, better get yourself a hardware wallet I personally recommend coldcard and keystone way over ledger or Trezor. (never trust the big companies).
If you plan to start making some txs here and there cheap and fast, give a look to Phoenix wallet, it has it’s tradeoffs as lightning is not a friendly implementation, but still with it you will have your funds at all times.
Feel free to answer and discuss any possible doubt you may have here as my suggestion for external help seemingly helped to the deletion of my previous response.
Something else: Keep yourself as far as possible from the following wallets and tools:
as my suggestion for external help seemingly helped to the deletion of my previous response.