https://www.smspool.net/article/monero-update-changes-to-direct-payments-eea49af78ee2
Unfortunate but understandable.
No mention of removing Lightning as an option, and Monero can still be used via resellers, so it seems there are still private options available.
You can also use Trocador directly without needing to make a new crypto wallet for the coin you’re swapping to. That’ll be like 1% fee though so no real reason to use over proxysto.re
I wonder what will happen to Monero. I mean everywhere that we look governments seems to be looking to block it.
I start feeling that Monero is starting to be like the super private messenger that nobody uses and we need to find some sort of middle ground like Signal.
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I feel like that’s a poor comparison. Super secret messengers like Briar or SimpleX have usability issues and Signal solves that, but Monero is no more difficult to use than anything else.
A middle ground would be Z-cash I suppose. But people who take this stuff seriously I highly doubt would use Z-cash.
It’s a terrible shame the efforts that are being made to tear the project down.
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Just got wind of this, and it is terrible news indeed. The fact that the deadline is July 2027, but banks refuse to continue supporting businesses that currently support Monero, just goes to show how much power financial institutions have in censorship. Because these policies are either at the request of governments or the direct result of new regulations that are passed, it is warranted to qualify these actions as censorship by proxy.
Former EFF member and activist Rainey Reitman, actually wrote a book about it called Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech (2026).
The EFF published an article about it:
And she was also a guest on various podcasts:
I am glad that SMSPool is still available on the Proxy store, and more privacy companies need to support it without putting any limitations on the gift cards. That being said, I fear for the Proxy Store. I hope they have a plan.
I also think more privacy companies should follow Posteo’s model and deliberately unlink credit card payments from user accounts. They’ve been doing this since 2009, and their transparency reports, are far more impressive than Proton’s and much closer to Signal’s.
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I agree that the comparison is poor. Using cryptocurrencies is already challenging for the average internet user. Buying them anonymously adds more difficulty, so the best option remains for merchants or their resellers to accept them directly.
They are based in Germany. That is definitely concerning.
I think Monero will continue to thrive so long as exchanges like Trocador exist. Since Trocador has a “payments mode” like Expert4870 mentioned, you can still pay with Monero anywhere that accepts BTC or your crypto of choice.
Indeed. I know SMSPool doesn’t accept direct payments, but I wonder what this means for EU privacy companies that do. Because cash is also anonymous, so if the EU is going to be ok with cash, why not be ok with Monero? Is it because Monero makes anonymous payments easier? There are also risks that come with using cash. Your parcel can get lost or stolen. Some countries limit the amount you can send (€100), or forbid it completely.
Years ago, I had encountered sites that accept payments via Amazon gift cards.
Maybe there is an opportunity for privacy companies to come together and create a universal gift card that can be used to credit any service (Tuta, Proton, Mullvad, etc.). Or perhaps it’s better for a third party like the Proxy Store to do that, but it will still need the cooperation of other privacy companies to accept these universal gift cards.
I think people just expect privacy offline because it’s been grandfathered in, but as soon as an electron is involved, everyone expects to have no privacy whatsoever. Electric cars are a good example, people just think because it’s an electric car it must have all this shit included, it’s just an engine. You could have an electric car with none of that, not even a stereo.
Monero and crypto generally could also be more conducive to supporting criminal activity in the sense that you can transfer it cross border really easily. No risk of it getting caught on the way, just send it and then the bad guys have it. It also allows for anonymity more easily as you don’t need a pick up point or whatever, so people can comfortably trade it without any IRL involvement.
Ultimately, I think the governments of the world will try and get rid of cash. People probably won’t care. Spain has limited cash payments over 1000 EUR, so you can’t even buy a Macbook with cash anonymously in Spain from a store anymore. I suspect this will slowly become more and more common.
I think it’s important to support cash as much as possible, and it doesn’t get enough talk in the privacy space. I might make a post about that actually, curious to know this community’s take on it.
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You make some excellent points.
I hear you on this, but I imagine that it’s difficult to cash out large amounts of cryptocurrencies legally. Suppose I have $100,000 worth of Bitcoin that I amassed over 10 years from many smaller transfers. I want to legally cash out $30 000, to put in my bank account. How do I do it if I don’t have proof of how I acquired my money?
It’s very similar with cash. Suppose I have $100K cash in my home that I amassed over a period of 10 years, from legally taking out small amounts from my bank account, where I got paid from various jobs. I decide one day to deposit $30K of that cash into a new bank account. They will ask for documentation, even though I may not have it, and all my money was acquired legally.
This surprises me. Because when you travel, you are allowed to carry with you up to $10,000 cash. So I don’t understand why you wouldn’t be able to buy anything that costs less than $10K with cash.
This is far-fetched. But imagine I live in Spain, and I want to buy a brand new €3000 MacBook Pro. Suppose I have €2000+ worth of older Apple devices that I can give Apple in exchange for cash or discounts. Will I still be required to pay with a card if the total amount I owe with my discount is less than €1000? I hope not.
I also worry about cash by mail.
I hate that you are allowed to send any item worth €500 by mail, but you are not allowed to actually send €500 cash, even if you are willing to take responsibility for the risk of it being lost. Also, some EU countries have weird laws. For example, in Germany, you’re allowed to send up to €100 cash, but some countries won’t allow you to send €20 cash. Suppose that’s the case in Spain. It means that if I want to send €100 from Spain to Germany, Spain is not ok with it, but Germany is ok with it, but because of the former, it might get blocked. This sucks.
Most people do not declare when they send money via mail. I once received mail to my address that was meant for the previous tenant who had left. It was a birthday card from her granny with €20 in it.
The title of this thread is misleading. It should be “Banks force SMSPool to remove direct Monero payments”.
The EU law banning Monero only refers to financial platform (like exchanges). There is no ban for companies receiving Monero as payment for goods and services, like SMSPool. So the real villain here are the banks to pressure them to stop accepting Monero even when it’s completely legal. It sounds like the banks told SMSPool “we don’t care about the law, you can either have Monero payments or normal fiat payments done through us, but not both”.
Yeah I mean if you wanted in your bank account, large amounts like that, then it would need to be laundered just like cash. There are no doubt ways that this happens. In Australia I think gambling is used a lot, specifically the pokies. Basically gambling winnings are tax free and not really traced. As I understand it, people put 10k cash in of tokens and then literally pull it out, and say they won 10k. It’s laughable. That could be deposited into a bank too.
I’m not exactly sure how easy this stuff is but I am certain it’s possible.
Why would the money need to be laundered when you acquired it legally?
Since my early childhood, I have received many cash gifts from relatives. Usually €50 here, €100 there, sometimes, but very rarely, €500+ or €1000+. Many times, I have saved that money in cash and kept it in my home for years. I’ve only ever had €3000 max at once. I have no trace of where I got that money from, even though it was acquired legally.
Similarly, if instead of getting that money from relatives, I was just taking out cash from my bank account, I would still have no trace of it, because most people don’t keep ATM receipts for months or years. Even if my transaction history is accessible, I don’t know that you can go back years and check for ATM withdrawals. Even if I could, it’s a tedious process, given how many transactions happen in a single month. Now these amounts are small, so I would likely not invite questions from the bank.
But there are regular people who have saved €10 to €100K over years and have it in cash in their home. It’s quite common in some immigrant families, who come from countries where there is less trust in banks and governments.
Proton’s CEO, Andy Yen, likes to give the example of, I believe it was Afghan or Syrian refugees, who had all their savings in cryptocurrencies and were able to bring it with them to Germany when they left their country abruptly, with no time to pack for clothes or go to the bank. I have no idea how much money these refugees had. I doubt they were rich, but they were able to cash out their cryptocurrencies in a new country.
I have played poker in small casinos many times. I used to play cash games, which meant I could leave the table with my money whenever I wanted. I’m a regular person, and most of the people in the casinos I frequented were also regular people. Many working-class. The buy-in for cash games was €20, which is very affordable, and of course, you could add more. Most people never added more than €100 or €200.
I have no idea if it would be authorized, but I cannot imagine going to such a casino with €20K in cash and asking for chips. The amount alone could signal a red flag when buy-ins are €20. But suppose the casino allowed it, and after cashing in €20K, I cashed out €19K hours later. From my experience, casinos don’t give receipts when you cash out. At least not that I can remember, and not for the small amounts that I have cashed out, which is max €200. Maybe they do for amounts over €10K, but I have no clue.
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