update: Tidy up Cryptocurrency page and recommend places to buy Monero

[eylenburg]

List of changes proposed in this PR:

The main change is adding some recommendations for where to buy Monero. This a list of various reputable places with different requirements (Kraken: KYC ok; Cake Wallet: avoid KYC; RetoSwap: P2P and no country restrictions).

I also added some sub-headings for wallets and nodes and put the comments about Monero's resilience in a summary+detail box.

Finally, some cross-linking between the advanced/payments.md and the cryptocurrency.md pages.

I have just written this in Markdown so hopefully the end result will render correctly. Also happy for to make changes, this is just a first draft.

[privacyguides-bot]

This pull request has been mentioned on Privacy Guides Community. There might be relevant details there:

https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/suggestion-elaborate-how-to-get-monero/16817/15

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[eylenburg]

Seems like the geographical restrictions admonition box and the footnotes are not formatted correctly. How do I fix it?

[SamsungGalaxyPlayer]

Thank you for your suggestions! I kindly request that we wait until MAGIC Grants can do a legal review of proposed money/cryptocurrency PRs before merging, due to the sensitivity of some related laws. This is something we should get to this weekend or early next week. Thank you for your understanding!

[eylenburg]

Thank you that's absolutely no problem.

By the way, Kraken and Cake Wallet are mentioned on the website currently (in advanced/payments.md and cryptocurrency.md respectively). Only Reto is new but seems to be the "go-to" recommendation in the Monero community since LocalMonero shut down.

[SamsungGalaxyPlayer]

@eylenburg please check to see if you have any questions or concerns with the changes. Thanks!

[redoomed1]

The internal links for the Notices and Disclaimers page on each edited page are broken, which need to be fixed before merging.

[eylenburg]

New website for Retoswap is online now: https://retoswap.com/

missing suggestion

[redoomed1]

The only minor suggestion I have for you is to replace the old RetoSwap URL with the new one you posted earlier.

Otherwise, this PR looks good to me. Thanks y'all!

Suggested changes have been applied

[redoomed1]

These suggested changes attempt to streamline the info about geographical restrictions and avoid unnecessary maintenance burden as hinted by Jonah here.

[jermanuts]

hey @eylenburg seems like since version 1.0.15, Reto supports buying XMR without deposit using passphrase.

EDIT: opened an issue to track it.

[Anvil5465]

Could we specifically recommend trading crypto with Kraken Pro rather than Kraken's instant buy/sell feature? It's less intuitive but the fees are much, much lower than the regular Kraken website. With crypto trades made via Kraken Pro, fees range from 0-0.4% compared with a flat 1.5% fee if you use regular Kraken's instant buy/sell feature to buy crypto with fiat currency.

It seems like the instant buy/sell feature is quite predatory. It's not at all obvious when you first make an account that there is another way to buy/sell crypto with much lower fees and, as far as I can tell, essentially no downsides.

[jermanuts]

interesting, thanks for sharing @Anvil5465 this is somehow the first time hearing of Kraken Pro, have you personally tried it? Seems like process is straight forward and you don't have to subscribe or do anything more other than switching to https://pro.kraken.com/ if you are buying/selling through the web.

Is it only useful if you are buying or selling large amounts as shown https://www.kraken.com/features/fee-schedule#spot-crypto ? "Kraken uses a maker-taker fee schedule with volume incentives based on your activity in the past 30 days.*"

[Anvil5465]

Is it only useful if you are buying or selling large amounts as shown https://www.kraken.com/features/fee-schedule#spot-crypto ?

@jermanuts Nope, I just tried it today and bought $10 USD worth of monero. The minimum it allowed was 0.03 XMR which is worth $6.66 USD right now. It charged me 3 cents in fees which makes sense given the fee schedule. As you say, I didn't have to subscribe or do anything other than use the Kraken Pro website.

The only other consideration I can tell is it doesn't seem to allow you to use a debit/credit card. You must link your bank account. This makes sense to me though given transaction fees with debit/credit cards.

Edit: Oh interesting. If I try to make a $10 purchase on the regular Kraken website with a bank account, it charges $0.10 in fees. If I make the same purchase with a debit card, it charges $0.72 in fees. They're not very upfront about these differences.

[Anvil5465]

Just realized this was merged 2 months ago so maybe I'll open a discussion in the forum