I've been noticing this lately. If you want to buy Monero or other cryptocurrencies, you have to KYC, set up accounts, have a bank account, wire money, all that stuff.
However, if you want to spend it or sell it there are a plethora of options, as simple as buying a prepaid card, or just doing business with people that accept it directly.
Bonus: once your capital is in Monero or Bitcoin or something, moving it around is relatively easy with swap services, atomic swaps and the like. Even p2p services, you don't have to worry about PayPal, bank accounts, cash in the mail or any of that. Once your capital is internet native you're golden.
This is a sign to me that it's more valuable than fiat and people are seeing that. Now it makes more (practical, tangible) sense to get all your capital into cryptocurrency than keeping it in fiat and just buying cryptocurrency when you need it, as it was a few years ago. If you can get all your capital into Monero or something, you can easily get fiat when you need it, the reverse is not as true.
I predict that the barriers to entry will be increasingly bigger than the barriers to exit as time goes on, in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but that it will backfire into people preferring crypto directly and make things better for all of us. And this also means less of a need to exit in the first place.
That’s an interesting observation, and I think that’s correct about Monero. If 1 XMR is say 140 €, I do feel 1 XMR is much more precious than 140 €, if that makes sense.
If it’s a relatively small amount, you can try (KYC-free) DEX like listed in kycnot.me — e.g. Bisq for BTC, and (hopefully!) Haveno is coming for XMR. There are also crypto ATMs, depending on the place you live… Also, the rumor has it in Vietnam you can do fiat <--> xmr freely w/o KYC (not sure if it’s true). Either way, like you said, once you get whatever coin, coin-coin is usually trivial.
ATMs are outrageously expensive, 25-35% above the going rate! You're better off going to LocalMonero. Even there it's a little bit more. That price differential tells me which system is more valuable.
That’s kind of a rip-off yeah, but it does prove your point too: there are people who want to buy 1 XMR for $200, even if it’s $150 on CEX. A street price. True value, so to speak?
@Saki @mister_monster Privacy premium
Depends the ATM & location. In Bucharest, Romania, cryptocurrency ATMs are plentiful & carry a fee that's €2 to €5. Usually up to €5000 without KYC. Not too bad at all. If we can deploy more of these machines wherever possible, this will tremendously help our cryptocurrency economy.