ATmEater83
New Contributor
Regular Member
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2024
- Threads
- 18
- Post Replies
- 114
- Status
- away
- Last seen
This is completely meant for newbies. This information will be redundant to anyone at all familiar with transactions on DNM's. Please keep that in mind.
There have been a lot of the same threads over & over again about purchasing various cryptocurrencies (CC's) for use on some DNM's. I figured it would be worth starting a thread so that maybe we can have some consensus for newcomers. I'll cover some of my thoughts with some facts and leave the rest open to the community to discuss.
Basic Understanding
First thing to understand: Nothing is 100%. Your adversaries are intelligence agencies with billion dollar budgets, large-scale security companies, various startup companies with newfound venture funding, and even the CC exchanges themselves. All of these entities work together in motion to track transactions across any currency they can. Also realize, that buying small quantities of drugs off some DNM's isn't going to likely bring the heat from the above entities to you in reference to blockchain anlaysis. No one is creating a task force to catch stoney maloney buying a $50 bag of kush. What I am getting at here .. is you need to properly assess your level of concern and act from there. A vendor will have much higher scrutiny than a small times drug buyer.
Bitcoin
If you are on this forum I am going to make the assumption you have at least a concept of what bitcoin is. The most important thing for your opsec to know about Bitcoin is that its blockchain is public. This means that any transactions with Bitcoin are logged publicly for ANYONE TO SEE. Take a look on blockchainDOTinfo / blockchainDOTcom and see for yourself. Because this Blockchain is public .. various security companies actually monitor the entire blockchain in attempts to correlate users to real life identities. This often means they know wallet addresses for major exchanges and even bitcoin tumbling services.
Speaking of Bitcoin tumbling services.. Please exercise caution when using them. Not only do you have to watch out for the endless amount of scammy services and phishing pages, but also putting too much trust in otherwise functional tumbling services. For a short period of time most tumblers would have to reasonably keep logs to determine input and output verification so that both parties can ensure that the service is functioning as expected. You will have to trust this service isn't keeping the logs for a future get outta jail free card with law enforcement. In short, you should treat these as another measure to thwart law enforcement but not rely on it to completely protect you.
Monero
Monero is the privacy centric coin most users talk about when buying shit off DNM's. To put it simply however, Monero uses technologies such as stealth addresses, RingCT, and more to hide the amount of a given transaction, as well as obfuscate the sender and receiver of a transaction. This obsfucation makes it difficult for LE to track certain transactions. That is why Monero is seen as more of the "holy grail" of CC for DNM's.
Why'll You use Both
You might be thinking .. "well obviously if it offers more privacy than Bitcoin than I'll just use Monero!". While this sounds nice.. Bitcoin still remains the most adopted of cryptocurrencies and will more than likely be the way you obtain and sell off your digital monies. As of right now a large variety of Exchanges and CryptoCurrency purchase platforms only support Bitcoin and other easily trackable CC's. Most likely to reduce the headache and negativity involved in more privacy-centric currencies.
So how should I buy some coin?
Now this is where there are a lot of different recommendations people have and no one is the perfect solution. I would preface before the comments come in about "Well LE could be monitoring $PLATFORM", understand that most exchange sites operating without too much stress will have to work with LE to some degree. Otherwise they'll be shut down quickly for anti money laundering laws.
My recommendation for any first time buyer is to start with Localbitcoins{.}net. The wide variety of options will make it relatively easy, without sacrificing too much anonymity. Cash, Western Union and a few other methods tend to be okay .. but I would recommend for smaller amounts just to stick with a gift card paid for in cash at a run-down location not associated with your zip code. This way at worst if that transaction got LE involvement .. they would have to go all the way to the store you purchased it at and hope the run down shop still has the tapes of the day you came in. But again .. its such a small amount you can sleep with your teddy bear knowing they won't be bothered to go to that length for most buyers.
Also make sure you sign up and do your trading through Tor and utilize protonmail or some other privacy centric email provider. Leave as little as possible to be traced for your purchase.
Once you obtain your bitcoin, you want to move that puppy into Monero (XMR). There are plenty of exchanges but most of them utilize Know Your Customer (KYC) laws and regulations .. as seen on Moneros official site https://monero{.}org/services/exchange/ . The two recommended are Shapeshift, and Changelly as they can quickly be utilized to convert Bitcoin to Monero. Recognize that using Tor and other anonymity techniques do sometimes trigger an investigation but low-moderate amounts normally dont. Also keep in mind that both these websites supply law enforcement with relevant information on transactions so if you aren't properly masking your activity it may bite you in the ass.
also .. you can use localmonero to buy Monero for Fiat but in my experience it tends to have very few open offers. However doing that bypasses all of the above.
Once you've obtained that sweet XMR .. you can go ahead and send it to your favorite DNM for easy buying. Sounds too simple? Possibly. But it is important to read up on stealth addresses regarding Monreo and understanding why you are secure when using Monero: https://getmonero{.]rg/resources/moneropedia/stealthaddress{.]html
---
Now having gone through that .. I did want to bring up a few things that I argue with other people on constantly.
When you are taking money that you've earned from any venture in a DNM or Tor based project .. always make sure convert back in the least suspicious manner. XMR{.}to is a recommended way by many to also quickly change your XMR to Bitcoin, or using Shapeshift / Changelly also works. Because it is Monero the receiving address of the exchange shouldn't be able to observe much about your transaction besides the amount. During this transaction is when I recommend (and others differ) on trying to appear as normal as possible. No VPN, no Tor, nothing. You are on the journey to cashing out to some Fiat so seeming less suspicious is important.
Once you trade back to Bitcoin, I highly recommend selling on Localbitcoins for giftcards, or even cash / credit cards. Normal people sell cryptocurrencies day in and out. If you have reputable localbitcoins account without tor usage or weird activity, you can easily cash out your money directly. One of the better methods I've found is gift cards, with which you can buy high value items then sell those things online or even locally for fast turnaround. This route is much more practical than sending it directly to a bank account as it could bring further scrutiny on your transaction history over time. Not only this but banks have no problem providing LE with all your bank statements which always serves as a nice way to fuck you in court.
Last but not least you can always try and locate a bitcoin ATM around you. In my experience they tend to have camera everywhere, high fees, require identification, and occasionally are just slow as fuck.
That's all I can bother to type at this point .. hoping this stirs a bit of conversation and maybe can get an official guide going for newbies. Also welcome to hear anything you disagree or agree with.
There have been a lot of the same threads over & over again about purchasing various cryptocurrencies (CC's) for use on some DNM's. I figured it would be worth starting a thread so that maybe we can have some consensus for newcomers. I'll cover some of my thoughts with some facts and leave the rest open to the community to discuss.
Basic Understanding
First thing to understand: Nothing is 100%. Your adversaries are intelligence agencies with billion dollar budgets, large-scale security companies, various startup companies with newfound venture funding, and even the CC exchanges themselves. All of these entities work together in motion to track transactions across any currency they can. Also realize, that buying small quantities of drugs off some DNM's isn't going to likely bring the heat from the above entities to you in reference to blockchain anlaysis. No one is creating a task force to catch stoney maloney buying a $50 bag of kush. What I am getting at here .. is you need to properly assess your level of concern and act from there. A vendor will have much higher scrutiny than a small times drug buyer.
Bitcoin
If you are on this forum I am going to make the assumption you have at least a concept of what bitcoin is. The most important thing for your opsec to know about Bitcoin is that its blockchain is public. This means that any transactions with Bitcoin are logged publicly for ANYONE TO SEE. Take a look on blockchainDOTinfo / blockchainDOTcom and see for yourself. Because this Blockchain is public .. various security companies actually monitor the entire blockchain in attempts to correlate users to real life identities. This often means they know wallet addresses for major exchanges and even bitcoin tumbling services.
Speaking of Bitcoin tumbling services.. Please exercise caution when using them. Not only do you have to watch out for the endless amount of scammy services and phishing pages, but also putting too much trust in otherwise functional tumbling services. For a short period of time most tumblers would have to reasonably keep logs to determine input and output verification so that both parties can ensure that the service is functioning as expected. You will have to trust this service isn't keeping the logs for a future get outta jail free card with law enforcement. In short, you should treat these as another measure to thwart law enforcement but not rely on it to completely protect you.
Monero
Monero is the privacy centric coin most users talk about when buying shit off DNM's. To put it simply however, Monero uses technologies such as stealth addresses, RingCT, and more to hide the amount of a given transaction, as well as obfuscate the sender and receiver of a transaction. This obsfucation makes it difficult for LE to track certain transactions. That is why Monero is seen as more of the "holy grail" of CC for DNM's.
Why'll You use Both
You might be thinking .. "well obviously if it offers more privacy than Bitcoin than I'll just use Monero!". While this sounds nice.. Bitcoin still remains the most adopted of cryptocurrencies and will more than likely be the way you obtain and sell off your digital monies. As of right now a large variety of Exchanges and CryptoCurrency purchase platforms only support Bitcoin and other easily trackable CC's. Most likely to reduce the headache and negativity involved in more privacy-centric currencies.
So how should I buy some coin?
Now this is where there are a lot of different recommendations people have and no one is the perfect solution. I would preface before the comments come in about "Well LE could be monitoring $PLATFORM", understand that most exchange sites operating without too much stress will have to work with LE to some degree. Otherwise they'll be shut down quickly for anti money laundering laws.
My recommendation for any first time buyer is to start with Localbitcoins{.}net. The wide variety of options will make it relatively easy, without sacrificing too much anonymity. Cash, Western Union and a few other methods tend to be okay .. but I would recommend for smaller amounts just to stick with a gift card paid for in cash at a run-down location not associated with your zip code. This way at worst if that transaction got LE involvement .. they would have to go all the way to the store you purchased it at and hope the run down shop still has the tapes of the day you came in. But again .. its such a small amount you can sleep with your teddy bear knowing they won't be bothered to go to that length for most buyers.
Also make sure you sign up and do your trading through Tor and utilize protonmail or some other privacy centric email provider. Leave as little as possible to be traced for your purchase.
Once you obtain your bitcoin, you want to move that puppy into Monero (XMR). There are plenty of exchanges but most of them utilize Know Your Customer (KYC) laws and regulations .. as seen on Moneros official site https://monero{.}org/services/exchange/ . The two recommended are Shapeshift, and Changelly as they can quickly be utilized to convert Bitcoin to Monero. Recognize that using Tor and other anonymity techniques do sometimes trigger an investigation but low-moderate amounts normally dont. Also keep in mind that both these websites supply law enforcement with relevant information on transactions so if you aren't properly masking your activity it may bite you in the ass.
also .. you can use localmonero to buy Monero for Fiat but in my experience it tends to have very few open offers. However doing that bypasses all of the above.
Once you've obtained that sweet XMR .. you can go ahead and send it to your favorite DNM for easy buying. Sounds too simple? Possibly. But it is important to read up on stealth addresses regarding Monreo and understanding why you are secure when using Monero: https://getmonero{.]rg/resources/moneropedia/stealthaddress{.]html
---
Now having gone through that .. I did want to bring up a few things that I argue with other people on constantly.
When you are taking money that you've earned from any venture in a DNM or Tor based project .. always make sure convert back in the least suspicious manner. XMR{.}to is a recommended way by many to also quickly change your XMR to Bitcoin, or using Shapeshift / Changelly also works. Because it is Monero the receiving address of the exchange shouldn't be able to observe much about your transaction besides the amount. During this transaction is when I recommend (and others differ) on trying to appear as normal as possible. No VPN, no Tor, nothing. You are on the journey to cashing out to some Fiat so seeming less suspicious is important.
Once you trade back to Bitcoin, I highly recommend selling on Localbitcoins for giftcards, or even cash / credit cards. Normal people sell cryptocurrencies day in and out. If you have reputable localbitcoins account without tor usage or weird activity, you can easily cash out your money directly. One of the better methods I've found is gift cards, with which you can buy high value items then sell those things online or even locally for fast turnaround. This route is much more practical than sending it directly to a bank account as it could bring further scrutiny on your transaction history over time. Not only this but banks have no problem providing LE with all your bank statements which always serves as a nice way to fuck you in court.
Last but not least you can always try and locate a bitcoin ATM around you. In my experience they tend to have camera everywhere, high fees, require identification, and occasionally are just slow as fuck.
That's all I can bother to type at this point .. hoping this stirs a bit of conversation and maybe can get an official guide going for newbies. Also welcome to hear anything you disagree or agree with.
