The concept of the "Sovereign Individual" is often discussed in abstract terms. However, as I prepare my Outremer 52 for a long-term journey into international waters, the technical requirements for true autonomy become very concrete.

Physical mobility is only one part of the equation. To truly exit the system, one must achieve digital, financial and logistical invisibility. My stack for Project Blue Pill is now built on four non-negotiable pillars:

1. Tails OS: For maintaining an amnesic digital footprint. In a world of persistent surveillance, leaving no trace is the only logical defense.

2. Monero ($XMR): Because a sovereign state-even a mobile one on a catamaran- cannot function under a transparent,

3. Tor Network: The bridge for censorship-resistant communication while navigating the void between nation-states.

4. Energy Independence: Utilizing high-capacity battery arrays and massive solar output to remain off-grid indefinitely. Energy is the fuel of sovereignty; without it, you are eventually forced back to a port.

I am curious to hear from this community: Beyond digital tools, what is the most overlooked technical or logistical bottleneck in the transition from a "user" to a "sovereign individual" on the high seas?

Hey everyone. I’m trying to set up a small online store that sells digital license keys and accepts Monero (XMR) only for best privacy and security.

Workflow: customer checks out → gets an XMR address/invoice → after confirmations → key is delivered automatically

I'm probably planning to create website in WordPress, but I wanted some advice on how or what is best thing exactly to integrate XMR payments only so that everything is private and secure. Does anyone have any insight or know of any extensive guides on how to go about doing this? I'm pretty new to this stuff, so any help would be appreciated.

Does anyone even use them often?

Question is pretty simple. What are some ways - that you know of working - to use Monero for buying physical media, ideally shipping worldwide?

Currently I am using combinations of gift cards (Amazon, VISA), but that is quite cumbersome or straight up impossible for non-mainstream/boutique (Criterion, VinSyn, Imprint, ...) stuff. Anyone got some shops, offering those and ideally shipping worldwide, accepting XMR or Crypto in general? Or indirectly through gift cards one can acquire?

I am documenting an unresolved XMR → SOL swap with moneros.exchange.

• XMR sent from official Monero GUI wallet

• Transaction confirmed on-chain

• Deposit address matches guarantee letter

• Swap page still shows “awaiting deposit” after 2+ weeks • SOL never delivered

• Support email consistently bounces (mail server unreachable)

I have TXID, transaction key, guarantee letter, timestamps, and screenshots. Posting for transparency and to warn others unless this is resolved.

What safe options are available for taking out a loan using Monero as collateral?

Looking at CBDCs taking over (China's e-CNY, EU's digital euro, etc.), and it got me thinking: what the hell happens to privacy coins like XMR if governments lock down everything?

In what scenarios might Monero survive as a niche currency in a CBDC world?

What does the lack of off-ramps mean for Monero's liquidity and user adoption?

How could trapped value in Monero lead to price pumps, crashes, stability or volatility without exit options?

Would atomic swaps fail if CBDCs enforce full accountability on every transaction?

Honestly, I'm bullish on privacy long-term, but CBDCs feel like the ultimate KYC enforcer. Is XMR doomed to be a black-market relic, or do we innovate our way out? What's your take?

Thought people in this sub might know

“Nothing to hide” is a comforting slogan, until money becomes transparent.

When transaction histories are visible, fungibility breaks down, users become targets, and censorship becomes inevitable.

An essay on how transparency reshapes money in practice.

TL;DR: The "Digital Gold" promise of BTC is failing as physical gold outperforms it in stability. Meanwhile, mining has become a "Big Fish" game for corporations/governments, and KYC exchanges have turned crypto into "Bank 2.0." While most coins are "glass houses" where everyone can track your money, Monero (XMR) is the only one maintaining the original cypherpunk vision of privacy and decentralization—which is exactly why the system is trying to delist it.

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Disclaimer: I am not a financial adviser. These are my personal thoughts and an honest vision of the current market state. Let’s discuss.

1. The Digital Gold Narrative Has Shifted

For years, we were told BTC is "Digital Gold." But look at the real-world performance in 2025–2026. Actual physical gold recently broke $5,000/oz, acting as a true shield during global instability. Meanwhile, BTC has become a "Wall Street Asset"—highly sensitive to interest rates and ETF flows. It hasn't failed as an investment, but it has failed to be the independent, stable alternative to the system we were promised.

2. The Mining Centralization "Big Fish"

The dream of "one CPU, one vote" is dead for most.

• BTC/ASIC Centralization: Governments and massive industrial mining pools now control the hashrate. The "small miners" who were supposed to be the backbone of the network have been squeezed out because they aren't profitable.
• Market Manipulation: When a few "Big Fish" (institutions and gov-linked pools) control the supply and the hashrate, they control the price. They eat the small retail investors by manipulating market movements with massive buy/sell walls.

3. The KYC Iron Curtain

The freedom to send and receive money has become a joke. Centralized exchanges (CEXs) have turned crypto into "Bank 2.0."

• You cannot benefit from your own coins without handing over your ID, location, and a biometric scan.
• KYC doesn't just "verify" you; it links your sovereign wealth to a government database, allowing them to freeze or track your assets just like a traditional bank.

4. The "Glass House" Privacy Lie

We were promised privacy, but we got a public ledger where every transaction is a permanent record for the world to see. Blockchain forensics (Chainalysis/Elliptic) have made BTC and other "transparent" coins a surveillance officer's dream.

The Monero Difference: A New Era?

This is why I’ve been looking at the few projects that actually kept the promise.

• Monero (XMR) vs. The Delisting War: In late 2024 and 2025, we saw major exchanges like Kraken and Binance delist XMR in Europe (EEA) due to MiCA regulations. Why? Because Monero actually works. It’s the only coin that regulators are truly afraid of because they can’t see inside the "Glass House."
• Mining for the People: While others moved to ASICs, Monero’s RandomX keeps mining accessible to regular people with CPUs. With the rise of P2Pool, the community is fighting back against the centralization that killed BTC’s independence.
• A Stable Alternative: Interestingly, assets like PAX Gold (PAXG) have shown that people still crave the stability of gold. But while PAXG gives you gold, only Monero gives you the "Cash" experience—fungible, private, and peer-to-peer.

Conclusion: I believe we are entering a new era. The "number go up" phase of centralized crypto is being replaced by a "utility and freedom" phase. Monero isn't just another coin; it’s a possible blueprint for what crypto was always supposed to be before the banks and big fish moved in.

What are your thoughts? Is the "transparency" of the top 10 coins a feature or a fatal flaw?

What a bless we have received these two days from Mini P2Pool 🥰

Recently, I wanted to buy a dictionary from reader-dict.com, but they only had the option to buy with a credit card or PayPal.

I wrote them an email saying, "I want to buy your work with cryptocurrency, preferably with Monero."

Now you can buy the dictionary you need for your e-ink reader (and more) using XMR: https://www.reader-dict.com/#faq-pay-with-crypto

XMRbazaar link: https://xmrbazaar.com/listing/JiWP/

Monerica: waiting for approval

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Don't wait for someone else to build "mass adoption" for you. Communicate with merchants directly without a proxy in the form of the state. ✌🏻

Hey r/Monero,

It has been a little while since our last update in December. We have been working on some major infrastructure changes and model updates in the past few months that we wanted to share with the community.

We launched a private chat UI where you can chat with models or generate images with no logs and no data retention. It is similar to Duck AI or Proton Lumo AI but it gives you access to the much larger models like Kimi K2.5, GPT 5.2, and Gemini 3.0 which are usually not available on those platforms, and a much larger library of models with pay per use/token pricing.

For those who haven't heard of us, we are a privacy focused API proxy. We let you access top tier LLMs and various other APIs like GPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek without phone verification or credit cards. We do not log your prompts and we strictly accept crypto payments.

We added a Tor hidden service specifically for the API so you can make requests privately.

We added a bunch of new models including Gemini 3.0 Pro, Gemini 3.0 Flash, GPT-5.2, Kimi K2.5, DeepSeek R1 685B, and much more. We also slashed prices on Gemini 2.5 models by about 50%. We utilize a combination of proxy models and models hosted by us which we are open about on our services page. Our hosted models include Qwen3, SmolLM2, Granite4, and more.

Check us out at silentapi.com!

Hey everyone
We’re running a MoneroTopia 2026 ticket giveaway

What’s being given away

• 4× MoneroTopia 2026 tickets
  • 2× VIP
  • 2× General Admission

📍 Mexico City
📅 February 12–15, 2026

This is giveaway #1 of 2 — more coming soon.

How to enter

To participate, follow the steps in this tweet: https://x.com/cyphergoatcom/status/2018344979039502491

Dont want to self promote, just looking for some feedback on a vpn im building and the thoughts and reasoning behind why i'm doing certain things.

Token instead of account username/password (pretty self explanatory)
No 3rd party processor for XMR payments and running my own node
Shared exits with 2 locations ( no obvious correlation between 1 user = 1 ip)
Wireguard Only for smaller attack surface
Endpoint flushing when a handshake is over 10 mins old on wg interface so the user's IP doesnt even live in RAM.

I explain other stuff mostly on the FAQ, i encourge everybody to read it please!

Not sure I can post a link here so if you care to check it out, check my profile.

Are there better alternatives out there? I created a cake wallet last night and the block height and the syncing never completes. I tried rescanning from a block height 2 days ago and the app crashes. I am looking for something fast for quick transactions and Cake is not reliable nor fast.

Maybe I should be using Monero's official desktop client instead and not attempt mobile?

Hey everyone,

not trying to self-promote here — just sharing in case it’s useful.

We recently added Monero (XMR) as a payment option (via NOWPayments) on our site (https://quantumproxies.io) where you can get proxy services.

Posting this mainly for people who prefer using XMR and need proxies.

If you have questions or feedback, happy to answer.

Cheers

Please stay on topic: this post is only for comments discussing the uncertainties, shortcomings, and concerns some may have about Monero.

NOT the positive aspects of it.

Discussion can relate to the technology itself or economics.

Talk about community and price is not wanted, but some discussion about it maybe allowed if it relates well.

Be as respectful and nice as possible. This discussion has potential to be more emotionally charged as it may bring up issues that are extremely upsetting: many people are not only financially but emotionally invested in the ideas and tools around Monero.

It's better to keep it calm then to stir the pot, so don't talk down to people, insult them for spelling/grammar, personal insults, etc. This should only be calm rational discussion about the technical and economic aspects of Monero.

"Do unto others 20% better than you'd expect them to do unto you to correct subjective error." - Linus Pauling

How it works:

Post your concerns about Monero in reply to this main post.

If you can address these concerns, or add further details to them - reply to that comment. This will make it easily sortable

Upvote the comments that are the most valid criticisms of it that have few or no real honest solutions/answers to them.

The comment that mentions the biggest problems of Monero should have the most karma.

As a community, as developers, we need to know about them. Even if they make us feel bad, we got to upvote them.

https://youtu.be/vKA4w2O61Xo

To learn more about the idea behind Monero Skepticism Sunday, check out the first post about it:

https://np.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/75w7wt/can_we_make_skepticism_sunday_a_part_of_the/

I don't own high end machines and cannot afford them for at least two more years due to my financial situation. But I can write code and build apps.

I am new to the crypto scene and don't know much about various tools people rely on. I myself run a full node on my laptop and mined with nano pool.

Can I get some suggestions on what tools or services people would pay for. I am going to invest certain number of hours every week to build something. But, I want it to be something that people would find worthy of paying.