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Lounge Started Jun 13, 2026 12:50 PM

Monero is an online currency, not an IRL one

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Jun 13, 2026 12:50 PM
#1

It is always strange to see people talking about using Monero, or any crypto, for in person transactions at businesses. There is really just no way a decentralized payment method can work as fast as a centralized one. A business does not care about whatever ideological or economic theory is behind crypto, they have a line of customers who want to pay and their goal is to collect those payments as fast as possible. If they don't, they will potentially not make sales and collapse as a business.

A blockchain transaction is not deterministic in the way a credit card transaction is, so there is no way to know if it will show up in 1 second or 10 minutes. This is unacceptable for IRL businesses. This excludes confirmation times, which can of course take much longer.

Every time someone brings up a Monero map, or gets frustrated by a gas station or coffee shop not wanting to accept crypto, they seem oblivious to reality. Furthermore, if privacy is the goal, cash is always better for in person transactions. Do you really want to be seen as the crypto guy to some low wage worker? That is a huge security risk.

The use case for Monero is online, it's a settlement layer, not really a transaction layer. Commerce can be done online with more confidence because there aren't chargebacks. The sender can remain anonymous provided metadata isn't provided. But IRL payments? No. That's just not what it's good for. Pretty much everyone who actually uses Monero for IRL payments does so by way of a gift or prepaid card.

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Jun 13, 2026 1:48 PM
#2

thanks for that thread, literally been thinking the exact same too

like, there was a thread awhile ago with someone that was all like "P2P physical ownership" for like houses or somethin, didnt make sense at all, like, we're so not there when even the "P2P digital cash" goal still havent been met yet...

like, yeah, cash still works, as it was mentioned in your other thread about living off monero, physical cash works for electric bills even...
so unless is like el salvador as literal legal tender which could use the internet money to pay those bills, then yea, physical cash or xmr depending on the situation

still always nice to see when like a coffee shop / local 420 or whatever accepting it for their business

Do you really want to be seen as the crypto guy to some low wage worker? That is a huge security risk.

truth regarding the security risk there, i guess it mostly depends of the context in which the cryptocoin thing is being brought up, and how
while when you're handling cash, you're also putting yourself as a target there, or at least for the cash you have on hand at this point in time, but true that for cryptocoin, there is more risk for bad actors to go the extra mile and going full craycray on that... so it's really about selecting your business partners carefully, in which specific context the cryptocoin thing is being brought up and so on
and in the case of being in a at risk situation, that it's properly planned beforehand, so the edgecases can be handled if they do happen

still, overall more focus on the digital aspect would be nice for "p2p digital cash"

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