Transitioning from TradFi to Crypto: Seeking Learning and Career Advice

hey, welcome to the forum!

not sure what u mean by waiting for KYC and the visa thing
monero people usually try to avoid having to deal with KYC
as data leaks and whatnot are a risk on that, nowadays these should be considered data as sensitive as actual private keys to not share

there are directories around (monerica and whatnot) with services and whatnot that do not require KYC
which includes also the purchase of the coin itself (or the sell) <-> fiat
haveno is currently the DEX for that, there is 2 networks for it at this time:

• https://retoswap.com/
• https://github.com/retoaccess1/haveno-reto/releases/

and:

• https://www.dawnswap.com/
• https://github.com/dawn-collective/haveno-dawn/releases

then depending if you wish to contribute to monero itself or the ecosystem around it, either way there is plenty of work in progress, work to be done, things to be started from scratch and so on
and regarding the tech stacks it's as varied as the ecosystem itself
so you should be able to find your way to something that catches your interest eventually
in literally wherever part of the ecosysten, there is plenty choice options :3

monero github over there: https://github.com/monero-project/monero
monero ecosystem overview thing: https://monero.eco/

@lIlIIllIIIIllllII Thanks for your reply. By KYC I meant a prerequisite step to buy another coin on Coinbase, so that I can withdraw and swap on a wallet. Maybe it's not the most convenient way but I have tried for quite a long time.

dude, coinbase tho...
their customer service literally sold to some random buyer tens of thousands of their customers KYC data
including home addresses, account passwords, and their literal holdings
like u saying u like mafs, well do the mafs, do you need to use coinbase? probably not

https://www.mollywhite.net/micro/entry/202505211606

more math guys always good O_O

@lIlIIllIIIIllllII Thanks for the warning. Sorry for being silly here, but is Kraken any better? I literally tried every CEX pasted in https://www.getmonero.org/community/merchants/, and they either require much stricter KYC, or ignore my application. P2Ps are beyond my capabilities for the moment...

@Isogeny
i mean i guess kraken was better under the other ceo, i have no idea about now but apparently there has been some red flags since
and you already sent the KYC to coinbase at this point, like, no point in sending duplicates all over the place

every single centralized exchange is a red flag anyways
and i really dont get how p2p would be beyond the capabilities but somehow kyc wouldnt?
idk just sayin, you're currently waiting on your KYC to verify
meanwhile you could have completed a P2P trade already while keeping your KYC data safe...

@lIlIIllIIIIllllII I wished to have learned this before! Having sent the legal docs to each of them, I sincerely wish to delete each account asap.

Maybe I still should try some p2p, although kind of traumatized by PC virus decades ago...

@Isogeny
right well that's the thing tho
academic people be like expecting to get paid for research and whatnot u know
so when it's time to look up if centralized exchanges are legit businesses or if they're scammers that ruined the whole cryptospace, well, guess academic people be expecting to get paid just to do that 1 google search too...
i mean, the math is mathing there
if u spending tens of thousands of $ to get that MD or PhD or whatever
then gotta ROI that and get paid even on the google searches that are like

• "how to not get the cryptocoin to not be stolen by some random employees at some random centralized exchange thing"
• "how to avoid getting one of those computer virus thing so could actually own the actual private key of the cryptocoin cause self-custody that's what's up u know"

and in all fairness, yea, computers are a pain lol, like, u just wanna watch that new spiderman movie thing and then it's all computer rebooting, full blue screen, all data encrypted and gotta send some dogecoin to the irs or somethin somethin u know...
like, that shit can happen to literally anyone which makes it way harder for self custody of those cryptocoins...
but also that's why people use a mix of both cold wallets and hot wallets
so the cold wallets can be safe and secure offline without touching the internet ever
mnemonic seeds make it very easy to write those 25 english words on a piece of paper + encrypted backup or whatever

with centralized exchanges, they're the ones that holds the private keys, not the users
while also collecting all those data about their users and whatnot... so by using a centralized exchange you're not only undermining your own privacy and whatnot but others too

P2P you could set up a PO box, have a proxy guy that does the thing for you on a regular basis or whatever, while at the same time still being in control of your own funds, with when doing a trade they're cryptographically secured in a multi-sig escrow type thing (haveno)
with coinbase u dont have that guarentee, they could pull a Mt. Gox or FTX on u literally in the middle of a trade, and well, coinbase did update their ToS few years ago to allow themselves to legally steal all of the customers funds in case of bankruptcy...

so yea, cheers on trying that P2P thing eventually
and get rid of windows if u still do have that too lol

@lIlIIllIIIIllllII My first attempt of Eigenwallet failed 1 min after installation. Windows killed everything for security reasons. Very scary as it reminds me of virus attacks 20 years ago. This is what I said to be unhandlable for me.

Anyway, I still wish to receive more career advices in this thread, and maybe I could join somewhere else for dealing techniques. Thanks again.

@Isogeny
yea the issue is windows tbh...
https://github.com/monero-project/meta/issues/916
windows keep loosing funds for people years after years, this is a real issue lol

but all in all, if self-custody is not an easy thing, would u still give that job to someone unqualified at coinbase to "keep your coin safu"?
while you might not be confident to keep them safu yourself, you still might do a better job than the random employees at coinbase lol

and by default windows thinks everything related to monero is a virus anyways (while the virus is windows itself)

as for career advices yea ngl no idea, but i guess the first step would be to at least get that monero thing working and maybe start checking on linux cause true story that windows thing is an actual virus that loose cryptocoins randomly out of literally nowhere for literally no reason lol