Use Monero anonymously anywhere BTC is accepted.

General Tor and Anonymity Talk
1

This brief tutorial will explain how to use Monero more securely in Whonix to make anonymous payments anywhere BTC is accepted.

First we are going to make sure that our Monero wallet is setup to connect to a hidden service daemon. I recommend following these instructions from XMRLabs:

http://xmrag4hf5xlabmob.onion/

How to connect with GUI wallet?

  1. Run the wallet with torsocks:

    $ torsocks monero-wallet-gui

  2. The wallet will ask if you want to start a daemon. Click Use custom settings to say no.

  3. Enter xmrag4hf5xlabmob.onion as daemon host, keep port 18081. Click Connect.

CLI:

 torsocks monero-wallet-cli --daemon-host xmrag4hf5xlabmob.onion:18081 --restore-deterministic-wallet <24 word seed>

Now that we are broadcasting our payments anonymously, and there are no Tor Exit Nodes that we need to worry about, we can head over to XMR.to.

Once there, click on your https-everywhere icon, add a new rule, show advanced, change

^http://xmr\.to/

to

^https?://xmr\.to/

and have it redirect to

 http://xmrto2bturnore26.onion/nojs/

Save and then go to your Tor Button and click “New Tor Circuit for this Site”.

(This refreshes the page, which triggers https-everywhere to redirect you to the hidden service, and it also sends call to controlport to change your tor circuits, just in case.)

Now, simply use XMR.to to send BTC on your behalf. You send ‘XMR.to’ anonymous moneroj, and they will pay the BTC.

By doing this, you can always pay for anything where BTC is accepted, and you can do it anonymously, using Monero. There is no way for the receiver, or XMR.to, to find out who you are, or where you are.

1 Like
2

Bubonic Chronic:

  1. Enter xmrag4hf5xlabmob.onion as daemon host, keep port 18081. Click Connect.

Can the server steal funds?

3

I believe this is analogous to the electrum nodes that are run, which you can set electrum to automatically connect to. Those servers cannot steal funds, and neither can Monero nodes.

The official site explains how to find random remote nodes, and how to connect to them. Doesn’t seem to be a security issue.

Using a hidden service has the obvious benefits of end to end encryption, no Tor Exit Nodes, no clearnet at all, etc etc.

4

There is no monero-wallet-qt, it is monero-wallet-gui. If you’re going to suggest a method/write a guide at least check that it works first.

5

No, remote node cannot steal funds. It’s a similar situation to SPV with electrum. Idk why BubonicChronicWhonix gave you that link which doesn’t answer your question. Here’s fluffypony, the maintainer of Monero project, explaining the remote node risks: security - Is it safe to share a daemon with a roommate? - Monero Stack Exchange

6

Bb-but Tor is compromised!!!11111

7

Yes, an i2p solution would be safer. I’ll see if I can find a solution involving Kovri. Thank you for the PSA.