The merchants list on the getmonero.org website is quite long, not commented and rather complicated to read. In /r/moneromarket there are mostly 1:1 offers, so in order to give an overview on what i am spedning my Moneroj on (besides amazing Monerujo swag), I created this curated list as inspiration for other spedners:
Privacy-focused hardware
- Purism is a company offering “security-focused laptops for everyone” as well as the “Librem 5 — a Security and Privacy Focused Phone”, which can be pre-ordered already. Everything can be paid with Monero.
- Secpoint (IT security products) has a 10% discount when things are paid in crypto.
Private and anonymous domains
- Njal.la, the privacy-aware domain registration service supports payment via Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero, DASH, Bitcoin Cash and PayPal. The system communicates with PGP and is also reachable via Tor. Highly recommended!
VPN
- SigaVPN is a “free VPN which does not log”. It accepts donations in XMR (as well as other cryptocurrencies) to support the service. According to them, all “donations are stored on a Trezor and go to funding servers”.
- DeepWebVPN accepts Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Dash, Dogecoin, Zcash and Monero. Cryptostorm, cloakVPN are other recommendable VPNs supporting Monero as well as other Cryptocurrencies.
List of privacy-related foundations and NGOs accepting Monero donations
There are existing threads on reddit (#1, #2), as well as a long list on Bitcoinwiki, which are pointing out a few good places where to donate. Here are my 0.02$ for where to put Moneroj in:
- Monerujo, the Android Wallet for Monero accepts donations in Monero.
- The Monero project itself is supporting ongoing development. It is described to be “supported by donations and sponsorships”, but the core team is unpaid. The funds are used to pay servers and to support projects from the FFS (Forum Funding System). The Monero Open Hardware Wallet as well as numerous other projects have been already funded by the community.
- The Open Privacy Research Society. Its “mandate is to build tools for people and for communities, tools that cannot be used against them, tools that give them control.” (#1)
- Wikileaks is accepting Monero for their donations, as well as other crypto and Bank transfers.
- Videolan (VLC) is accepting donations in Monero to further develop their open source multimedia tools.
Just as a gentle reminder, there are a lot of other services which accept Bitcoin (the Nitrokey, or the Trezor Shop, as well as the Ledger Nano S), and a lot of privacy and open-source related foundations and associations which accept Bitcoin. While these cannot be paid directly via XMR, we could still use xmr.to or monerujo (which has an xmr.to gateway built-in) and make Bitcoin transactions via Monero.
It is great to see the possibilities and opportunities to pay with Monero grow on a daily basis. If you are part of an organization or foundation, or want to make sure your favorite privacy-related shop supports Monero, just make sure to point them to coinpayments, globee, or monero integrations. It is that simple.
Kun Woo is based in Hongkong and currently works a research intern at the RIAT — Institute for Future Cryptoeconomics on privacy technology, open source politics and governance in code projects.
“No Rights Reserved”: This content is shared under CC0 (Creative Commons CC0) License and is usable freely by everyone.
