It is probably not hard to guess by the donation address on this site that I am a big fan of monero. I have been for quite some time but now even more so because of a recent experience. I recently had my bank accounts frozen. The bank sent me a letter explaining that they “could not understand the reason for” some of my recent transactions. And because of the “know your customer” or KYC regulations the bank has to comply with they are always operating in a guilty until proven innocent mode. The bank must know what your economic activity is otherwise it is assumed to be illicit.
This is frighteningly similar to what the chinese government requires of it’s citizens. They are more extreme of course, they will arrest you for leaving your house without your phone. Clearly you are some kind of criminal if you leave your monitoring device at home. Western nations don’t share this practice but you must ask yourself what the trend is. Surveillance seems so attractive, our societies slide toward it effortlessly. Slowly and gradually, but none the less effortlessly.
I urge you then to help resist this slide. When buying from physical stores, always use cash. When paying for services on the internet monero must be the default. And in that vein I wanted to support businesses that support paying in monero. I bought myself some merch from the website monero.style.
More specifically I bought the subtle monero supporter hat and a monero crowned coffee cup. I payed 0.472164643174 XMR in total, or about 472 mXMR / millimonero as I prefer to say. Because the order was within the EU single market I did not have to pay any tariffs even though the goods passed through customs. This means that the entire order was payed for in monero, no fiat was involved at all. Both packages arrived today, 10 days after I placed the order. I must say I am extremely pleased with the quality and will be subtly supporting the cause whenever I am in public.
I can’t speak for the T-shirts or other clothing on the site. I’m not a big fan of non-plain colour clothing anyway so I don’t think I’ll be buying any. The mugs and hats recieve a 9/10 from me. They were a bit expensive but I think it’s entirely worth it if you can afford it. I’m hoping monero people come up to me in public as a consequence of seeing my hat.