Newcomers to Monero often wonder how they can use Monero in their day to day lives:
How do I acquire Monero?
How do I buy groceries with Monero?
How can I exchange my Monero for cash?
Read on for some answers to those questions!
I don't know how to spend [Monero] in my every day life (aka no merchants IRL accept it)
It's true that few merchants accept Monero directly. However, you can buy gift cards with Monero for most major retailers:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/wg3eiw/introducing_cake_pay_buy_gift_cards_instantly/
And the Monerozon service allows you to buy anything on Amazon:
[Monero is] terribly difficult to swap for other coins
Cake wallet has a no-KYC exchange built-in to the wallet which supports most major coins:
If you don't like the Cake wallet, try these exchanges:
[Monero is] terribly difficult to swap it for fiat (which I'm not interested in but still relevant)
It's difficult to swap Monero for fiat in a non-KYC manner, it's true.
However, if you don't care about KYC, you can use Kraken:
If you do care about KYC, you can use Haveno. Haveno is a no-KYC peer to peer client based on Bisq:
Here's a tutorial for installing/using Haveno:
https://blog.nihilism.network/servers/haveno-client-f2f/index.html
The Monerica site has a bunch of other sites that accept Monero directly:
As of now, Monero is not [liquid].
Yes, Monero is not currently as liquid as cash or Bitcoin.
However, use of Monero is growing:
Monero is now the most used crypto on ShopinBit (largest European site that accepts crypto):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1e1b1r4/monero_crushes_bitcoin_on_shopinbit/Monero has displaced Bitcoin as the most used currency on Coincards.com:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1dxa26v/monero_beats_bitcoin_on_coincardscom/Monero has almost completely replaced Bitcoin on the darknet markets.
https://www.newsbtc.com/news/why-the-dark-nets-most-active-market-ditched-bitcoin-for-monero/
Is Monero as easy to use as Paypal or credit cards? No.
Is Monero less expensive? It depends.
Per spend, Monero transaction costs are typically a few cents. Monero transactions are also irreversible, which means merchants don't have to save as much to cover credit card charge-backs. However, the initial cost of acquisition can be high.
Is Monero resistant to censorship, surveillance, inflation, and seizure?
Yes.
With Monero, you can make political donations without fear your bank account will be frozen:
https://bitcoinist.com/canada-chokes-crypto-supply/
With Monero, you can travel with millions across borders without fear that you will be arrested for violating capital controls:
https://www.uschina.org/china%E2%80%99s-capital-controls-choke-cross-border-payments
With Monero, your total wealth is private, and you're at less risk of thieves (whether in government or the private sector) beating you with a wrench until you give up your money:
https://github.com/jlopp/physical-bitcoin-attacks/blob/master/README.md?ref=casa-blog
IMO, those benefits are worth the costs of acquiring Monero.
If you want to stay abreast of Monero developments, check out Monero town: