Introduction

I’m beyond thrilled that 3 of my favorite entities in the privacy and cryptocurrency space have chosen to support what I’m doing with Opt Out! All three come highly recommended from myself, and to learn more about them, jump into the relevant section on each.

Some notes on sponsorships of Opt Out:

  • All of the text below is my own wording, under no influence of the sponsors
  • Sponsors have no control over the content of Opt Out or my own statements and opinions
  • I will call out failings/issues with a sponsor if necessary
  • I will only have sponsors that I personally use and would recommend with or without a sponsorship in place

Cake Wallet

I’m so glad to have Cake Wallet as a sponsor of Opt Out, as it is an excellent FOSS mobile wallet for Monero, Bitcoin, and Litecoin that I use personally (for Monero) and highly recommend. When I want to on-board someone to Monero on the spot, I have them install Cake Wallet every time.

Cake Wallet was the first iOS open-source wallet for Monero, and has been a staunch and passionate member of the Monero community since it’s inception, publicly supporting key initiatives in the community, funding conferences and meet-ups, and driving Monero adoption across the board.

Cake Wallet has an easy to use UI, works on both Android (and on CalyxOS flawlessly!) and iOS, and has been rapidly improving over the years. It’s my go-to Monero wallet for spending Monero, as it combines a simple UX with more and more advanced features for power users with each release.

Cake Wallet also has some excellent exchange features built in for those times where I need Bitcoin/Litecoin for spending where Monero is not supported.

I highly recommend checking Cake Wallet out for storing and spending your Monero across all your devices.

For more info on Cake Wallet and it’s founder, Vik Sharma, check out the episode I recorded with him below:

LocalMonero

I’m extremely excited to have LocalMonero as a sponsor of Opt Out, as I have personally used LocalMonero.co for several years and highly recommend them to friends, family, and on Twitter.

There is an incredible need for non-KYC (know-your-customer) and decentralized ways to get in and out of Monero, a privacy-preserving cryptocurrency, and LocalMonero is my preferred way to do so. You can use LocalMonero to buy and sell Monero for fiat or other cryptocurrencies directly peer-to-peer, with many different payment methods supported at the moment.

I personally suggest going with cash face-to-face whenever possible as it offers the greatest privacy and lets you talk to other like-minded Monero users, but the other payment options can be much easier depending on where you live and your personal threat model.

For more information on LocalMonero, check out their excellent resources below:

For more information on LocalMonero and one of the co-founders, Alex, check out the episode I did with him below:

IVPN

I’m so very glad to add IVPN to my sponsors, as they have long been a recommended VPN provider of mine and a company I have a high level of respect for. They take a very staunch pro-privacy stance with no exhorbitant claims or false promises, and make it very clear to prospective customers what a VPN can do, and what it can’t do. It’s rare to find a company who has written at length to convince potential customers why they shouldn’t use their service (or any VPN, for that matter), and it says a lot about how IVPN is run and managed.

IVPN is an excellent, pro-privacy, and open-source VPN provider that is strictly no-logging, does not require email for sign-ups, accepts privacy-preserving payment methods like Monero, and has excellent first-party VPN apps across major platforms. They also have full OpenVPN or Wireguard support, so you can use the client of your choice if you’d rather not use their first-party client for some reason.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed their service, their first-party clients on both Android and Linux, and have gotten to know the team behind IVPN just a bit and am thoroughly impressed. I’d highly recommend you take a look at their site and read through some of their excellent privacy guides and blog posts to get a better feel for their approach and ethics.

To better understand if you need a VPN at all, feel free to check out my previous two episodes on the subject (episode 11 w/ Smuggler and episode 12 w/ j43) and IVPN’s own excellent tool to help you answer that question yourself.

If you decide a FOSS, privacy-first, and non-logging VPN provider is a good fit for your needs, I can highly recommend IVPN as my own personal choice and an excellent all-around service.

If you’d like to try it out before you subscribe, you can get a 2-week trial code of the Pro plan by emailing optout@ivpn.net, no questions asked.

For more information on IVPN, check out the episode I recorded with a member of the IVPN team, Viktor Vecsei, below: