My “easy” solution for b) :

1. Buy XMR from wherever you want (even KYC exchanges if you want and can)
2. (if you’re already on a CEX and don’t want to bother, withdraw USDT/USDC/LTC/BCH… any crypto with not insane withdrawal fees and which is fairly popular, and then exchange it on a non-KYC exchange for XMR)
3. Exchange your XMR at a non-KYC (or non systematical) exchange for your desired traceable cryptocurrency.

I can recommend https://trocador.app/ - nice exchange aggregator that doesn’t require you to log into the exchange’s website, and that displays the level of privacy of each exchange.

By using this method, you always have non-ML non-KYC crypto that can be used to buy anything

For additional (and true) privacy, please churn the XMR while you have it. If you know, you know, but that’s a power user move.

It’s increasingly harder to exchange for fiat anonymously, especially when you consider XMR or other privacy coins. Once the people in charge of money realized they were a bit subverted, you got the huge crackdown.

I still use it for various things. Buy LTC from a legit licensed exchange. Move it around a bit. Change to XMR through an exchange that doesn’t care. Maybe move it around some more. It’s a giant pain, but I don’t know a better way. This method isn’t perfect, more of a balance of risk, but it’s better than just handing your entire entity over for a simple transaction.

I bought crypto and still own it, but over time I have come to the opinion that until stores and malls accept crypto, they will never grow betond being a commodity like gold. This is the highest price I’ve ever seen gold. That has me concerned of how volatile people’s finances are. The cost of living was a huge amount cheaper when gold was 65 to 70% cheaper than now.

If bitcoin ever hits $400,000, I see implosion and collapse being imminent. Crypto will never be worthlesss, at least crypto that casual observers have heard of before, but there’s no huge profit to be made from it without engaging in financial criminal activity.

So if you want to get into crypto, do definitely protect your identity at all cost before purchasing whichever currency, but also know for what principal you got it to it. If it is to get wealthy, you wasted your money. If it’s to hold on to something of value that you can trade for if economy falls off, then that could prove to be a wise decision in the future.

There’s more I could say, this might already be blah blah blah, but I hope that you understand my overall premise. I genuinelly don’t now why individual stores don’t accept crypto and then sell it almost in real time. If crypto stablized, a few people would take their pay in crypto instead of bank deposit, and just that would take money away from the elite global class if staff got paid in crypto to do their shopping.

To correct some oversimplifications in this thread, let me just summarise some facts:

Crypto is exactly as worthless as money.

Not all crypto is bad for the climate, see for example Etherium and Solana.

Crypto has legitimate uses, especially as a replacement for traditional bank transactions, which to remind everyone, are basically made up numbers and ‘trust me bro’-s. And I will explicitly include smart contracts and NFTs here, just to annoy people who don’t get them.

Not all crypto is private. In fact, it was designed to be the opposite, hence most crypto isn’t private at all.

While not all crypto is private, even less ways to spend or exchange crypto are private. A simple and also very private thing is cash.

https://cryptobriefing.com/crypto-market-downturn-tariff-crash/

Crypto is a ledger making it inherently bad for privacy. It doesn’t have any real value, its just believe that holds its value (can’t be eaten or be used to create anything). Its really bad for the climate and wastes resources like crazy. Its not a better payment system and its unregulated, meaning you can get scammed and nobody can reverse the damage. Just why do people want it to be a thing, the issues are so many and solution few.