ThisOldGuy Are crypto gift cards don't seem to be a thing or something without all the investing and exchanges without eating fees?
Ive never heard of crypto gift cards, but yeah I'd expect they fuck you with fees. That's basically how any privacy related fiat-->crypto transaction goes down.
ThisOldGuy I'm ok with KYC, but this is for an exchange not a bank then? I'm thinking my biggest issue is I am "trading/investing illiterate" and that's a big wall for me.
Yeah, Kraken is considered the most trustworthy centralized exchange. They have decent security (passkeys, totp), no sms for 2fa. They haven't delisted XMR which gets them a lot of kudos in the Monero community because it's the only US CEX that hasn't delisted it, even though there's no law against it, they delist it for "compliance".
You don't need to trade/invest, really, it's just like buying something on Amazon. The UI is really simple. You aren't "trading", you are making a single exchange of fiat to crypto.
ThisOldGuy I will be a little slow but will circle back for help with first transaction because that would be very helpful to learn.
No worries, drop an address whenever you want.
ThisOldGuy So if I understand first steps:
Setup the cakewallet app and security.
Make a kraken account and do KYC verification.
I feel like there might be a linking step here I'm missing?
Yeah, you were missing the deposit USD into Kraken, convert USD to Monero on Kraken, and withdraw to Cakewallet.
ThisOldGuy Figure out how and when to buy XMR in an optimal way so I don't waste money?
Well this will be the lowest fee way because you only need to use one intermediary.
If you want to offset the fees you can take me up on the referral code ;), but seriously I don't mean to seem scammy, it's just what I would do if I was in your position, feel free to decline for whatever reason