Funding an order with Monero without mistakes

BlackOps settles in Monero only. There is no Bitcoin option and no swap running behind the scenes, so the whole payment path runs through one coin.

Getting the coin

Buy on an exchange, trade peer to peer, or swap from a coin you already hold. Each attaches a different amount of identity at the point of purchase, and the right choice depends on what the coin is for.

Hold it yourself first

Move the Monero into a wallet you control before it goes anywhere near an order. Feather on desktop and Cake on a phone both route over Tor and both are straightforward. Whichever you pick, write the recovery seed on paper, because the seed is the wallet.

The deposit itself

1. Open the order and copy the deposit address it issues for that order specifically
2. Set your wallet to add the network fee on top rather than take it out of the amount
3. Send, then wait for confirmations, which normally take around twenty minutes
4. Withdraw anything left over once the order completes rather than leaving a balance

Why the coin sits in your wallet first

Sending straight from the place you bought the coin to the market draws a line between an identity checked account and an order. Moving it into a wallet you control first breaks that line, because what leaves your wallet is not traceable back through the exchange in the same way. It costs one extra step and a few minutes of waiting.

It also gives you somewhere to put change. Orders rarely use a round number, and having a wallet you control means the remainder comes back somewhere sensible rather than sitting on the market waiting to become somebody else problem.

The seed matters more than the software

Every wallet worth using hands you a recovery seed at creation. Those words are the wallet. The application is replaceable, the machine is replaceable, the words are not. Write them on paper before you put anything real into the wallet, store them away from the device, and never type them into a page that asks. No legitimate service ever needs them.