Seems to be the case that the conversion to fiat is the part that is difficult to do while staying anonymous

As long as one takes moderate measures to stay anonymous on the network level, an exchange that is P2P or doesn't force KYC can be used to convert. There are many of them out there.

Fees may be higher is a note.

But without p2p there is greater risk of scam?

You can do it on Kraken just fine. As long as you're ok paying taxes on it (since Kraken is KYC), you're still shielding the source of the funds, which is the primary utility of Monero.

Or to put it another way, it's good for "money laundering", but not "tax evasion".

Why would Kraken just accept 100K worth of Monero coming in and sent out as fiat to a bank account ?

cuz they get their cut and there is nothing anyone can do to unmask that transfer or prove that it's, fundamentally, fraudulent.

IRS or CRA is getting their cut, so it's the regulator or the FBI's problem

Monero is great so long as you don't care about conversion to cash. That part is ... tricky.

Of course it's difficult. Even if you could convert it to cash you wouldn't be able to deposit in any bank or meaningfully use it. The moment you do anything with it you'll trigger anti money laundering laws and have to explain where the money came from.

It isn't very difficult, see my earlier post. Once successfully converted the cash can be used in a multitude of different ways.

With an imagination and taking proper anonymity safeguards, the possibilities are endless.

Well yeah, you also have to launder the money if you’re a criminal enterprise…

From a criminal perspective you may not have to launder it. Just deposit your XMR/ZEC into an exchange and sell it. If they ask, say you bought it years ago at $10.

Your post is a spot pro matrix, not against it.

It's not actually that tricky - because obtaining Monero anonymously is also tricky, the only way to do so is to put on a pair of rubber gloves, and anonymously send cash from a mailbox that can't be traced to your identity. The other side of that transaction is the party interested in converting to cash. Because there's so much demand on both ends, there are many reputable vendors with a long and trusted history of those transactions.

> Monero is great so long as you don't care about conversion to cash. That part is ... tricky.

Make no mistake, this is not coincidence. It's hard because non auditable financial transactions would undermine the fiat issuers authority.

I also noticed on a darkweb site that keeping monero in an escrow account is used to further muddy the trail. Not sure how effective that actually is though.