Monero superior for payments is sus. Last I checked it took over 10 minutes to transfer funds for me. You don't have a layer 2 like lightning that I've heard of either.
Discussion
For small amounts 0-conf transactions are fine with Monero
https://safereddit.com/r/Monero/comments/uy0did/can_monero_be_used_in_point_of_sale_transactions/
Did you transfer funds from an exchange?
Monero doesn't have RBF so 0 conf is relatively safe compared to Bitcoin. Especially for small payments.
Lightning sort of kicks the can down the road imo without solving much and makes things more complicated. It only gives the illusion of final settlement. Nothing really is until it is on chain. You can be rugged by LN channel hosts or peers. If you run your own active node you can rug yourself by not backing up your latest channel state. Tedious and difficult to use in any sovereign manner especially for casual users that's why over 95% use LN custodially defeating the whole point of Bitcoin's creation.
An exchange? No, There are no US exchanges left for monero that I know of. You'd have to use a swap service (changelly, sideshift) or atomic swaps to move in and out of monero. The only exchange I can think of would be the DEX Bisq.
No, This was me testing from android monerujo to desktop monero gui wallet. It was slow.
And while I agree lightning is/was a kludge its improved dramatically in the last two years. Breez, Phoenix, and now Zeus wallets have taken care of the complexity by keeping it non-custodial and handling the channel back ups. They deal with channel balance, inbound liquidity, and connectivity by being an LSP to your wallets embedded lightning node. This covers the cons you made about it. However yes I see too many people on Wallet of Satoshi. Makes no sense these days.
Don't get me wrong I like Monero but I only use it for experimentation and speculation these days. It's slow like on chain litecoin which is good enough for web stores but not brick and mortar stores with a line of people behind you waiting to pay. It also doesn't have the vendor adoption that BTC has. Last I checked I could count gift card dealers accepting monero on one hand while holding my car keys. And no precious metals dealers that would take it.
However I do like its staying power. Most projects would have collapse by now if they were beaten on by governments the way monero has. Yet it keeps on going.
Local Monero is a good DEX
Is it even a DEX? Its just P2P
Yea, no-KYC P2P CEX. You can access them without javascript and thru tor. You can use a true DEX like Bisq if you prefer.
BTC --> XMR atomic swaps: https://unstoppableswap.net/
Samourai releasing their crosschain XMR <-> BTC swaps soon too
Yea I don't recommend buying from KYC CEXes even if it was possible. But wow I didn't know all US exchanges don't have Monero available anymore. Even Kraken?
Agree Breez and Phoenix are probably the best LN wallets available in terms of UX and self custody (You have to run your own node with Zeus atm). But since you are not running your own active nodes (for Breez and Phoenix at least) it is still not completely trustless and has privacy implications. At least Phoenix is transparent about this on their website.
https://phoenix.acinq.co/privacy
https://phoenix.acinq.co/faq#is-phoenix-trustless
I know the new upcoming splicing update solves some of the trust and privacy issues on Phoenix, but not completely since you are still not connected to your own node.
Monero's strength is in it's better qualities as digital cash. Cheap tx fees (under 1 cent), real world fungibility, and strong default privacy.
Agree Monero acceptance is not as ubiquitious as Bitcoin on white markets, but there is still quite a lot. People on the outside might just not be aware.
[Spend Monero directly]
-Monerica massive directory [monerica.com]
-Monero Market [moneromarket.io]
-KYCNotMe [kycnot.me/services]
-Telegram: Monero Market [t.me/moneromarket]
-Darknet Markets [torproject.org]
[Monero -> Gift Cards]
-Coincards [coincards.com]
-Cake Pay [buy.cakepay.com]
-Coinsbee [coinsbee.com]
-AllArk [allark.io]
monero has 2 minute blocks
so if you were doing a self transfer and it took 10
then there's something wrong with your connection.