Update: Feb. 3, 2024 I was thinking of starting another fundraiser, but this time it’s on a different level compared to my previous one, which was for my computer. My maternal grandmother, who passed away about 9-10 years ago, left my mom a part of a piece of land, which is near (literally near because it’s just outside the home) where we (me and my younger sister) currently reside with our grand aunt who is helping us with our education.
This particular piece of land is not solely for my mom because she has a sister, and unfortunately, as I’ve mentioned somewhere before, she is diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder, which hinders her from functioning like an average person. Also, it’s actually a part of a larger piece of land owned by the parents of my grandmother and was divided among her siblings (which explains how the land is just outside the house we are living in), so it doesn’t have a title yet (our family cannot afford it), but we are lucky enough to have received the part of the land that is near and in front of a main road.
Now, here’s the thing: I thought of raising funds to take care of its paperwork, build a building, and run a business. Of course, since I will be running it with Kuno, the business will adopt cryptocurrency (both Monero and Bitcoin Cash) as part of its payment mode. This is going to need a considerable amount of money and a comprehensive plan, so this will stay as an idea for now. I’m still not even sure of the land size because that part of the land still needs to be divided, as the other half belongs to my Aunt. Who knows? Maybe in a year or two, this idea will be utilized, though we won’t know how long it will take to fulfill it.
I just want to share this because it may sound absurd to some, and some may think I am taking Kuno for granted because my first fundraiser was successfully funded (well, it’s still up to people if they will support it, right?). Anyway, as I’ve stated, it’s just a random thought for now.
Update: Nov. 4, 2023 Hey! The computer is here and has been setup. I created a channel on Telegram and uploaded there the pictures as well the short assembling video I made. Check it out here: https://t.me/Ash_PC
Also, I will be removing the IDs, links of my personal accounts, and my picture as suggested by someone on Mastodon.
Update: Oct. 31, 2023 Hello, as you may know, the fundraiser was fully funded on the 27th, even double the amount of what I had set as the goal. It was very unexpected, so let me share what really happened.
(I am just waiting for the peripherals/PC parts to arrive to show them to you. Also, I cannot promise this, but I may make a video of assembling the PC).
- That night, I received a DM on my second Telegram account from someone who claimed to be from the Monero community. He asked if I could have a video call with him to verify something in exchange for 5 XMR. I was very confused about what he was saying because it seemed like an offer that was too good to be true, so I asked what it was for. He explained that it was for the Monero Community to check if Kuno had paid me to “act” and run a fundraiser, and if I was also Z33z10n who recently ran a campaign on Kuno. He also accused me of being Radanne, who hosts the Kuno platform. However, I also understand his point and perspective, and I appreciate him taking the initiative on behalf of the community to protect others from becoming victims of fraud. He has the right to question, but his accusations should be supported by sufficient evidences. What he did wrong was jumping to conclusions and slandering the person first.
- I was not very confident in facing strangers with my poor English speaking skills, so I was hesitant. I made a short visit on X and saw that I was involved in a drama that was far from the truth. They started doubting me after I commented that I understood it’s hard to trust someone off the internet and that I was fortunate to have my campaign 79% complete on Ian Niculescu’s post regarding Zeez10n’s “scam” fundraiser. Radanne replied, stating that my situation is different and that I am genuine. Then I don’t know how it escalated from Radanne and me receiving accusations to them offering 5 XMR to whoever could talk to me and check if I am legit.
- Anyway, in the end, I agreed to have a short video call with him because I didn’t want to disappoint the people who trusted and supported me. We talked using IG because we were having technical issues with TG. He saw my face, how shy and awkward I was (cause I’m socially awkward haha), and I answered his questions. After that, he asked me to send my Monero wallet address because he wanted to gift me 5 XMR, so I gave him the address that I linked on the fundraiser, and ta-da! The campaign has raised 8.1583 XMR with 30 sponsors.
- After that, he asked me to post on X https://twitter.com/mukhang_bulbul/status/1717911116364607590 so people could see, and then I think he received backlash, and now his X account is gone, along with the conversation we had on TG. I wonder what happened?
Update: Oct. 26, 2023 Hello, today is our mid-term exam. I forgot to mention that I have started buying the PC parts one by one and that I withdrew the funds 5 days ago.
-Additionally, 3 days ago, our 29th supporter made a donation, bringing our fundraiser to 79% completion (3.1583 XMR out of 4 XMR).
Update: Oct. 18, 2023 Good evening! Our fundraiser is now 76% complete (3.0083 XMR out of 4 XMR) with 26 supporters.
Update: Oct. 15, 2023 I opened a Mastodon account, and so far, I am liking it. Also, we are now 72% complete, with 2.8483 XMR out of 4 XMR from 24 supporters.
Update: Oct. 14, 2023 Hello, I have just arrived from our school extracurricular activity (Film Showing). After checking, we have reached 68% of our goal, with a total of 2.7136 XMR out of 4 XMR.
Update: Oct. 13, 2023 As of the moment, we have 17 total sponsors and have accumulated a total of 2.1506 XMR (54% of the goal) out of 4 XMR.
Update: Oct. 12, 2023 Let me also share here what I have posted on Twitter regarding my plan with the funds that you all have sponsored me.(https://x.com/mukhang_bulbul/status/1710444837043118255?s=20)
- If the fundraiser doesn’t reach the goal before Dec, I might go for a desktop PC co’z final sem starts in Jan (then after vacation, I enter college).
- Ideally, it would be great if it’s fully funded by the end of Oct as we’ve already begun writing Chap 1 of our Research.
- I plan to buy PC parts online and build my own desktop instead of purchasing a pre-built one to save costs.
- Desktops offer more power, it is faster, and more affordable. The only downside is I won’t be able to conveniently bring it with me.
- If there is still money left, I will use it to purchase a prepaid Wi-Fi and pay for the monthly load. The remaining amount will be added to my allowance or allocated for other school expenses.
I don’t know if it’s only a glitch on my end or if my post in monero.im was really removed because it doesn’t follow the rules of the community where I posted it or something.
Anyway, I’ll just repost my fundraising campaign. Thanks to @[email protected] for donating to our campaign and for directing me here.
Hello! I am Ashley and I am here to ask for your support.
I am running a fundraiser for a personal cause. I have used Kuno, a zero-fee crowdfunding platorm that supports Monero. It does not contribute to web3, blockchain, BCH nor Monero and is completely for my personal gain and I would like to seek help from you guys.
I am raising funds to buy a new laptop that I will use for my school. I’m currently a grade 12 student and I would greatly appreciate it if you could contribute and be one of my supporters.
So far, 4 generous person have donated to my fundraiser and their contributions make up 18% of my overall goal.
You can read more details on my fundraiser, here’s the link that will direct you there: https://kuno.anne.media/fundraiser/lgar/
Since the platform only supports Monero, I have also attached the screenshot of my BCH wallet address (QR) below (on the fundraising campaign site).
Any help is invaluable. A donation or sharing my campaign will be greatly appreciated.
I know you don’t know me personally but thank you for taking the time to read this and the trust you will give me.
Thank you very much and have a nice day!
If you would like more support you should consider posting a picture of yourself holding up a custom kuno poster along with the ID’s in the above pictures with your name and unique fund raiser number handwritten on it. This way people can know you are the actual person asking for funds.
With what you provided it looks like you just grabbed some pics from facebook.
I know this advice was well-intentioned and apparently she did get more supports after doing that too, so in a way it was good advice too. It’s important to try to discourage donation scams too. But…
TL;DR In the future, we should not routinely ask people to post their photos or IDs.
- Sending a selfie where you have in your hand your ID and a piece of paper handwritten something on it… that’s exactly what KYC haters dislike, right? Even if sending it “securely” to a CEX, not to mention posting the pic publicly.
- You only suggested that she might want to do that. In theory it was up to her whether or not to actually do that. But for someone who is asking donations, it’s not easy to refuse to do what potential supporters ask. She’s in a weak position, and this could be essentially abusive “power harassment” (although that was not your intention).
- Positing her selfie with a valid ID does have a negative privacy implication: not only she’s not feeling very comfortable obviously, but a random bad actor could abuse these images and info on the ID. I believe, basically, Monero community shouldn’t be okay with something like this.
So Imho:
(1) when we ask something like this at all, we should make it very clear that whether or not actually posting a selfie is up to that person. We shouldn’t force something like this even if indirectly.
(2) “Privacy first” is the core value of Monero. This Monero-based donation platform should be one where people can send and receive donations safely and totally anonymously — where they’re not forced to be anonymous nor forced to reveal personal info but they can control what (personal) info they share: that is privacy. This point should be important.
Especially given that a lot of anonymous fundraising is successful on the same platform, I have to wonder if this was really necessary.
PS kuno.anne.media is behind CF? 🙁
The only reason I suggested it was because she had already posted separate pics of herself and of her ID.
Looks like kuno is down right now. People should really stop using cloudflare. 😥
I didn’t feel this way clearly first, but it was kind of like we KYCed her, wasn’t it?
Yeah, I’m not amused by CF… 😩
Well she is asking for money so to ensure it is not a scam this was really the only way.
If she was sending me money I would not ask for any ID like is done with standard KYC practice. 😉
Hi! Thank you for the suggestion. I’ll do it later (when I have time. it’s night time here and I have class tomorrow). Also, if you clicked on the campaign, I have attached my Facebook account (where you were probably referring to the account from which the picture was taken) as my contact details.
Just curious, how did you come to know kuno and Monero?
This might be a long read…
I had heard of Bitcoin before but never really bothered to learn about it. One day, I joined an FB group where people shared different ways to earn money online. That’s when I stumbled upon noise.cash, a microblogging site that used to tip Bitcoin Cash (now rebranded as noise.app).
Using noise.cash, I started to learn about cryptocurrencies and found another platform called read.cash. While using noise.cash, I also discovered the SmartBCH Chain, which was a sidechain of BCH.
Learning about SmartBCH Chain and NFTs got me interested in other coins and blockchain networks. I became a fan of BCH’s mission, a peer-to-peer electronic cash system and found out there were other coins with similar goals, although I didn’t actively support them.
Then I discovered cashrain.com, an airdrop platform where you could ‘rain’ BCH on your followers, during it’s alpha testing (yeah, I’m like an airdrop hunter haha). The platform was a cheap way to boost your social accounts. There, I found Anne media, and followed them on Twitter, and then they announced their crowdfunding platform called Kuno, which supported Monero and had no fees.
To be honest, fundraising wasn’t my plan. I feel too embarrassed to ask strangers for their money. But I eventually decided to give it a try after thinking it was a chance and something I can take advantage of to help myself.
That’s a very interesting story.
Learning about SmartBCH Chain and NFTs got me interested in other coins and blockchain networks. I became a fan of BCH’s mission, a peer-to-peer electronic cash system and found out there were other coins with similar goals, although I didn’t actively support them.
I think you’re a smart person. Most people quickly assume that a cryptocurrency is basically a scam. Sadly, that may be true in many cases. Yet, back when Bitcoin was born, we (they) had a beautiful dream. Bitcoin users themselves might have forgotten it, though. And in retrospect, its design decision was not optimal (everyone can see what’s in your wallet real-time… kind of crazy).
To be honest, fundraising wasn’t my plan. I feel too embarrassed to ask strangers for their money. But I eventually decided to give it a try after thinking it was a chance and something I can take advantage of to help myself.
You’re not just helping yourself. You can study and perhaps even become a solid coder, and eventually you can help others with free (libre) software, or perhaps making your place better, or promoting human rights including privacy etc. You can simply pay forward :) Okay, this might sound a bit cheesy lol
That’s cool, glad to see you are exploring blockchain tech as possible income sources. The main difference with Monero is that is strives to be just like cash but in digital form. This mean no one can see your balance or transactions like they can with most other coins.
good luck with your fund raiser
ps. If you are looking to earn crypto in the social media space you should try hive, it was purpose built for social media and you can earn just by interacting. It is pretty popular in Asia as well. https://hive.io/
Thank you!
Oh, have heard of Hive as well. I opened an account before but haven’t used it much because I leaned more on SmartBCH. I’ll try it when I have more time, for now, I’m more focused on my studies (our midterm exam is near).
Definitely check it out when you get time, looks like someone on hive had a similar need and was able to get a computer with their earnings. 😉
https://peakd.com/@tpkidkai/i-bought-a-laptop-thanks-to-hive
Hey everyone, I have updated our fundraiser and changed the thumbnail.
I heeded the advice of @[email protected] and took a picture (sorry for the low quality) of myself holding a note and my previous school ID (you’ll know why “previous” if you read my campaign post on Kuno).
Good day! :)
Welcome to Monero.Town ❤️
If you can somehow use electricity without paying (e.g. work place?), it’s relatively easy to get a few € by p2pool’ing. Also, you might want to consider starting to use Mastodon, ditching twitter… 🐈 Suwertehin ka sana! Ciao!
PS: The beautiful idealism of Monero aside, realistically do you have an easy way to buy a laptop with Monero in your place (can you exchange xmr for peso)? Things seem less free in Asia…
When the fundraiser is successfully funded (or at least reaches 80%), I’ll learn more about p2pool and give it a try. I assume it doesn’t require a high-spec PC. (Though it might leave me problem regarding internet connection haha, we don’t have WiFi, but maybe I can use a prepaid WiFi instead.)
Mastodon seems like a good alternative to Twitter. Thanks for the suggestions.
Yes, I do have a way, but it’s not really convenient. I can bridge Monero to BCH, and then convert BCH into our fiat using Zapit Wallet’s P2P Marketplace. Or I can just use a CEX like Binance (or if there’s a noncustodial exchange I can find)
The best way to swap coins for other coins is https://trocador.app they compare many services and give you the best price. You may want to compare it to what you use and see if it is worth it.
ps. use the monero.town referral link to help fund this site if you use trocador, it is located on the side bar on main page.
Trocador.app may be one of the best if you’re talking about KYC-freeness. But her priority might be different.
Also, Trocador is not DEX, a collection of CEXes; some of exchanges there might be rather sketchy, potentially having CEX specific issues. For example, according to some old posts elsewhere, one should not use Exolix at least directly (it becomes less risky if used via Trocador, though).
It’s already more than 50% :D Perhaps it’ll work. A normal PC is enough to mine Monero. Though not super effective in terms of XMR, experiences may be interesting for you, since you plan to study blockchain in college (you may see a message like “Block found!”).
Glad to know that you can buy a laptop with XMR in your place. If you happen to go to Vietnam, it seems that you can directly buy/sell Monero there. I don’t know why, but it sounds nice. I checked some DEX; unfortunately even BTC/PHP is not a popular pair (only 2 trades in 2023). Your current plan might be most realistic. If you don’t mind doing some KYC paperwork (showing ID and such), Binance or some other CEX may give you a better rate (not sure).
Yeah, I’m thankful for that. Just a few steps to go.
I haven’t really explored crypto mining much yet. I thought crypto mining required an expensive high-tier PC to make good profits. But now I know that even a normal PC can mine Monero (though I won’t expect to earn much). Thanks for the insight!
Yeah, Monero mining is a bit different than BTC etc., designed so that everyone can mine, without having special hardware; that is good for keeping the Monero network safe (an attacker can’t just target a few big mining companies, because every end user can mine).
Practically, though, there is cost to mine. If electricity is expensive in your place, or you’ll have to buy an expensive prepaid wifi, then profitability is iffy.
Monero.town is a Lemmy instance, a part of Fediverse—so perhaps many users here don’t use FB/Twitter, as they question negative results of their monopoly. There are many trolls and rude users in Fedi too, but at least it’s definitely better than Twitter. Though it has its own problems & limitations, of course…
Thanks for updates. I don’t have a Twitter account and can’t read it, so that’s very helpful. Perhaps this will work, and a desktop is a good option too, like you said. You can get Linux instead of Windows, PARI/GP instead of Mathematica, etc. It might have been better if you were using a Monero-friendly Mastodon instance. An admin might have boosted your post. Anyway good luck :)
I actually want to try Linux instead of Windows (so I won’t need to buy a license key).
Ohhh, I didn’t know that posts can be boosted here. I haven’t explored this platform much yet.
I actually want to try Linux instead of Windows (so I won’t need to buy a license key).
Wow, you’re so normal! Or in “normal” people’s language, you’re amazing!
If you have a Mastodon account, anyone who supports you, can share your post so that their friends (followers) can also read it (I think this is called retweet on Twitter). Hypothetically, if the admin were friendly (this is normal), supported you and boosted your post, that could have significant effects. Generally a Mastodon instance is run by a volunteer (not by a big company), supported by its users (not by ads or personal info stealing). So Mastodon users are willing to make donations.
Also, if you have a Mastodon account, there you can follow a Lemmy community (e.g. one in Monero.town) you want to follow as live feed, just like you can follow another Twitter user on Twitter (I think), because Mastodon and Lemmy are interconnected. That way, for example, you don’t need to come check this thread again and again, because as soon as something new is posted, it’ll appear on your Mastodon “home” and you can check everything in one go in your time line when you have time.
Thanks for the update. While I don’t fully understand what happened, you can simply refuse any request if you feel it’s uncomfortable. I don’t think you’re a scammer, but it’s much more important for me/us/you to protect your privacy than making sure that you’re not a scammer. No information is absolute anyway, and people here probably feel similarly (i.e. anyone might be a scammer but that does not mean that invasive KYC procedure is forced).
You don’t really need to post a video either, unless you really want to. If you do, be careful not to reveal anything private (e.g. something seemingly insignificant momentarily shown in the background could reveal exactly where your house is located).
Nitter version of the URL posted: https://nitter.net/mukhang_bulbul/status/1717911116364607590
