Using Monero to spend Bitcoin anonymously

Converting Bitcoin into Monero and back into Bitcoin on Tails.

This guide assumes you already have the latest version of Tails installed and persistence set up. Start Tails with your persistent storage unlocked. An admin password is not required.

Important:
This method can leave you vulnerable to amount correlation analysis if you are not careful. It is important that the amount of BTC sent to Electrum and Morphtoken, and the amount of BTC sent by XMR.to do not correlate within a small time span.

Ways to mitigate:
- Send a significantly higher amount to Electrum and Morphtoken than you are expecting to spend.
- Or, wait a couple hours before converting your Monero back to Bitcoin.

Part 1: Setting up Electrum on Tails

This part is optional, but recommended. It will make a later step more convenient.

1: Make sure Bitcoin client persistence is enabled

• Applications -> Tails -> Configure persistent volume
• Make sure Bitcoin client is checked and hit 'Save'
• If it wasn't checked restart Tails then proceed to the next step.

2: Open Electrum.

• Applications -> Internet -> Electrum
• It can take a minute before it starts.

3: Create a new electrum wallet

• Follow the wizard.

4: Send Bitcoin to your electrum wallet.

• How you acquire your Bitcoin is up to you.
• Unless you don't want anyone to know you own Bitcoin using a KYC exchange is fine.

Part 2: Installing a Monero wallet on Tails

We will use the Monero CLI as it is currently the easiest wallet to set up on Tails.

The quickest way to do this is to use the terminal method. Take a look at this video to see the full process.

If something unexpected happens you can also install the CLI manually.

Spend some time to familiarize yourself with the CLI, you can find a list of common commands and important information on how to operate it here.

Part 3: Installing Morphscript on Tails

We will use morphscript to convert BTC to XMR without using javascript.

You can find the script here. Carefully read the instructions.

Please take a look at the visual guide if you have trouble getting it to start.

Part 4: Converting BTC to XMR

1: In your Monero CLI wallet enter: address new

• This will generate a new subaddress that we can use to send our XMR to.
• Always generate a new subaddress before converting your BTC to XMR. Avoid reusing subaddresses.

2: Start morphscript

torsocks python3 morphscript.py

• You can leave input currency and output currency blank, it defaults to BTC -> XMR.
• refund address: go to the receive window in Electrum and copy your BTC address to here.
• Use right click -> paste to paste.
• destination address: paste the subaddress you just generated.
• It can take a couple seconds before you are shown the order information.

3: Send Bitcoin to complete the order

• Send the BTC to the address shown in Morphscript.
• Make sure the amount is within the limits.

4: Check the status of the order

torsocks python3 morphscript.py view --id morphtokenid

• You can use the up arrow on your keyboard to select the previous command.
• The entire process usually takes no more than 10 minutes but there have been reports of it taking a couple hours.

5: Receive the XMR in you Monero CLI

• Once the order status in morphscript shows completed you can expect to receive the XMR in your wallet.
• If it does not appear automatically, use the refresh command:

• You may be prompted to enter your password.
• If you dislike this behavior you can disable it by entering: set ask-password 0
  
  
• Sometimes refresh fails like shown below. Entering the command again usually fixes the issue. If not you can resolve the issue by changing the remote node.

• After receiving XMR you must wait ~20 minutes before your balance becomes unlocked. You can check your unlocked balance using the balance command.

Part 5: Converting XMR back to BTC

1: In the Tor browser navigate to http://xmr.to/nojs (no javascript required) and create a new order.

2: Review the order

3: Scroll down and copy the Monero CLI command

4: Paste the command into your Monero wallet

• Reminder: use right click -> paste to paste.

• Sometimes pasting into the terminal can mess up the formatting. This is a display bug only, hit enter to move to the confirmation dialog.

• Sometimes the wallet will hang for a couple seconds after hitting enter:

• Shortly after, a confirmation dialog will appear:

• Press 'Y' followed by Enter to confirm the transaction. XMR.to usually sends your BTC directly upon receiving your transaction.

---