Public blockchains (like BTC) have zero privacy, as everyone sees the transactions and balances, meanwhile private ones (like XMR) supposedly avoid anyone but two people in a transaction to know that transaction happened, or even to know each other's balance.

In both cases, I would say you are as anonymous as your way to turn the coin from/into fiat is (P2P, KYC or non-KYC platforms, etc.).

Like with AI, I like crypto as a concept, but the practice... (specially the resources both consume for what little benefit they end up having)

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 5 hours ago

You can swap Monero with a more common coin on a decentralized exchange with no KYC, and then cash that out at your Coinbase or whatever.

Also, Monero is very efficient for a proof of work coin, partially because it's designed to be mined on regular, consumer grade PCs.

According to Google, it uses somewhere between 645 and 650 GWh annually, compared to between 150 and 204.4 Terawatt-hours (TWh) for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin was the first, and as is usually the case, that makes it one of the worst.