I’m not sure where this should go, so here it be.
I discovered Sia very recently, and thought I’d try it out. I heard (here and here) I could buy Siacoin via Transak, and so far I’ve found no documentation or articles to suggest otherwise.
When I try, Siacoin does not appear on Transak’s webpage. When I try to buy using SiaStream’s Transak integration, I get the following error message in the Transak modal:
Nebulous production API Key is not active. Please complete the KYB to go live with us.
What the hay? Is Bittrex the only place now that’ll sell Siacoin for USD? What, if anything, can I do to help? (Is this something that a PR would fix?)
Somewhat related question: Would Transak let me buy SC without giving them my address, ID, etc.? I’m just looking for a decent storage solution, not a hospital visit lol.
Transak used to be a site that people in the US could purchase SC relatively easily with just a credit card. It looks like this service has been discontinued.
Another point is that SiaStream was a product that was developed by Nebulous Labs which also doesn’t really exist anymore. Nebulous split into the Sia Foundation (which runs this forum) who do core development and are community funded, as well as Skynet Labs which is VC funded and does Skynet development. Neither of these parties currently wants to maintain Siastream and thus it is not maintained. This may change now that the Sia Foundation has hired a UI developer, but it isn’t high priority if on the list at all.
And I don’t think there are any easy ways to purchase SC without KYC because the US government isn’t a big fan of crypto and pretend that they run the world.
I don’t understand crypto well, mainly because of the steep privacy cost to entry on every exchange I’ve found. Is Transak a viable solution for normies like me to convert fiat to crypto without this stringent KYC? If so, what would it take for the Sia Foundation to reinstate that relationship?
Again, I only see SC as a sort of “Monopoly Money” to use on the Sia platform, and I only want a way to pay in to try it out.
I agree that having an easy point of ingress would be good. I presume that will be more of a point of interest for the foundation once full node light wallets are out.
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