I was in my local CEX the other day (it's like a tech-y "Cash Converters", but with the staff from a cool vinyl record shop instead of Fagin).
I'm quite old for a darknet vendor, definitely old enough to be the father of the wool-hatted emo who served me
After ignoring me for about 5 minutes, he looked at me like he wanted to say "sorry grandad. We don't sell 8 track tapes or gramophone horns"
I couldn't really say "I'm a darknet drug vendor, and I need a fifth untraceable android phone for my bitcoin wallets. One with a big screen so I can receive orders over surespot and still type without having to remove my surgeon's gloves and get figerprints on drug baggies".
I said "I want to buy that phone there, and I want to pay . using bitcoin" because I saw this:-
and volunteered to be the British Tor vendors Association's guinea pig (the BTVA are always on the lookout for new ways for its members to launder bitcoin).
Within a minute I was surrounded by the goths, emos and trustafarians who comprise the staff, seeing their first bitcoin wallets. I was suddenly William Shattner at a sci-fi convention, and it was every other customer's turn to feel invisible. "I'm going to get the manager. You're our first bitcoin sale, and she's been on the training course".
Morticia from the Adams Family emerged from the store room. She scanned the bar code, and discussed which till to use with the white rasta. A QR code with the shop's bitcoin wallet and payment amount appeared on the screen. I connected my phone to their open wi fi connection (called "unprotected CEX" which made me laugh), opened mycelium wallet, pointed my phone camera at the little chequerboard square on screen, then clicked "send".
Within 2 seconds, the screen said "payment received" (their system doesn't wait for confirmations) and the staff were all asking me where they can get bitcoin.
Here's the bit that may interest you non-vendors:-
I was about to recommend localbitcoins when Morticia said "HERE, you idiots. Customers can buy AND SELL second-hand gear at CEX for bitcoin. You would remember if you weren't so stoned. I must have told you ten times. Our stores are getting bitcoin cash machines. The first one is going in our Glasgow store"
A mental picture of Rent boy and Spud out of "Trainspotting" carrying in their grandmother's TV sets came to mind, followed by a more accurate one of bodybuilders from Inverness down for the day to launder bitcoin (a whole coven of former UK-Prozone employees went solo up there, which is why Inverness is the now the scam capital of the UK. Possibly the world).
If you live near one of these CEX branches, you can turn your old DVDs and games into MXE:-
Belfast
Birmingham
Bolton
Bradford
Brighton
Bristol
Bromley
Cambridge
Cardiff
Derby
Edinburgh
Exeter
Glasgow Sauchiehall Street
Glasgow Union Street
Gloucester
Harrow
Hounslow
Kingston
Leeds
Leicester
Liverpool Lord Street
Liverpool
Manchester Norwich Nottingham Plymouth Preston London W1 Rathbone Place Salford Sheffield Southampton London W1 Tottenham Court Rd Wigan
You drug fiends are always on the lookout for utraceable ways of getting bitcoin, and I'm always looking for ways to get rid of them. Lets exploit CEX. Maybe they will put bitcoin ATMs in all their stores - sorted.
RedBook. BBMC.
I can't tell you how tempting it was to start this thread off with the word "so" in the Reddit style
"So I was in my local CEX the other day". Then use the word "sketchy" somewhere. I resisted, because everyone on Reddit who begins with "so" always follows it with an incorrect premise in the second sentence, then a truly idiotic proposal in the third.
Now that I've pointed it out, you will notice it all the time.