this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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I have this little offline only single purpose device that handles tap to pay for me. It is actually waterproof, survives falls, is light enough to not be noticed, and hasn't run out of battery in a few years.
Jokes aside, what is wrong with good old plastic cards? If you don't want an extra wallet (which I need anyway to carry ids, drivers license, cash, emergency ear plugs, a handy sticker or two...), just get a phone case with card/cash slot thingies.
As it is right now, my cell phone replaces a collection of about six plastic cards. I have not yet found a wieldy phone case that has space to store payment cards.
Realistically, this question could also be asked with cash. If you're going to be pulling out a wallet-like item anyway, and you are that concerned with privacy, why not go with anonymous, fee-free, secure, actually offline paper money? Card processing is not offline. The card machine has to be connected to the Internet for it to work (offline card processing theoretically exists, but is not widely implemented enough to rely on and is not particularly secure).
If people are going to argue that wanting to pay with a cell phone instead of a plastic card makes me lazy because the card takes a few extra seconds to use compare to the phone, I'm going to argue in turn that they're lazy for using a card when using cash, with all of its privacy benefits, also only takes a few seconds more.
How can you spend time thinking about phones, when there are children starving to death in Africa! See, I am can do that too.
Besides, I do carry cash for everyday expenses, and I do prefer cash. I don't know where you got that idea from.
But the question was to replace tap-to-pay. Sadly, tapping people with a fiver makes them irritated at best.
I've got nothing against you. I'm just not willing to accept a lecture (from other people, not you) about being "lazy" for wanting tap-to-pay on my cell phone. My statement is that the convenience of tap-to-pay for payment cards and transit passes is not worth the otherwise marginal privacy benefit of switching to Graphene.
I understood that, and I disagree with that statement either.
A plastic card has no wifi, mobile radio, gps, cameras or microphone. The only data it can give away is "john smith paid here for porn and liquor at 4:20". A phone has all of the above, and uses them to collect data about you, which is then used against you. Graphene, by not running all the vendor-specific, preinstalled garbage in the background, is a lot better in that regard than any smartphone you can buy at the store.
So, in my opinion, it is worth to give up the small convenience of tap-to-pay with a phone and use tap-to-pay with a card. Yes, cash would be even better, but better is the enemy of good. Paying with Monero in a dark alley while wearing a ski mask is even better than that, right?