Where I live in the US we're not permitted to buy these with cash. We don't have to provide any identifying information to activate but we cannot legally purchase them without that link to the original card purchase.

I am not aware of any states where you cannot buy non-reloadable visa gift cards with cash at values up to $500. Reloadable ones are the ones that often require KYC.

I do this all the time in California and have in other states as well.

If you are sure your state bans non-reloadable visa gift card purchases with cash I would love to find out what state to research what is going on there.

I think check into Illinois and New York. As far as I know it’s not possible to acquire visa gift cards (non-reloadable) for even $100 without activation which results in implicit linking to some identity.

How do you buy these without giving any personal information?

Cash.

How do you get from Monero to cash without leaving some kind of paper trail?

I’ve seen them for sale in supermarkets.

I've never owned crypto but I can see the appeal for privacy's sake. Even going to the market can mean sacrificing privacy – retailers are constant abusers of personal data.

Did you park at the market? Oops, they read all license plates to build a marketing profile.[0][1]

See an ad online, and then later went into the store? Oops, Google picked up on that and told the retailer.[2]

Did you leave your face uncovered when you went into the market? Oops, they use facial recognition.[3]

[0] https://www.syracuse.com/news/2014/06/who_else_is_tracking_y...

[1] https://drndata.com/

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20170523182250/https://www.washi...

[3] https://www.axios.com/2021/07/19/facial-recognition-retail-s...

In the European Union there is an online transaction limit of 50€ for prepaid cards. That's no alternative to Monero

They require you to log in and identify yourself before they can be activated.

Most actually do not require this. I buy visa gift cards with cash all the time from gas stations etc and spend them anywhere that does not take cash with no activation.

You don't tell the teller your name as you give them cash to load the card.

But they can't be activated until after you identify yourself to their website.

You are thinking of reloadable ones. Non-reloadable visa gift cards can be purchased with cash at any corner store at values up to $500 each and require no identification.

I really, truly, do not believe this is correct. I looked into it quite hard recently and I simply couldn't figure out a way to pull it off (and I even actively attempted to look for ones that did not support being reloaded). FWIW, I do believe this product existed a decade ago, but I simply can't find it anymore. Would you mind providing some kind of link to recent discussion of some specific such a product (not even as much to "prove you are right" but "to help me out" ;P)?

Unavailable in lots of countries.