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チャノさん (japananon@mitra.anon-kenkai.com)'s status on Saturday, 08-Feb-2025 14:26:51 JST

in reply to

I am pleased to report that somebody has taken me up on this offer, and so far it seems to work. I have confirmation that PayPal was used to purchase coins, which were spent on a subscription.

Unifans requires a 7 day wait period before withdrawals are possible (probably an anti-fraud/chargeback measure), and they say they'll take a 5% platform fee when I withdraw. In about a week I'll try to pull the funds out to USDT on the Polygon network, and swap them for XMR from there. If everything goes as planned, we may well have a functional fiat -> crypto on-ramp.

チャノさん (japananon@mitra.anon-kenkai.com)'s status on Saturday, 15-Feb-2025 15:05:28 JST

チャノさん

in reply to

UNIFANS UPDATE:

Following a 7 day processing period, the funds on my Unifans account are now withdrawable. Out of a $50 payment, $47.50 is available to me, which lines up with their declared platform fee of $2.50.

The withdrawal process is supposed to take 2-5 business days, so probably it won't be completed until next week. Assuming all goes well, the money should appear in my ETH wallet as USDT(Polygon), which is easily swappable for XMR.

So far all signs seem to point to this working out. I'll wait till we're actually over the finish line to declare success, though.

チャノさん (japananon@mitra.anon-kenkai.com)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Feb-2025 22:55:15 JST

チャノさん

in reply to

UNIFANS (FINAL?) UPDATE:

I am very pleased, and only somewhat surprised, to announce that the Unifans test has been successful. By means of an assistant who volunteered to use PayPal, I have received $45 USD worth of Tether in my own self-custody hot wallet.

The process was as follows:

1. Volunteer used PayPal to purchase 500 "coins" ($50 USD) on Unifans.
2. Volunteer used coins to subscribe to a donation tier created for the purpose of this test, giving them to me (the "coins" are a point system like many others, muddying the payer/payee relationship enough to keep the financial companies off their back).
3. I waited 7 days before withdrawals were allowed (likely an anti-chargeback fraud measure)
4. I submitted a request for withdrawal on Feb.15th, a Saturday. Processing seems to take 2 to 5 business days, and I received notification that the attempt was being handled on Monday, so it's safe to assume these are manually checked and will not be processed on weekends.
5. The request was approved on Feb.19th, and upon checking my hot wallet, $45 USD worth of Tether (Polygon) was deposited in my wallet.

I was told there was a $2.50 platform fee taken out from all payments passed through Unifans, but in the end it seems I only received $45 of the $50 I was given. Based on what I'm seeing, it seems Unifans is double-dipping here... they take a 5% cut when a payment is made between users, and then a second flat $2.50 when money is withdrawn (and also possibly charging a fee on the initial "coins" purchase? I'd have to check with my volunteer). This isn't a huge issue, but anybody using Unifans ought to keep this haircut in mind when pulling their money out.

The Upshot

For an online creator who wants to get paid in magic internet money, but has fans who only want/know how to use PayPal, credit cards, or finance apps like Wise, Unifans seems to be a viable option. I've submitted absolutely zero ID documentation, I access the site via an internet condom (VPN) and they've have yet to complain, but money has still traded hands successfully.

Unifans is very clearly a Chinese run operation, and while I am on record as disliking and distrusting the Chinese, I also know that when it comes to making a buck outside Chinese borders, they're mercenary as fuck and generally don't give a shit. So in this instance, taking advantage of the fact they give zero fucks about KYC is a net positive for me.

One note of caution to anybody planning to use Unifans as a Fiat-to-Crypto bridge for fan support... while you'll receive payment in USDT (Tether) in a wallet of your choice (using on Polygon, TRC-20, or Binance Smart Chain), moving it from there to swap for another currency (XMR in my case) will require you pay fees in the native token of that chain.

For example, on Polygon (my chain of choice here) fees are paid in the native token POL. I'm lucky enough to have a smattering of POL in the same wallet, so I can handle fees. However, if I were using a freshly created (and empty) wallet, I'd have 0 POL to pay for swaps or withdrawals from that wallet.

You might think that I could swap some of my USDT into POL to pay fees, but unfortunately not... because that swap itself would require POL for fees, which I wouldn't have.

This dumb bullshit is a feature of Ethereum/Ethereum-based blockchains, and can't be avoided. Your main solution to something like this would be buy some native token on an exchange, then withdraw it to yourself, then use that to withdraw/swap your USDT.

I did some research into this, however, and apparently(?) there's a gas-free service you could use to turn a little bit of USDT into the native currency of your chain called SmolRefuel. I have no idea if this works, have never used it, and cannot guarantee it isn't a scam. Do your own due diligence before you use something like this.

So basically, yes Unifans is a good option to turn fiat into some form of crypto, which you can then swap into something else. There's just a lot of pain in the ass hoops to jump through. If that's something people are willing to do, it's a useful tool. Just god knows how long it'll stick around, or stay solvent.

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