Crypto currencies are essentially dead to me because recently, during 2020, banks and card issuers like Mastercard here in Sweden (Entercard) have started banning all transactions to known crypto exchanges like Coinbase.
So imo that's a death blow and no one is reporting about it.
Exchanges like https://localbitcoins.com/ or https://bisq.network/ should work for you. Personally, I have only ever used services like Coinbase (BitPanda, anycoindirect), but I guess person-to-person deals aren't bad either. You might even get better prices.
The more major economies have increasingly been supportive of crypto; Sweden on its own cannot death blow crypto as a whole when its legal in most other large economies.
I meant to me it's practically dead, unless I can find alternative methods. One user already suggested a few promising ones but all it takes is for whatever organisation is blocking exchanges to find them and block them.
It's basically done on an account by account basis, at the banks and the card issuers. Which means any IBAN known to be associated with a crypto exchange, or any account you attempt payment to with your card.
It's cat and mouse game.
And I'm afraid they're setting a precedence for other European countries. Of course their reasons for this are to chase small time tax evaders while big time corporations like Facebook are being given massive tax breaks because some moron thought a datacenter would bring 30000 jobs.
So imo that's a death blow and no one is reporting about it.