I haven’t dealt with crypto in years, so I’m not really the best source for some of those specifics.

As I understand it, the Monero protocol doesn’t maintain history between transactions, so it’s very much like electronic cash. if I were to go the exchange route, I would convert to XMR, send it to another exchange, then back to BTC. it doesn’t really matter where you buy it if you go that route. those transactions do have a cost however.

as I’ve said it’s been years and the crypto world is loaded with scams so I have no idea which if any of those are legit, sorry.

You aren’t going to be able to mine more than a few cents of Bitcoin a month without specialized hardware.

As mentioned, Monero is best for privacy.

If you must use Bitcoin specifically, one option is to “wash” whatever you buy by using an exchange that allows anonymous account creation, then converting it to XMR and back before using it. You can also find someone to trade with in person for cash. There at least used to be localbitcoin to help facilitate that, if that’s even still a thing.

it is legit nothing but bots and reposts. there’s more oc here on Lemmy in my experience