Privacy is available in bitcoin as a layer-2 solution such as Lightning. When Trump made the popular and media-broadcast bitcoin transaction during his campaign, he did so over lightning. Privacy alone is thus not a big reason to abandon bitcoin and move over to another chain.
Drop a Monero address here and I'll send you a tiny amount for your first transaction.
I recommend CakeWallet, which is cross-platform, user friendly, and does a lot of good for the community, but any of the wallets recommended on the official[1] website are fine.
p.s. you or anyone can reach out via my contacts in bio if you have any questions about Monero.
I would actually recommend to just use a hardware wallet. The monero-cli or the Monero GUI-Wallet are sufficient. Just drop your wallet onto an USB stick with LUKS encryption. Get your recovery seed + wallet height written by hand and bury them somewhere in your garden, or your parents garden in safe box.
Drop me your address, and I will also send a little bit your way, to get you hooked!
A key feature of cash is its ability to pass through and into the KYC/AML panopticon where (edit: to make it clear what the "KYC/AML panopticon" meant -- after being deposited in a bank) you can buy things like real estate and heavy capital equipment. If you can't prove chain of custody of source of funds and source of wealth, you're effectively shut off from a wide amount of transactions.
At least in the West. If you go to someplace like Dubai it is no problem.
No my argument is Monero fails in practice relatively worse than similar 'weight class' crypto currency assets at actually spending 'digital cash' (presumably a desirable quality of 'cash') to make legal purchases from crypto accepting sellers. This is quite evident if you survey available offerings -- vendors are far more likely to accept even the lower cap litecoin than monero (even the 'cryptwerk' website advertised by getmonero shows 2x as many vedors accepting LTC).
I do postulate that the fact it is easier to show chain of custody to the point it satisfies banks and regulated entities as part of this (even if through chain-analysis mumbo jumbo), thus other crypto currencies have lent more towards accessing more purchases in a way cash idealizes to do.
At no point was my argument simply monero fails at the same thing a pile of cash dropped through the sky might fail at and that's the end of it. I think that's a pretty silly portrayal of what I've said, made in bad faith. Although in reality I've had my cex account frozen almost every single time I've tried depositing very low, 3 digit amounts of XMR (including frozen for years) whereas you can somewhat reliably put $200-$1000 in a bank in place like USA and then use that as part of purchase that goes through KYC/AML channels.
Now if you do want to compare, say, a pile of cash falling out of the sky, vs a pile of bitcoin, vs a pile of monero and you wanted to spend it on something big that went through KYC/AML compliance. In order of what would be easiest to spend, assuming the money actually came from a legal source. Bitcoin would be the easiest to spend because you have some chance at showing it came straight from a KYC'd source because of the plaintext blockchain, next would be cash (largely for historical reasons), the hardest to actually spend would be the monero. Now if we presume matheusmoreira point about banks was just a red herring, then your follow on is just one too, since the bit regarding KYC/AML compliance purchases/transactions was a response to that.
> A key feature of cash is its ability to pass through and into the KYC/AML panopticon where you can buy things like real estate and heavy capital equipment.
My country is in the process of criminalizing the purchase of real estate with cash. Laws have been proposed to that end. Politicians have also proposed restricting the amount of "unexplained" physical cash the population is "allowed" to hold.
This is your future if you don't resist.
> If you can't prove chain of custody of source of funds and source of wealth
You shouldn't have to "prove" anything. What a bunch of nonsense.
Cash would "fail horribly at meeting the regulatory and political challenges challenges today". And some countries are trying to make it harder to use.
Yes but fortunately we have other points of comparison and I was making a relative analysis. Legal vendors who take crypto are more likely to accept even the lower market cap LTC in most cases than XMR. XMR is one of the weakest performers as spending cash on legal goods and service amongst crypto assets of similar financial "weight class."
The technical superiority and features on many points seem to be unable to overcome this.
That's because anonymity is the entire point of Monero. Of course legal vendors don't like anonymity, every government wants to be able to track every transaction anywhere.
Saying Monero hasn't been able "to overcome this" is like saying boats have been unable to overcome driving on roads. Technically true, but very much not the point.
For business acceptance, I see how it would be hard if it is impossible to use on a CEX. I think that Haveno/RetoSwap will eventually become the preferred and more convenient Fiat-->Monero method instead of CEXs for the avg user.
Overall though I would even prefer to use a stable than a bank or fiat p2p app to send money.
>They've failed horribly at meeting the regulatory and political challenges of being tradeable on central exchanges and as a result has met weak acceptance from crypto-friendly legal vendors making it harder to use as actual digital cash.
Despite this, everywhere it is accepted, it becomes the largest marketshare crypto payment method, excluding whales.
In this case, I mean a narrowed focus (in this case, on technical qualities) to the point it is maladaptive for the underlying stated goal ("digital cash").
A survey of cryptocurrencies showed monero has failed to achieve this goal of being a superior form of digital cash, relative to most other crypto currencies in similar 'weight class' of market cap and years available. This failure isn't technical, it's due to relative weaknesses in the realms of politics and soft social influence. Even the lower market cap LTC is more accepted as 'cash' by most legal vendors.
-----------
re: below muh sources
getmonero.org, OPs referenced website, advertises cryptwerk as a good directory.
There are ~twice as many for LTC for example, and that's being charitable with something with a lower market cap rather than BTC which is like 3+ times as many.
I had not paid any attention to Monero amid the storm of cryptocurrencies and related scams, but thanks to your recommendation here, I will be checking it outmn
That's a good signal that the privacy guarantees are real, no? It's no secret that the main use-case for crypto is skirting the legal system; I'm not sure I understand this desire to make it anything bigger than that. For example, it's extremely hard to Be Your Own Bank because one mistake means you've just lost all your funds whether it's from a scam, malware, or losing your wallet seed phrase. Large amounts of people "being their own bank" by putting their life savings into crypto would be a disaster.
That's the wrong question. Nobody cares how the elites in the government feel. They exist to serve us. That is the only reason they have any power at all.
The right question is: how can we make it mathematically impossible for the government to oppress us in any way, regardless of how much they seethe and rage about it? Their happiness does not matter. In fact their anger is probably a good sign that the technology is working as intended. The angrier they get, the freer you are.
The angrier they get, the higher is the chance that they make your technical solution illegal. What, you're using technology that might endanger children? All the concerned parents are suddenly your enemoies, democratically speaking. What? Your technology can be used to do money laundering? And you're using it still? You can now anonymously pay only darknet vendors and other shady bussinesses. Have your anonymity, but cut off from the rest of "good" society.
Given the original motivation to actually invent crypto, I am surprised it wasn't outlawed a long time ago. No goverment likes to be overthrown...
It's just the usual politico-technological arms race. Governments make laws, people make technology that works around the laws in such a way that the government can do nothing about it.
Governments must continuously increase their tyranny in order to maintain the exact same level of control they used to have before. There are two possible outcomes: a free and uncontrollable population emancipated by ubiquitous subversive technology, or a totalitarian government so oppressive that even your concerned parents feel the weight of its boot on their faces.
It's my sincere hope that we'll discover the true limits of the government's tyranny in the process. The harsh truth is people need to accept the existence of some amount of crime if they want to live with basic human dignity. It's just like how the banking industry accepts some degree of fraud as a business expense. They could stamp it out, but the security requirements would add so much friction to everyday transactions nobody would buy anything.
The US Federal Government specifically calls out Monero as one of the coins that it hates, which means that it must be quite effective at achieving its goals. So the pro is that you know it works. The cons are nothing specific to Monero, just general criticism of cryptocurrencies. Not being a deep crypto user myself, at least, I haven't heard anyone speak of any flaw specific to Monero that isn't shared by a significant portion of the remainder of all of these coins
Which is its biggest weakness. Lightning over Bitcoin is decently anonymous, too. Given that is just a layer-2 technology and can be developed further and evolutes outside of Bitcoin protocol changes, makes it more flexible and has shorter innovation cycles.
And outlawing bitcoin has become basically impossible after the large amount of ETF inflows. Monero is nice technology, but I think the ship has already sailed for Bitcoin (and L2 solutions like lightning).
Isn´t the experiment in El Salvador proof that Bitcoin does not work as a currency? If you think it isn't, then do you have any measurable pass/fail test for it?
El Salvador is the worst example, as they have been bribed by the IMF to get rid of bitcoin. I would also wan't to learn how the situation in El Salvador would be any different if they adopted Monero instead - I think it would be the same outcode.
I am not a bitcoin-as-currency evangelist. I see it more as digital gold, and gold is not a currency today. It will have its role as a store of value and fallback unit of trade that keeps government currencies in check - another pillar in financial checks-and-balances.
That was not my argument at all. First I said, I don't see bitcoin as currency at all. Second, major nation states have always tryed to use their power to force other nations to use their currency (petrodollar, cough). This is nothing specific to crypto, but something also specific to traditional fiat currencies.
Any high-volatile asset such as bitcoin is IMHO not suited as currency. The good news is, with the bitcoin taproot upgrade and latest lightning standards, you can actually issue stablecoins over bitcoin's taproot asset protocol, and send it over the existing lightning network. My bet is on stablecoins-over-lightning as currency, and bitcoin as store of value. One blockchain to rule them all, other chains not need (for financial transactions at least).
Because lightning uses Bitcoin's blockchain, which is the most secured (as in energy) and the most common (as in market cap) and probably the most accepted as in regulation. Plus, you can use bitcoins taproot asset protocol to issue stablecoins and send them over lightning. No other blockchain needed - which in my opinion, renders monero obsolete or at least a very niche product.
- Lightning is not fully anonymous. It can still be traced by the participating nodes.
- Ethereum's blockchain consumes less energy, is more decentralized, it's a lot more resistent to any form of attack and it can also host fixed-supply coins.
- Market cap is a meaningless metric, it's at best circular logic and at worst it's just a "one billion flies can't be wrong" argumentum ad populum.
- It baffles me how the Bitcoin enthusiasts talk so much about ideology and freedom, but get completely silent about the fact that most mining operations are done in countries with oppressive regimes, financed or subsidized by dictators with access to cheap fossil fuels.
> Lightning is not fully anonymous. It can still be traced by the participating nodes.
"Fully anonymous" is a strong term. Even cash is not fully anonymous. I would give monero that it is more anonymous than lightning because it is a core design principal. There is a spectrum to anonymity, however. As public enemy number one, such as Snowden or BinLaden, your anonymity requirements are different than a citizen buying illegal erectile dysfunction medication online.
If you consider the new features added in lightning over the past 24 months such as trampoline payments, blinded paths etc. - you will find that lightning is anonymous enough. Plus, you can increase anonymity in the client implementation at the expense of higher transaction fees (longer paths, more trampolines). Lightning's BOLT12 standard, which is currently finalized, will increase anonymity even further.
> Ethereum's blockchain consumes less energy, is more decentralized, it's a lot more resistent to any form of attack and it can also host fixed-supply coins.
Thats is factually untrue. First, ethereum famously had a human-coordinated rollback with a controlled restart organized between devs and node runners over Discord. Second, Ethereum is not decentralzied at all, because that is a core property of proof-of-stake: There is no way at any given time that you can be sure that the majority stake is not already in a single entities (or colluding group) possesion - and would thus have absolute control. It is therefore never guaranteed at any given time, that the network is decentralized.
> Market cap is a meaningless metric, it's at best circular logic and at worst it's just a "one billion flies can't be wrong" argumentum ad populum.
Price is ultimately what determines the value of anything. It is absolutely far from meaningless, as the market cap is also a big factor if a crypto asset can be outlawed or banned. Given how many investors in the west already own bitcoin, there would be a massive outcry if it is suddenly outlawed. I say you could outlaw Monero tomorrow and the mainstream media wouldn't even cover it.
> It baffles me how the Bitcoin enthusiasts talk so much about ideology and freedom, but get completely silent about the fact that most mining operations are done in countries with oppressive regimes, financed or subsidized by dictators with access to cheap fossil fuels.
You mean, such as the United States? Because the US (especially Texas) is one of the biggest miners of bitcoin currently.
But you can only make any claims about the properties of a system when looking at the extremes. If Bitcoin's blockchain does not make strong anonymity guarantees as Montero, then Bitcoin can not be by definition the "blockchain to rule them all" that you so desperately want.
>ethereum famously had a human-coordinated rollback with a controlled restart organized between devs and node runners over Discord.
That was achieved through social coordination. No backdoor was exploited, no one had their coins stolen on the original chain. The system worked as intended.
Can you say the same about Bitcoin? Do you think that all these banks and exchanges trading ETFs have secured access to the bitcoins they claim to have? When one of these institutions goes bust, who is going to bail them out?
> Because the US (especially Texas) is one of the biggest miners of bitcoin currently.
Access to cheap fossil fuels? Check.
Facilitated by the government? Check!
Serving the interests of the elites and the aspirational 14% instead of the general populace? Check!
Really up to you personally what is a pro and a con. For me this is a starting list. A lot of these are a result of the technical differences as well as I listed the technical differences.
Pros:
1% inflation
no fixed supply (makes it more of a currency than an asset)
privacy by default,
fungibility—every coin is the exact same, no coin history
prevents financial surveillance by corporations,
protects against government abuses,
useful tool for activists, journalists, minorities, useful for domestic abuse survivors,
useful for businesses sending money across borders,
protects against stalkers,
protects against advertisers profiling you,
reduces identity theft,
prevents databreaches of personal info,
pushes forward cryptography,
allows people to purchase drugs (you decide if this is good or bad),
prevents financial censorship,
allows anonymous donations,
low fees,
more decentralized than bitcoin due to RandomX CPU mining,
prevents crypto robbery,
allows you to buy your adult content without anyone knowing.
large developer community iirc 3rd after bitcoin, eth
less volatile than other cryptos
usually most used crypto for payments when accepted at merchants
All of the pros - minus the inflation - also exist for Bitcoin-over-Lightning. Non of the cons exist for Lightning. Especially no waiting time. In lightning you can spend your received bitcoin after a split-second - no waiting whatsoever.
pro: if the world devolves into an authoritarean hellscape, people will still have a form of undetectable currency until they find a way to get rid of this
con: this improves the chances if the world to devolving into an authoritarean hellscape
Monero needs to step up for quantum safety, not by replacing the existing encryption, but by adding a quantum safety encryption layer on top. Google's recent paper on quantum risks to cryptocurrencies had identified Monero as being at risk. This is not tomorrow's problem; it requires initiating action today, so these efforts can bear fruit by the time the quantum hardware is ready, perhaps by 2029.
All coins are aware of quantum safety requirements, yet quantum computers are still far enough in the future that it makes sense to wait, and first see what those post-quantum mitigations should look like.
Privacy tools will be used in ethical and non-ethical ways. I get that it is annoying that crypto facilitates cybercrime, but that is the cost of privacy for everyone. Everyone gets those rights, because there is no other way. I will say that Monero is vastly used for ethical purposes[1].
I guess encryption shouldn't exist because cybercriminals use it to communicate privately. Privacy is a human right, and payments are essential to modern life.
Also, good luck on "crash and burn", Monero has been going steady, being the most freedom protecting crypto, for 12 years, celebrating its 12th birthday two days ago.
> I get that it is annoying that crypto facilitates cybercrime, but that is the cost of privacy for everyone.
Who decided this, was 'everyone' consulted on what they'd rather have? Because it seems to me like cyber-criminals and a handful of idealists got what they wanted, and everyone else can suck it...
Who decided you can post this? Was 'everyone' consulted on what they'd rather you post? Because it seems like you and a handful of politicians posted ideas you wanted and everyone else can suck it...
I hope you see the absurdity of your 'everyone' claim.
> Privacy tools will be used in ethical and non-ethical ways.
Monero is not a privacy tool. It's a criminal money laundering tool.
So far, the *coin ecosystem has given us nothing _but_ negatives. It's kinda unique in that regard.
> I guess encryption shouldn't exist because cybercriminals use it to communicate privately. Privacy is a human right, and payments are essential to modern life.
A tool should not be regulated based on what it can do. Regulating tools rather than the action or intention of a person or group is inherently backwards and wrong imo.
> A tool should not be regulated based on what it can do.
They should be regulated on their primary purpose in practice and the damage that they cause. And Monero is unwilling or unable to police itself, even as it does damage that dwarfs pretty much any other computing technology.
And not just nebulous "missed sale" damage, but very real damage that often results in dead people and ruined lives.
> Regulating tools rather than the action or intention of a person or group is inherently backwards and wrong imo.
We absolutely regulate tools that can inflict a disproportionate amount of damage. For example, I can't just buy high explosives even if I just want to do a cool video of me launching a manhole cover into the air. Or nuclear materials. Or surface-to-air missiles. Or....
Please look into the benefits. Consider the upsides. I have considered the downsides. Try to understand the importance of Cash and private money and its role in a free society.
I get that you were swept up in that period when crypto got bashed left and right. I agree, there are a lot of problems with crypto and 99% of cryptos are scams, but Monero has a huge use case for internet money. Monero is creating whole new parallel economies[1] and protecting activists and everyday people that value privacy.
Visiting those linked websites, they feel sketchy. It seems they are offering gift cards and different pirated digital goods in exchange for Monero. Red flags all around.
Monero is a community project. There are no official websites, only community contributions and consensus. Sure, some sketchy sites are inevitably going to be listed on Monerica, but it lists which have been verified as working by the site owner, and they show reports of scams. Here[1] you can see a list of projects that accept Monero donations.
xmrbazaar allows only legal listings, it is by no means a DNM, but it is a free market. There are multi-sig wallets with mediators to prevent scamming by either party, and there is a reputation system.
Yeah, some of the boosted listings are for financial services; I see plenty of sketchy listings on FB marketplace.
Examples of normal listings: See these eggs[2], real estate[3], italian meat[4].
I'll echo the sentiment that Monero seems like the "best" cryptocurrency in that it has all of the benefits of Bitcoin + actual privacy.
And interestingly, it's one of the least-used least-hyped options. It's as though we didn't actually want privacy in our money system.
I think a hint into this is actually in one of these posted features: https://repo.getmonero.org/monero-project/ccs-proposals/-/me...
One of the reasons for building a proper payments system is "Casino games"...
Its been made very difficult to actually buy it
You can go to an ATM and purchase a coin and use a DEX to convert almost instantly.
Privacy is available in bitcoin as a layer-2 solution such as Lightning. When Trump made the popular and media-broadcast bitcoin transaction during his campaign, he did so over lightning. Privacy alone is thus not a big reason to abandon bitcoin and move over to another chain.
Monero has consistently exceeded the rest of crypto in community, integrity to mission, and use-case. True digital cash.
FCMP++ upgrade will be huge for sender privacy bringing Monero's technical strength in line with ZCash.
The new site[1] looks great as well; it was funded by the CCS.
[1] https://getmonero-redesign-impl.vercel.app/
Very awesome set of replies you’ve left in this thread. So nice to see.
I will be buying some Monero for the first time because of this thread.
I'm glad you gained something! Welcome to Monero!
Drop a Monero address here and I'll send you a tiny amount for your first transaction.
I recommend CakeWallet, which is cross-platform, user friendly, and does a lot of good for the community, but any of the wallets recommended on the official[1] website are fine.
p.s. you or anyone can reach out via my contacts in bio if you have any questions about Monero.
[1] https://cakewallet.com/
[2] https://www.getmonero.org/downloads/
I would actually recommend to just use a hardware wallet. The monero-cli or the Monero GUI-Wallet are sufficient. Just drop your wallet onto an USB stick with LUKS encryption. Get your recovery seed + wallet height written by hand and bury them somewhere in your garden, or your parents garden in safe box.
Drop me your address, and I will also send a little bit your way, to get you hooked!
Cypherpunks write code.
45nQZrXEDSL8UPj7DeJRrcdFkAteCajG4bGGsQP7cmWwiZU63dpfWe9RPpas38BAU4Kwv5NSKBsnacXewQszMhrx7fgTQLe
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> regulatory and political challenges
Not bending down to the financial arm of warrantless global mass surveillance is a feature, not a bug.
> being tradeable on central exchanges
Central exchanges are banks in disguise. They should not exist.
A key feature of cash is its ability to pass through and into the KYC/AML panopticon where (edit: to make it clear what the "KYC/AML panopticon" meant -- after being deposited in a bank) you can buy things like real estate and heavy capital equipment. If you can't prove chain of custody of source of funds and source of wealth, you're effectively shut off from a wide amount of transactions.
At least in the West. If you go to someplace like Dubai it is no problem.
I'm confused
your argument is that Monero fails at doing a thing that cash also fails at, which is making large purchases without chain of custody/source of funds?
No my argument is Monero fails in practice relatively worse than similar 'weight class' crypto currency assets at actually spending 'digital cash' (presumably a desirable quality of 'cash') to make legal purchases from crypto accepting sellers. This is quite evident if you survey available offerings -- vendors are far more likely to accept even the lower cap litecoin than monero (even the 'cryptwerk' website advertised by getmonero shows 2x as many vedors accepting LTC).
I do postulate that the fact it is easier to show chain of custody to the point it satisfies banks and regulated entities as part of this (even if through chain-analysis mumbo jumbo), thus other crypto currencies have lent more towards accessing more purchases in a way cash idealizes to do.
At no point was my argument simply monero fails at the same thing a pile of cash dropped through the sky might fail at and that's the end of it. I think that's a pretty silly portrayal of what I've said, made in bad faith. Although in reality I've had my cex account frozen almost every single time I've tried depositing very low, 3 digit amounts of XMR (including frozen for years) whereas you can somewhat reliably put $200-$1000 in a bank in place like USA and then use that as part of purchase that goes through KYC/AML channels.
Now if you do want to compare, say, a pile of cash falling out of the sky, vs a pile of bitcoin, vs a pile of monero and you wanted to spend it on something big that went through KYC/AML compliance. In order of what would be easiest to spend, assuming the money actually came from a legal source. Bitcoin would be the easiest to spend because you have some chance at showing it came straight from a KYC'd source because of the plaintext blockchain, next would be cash (largely for historical reasons), the hardest to actually spend would be the monero. Now if we presume matheusmoreira point about banks was just a red herring, then your follow on is just one too, since the bit regarding KYC/AML compliance purchases/transactions was a response to that.
You: "everybody is autistic but me!"
Also you: proceeds to rant about "heavy equipment," a beloved pastime of everyone, including the neurodivergent
I don't think what you are saying is that complicated honestly, but surely you see that, there can be many successful niches.
> A key feature of cash is its ability to pass through and into the KYC/AML panopticon where you can buy things like real estate and heavy capital equipment.
My country is in the process of criminalizing the purchase of real estate with cash. Laws have been proposed to that end. Politicians have also proposed restricting the amount of "unexplained" physical cash the population is "allowed" to hold.
This is your future if you don't resist.
> If you can't prove chain of custody of source of funds and source of wealth
You shouldn't have to "prove" anything. What a bunch of nonsense.
Cash would "fail horribly at meeting the regulatory and political challenges challenges today". And some countries are trying to make it harder to use.
Yes but fortunately we have other points of comparison and I was making a relative analysis. Legal vendors who take crypto are more likely to accept even the lower market cap LTC in most cases than XMR. XMR is one of the weakest performers as spending cash on legal goods and service amongst crypto assets of similar financial "weight class."
The technical superiority and features on many points seem to be unable to overcome this.
That's because anonymity is the entire point of Monero. Of course legal vendors don't like anonymity, every government wants to be able to track every transaction anywhere.
Saying Monero hasn't been able "to overcome this" is like saying boats have been unable to overcome driving on roads. Technically true, but very much not the point.
For business acceptance, I see how it would be hard if it is impossible to use on a CEX. I think that Haveno/RetoSwap will eventually become the preferred and more convenient Fiat-->Monero method instead of CEXs for the avg user.
Overall though I would even prefer to use a stable than a bank or fiat p2p app to send money.
>They've failed horribly at meeting the regulatory and political challenges of being tradeable on central exchanges and as a result has met weak acceptance from crypto-friendly legal vendors making it harder to use as actual digital cash.
Despite this, everywhere it is accepted, it becomes the largest marketshare crypto payment method, excluding whales.
Pardon, the “autistic” point of view?
In this case, I mean a narrowed focus (in this case, on technical qualities) to the point it is maladaptive for the underlying stated goal ("digital cash").
A survey of cryptocurrencies showed monero has failed to achieve this goal of being a superior form of digital cash, relative to most other crypto currencies in similar 'weight class' of market cap and years available. This failure isn't technical, it's due to relative weaknesses in the realms of politics and soft social influence. Even the lower market cap LTC is more accepted as 'cash' by most legal vendors.
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re: below muh sources
getmonero.org, OPs referenced website, advertises cryptwerk as a good directory.
Go to https://cryptwerk.com/pay-with/xmr/ and compare it to https://cryptwerk.com/pay-with/ltc/.
There are ~twice as many for LTC for example, and that's being charitable with something with a lower market cap rather than BTC which is like 3+ times as many.
Do you have a source to back up this claim? There are thousands[1] of legal businesses that accept Monero.
[1] https://monerica.com, https://kycnot.me
I had not paid any attention to Monero amid the storm of cryptocurrencies and related scams, but thanks to your recommendation here, I will be checking it outmn
> of being tradeable on central exchanges
That's a good signal that the privacy guarantees are real, no? It's no secret that the main use-case for crypto is skirting the legal system; I'm not sure I understand this desire to make it anything bigger than that. For example, it's extremely hard to Be Your Own Bank because one mistake means you've just lost all your funds whether it's from a scam, malware, or losing your wallet seed phrase. Large amounts of people "being their own bank" by putting their life savings into crypto would be a disaster.
What are they supposed to do? How can they make governments happy without sacrificing privacy?
> How can they make governments happy
That's the wrong question. Nobody cares how the elites in the government feel. They exist to serve us. That is the only reason they have any power at all.
The right question is: how can we make it mathematically impossible for the government to oppress us in any way, regardless of how much they seethe and rage about it? Their happiness does not matter. In fact their anger is probably a good sign that the technology is working as intended. The angrier they get, the freer you are.
> The angrier they get, the freer you are.
The angrier they get, the higher is the chance that they make your technical solution illegal. What, you're using technology that might endanger children? All the concerned parents are suddenly your enemoies, democratically speaking. What? Your technology can be used to do money laundering? And you're using it still? You can now anonymously pay only darknet vendors and other shady bussinesses. Have your anonymity, but cut off from the rest of "good" society.
Given the original motivation to actually invent crypto, I am surprised it wasn't outlawed a long time ago. No goverment likes to be overthrown...
It's just the usual politico-technological arms race. Governments make laws, people make technology that works around the laws in such a way that the government can do nothing about it.
Governments must continuously increase their tyranny in order to maintain the exact same level of control they used to have before. There are two possible outcomes: a free and uncontrollable population emancipated by ubiquitous subversive technology, or a totalitarian government so oppressive that even your concerned parents feel the weight of its boot on their faces.
It's my sincere hope that we'll discover the true limits of the government's tyranny in the process. The harsh truth is people need to accept the existence of some amount of crime if they want to live with basic human dignity. It's just like how the banking industry accepts some degree of fraud as a business expense. They could stamp it out, but the security requirements would add so much friction to everyday transactions nobody would buy anything.
Regulatory capture would be the traditional way
[dead]
https://archive.is/Vhzng
Would someone please explain to me the pros and cons of this existing?
The US Federal Government specifically calls out Monero as one of the coins that it hates, which means that it must be quite effective at achieving its goals. So the pro is that you know it works. The cons are nothing specific to Monero, just general criticism of cryptocurrencies. Not being a deep crypto user myself, at least, I haven't heard anyone speak of any flaw specific to Monero that isn't shared by a significant portion of the remainder of all of these coins
Do you already know how a regular Cryptocurrency works and want to know about Monero specifically? Or do you not know anything about Crypto?
I am very aware of cryptocurrency, some of the intricacies, and possibly most of the use cases.
I asked an honest question about the pros and cons. Every technology has pros and cons, right?
Monero is the most anonymous of the mainstream cryptocurrencies. That's also the reason why it is increasingly outlawed (at least in the EU).
Which is its biggest weakness. Lightning over Bitcoin is decently anonymous, too. Given that is just a layer-2 technology and can be developed further and evolutes outside of Bitcoin protocol changes, makes it more flexible and has shorter innovation cycles.
And outlawing bitcoin has become basically impossible after the large amount of ETF inflows. Monero is nice technology, but I think the ship has already sailed for Bitcoin (and L2 solutions like lightning).
Isn´t the experiment in El Salvador proof that Bitcoin does not work as a currency? If you think it isn't, then do you have any measurable pass/fail test for it?
El Salvador is the worst example, as they have been bribed by the IMF to get rid of bitcoin. I would also wan't to learn how the situation in El Salvador would be any different if they adopted Monero instead - I think it would be the same outcode.
I am not a bitcoin-as-currency evangelist. I see it more as digital gold, and gold is not a currency today. It will have its role as a store of value and fallback unit of trade that keeps government currencies in check - another pillar in financial checks-and-balances.
> El Salvador is the worst example, as they have been bribed by the IMF to get rid of bitcoin.
So the 'true cryptocurrency' hasn't been tried yet, eh? ;)
That was not my argument at all. First I said, I don't see bitcoin as currency at all. Second, major nation states have always tryed to use their power to force other nations to use their currency (petrodollar, cough). This is nothing specific to crypto, but something also specific to traditional fiat currencies.
Any high-volatile asset such as bitcoin is IMHO not suited as currency. The good news is, with the bitcoin taproot upgrade and latest lightning standards, you can actually issue stablecoins over bitcoin's taproot asset protocol, and send it over the existing lightning network. My bet is on stablecoins-over-lightning as currency, and bitcoin as store of value. One blockchain to rule them all, other chains not need (for financial transactions at least).
> they have been bribed by the IMF to get rid of bitcoin
And the US government is being bribed by Silicon Valley to adopt crypto...
> I am not a bitcoin-as-currency evangelist
Then why all the talk about Lighning and the dismissal of Monero?
Because lightning uses Bitcoin's blockchain, which is the most secured (as in energy) and the most common (as in market cap) and probably the most accepted as in regulation. Plus, you can use bitcoins taproot asset protocol to issue stablecoins and send them over lightning. No other blockchain needed - which in my opinion, renders monero obsolete or at least a very niche product.
- Lightning is not fully anonymous. It can still be traced by the participating nodes.
- Ethereum's blockchain consumes less energy, is more decentralized, it's a lot more resistent to any form of attack and it can also host fixed-supply coins.
- Market cap is a meaningless metric, it's at best circular logic and at worst it's just a "one billion flies can't be wrong" argumentum ad populum.
- It baffles me how the Bitcoin enthusiasts talk so much about ideology and freedom, but get completely silent about the fact that most mining operations are done in countries with oppressive regimes, financed or subsidized by dictators with access to cheap fossil fuels.
> Lightning is not fully anonymous. It can still be traced by the participating nodes.
"Fully anonymous" is a strong term. Even cash is not fully anonymous. I would give monero that it is more anonymous than lightning because it is a core design principal. There is a spectrum to anonymity, however. As public enemy number one, such as Snowden or BinLaden, your anonymity requirements are different than a citizen buying illegal erectile dysfunction medication online.
If you consider the new features added in lightning over the past 24 months such as trampoline payments, blinded paths etc. - you will find that lightning is anonymous enough. Plus, you can increase anonymity in the client implementation at the expense of higher transaction fees (longer paths, more trampolines). Lightning's BOLT12 standard, which is currently finalized, will increase anonymity even further.
> Ethereum's blockchain consumes less energy, is more decentralized, it's a lot more resistent to any form of attack and it can also host fixed-supply coins.
Thats is factually untrue. First, ethereum famously had a human-coordinated rollback with a controlled restart organized between devs and node runners over Discord. Second, Ethereum is not decentralzied at all, because that is a core property of proof-of-stake: There is no way at any given time that you can be sure that the majority stake is not already in a single entities (or colluding group) possesion - and would thus have absolute control. It is therefore never guaranteed at any given time, that the network is decentralized.
> Market cap is a meaningless metric, it's at best circular logic and at worst it's just a "one billion flies can't be wrong" argumentum ad populum.
Price is ultimately what determines the value of anything. It is absolutely far from meaningless, as the market cap is also a big factor if a crypto asset can be outlawed or banned. Given how many investors in the west already own bitcoin, there would be a massive outcry if it is suddenly outlawed. I say you could outlaw Monero tomorrow and the mainstream media wouldn't even cover it.
> It baffles me how the Bitcoin enthusiasts talk so much about ideology and freedom, but get completely silent about the fact that most mining operations are done in countries with oppressive regimes, financed or subsidized by dictators with access to cheap fossil fuels.
You mean, such as the United States? Because the US (especially Texas) is one of the biggest miners of bitcoin currently.
> There is a spectrum to anonymity, however.
But you can only make any claims about the properties of a system when looking at the extremes. If Bitcoin's blockchain does not make strong anonymity guarantees as Montero, then Bitcoin can not be by definition the "blockchain to rule them all" that you so desperately want.
>ethereum famously had a human-coordinated rollback with a controlled restart organized between devs and node runners over Discord.
That was achieved through social coordination. No backdoor was exploited, no one had their coins stolen on the original chain. The system worked as intended.
Can you say the same about Bitcoin? Do you think that all these banks and exchanges trading ETFs have secured access to the bitcoins they claim to have? When one of these institutions goes bust, who is going to bail them out?
> Because the US (especially Texas) is one of the biggest miners of bitcoin currently.
Access to cheap fossil fuels? Check.
Facilitated by the government? Check!
Serving the interests of the elites and the aspirational 14% instead of the general populace? Check!
Maybe I did not state my orinignal question correctly.
What are the pros of Monero, and what are the cons?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pros_and_cons
Really up to you personally what is a pro and a con. For me this is a starting list. A lot of these are a result of the technical differences as well as I listed the technical differences.
Pros:
1% inflation
no fixed supply (makes it more of a currency than an asset)
privacy by default,
fungibility—every coin is the exact same, no coin history
prevents financial surveillance by corporations,
protects against government abuses,
useful tool for activists, journalists, minorities, useful for domestic abuse survivors,
useful for businesses sending money across borders,
protects against stalkers,
protects against advertisers profiling you,
reduces identity theft,
prevents databreaches of personal info,
pushes forward cryptography,
allows people to purchase drugs (you decide if this is good or bad),
prevents financial censorship,
allows anonymous donations,
low fees,
more decentralized than bitcoin due to RandomX CPU mining,
prevents crypto robbery,
allows you to buy your adult content without anyone knowing.
large developer community iirc 3rd after bitcoin, eth
less volatile than other cryptos
usually most used crypto for payments when accepted at merchants
Cons:
20 minutes to use funds again
hard to aquire
number go up slower
hard to convert back to fiat
hard to convert to fiat
used by "criminals"
lots of nazis like it
used for unethical purposes
All of the pros - minus the inflation - also exist for Bitcoin-over-Lightning. Non of the cons exist for Lightning. Especially no waiting time. In lightning you can spend your received bitcoin after a split-second - no waiting whatsoever.
pro: if the world devolves into an authoritarean hellscape, people will still have a form of undetectable currency until they find a way to get rid of this
con: this improves the chances if the world to devolving into an authoritarean hellscape
Monero needs to step up for quantum safety, not by replacing the existing encryption, but by adding a quantum safety encryption layer on top. Google's recent paper on quantum risks to cryptocurrencies had identified Monero as being at risk. This is not tomorrow's problem; it requires initiating action today, so these efforts can bear fruit by the time the quantum hardware is ready, perhaps by 2029.
All coins are aware of quantum safety requirements, yet quantum computers are still far enough in the future that it makes sense to wait, and first see what those post-quantum mitigations should look like.
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Privacy tools will be used in ethical and non-ethical ways. I get that it is annoying that crypto facilitates cybercrime, but that is the cost of privacy for everyone. Everyone gets those rights, because there is no other way. I will say that Monero is vastly used for ethical purposes[1].
I guess encryption shouldn't exist because cybercriminals use it to communicate privately. Privacy is a human right, and payments are essential to modern life.
Also, good luck on "crash and burn", Monero has been going steady, being the most freedom protecting crypto, for 12 years, celebrating its 12th birthday two days ago.
[1] My emotional reaction to your comment, https://xmrbazaar.com/, https://monerica.com/
> I get that it is annoying that crypto facilitates cybercrime, but that is the cost of privacy for everyone.
Who decided this, was 'everyone' consulted on what they'd rather have? Because it seems to me like cyber-criminals and a handful of idealists got what they wanted, and everyone else can suck it...
Who decided you can post this? Was 'everyone' consulted on what they'd rather you post? Because it seems like you and a handful of politicians posted ideas you wanted and everyone else can suck it...
I hope you see the absurdity of your 'everyone' claim.
> Privacy tools will be used in ethical and non-ethical ways.
Monero is not a privacy tool. It's a criminal money laundering tool.
So far, the *coin ecosystem has given us nothing _but_ negatives. It's kinda unique in that regard.
> I guess encryption shouldn't exist because cybercriminals use it to communicate privately. Privacy is a human right, and payments are essential to modern life.
Privacy is, money laundering isn't.
A tool should not be regulated based on what it can do. Regulating tools rather than the action or intention of a person or group is inherently backwards and wrong imo.
> A tool should not be regulated based on what it can do.
They should be regulated on their primary purpose in practice and the damage that they cause. And Monero is unwilling or unable to police itself, even as it does damage that dwarfs pretty much any other computing technology.
And not just nebulous "missed sale" damage, but very real damage that often results in dead people and ruined lives.
> Regulating tools rather than the action or intention of a person or group is inherently backwards and wrong imo.
We absolutely regulate tools that can inflict a disproportionate amount of damage. For example, I can't just buy high explosives even if I just want to do a cool video of me launching a manhole cover into the air. Or nuclear materials. Or surface-to-air missiles. Or....
How is monero not a privacy tool?
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Monero is the only real CRYPTO currency.
Please look into the benefits. Consider the upsides. I have considered the downsides. Try to understand the importance of Cash and private money and its role in a free society.
I get that you were swept up in that period when crypto got bashed left and right. I agree, there are a lot of problems with crypto and 99% of cryptos are scams, but Monero has a huge use case for internet money. Monero is creating whole new parallel economies[1] and protecting activists and everyday people that value privacy.
[1] https://xmrbazaar.com/, https://monerica.com/
Visiting those linked websites, they feel sketchy. It seems they are offering gift cards and different pirated digital goods in exchange for Monero. Red flags all around.
Monero is a community project. There are no official websites, only community contributions and consensus. Sure, some sketchy sites are inevitably going to be listed on Monerica, but it lists which have been verified as working by the site owner, and they show reports of scams. Here[1] you can see a list of projects that accept Monero donations.
xmrbazaar allows only legal listings, it is by no means a DNM, but it is a free market. There are multi-sig wallets with mediators to prevent scamming by either party, and there is a reputation system.
Yeah, some of the boosted listings are for financial services; I see plenty of sketchy listings on FB marketplace.
Examples of normal listings: See these eggs[2], real estate[3], italian meat[4].
[1] https://monerica.com/non-profits
[2] https://xmrbazaar.com/listing/yWKK/
[3] https://xmrbazaar.com/listing/kAEU/
[4] https://xmrbazaar.com/listing/cdpN/
I think it's philosophically closest to Satoshis dream
Monero is the only real "private" way to send money to another party. And there is demand for that, so yes still a thing.
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Right, because if we can trust centralized control, we can't trust anything. Bring on the social credit!
Like they banned music and movie pirating?