0 sats \ 32 replies \ @OT 16 Jun \ parent \ on: What are your thoughts on Bitcoin losing the Darknet bitcoin
Gold holds up pretty well against the UsD too. But the fact that bitcoin exists and is continuing to grow and being accepted means that whatever your favorite currency is, it is trending towards zero.
Imagine using monero to buy a coffee and waiting 2 minutes for it to confirm. It’s really like 20 mins (10 blocks) incase of a block reorg. It’s not going to happen until they have L2’s on XMR. But there are less devs, less network effects and a much smaller community so it’s going to take time. And in that time, bitcoin will likely have better privacy tools that will further diminish moneros market.
Monero has 0-conf tx for point of sale and regular users. No need to wait, but one does need to wait to spend. Way better than the route failure channel nightmare of LN. I know, i've witnessed trying to use the most self-custodial version of it , and it failing live, in a way monero never has.
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The waiting part is irrelevant for digital purchases and businesses where the customer doesn't immediately leave (restaurants, movies, entertainment, etc).
As for places where the customer pays and immediately leaves, businesses already factor in fraud into the current system (chargebacks, counterfiet, etc), so that's nothing new. It just has to be better. They can pay with 0-conf which is immediate. Double Spend Proofs make this even more difficult to commit fraud (Store would know within a couple seconds if customer tried/did double spend. Awkward. They would also have to do the double spend and succeed or fail within the first few seconds or it wouldn't work. Original transaction would far too propagated if they waited) Either way, double-spends on Bitcoin and Monero is extremely low especially when compared to traditional currency.
You can also stratify your risks and wait for a certain number of confirmations depending how large the purchase is.
It always seems like network effects matter so much to Bitcoiners until another currency has it then it doesn't matter (Monero is the king of privacy coins and there isn't even a close second) Funny how that works.
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Another option, you could use Monero-based ecash for places where you absolutely needed those "instant" transactions. Where finality was more important than self-custody
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Private, anonymous, cheap, fungible, targeted censorship-resistant (Bitcoin isnt).
Fair distribution is not unique to Bitcoin. Monero had no pre-mine, dev fund, or any of that.
I get you don't like Monero, but at least be accurate.
You can't learn to use Bitcoin privately because it can never be private. Transparent chains are mutually exclusive with privacy. Coinjoins don't make your transactions private.
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Monero is definitely good from a privacy perspective, but there are still the issues that make it unrealistic for me that I can reach the adoption level of bitcoin.
First the supply is not auditable, risk of an inflation hack, has already happened with zcash.
Also I am still not convinced that it can scale. I was listening recently to an interview with someone that is highly regarded in the monero community about potential scaling solution and his two suggestions were:
- Scaling through elastic block size: The block size discussion has been held enough time and it simply leads to centralization. Certainly, even Andreas Antonopoulos admitted recently, that you could always increase it a little as hardware improves, but looking at how much fatter transactions are in monero compared to bitcoin, I see the monero blockchain already exceeding the 8TB SSD size, if it had the current scale of bitcoin adoption. 8 TB is currently more or less the maximum you can get for consumer level SSDs.
- It can always scale through other coins: This is just fucking ridiculous, I really don't see how someone in all seriousness can use such an argument. This is like me saying that bitcoin can scale through dogecoin and litecoin.
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As for unknown inflation risk I'll give you that. Monero is technically more at risk (thats the trade off - privacy VS auditability). But Pedersen Commitments and Range Proofs are pretty well established at this point. They're based on cryptography from the 80s so I'm not very worried. Zcash was messing with some untested neo moon math at the time so that is not surprising.
There are other critical areas where Bitcoin uses cryptography for security, yet these concerns never seem to come up there. Which seems a bit convenient to me.
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But Pedersen Commitments and Range Proofs are pretty well established at this point. They're based on cryptography from the 80s so I'm not very worried.
I haven't heard of that before, have to look more into it. Thanks for sharing
There are other critical areas where Bitcoin uses cryptography for security, yet these concerns never seem to come up there. Which seems a bit convenient to me.
Can you give some examples?
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public-private key pairs and mining
These are in no way comparable in the levels of complexity to the stuff monero does. Public-private key cryptography is one of the simplest things you can do in cryptography. It is what the whole internet is build on.
Also there is the point of how many years can pass until an inflation bug would get noticed.
What meaningful level of adoption do you think Bitcoin will reach? If it is even adopted world wide, yet 99% of users are transacting with custodians and under permissioned white markets...those transactions are pretty meaningless for it's core value prop. Might as well use fiat in those cases because there is no difference. I don't think most people want to transact with Bitcoin or Monero in any true sense:
https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Permissionless-Principle
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Gigablockers are just as ridiculous as microblockers. Your blocks can be 1KB small, but if no one can afford to make a transaction on your chain no one is going to run a node for it. Nodes will also centralize with adoption over time if they are too small.
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I don't know if you're expecting me to defend some other persons argument?...Well Bitcoiners are literally pushing Ecash as a method to scale Bitcoin, so your camp is not very different.
I think we can afford to scale the blocksize conservatively...just a little 👇
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Another thing, that is not discussed often enough, when Monero is sold as an idiot proof privacy solution is the risk of post quantum deanonymization. Even monero researchers agree, that this is inevitable, it might be 5 years from now, it might be 40 years. And while it's generally accepted, that coins can switch their encryption algorithms when quantum computers become are real thing, nobody can remove what has already been written to the ledger.
So depending on your threat model, it might be necessary even with monero to act like transactions are traceable, the same way you would do with bitcoin. One could argue, that lightning can provide even more protection here, as the transactions are dispersed across different nodes.
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Monero amount privacy is actually quantum proof. It uses Pedersen Commitments which are 'perfectly hiding' in a technical sense meaning even quantum computers can't break it:
'"Perfectly" binding or hiding means that even with infinite computing power it would be impossible to break'
But no, sender and receiver privacy are not quantum proof atm. FCMP++ and Seraphis are being worked on and will change this though and allow L2s as well.
I agree that ephemerality is a better property to have for privacy than permanent blockchains, but unless you're running your on LN node and only using unannounced channels exclusively (how many users realistically do this?), Lightning leaks too much data. Receiver privacy is bad and amount privacy is not guaranteed from larger routing nodes. It's also trivial for large nodes to save all transaction data going thru them and break them later.
What is worse is that most Lightning users are on custodians or using LSPs which provide no privacy.
The incentives naturally lead to centralizing transactions through these large nodes (cheaper fees and less chance for transactions to fail)
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FCMP++ and Seraphis are being worked on and will change this though and allow L2s as well.
OK, that sounds like some interesting development, curious to see how it plays out.
Lightning leaks too much data. Receiver privacy is bad and amount privacy is not guaranteed from larger routing nodes. It's also trivial for large nodes to save all transaction data going thru them and break them later. What is worse is that most Lightning users are on custodians or using LSPs which provide no privacy.
Receiver privacy is already getting much better with BOLT12, but I will agree with you here yes, lightning still has work to do here regarding the usability of self custodial solutions. You are also right, if all your transactions go through a few large nodes, the current lightning encryption will also not protect you from post quantum deanonymization.
What meaningful level of adoption do you think Bitcoin will reach? If it is even adopted world wide, yet 99% of users are transacting with custodians and under permissioned white markets...those transactions are pretty meaningless for it's core value prop. Might as well use fiat in those cases because there is no difference. I don't think most people want to transact with Bitcoin or Monero in any true sense
There are different reasons why someone would want to use Bitcoin. Circumventing government restrictions and surveillance can be one of them, preventing governments from stealing from you through money printing is another one. So I don't see why not everyone on this planet can gain from using it. And yes, on-chain bitcoin together with lightning are not enough for this, but there are still enough people within bitcoin who are trying to find solutions without compromising self custody.
but if no one can afford to make a transaction on your chain no one is going to run a node for it.
That's why we have additional layers. Big value movements happen on the first layer, smaller on the higher layers -> total adoption still going up. Also, I don't think the bitcoin community is fundamentally against an increase of blocksize (we had indirectly some increase even with segwit). The trade-offs are just taken much more carefully into account.
I don't know if you're expecting me to defend some other persons argument?...Well Bitcoiners are literally pushing Ecash as a method to scale Bitcoin, so your camp is not very different.
The difference is people in the Bitcoin community are also receiving a lot of criticism for making such statements, while the monero community seems quite complacent with these solutions.
What do you believe about Monero? Can it handle the current throughput of bitcoin and lightning without running into issues? Just through bigger blocks? Or which role do you think Monero will play? Will it just remain a niche currency for Dark markets?
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"There are different reasons why someone would want to use Bitcoin. Circumventing government restrictions...preventing governments from stealing from you through money printing..."
AKA black markets. You're agreeing with me. That's the only value prop. If you're going to follow the rules (white market transactions require permission - includes having your money taxed and inflated by default) there is no point in using Bitcoin. It's worse to use than fiat in that case. Regulators can impose any arbitrary restrictions they want on white market Bitcoin transactions up to, and including, banning them.
"...That's why we have additional layers"
Which almost everyone uses custodially or with permission (custodial lightning and LSPs - look no further than zaps on StackerNews)
"The difference is people in the Bitcoin community are also receiving a lot of criticism for making such statements, while the monero community seems quite complacent with these solutions."
What? Show me custodial solutions being pushed by the Monero community. There isn't any.
"What do you believe about Monero?...which role do you think Monero will play?...Will it just remain a niche currency for Dark markets?"
Black markets (AKA free markets) are the only permissionless markets. Liberty has always been niche. Most people don't care and go along with surveillance and control for convenience.
I think Bitcoin could be the currency used between nations in the future, but they won't allow the same privilege for their denizens unless it comes with high restrictions (KYC, OFAC, approved-custodians, etc ). If you don't want to go along with that you'll have to cross into black markets. And you'll need reliable anonymous and private ways of transacting for that.
"Can it handle the current throughput of bitcoin and lightning without running into issues? Just through bigger blocks?"
Over time, yes (consumer tech improvements, protocol scalability upgrades, etc). Example is bulletproofs upgrade that reduced transaction size by ~80%. Monero is even more nimble in adapting than Bitcoin to these things since the community is more open to upgrades.
If it's sudden, massive, and sustained adoption, no, not without becoming centralized. But all crypto has that problem including Bitcoin/Lightning.
If Bitcoin, in it's much greater popularity and userbase, has time to figure it out, then so does Monero.
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What? Show me custodial solutions being pushed by the Monero community. There isn't any.
Also I am just seeing, didn't you push it here yourself?
#577071
Another option, you could use Monero-based ecash for places where you absolutely needed those "instant" transactions. Where finality was more important than self-custody
AKA black markets. You're agreeing with me. That's the only value prop. If you're going to follow the rules (white market transactions require permission - includes having your money taxed and inflated by default) there is no point in using Bitcoin.
I don't think protection from money printing is solely a black market thing. The reason money printing works today is because most people don't understand it is happening. If everyone was transacting with bitcoin, money printing could no longer be done in secret, it would have to be explicitly forced into the code and this way making everyone aware of it. So there is a huge benefit here in using bitcoin also in white market transaction through the immutability and clear rules guaranteed by the bitcoin blockchain.
What? Show me custodial solutions being pushed by the Monero community. There isn't any.
Not custodial solutions. Our conversation here was regarding people making ridiculous scaling statements, e.g. scaling through shitcoins on monero or scaling through ecash in bitcoin. And funnily enough someone just made again this statement below regarding monero: #578991. So it confirms my assumption, that is idea is quite prevalent in the monero community. While suggesting eCash as a scaling solution in Bitcoin comes with a lot of criticism.
Monero is even more nimble in adapting than Bitcoin to these things since the community is more open to upgrades.
Which is for good reasons. When people rely on a coin to store their wealth, you don't want to follow a mindset of "move fast and break things" and risk a hack that will make people's wealth evaporate overnight. Now I know many monero folks believe that monero is only for transacting, not for storing wealth, but that idea is in itself problematic. You need to be confident that you can store your wealth at least for a certain amount of time in that currency if you want to be able transact with it.
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So you also really believe, that monero's "scaling solution" is to just use other shitcoins. I was right in assuming, that it is quite a prevalent belief in the monero community.
It started from a sh$tcoin and I guess whoever started it had a pretty high time preference as the block reward was done in less than 10 years. Then they hardforked a tail emission and everyone went along with it. When will it change again?
Bitcoin bought without KYC, coin joined and open a LN channel from it is good enough privacy for the vast majority of ,people. I do wish more would do this, but takes time to learn.
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Who cares what it started from, it forked off and did it's own thing.
Yea sorry, you can't control who all uses a piece of software or not. That's FOSS. Most users decided to use the tail emission fork just like most users decided to leave the original shitcoin it was created from.
Dude most users are never going to manage inbound/outbound liquidity, deal with channel closures, synchronous payment, etc. That's ridiculous to expect that. Especially for lackluster privacy you would gain doing that. Ecash has more of a shot than that happening, but I'm sure you know the major trade offs with that.
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Bitcoin with better privacy will never happen. Or have you forgotten the recent past with Samourai and Coinjoin? Bitcoin is mainstream and still not private. That will not change since Satoshi disappeared after the CIA visit.
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