0 sats \ 7 replies \ @yo2xncv0 19 Jun \ parent \ on: What are your thoughts on Bitcoin losing the Darknet bitcoin
"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.
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
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I'm not claiming it is a scaling solution for Monero/Bitcoin though...that's the major difference.
I'm giving him an option if he values "instant" transactions more than self-custody (that doesn't make it scale Monero or Bitcoin. The only thing it's scaling is IOUs.)
I don't have any problem with Bitcoiners who are clear that ecash/liquid/custodial lightning/etc aren't scaling solutions for Bitcoin. Calle the creator of Cashu is a great example of someone that is very clear about this.
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I'm not claiming it is a scaling solution for Monero/Bitcoin though...that's the major difference. I'm giving him an option if he values "instant" transactions more than self-custody (that doesn't make it scale Monero or Bitcoin. The only thing it's scaling is IOUs.)
Yes, maybe I should have expressed myself more accurately. You didn't say it is a scaling solution, but I noticed the same convenient approach of suggesting "just use e-cash" for something, that the coin hasn't solved natively.
Now yes, at least you mentioned, that it comes at the trade-off of self-custody, so I will give you that :D
I don't have any problem with Bitcoiners who are clear that ecash/liquid/custodial lightning/etc aren't scaling solutions for Bitcoin. Calle the creator of Cashu is a great example of someone that is very clear about this.
That is also how I view it.
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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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"I don't think protection from money printing is solely a black market thing..."
Maybe not, but I can't think of any modern example where it isn't nor have any reason to believe that will change. And I definitely can't think of any white markets that don't place any restrictions on transactions that occur there.
Nothing forces governments to adopt Bitcoin. And if they do adopt Bitcoin nothing stops them from making their citizens use approved-custodian IOUs or place restrictions on your transactions where white markets are concerned.
"And funnily enough someone just made again this statement below regarding monero...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."
I assure you this is NOT a prevalent idea in the Monero community 😂
Go into any popular Monero community and merely mention custodial solutions and see what they say...
Also, were not necessarily opposed to layers. L2s don't necessarily mean lightning, L2s don't necessarily mean custodial, and ecash isn't a "layer"...there is no unilateral exit.
For every one of these guys there is ten thousand bitcoin users saying custodial lightning, Liquid, and ecash are "scaling solutions" for Bitcoin. They're not. They're just IOUs that retain none of the properties that make Bitcoin great. Can their properties potentially be useful? Yea, but it isn't "scaling Bitcoin" like many pretend
"Which is for good reasons..."
Ok, none of what you said changes the fact that Monero IS more nimble at adapting than Bitcoin...
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Maybe not, but I can't think of any modern example where it isn't nor have any reason to believe that will change. And I definitely can't think of any white markets that don't place any restrictions on transactions that occur there.
So let's look at the most famous example of El Salvador. People there use bitcoin for different things. Yes, there is the official Chivo wallet by the government, which requires KYC but people are free to use any wallet they prefer (including self custodial / non kyc) and pay with lightning.
What kind of market is that in your interpretation, white or black? And which kind of restrictions is the government placing on its citizens regarding bitcoin transactions?
I assure you this is NOT a prevalent idea in the Monero community 😂
I am tempted to start a poll in a Monero community and find out 😂 Does the community have something similar to stacker news? And to be clear, my intention is not to find reasons to attack the coin, I think it is doing more respectable things than most shitcoins. I am curious to see where it can go from where it is now and if it has any potential to expand in the long term.
Ok, none of what you said changes the fact that Monero IS more nimble at adapting than Bitcoin...
It is more nimble at making changes on the base layer by being more open to hard forks. Which I consider a bad idea for reasons mentioned. Is it more nimble as a whole, including higher layers, like lightning? I don't know, that is hard to quantify.
How about you, are you comfortable in storing a large percentage of your wealth in monero? Are you ever worried about any of the updates going wrong?
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Citizens making transactions on white markets in El Salvador still fall under a government that permisses their transactions whatever those restrictions/regulations, few or many, may be. A quick search already shows they have sales taxes on transactions "you only have permission to transact with others if you pay us money"
Yea do that I would be interested in the answers as well. Largest community is probably the subreddit or the matrix group, maybe telegram or simplex too:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/
I would guess a small percentage are okay with custodial options like ecash (I'm okay with it if not advertised as a solution for scaling - I'm a minority in this I believe)
I would also guess that an even smaller percentage (possibly none) consider "custodial solutions" as a "form of scaling". Like I said I am NOT in this camp - I don't think custodians scale anything aside from IOUs. It is just dodging the central point of Bitcoin. It doesn't carry the core properties of self-custody and/or permissionless transactions, so it isn't Bitcoin, and there is no unilateral exit back to the original asset.
The only thing that falls under a category of scaling available right now that I can think of is sovereign Lightning (running your own node). Maybe Drivechains or ZKrollups if that ever happens in the future? idk
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