144 sats \ 12 replies \ @ek 30 Jul \ on: New website for tracking robosats stats bitcoin
Mhh, I wouldn't consider Robosats a market where you buy stuff, it's a bitcoin p2p exchange
Yeah, we collided with @supertestnet exactly on this definition.
To me robosats is p2p exchange with parts that may or may not be illegal/illicit, but it's not a market. Exchange imo isn't market. And I don't understand where is this focus on including robosats into DNM definition coming from?
If you ride your car on train tracks, it doesn't become train. Nothing wrong with that, it can still be a solid car...
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Think of a bazaar, with vendors hawking goods and buyers bustling about. A classic marketplace. One of the stalls is bound to be a money changer. He fits right in with the rest: just like everyone else, he has a product to sell, and the market demands it, so he sets up a booth and wiles his wares. An exchanger is absolutely a seller/vendor/merchant, and a website that hosts them is therefore a digital market. That is why I insist they count.
Also, the monero people have concocted this false narrative that bitcoin is unfit for and unused on these darknet websites where privacy is a priority and the operators must evade authorities. Robosats is a shining example to the contrary. It is every bit as privacy/resiliency focused as other DNMs, it actually provides a better experience than they do, and from what I can tell, it fits right in with their favorites in terms of adoption and engagement. So it bursts their narrative: they claim that the most popular DNMs avoid bitcoin in favor of monero but here's an upstart that relies on it exclusively and is maybe even growing faster and innovating more than theirs are.
If you ride your car on train tracks, it doesn't become train.
True, but if you optimize it for the tracks, strip away the car-ness and replace those parts with train parts, before long you've got a train. And robosats didn't even have to do that -- it is a market that was born on the dark web and is not only growing up there but thriving. I don't think it matters that drugs are not commonly sold there. It's a niche market, a market for money, but a market nonetheless, and it's firmly on the darknet -- accessible nowhere else. Nothing could count more as a darknet market.
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As someone not from US, the term "money exchange" is a very specific thing that's very common, it has a very specific purpose and it's not generally a part of a market.
My guess is that @ek is also thinking about the sign "Geld wechseln" on top of a little window in a train station...
And so I think our disagreement may be stemming from something like this.
I agree with you that if you squint your eyes, then we can call robosats DNM, but I generally try to call things by their primary usecase/purpose or objective...
- Like Emacs would fit definition of an Operating System, but I think most would agree that it's primary purpose is text editor.
- Car on train tracks would fit the definition of a train unless you get really anal, but I think most people would see it and still call it a car.
I saw the thread with Monero people, but I don't think your arguments there were convincing to change anyones mind. Exactly for the reason that when you focus on adjusting someone's terminology (that may be locale specific...), they are less likely to accept your practical point. Better strategy is to find the common language first with open mind and build the argument from there...
You're not bursting any narrative. You're just being pedantic and stretching the common understanding of a darknet market. Robosats is a fiat crypto exchange over tor.
Robosats is also very very low daily volume even among other low volume DEXs, so I don't see how it helps your point, that's why you had to make a cumulative chart to make it seem larger than it is.
All major darknet markets accept and recommend Monero. Some major ones, like Archetype, are even exclusively Monero-only. You dont have to take my word for it you can easily go see for yourself. A few even accept LTC. But you won't find a single one that accepts lightning. It's not a thing.
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[You're] stretching the common understanding of a darknet market
If the common understanding of DNM is "a place to buy drugs" then the common understanding should be stretched. Just as too many people associate tor with crime, too many people associate DNMs with crime. And just as mainstream companies use tor so their users can browse privately (see the bbc's tor domain and ProPublica), so also, mainstream companies run DNMs so their users can shop privately -- even facebook runs a DNM.
So to those who say "Noooo reeeee it's only a DNM if there's crime there!" I say, no, you're wrong. As the name implies (not to mention pretty much every published definition), what makes it a DNM is if it's a market accessed via the darknet. Robosats obviously qualifies.
So I recommend not spreading the "crime only" definition. It is harmful to privacy because it scares away legitimate users. There's nothing wrong with DNMs. It's just a marketplace that respects your privacy. It's a good thing.
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It's not my problem what other people associate it with. I could care less. It's as stupid as associating cash with "a way to buy drugs"
That's just the common understanding of DNMs. I'm not the one who made it that way. Even if we take up your broader definition of DNMs, which I'm not necessarily opposed to because it makes sense, lightning STILL remains largely unused there. Again, don't see how it helps your case but go for it.
The reason why "criminals" using it is important is if it protects those users, the ones working under extremely adversarial markets, then it shows it will protect any average user in practice. Not just in theory, which is all lightning has been so far. It hasn't been stress-tested in those conditions yet. Those markets have completely rejected it. You can speculate why that is, but that is just a fact. Maybe it will change with BOLT12 we'll see.
Yea, BBC and ProPublica have sites on the darknet. How does that make them a DNM? Your point?
"So I recommend not spreading the "crime only" definition. It is harmful to privacy because it scares away legitimate users. There's nothing wrong with DNMs"
And theres nothing wrong with making voluntary transactions either. You can use Monero for whatever you want just like cash. Drugs or boring groceries. That's what makes it digital cash.
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Which exchange sells monero?
Is it all peer to peer?
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Bisq, Haveno, BasicSwapDEX, UnstoppableSwap (all used or can be used through tor)
LocalMonero/AgoraDesk (really popular p2p exchange that had a tor site and recently closed down presumably because the uncertain legal climate around Samourai crackdown)
Monero is delisted from almost every major centralized exchange. The most recent one was Binance earlier this year (largest exchange on the planet by far). Theres only a handful left like Kraken and only in the USA if i remember right.
No I'm sure it's not all p2p, but willing to bet it's disproportionately p2p vs Bitcoin and other crypto because of the above
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I or we need more places to buy drugs, dark net market or otherwise
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Mhh, I wouldn't consider Robosats a market where you buy stuff, it's a bitcoin p2p exchange
An exchange is a market where you buy stuff, namely, other money.
Also, people sell gift cards and packets of cash on robosats all the time, and those are some of the things you traditionally find on other darknet markets.
Also #2, plenty of people on monero DNMs create offers where they basically say "send me X xmr and I will send you Y btc or Z ltc or Q tron" where X, Y, Z, and Q are based on the current exchange rates. So darknet markets are for exchanging currencies too, just like robosats.
Also #3, nothing stops you from selling non-moneys on robosats. You can create your own trading pairs, so if you want to sell bottles of ketchup, just make an offer that you'll give someone 30 bottles of ketchup for .0004 btc or whatever.
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