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24 sats \ 10 replies \ @john_doe 6 Feb \ on: Monero territory monero
I remember a discussion on Stacker News with @supertestnet where he argued that privacy on Monero is not at all obvious, and that on Lightning you can get equivalent privacy. One of his examples against Monero and its supposed privacy was this news:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/monero-transactions-japanese-authorities-arrest-18-scammers
So my question:
Given we have privacy tools on Bitcoin and particularly on the Lightning network, and given the discussion mentioned above, what are your use-cases for Monero or your reasons to favor Monero?
To be honest I am not at all qualified to discuss about Monero or privacy on Lightning, as I don't know enough about it, so I will stay neutral.
Regarding the article. I'm not an expert (nor a criminal). I would just say, the criminals probably could have mitigated some of this. Also I'd probably say that the authorities would have tracked them down 10000x faster if they'd been using bitcoins instead.
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Fair enough. The government agency didn't want to disclose how they tracked them anyway if I remember correctly. For bitcoins though, I think it is still to be proven, I don't think there is any known case with Wasabi or Samurai where the police could track individuals.
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Several people have been traced through a Wasabi mix, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alcLdBsoDDg
That's a great question!
I would say a few things.
Number one, sender privacy with monero does have issues since you're hiding within only 16 people and someone with enough data can begin to eliminate some of these decoys to find you. This is being solved with an update to monero that increases the number of decoys from 15 to EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION MONERO HAS EVER DONE. It's a huge deal.
Number two, yes lightning has pretty good privacy quarantees possibilites if you use it right. Unfortunately not enough of these things (bolt 12 invoices, proxy node in invoice creation for receivers for bolt 11, trampoline, blinded routes, MPP) are defaults making it harder for the user to KNOW they're getting the privacy they want unless they dig in and research and implement and use it in the right way. Not to mention SO MANY just resort to using a custodian for lightning due to it's absolute SHIT UX.
Number three, the use case for monero is several fold. It's relatively simple to use since most of the privacy is base layer privacy and privacy by default which is HUGE. Opt in privacy IS NOT privacy IMO. Not to mention it's accepted by a lot of vendors on the web since the monero sent to the receiver has excellent fungibilty. Something that onchain bitcoin just simply DOES NOT HAVE. All bitcoins DO NOT resemble all other bitcoins... which is really a shame. And not everyone accepts lightning. So for sure, if given the option by a vendor to pay in onchain bitcoin or monero, opt for bitcoin (or use a proxy like boltz.exchange/swap if you're against using monero for some reason). OH! and monero txs are cheap. That's something else going for it. Whereas large lightning txs start to cost you. And purchasing inbound liquidity will cost you. And FCs will cost you. Lightning costs tend to add up when you do it in a self-custodial way.
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Regarding the absolute "SHIT UX" I don't really agree, it is still not 100% good for everything, but it works very well for all use cases I had where I buy something. I use Phoenix to buy things (drinks recently) so this may explain my divergence of opinion with you. If you use Blixt, I agree the UX is not great but this is for people who want to dive deeper into LN in my opinion. Try Phoenix only for a (far) better UX.
About "Something that onchain bitcoin just simply DOES NOT HAVE. All bitcoins DO NOT resemble all other bitcoins", however I would totally disagree. Do you refer to exchanges which would for example refuse bitcoins coming from terrorists?
If this is the case, this is not a fungibility issue but an issue with the exchange. If you have bitcoins supposedly from terrorists I am ok to buy some from you to show you it is fungible.
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If you have bitcoins supposedly from terrorists I am ok to buy some from you to show you it is fungible.
That's not the point though. The point regarding fungibility is NOT whether you CAN get someone to accept it. It is regarding the traceability of bitcoins.
That yes, I CAN see it's history.
I don't use exchanges either. And I mine bitcoins... So it's not an issue for me. The point I'm making is that monero is different in character. Even IF you had gotten it from an exchange, or terrorist, none of that would be clear to someone observing the chain.
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If on-chain, you feel traceability is an issue for your utxos, then use coinjoins.
From my perspective at the protocol level it is fungible. A value in can later be converted as a value out. When people play with Bitcoin to search for "rare" coins, there are just adding new rules which are not on Bitcoin but exist in their world.
Similarly even if banknotes have identifiers and hence can be traced this doesn't undermine it's fungibility, since in the real world nobody care in most cases.
Fungibility issues may be raised among Monero people, but IMHO it is a weak argument. As a criticism UX of Lightning is more convincing (still LN UX gradually improves over time).
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Paying for fungibility via coinjoining which Samourai Wallet devs have literally been indicted for by the US DoJ seems silly when monero has this by default...
And in a high miner fee environment it's even worse.
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Try Phoenix only for a (far) better UX.
Yes, Phoenix has decent UX.
Phoenix is a bit of an outlier...
And it has privacy tradeoffs...
So not really a great rebuttal.
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ACINQ, the company behind Phoenix, knows almost everything you do with that wallet. It's privacy cannot be compared to monero.