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@yo2xncv0
stacking since: #227859
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @yo2xncv0 16 Mar \ parent \ on: Rachel Maddow missing the forrest for the trees bitcoin
None of this is relevant to Bitcoins value proposition.
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Makes perfect sense. Why would a nation state like NK care about privacy over liquidity? They can do what they want with impunity. Are they scared they are going to arrest themselves?
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Again, price charts and liquidity have nothing to do with permissionless transactions.
"The greatest demand for Bitcoin TODAY and for most people is protection against government debt and inflation, the big picture problem"
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Vast majority of people are holding their Bitcoin on centralized exchanges so aren't protected against this. The CEX or government can confiscate and fractionally reserve their Bitcoin. Too many examples to even list of rugs happening intentionally and unintentionally.
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If government says "You owe us periodic taxes/unrealized gains" that will offset Bitcoins value preservation or they executive order 6102 2.0 your Bitcoin what are your choices? The only way to escape inflation or confiscation is by not complying AKA black markets. Bitcoins ability to do what you are saying is completely dependent on non-compliance AKA black market activity. There is no way around it.
"It is not about 'payments' for most... because for that you could just use paypal or venmo and the vast majority don't use 'black markets'."
- 100% agree for white markets and those that have access to fiat payment apps.
"If any cryptocurrency is forever limited to 'dark markets' (mostly buying drugs) and not 'white markets' or 'big monetary markets' then it will fail."
- On the contrary, black markets are the only place you can enforce Bitcoins value propositions. It's not about being able to "buy drugs". It means being able to do something that is not allowed/a central authority restricts). Without it Bitcoin is worthless for the reasons I described above. It's not a prescription or value judgement it's just a description of facts about the white market.
"but for people trying to save there is an obvious, clear winner so far. 9 times out of 10 people choose the better store-of-value first then they'll figure out way to spend as it benefits their network (which I believe is Lightning eventually)."
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*Only for those willing to not comply (black markets). Governments can inflict any arbitrary tax, burden, or restriction for Bitcoin on the white market that they want. They can tip the tables to make it uncompetitive with fiat for those on the white market.
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Historically, yes, there is no denying Bitcoin has performed relatively better, but the market is also never settled. It's constantly reevaluating. Value is subjective. The vast majority of value and acitvity of Bitcoin is on white markets which is irrelevant for Bitcoin value proposition.
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If your ideas are influenced by austrian economics, you should know Mises, Menger, and Rothbard all believed Medium of Exchange was primary for money and Store of Value is only derived from that. https://image.nostr.build/3d7a8b836098ef9b09f31bf7510fe0ca0fa8859b5f8b263dceeb42dfb2a497c8.jpg https://image.nostr.build/ccf181ed168942446d16535fa01942fcb9f471b7b689c9d9f8d12839df0b629c.jpg https://image.nostr.build/18459d728b1bbad4099cbb2f4980c06c22d12274dd46812fa098daf0fa16cca0.jpg https://image.nostr.build/0f0150dfab9b18705528d59b928e44fada6843c483f95cb5f4717ffb91140f85.jpg https://mises.org/mises-wire/cryptocurrency-money-store-value-or-medium-exchange
Again maybe the 'total' list will grow in the future... but Lightning is accepted too at those places. Honestly anyone using Lightning at those places is 'expert' enough to have privacy with it and so they will.
- Yes, and every place that has Monero and Lightning payments competing, Monero is almost always far more used. https://image.nostr.build/0fdb01da9f4e18f99cc7918ffc2c474d75823aea23e67ffe20ffdb5aed68c3e4.png https://image.nostr.build/b11eb621cd38311686bfce8e2448d981c5b23972abb7b6977a81b2b633ced9fa.png https://image.nostr.build/a95c3424a9bd4492a908c892279f4554380ea1e2e3d392087591c681ec58131e.jpg https://image.nostr.build/9e6b52277158beaea43e0bd10c31a8fbd1ca1c10a76e987b15c0dfbaf64cf276.png
An upgrade - it is a hard fork. Maybe the upgrade/fork will bring benefits, if so great. But how do merchants and vendors whose focus is on their business keep up with the forks and changes?
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Yes, it's a software upgrade/hardfork. The same way vendors or anyone else upgrades their software with any other program or PoS they use. It is becoming much more infrequent over time than even those things so not sure why there would be an issue. That's already a thing businesses do.
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Also, the upgrade includes something called CARROT (Cryptonote Address on Rerandomizable-RingCT-Output Transactions) which is compatible with older address schemes so they don't have to upgrade right away (although they won't benefit from any of the improvements if they dont obviously)
Yes fees are cheaper... when there is little on-chain usage. Any blockchain with widespread usage and popularity will have higher fees. Low fees on L1 low usage.
- This is false. The reason it will always be cheaper to transact on Monero, even if it had the transaction count of Bitcoin, is because blocksize adjusts to demand. Contrast this to Bitcoins blocksize that is fixed and users are bidding for limited blockspace so an increase in usage = growing fees that will never fall. We already had a real world example of dynamic blocksize kicking in action last year.
Bitcoin wasn't broken...all you do (in my opinion) is increase the required storage space for spam on home nodes. We don't want spam to be cheap we want it to be expensive
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You're right I shouldve phrased it differently that's why I put "broken" in quotes. Maybe "shown the disadvantages of fixed blocksize" would have been a better way to decribe it because there are also advantages to it.
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There is a fee penalty to stop miners from increasing the blocksize too fast. There has to be a long sustained use (which would cost spammers a lot of money) for it to actually increase without penalty. It also decreases the blocksize when usage falls again.
Lightning network fees are low, really low
- Yes, but the LN network fees aren't the only costs when you use Phoenix/ACINQ. They charge extra to open channels and transact. They take their own cut. Vlad from Bitcoin TakeOver Podcast recently showed how he lost $40 over lightning when he could have sent the same payment on-chain for $1. So depends on network congestion and how large of a payment you want to send if it is worth it. With Bitcoin larger payments might be better to send on-chain. But larger payments are always better to send on Monero vs Phoenix/ACINQ/LN. https://xcancel.com/TheVladCostea/status/1869359856010019058
What I would ask then is... how and why should I expect 'privacy' to order tacos and a beer at a restaurant? Or tip some rando on Stacker News? There are always going to be tradeoffs in the real-world and 99% of the time nobody cares.
- You can decide that for yourself. All I'm saying is for those that want strong default privacy it isn't an option to use Phoenix/ACINQ as a substitute. People also use cash to pay for those things which is more private than Phoenix/ACINQ. And if your appeal is to popularity how do you think the vast majority are going to use Lightning? Probably not permissionlessly/privately (if at all). Why wouldn't they simply use fiat if it is more popular to make those payments and no one cares?
As far as censorship goes...yes Phoenix was 'shut down' but it is still available. With the intro of Bolt 12 (not to move the goalposts) according to Acinq they cannot see the receiving node when you send. Or the sending node when you receive... if the transacting node is also Bolt 12.
- That's the problem isnt it? Bolt12 is neither default, nor widely supported, and I'm guessing it will always be a minority that use it because of that (look at coinjoins as an example). But yes, if the receiver's wallet supports it, and they enable it, blinded paths is definitely a huge privacy improvement.
Bitcoin in my opinion is a "digital capital" network... not a "cash" network....it was always about more than payments.
- This is just false. Maybe that is what Bitcoin has turned into, but even ignoring the literal title of the white paper, simply look at the cypherpunks and history that paved the way and led to Bitcoin. Digital cash payments were always the goal. Cash, privacy, and untraceability was always emphasized in their content and titles:
"Digital Cash & Privacy" 1993 -Hal Finney
"The Case for Privacy" 2005 -David D. Friedman
"Credit With Privity" 1996 -Nick Szabo
"Confidential Auditing" 1998 -Nick Szabo
"Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments" 1982 -David Chaum
"Untraceable Electronic Mail, Return Addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms" 1988 -David Chaum
"The Dining Cryptographers Problem: Unconditional Sender and Recipient Untraceability" 1988 -David Chaum
"Proofs that Yield Nothing But Their Validity or All Languages in NP Have Zero-Knowledge Proof Systems" 1991 -Oded Goldreich, Silvio Micali, and Avi Wigderson
"Online Cash Checks" 1989 -David Chaum
"On Digital Cash-Like Payment Systems" 2005 -Daniel A. Nagy
"Secrecy, Authentication, and Public Key Systems" 1979 -Ralph C. Merkle
"Computer Systems Established, Maintained, and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups" 1982 -David Chaum
"b-money" 1998 -Wei Dai
"The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto" 1988 -Timothy C. May
"The Cyphernomicon" 1994 -Timothy C. May
"Contracts in Cyberspace" 2000 -David D. Friedman
"Contracts with Bearer" 1999 -Nick Szabo
"Crypto Glossary" 1992 -Eric Hughes and Timothy C. May
"Cyberspace, Crypto Anarchy, and Pushing Limits" 1994 -Timothy C. May
"The Geodesic Market" 1998 -Robert Hettinga
"The God Protocols" 1999 -Nick Szabo
"Trusted Third Parties are Security Holes" 2001 -Nick Szabo
https://nakamotoinstitute.org/library/
https://image.nostr.build/1f6d4cc6528129a7b9c9248a5203ceaaddac6132d196c4941c22f788ffa0c9a1.jpg
The only cold wallets on that list today are Keystone and Trezor. The rest are hot, right or don't exist 'yet'?...I would also add that 'paper' wallets are hot wallets they are not cold.
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Everything I listed are offline use/cold wallets. The only ones that aren't ready (but planned) are Passport Prime and XMRSigner. XMRSigner is ~75% complete. https://ccs.getmonero.org/proposals/vThorOfflineSigningLibrary_XmrSignerToProduction.html
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Confused. Not sure why you would define a paper wallet as "hot". If I have keys that have never touched the internet, and I only use it as cold storage, how is that "hot"?
It only costs a few cents... because almost no-one is using it
- Not true. Already addressed this above.
Can you send one cent (or the equivalent) instantly for a post you like on Monero? how about 10 cents instantly just to post yourself? The L2 (on Bitcoin) makes this possible... and I'm not sure (because I don't know) if monero can make transactions like this. . And if it can't, then it is inferior to Bitcoin today as a monetary network. Monero needs an L2 which doesn't exist yet.
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Yes, only 3-4 cents to transact at the moment. In fact, there is a Nostr client that people do this with including myself https://mostard.org/
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Inferior in what way? Instant payments? Sure. Privacy/security/Permissionless UX/simplicity? No.
By the way, are there any companies 'working' on the Monero L2 or is it all... anonymous devs?
There are both of those groups "working" on Monero
This is an issue I have with altcoins like Monero. Even if I wanted to experiment with them or 'try them out' to decide for myself their merits I absolutely DO NOT download poorly vetted, sketchy software involving cryptocurrencies or anything else. It MAY be OK it may be not.
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There is a strong FOSS ethos around Monero, but you don't have to. You can use websites to swap if you want. Onion sites and no-javascript are common as well.
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Bitcoin would have the same issues. You have to download an app or use a website to get it.
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Didn't you just say 99% don't care about these things? They download apps without even thinking about it. Just saying.
Why should I look at that list 'just' to pay in Monero when I can pay at 'more' locations in Bitcoin?
- You don't have to do anything. I'm just showing you places you can use Monero because you brought up the subject and it's much more than what you made it seem. NymVPN just went public and Monero is the only other crypto it accepts besides Bitcoin. But I don't understand why you would simply pretend they don't exist or intentionally remain ignorant about it now that you know. You also act as if the average Joe on the street knows everywhere that accepts Bitcoin. We're all in a niche space here.
And if you're buying gift cards to use at the grocery then... why the cloak and dagger privacy anyway?
- The only reason I can think of is if you already have some and don't want to convert it back to fiat. But I'm also in agreement with what you're saying. Why not just forgoe both Monero/Lightning and use cash/digital fiat for those purchases?
...Following the rules of a 'central authority' is a grey area
- It is not. White market transactions are quite literally following rules of a central authority. If you're not doing that, then it is black market by definition.
...because while cryptocurrencies can circumvent the rules they will never 'replace' the rules...
Correct. Cryptocurrencies cannot circumvent rules on the white market. They can only do that on black markets.
My understanding is that regardless, the privacy and scaling will only be accomplished 'off-chain' anyway.
Yes, kind of, Monero is going to have an upgrade later this year called FCMP that enables L2s and it seems like there is talk for a ZK Rollup design down the road being discussed instead of Lightning-like layer (although I'm sure there will be that as well at some point). An encrypted blockchain + L2 will always be better for privacy because you leak information on a transparent blockchain. You don't have to worry about things like coinjoining before and after leaving Lightning. A Lightning-like layer on Monero is ironically better because fees are much cheaper on-chain which means unilateral exit is actually feasible for smaller amounts. Dynamic blocksize also means it will never become "broken" like it did earlier last year when fees shot up on Bitcoin.
For example there are just-in-time channels and they work. You pay a lightning invoice... and have immediate access to the funds to spend or receive. I think Phoenix/Acinq has their own way of doing this too...You can purchase a channel and 'rent' it, or the channel can be spliced in and out (phoenix) or created just-in-time.
Correct, but you're just shifting around the cost and adding additional costs. You add another fee from Phoenix on top of LN network fees. When chain congestion is low you can actually end up paying more fees with them than on-chain. You have no privacy from Phoenix, as it says in their FAQ, and they can censor your transactions. It's also a centralized service which means they can be banned or shutdown (we already saw this last year when they left the USA). All these things together make the benefits questionable in regards to p2p digital cash (censorship resistance, privacy, low fees).
However what 'cold' wallets are available for monero?
There are many options and growing. In fact Keystone Hardware Wallet just announced Monero support a few days ago.
Besides that there is Trezor(Safe 3 and Model T), SideKick (Monerujo), Cupcake (Cake Wallet), Anonero DIY, Tails DIY, and Paper Wallets. So there are quite a few options to choose from already - all offline - with Passport Prime and XMRSigner(SeedSigner fork) not too far from completion too.
This is true, lightning is hot hot hot. However it is also true that institutions and businesses are running large lightning nodes and I haven't heard of any hacks or exploits at least recently. It doesn't mean it can't happen, however it is something to be worked on you're correct.
Fair enough. My point was, even if you ignore all the other disadvantages of LN, just that for higher value private transactions it still makes more sense to use Monero as it only costs a few cents. And to be fair I heard multipath atomic payments help this a bit. Although I don't think the support is quite there yet last time i checked.
Lightning is a huge improvement in privacy I agree if used correctly. The average user does not do that though because of the complexities and inconveniences involved. Look at custodial LN wallet downloads vs Phoenix, or Nostr zap stats. They will download Wallet of Satoshi and call it a day. Great privacy from the general public, terrible privacy from the custodian/LSP.
All this stuff though... is irrelevant though right? Monero doesn't have an L2 so it's like comparing an L1 to L2 apples and oranges.
The only reason I'm comparing in the first place is because that was what your original post was doing. You can compare them, not saying you can't, but it would make more sense to compare blockchain vs blockchain and L2 vs L2 once Monero introduces one.
Do we know, really, who the mining pools are? What % of Monero-mining is botnets? If botnets can come and go (and many will) couldn't they disrupt the overall mining ecosystem, especially if CPUs can mine and appear/disappear at will at any time?
There are always trade offs. You can't necessarily know these things in an open permissionless system where one has the ability to be anonymous. Hashpower moves around all the time just like when Bitcoins migrated from China to the USA a few years ago. It's an experiment and open question just like Bitcoin. So far it works.
But I don't know how EU users even get it. LocalMonero shut down right? Is there a replacement? With a lot of users?
Monero is always a single swap away from any major cryptocurrency. There is a new website called OpenMonero that is basically a copy paste ran by anons. I can't vouch for it though as I havent tried it yet. I can vouch for the options in this link though:
Few regular businesses take Bitcoin (I have looked). I haven't seen or heard any that take Monero and frankly why should they?
I think it's more lack of familiarity that you think this. And how could I blame you if you aren't a Monero user. Of course you're not going to know if you don't use it. There is a whole website dedicated to showing businesses that accept Monero called Monerica:
Here is a long list including many businesses I'm sure you've heard of like Mullvad, CoinCards, Tuta, Simple Login, etc
I want to end by saying that white markets are nice to have, but you're required to follow rules of a central authority on white markets by definition which defeats the entire point of Bitcoin. The only truly relevant activity for Bitcoins value proposition (permissionless transactions) is on black markets.
Without those core properties, which we already established does not exist for white markets transactions, Bitcoins advantages over fiat payment apps don't exist. It makes little sense to use over fiat on white markets. It's slower, volatile, more expensive (in fees/taxes), faces regulatory uncertainty, and far less merchants accept it.
Aside from the fact that Lightning is an L2 (doesn't make much sense to directly compare with a blockchain), it has many disadvantages that Monero doesn't.
A few of these disadvantages:
-Need to lock up money to send/receive to begin with
-Requires rebalancing channels
-Requires an always online hot wallet
-Less secure as it's still possible to steal
-Can be force-closed and lose money
-The higher value the payment the higher the failure rate of a transaction
-Onion routing privacy is questionable and unquantifiable since most of the network is flowing through large routing nodes
And we can see the obvious outcome of this inconvenience and complexity for users.
Vast majority of LN users are on custodians so are ruggable and have no privacy which is inarguably worse than Monero.
Why do you say 'It would also include Monero which aims to solve Bitcoin's privacy "problems"' like it isn't true? Bitcoin does have a privacy problem.
I'm as anti-government as you, but that's not how it's going to turn out in reality. That's why I called you naive.
You have a fantasy that you're going to waltz into a courtroom, say "I don't consent to any authority", and everyone is going to clap and cheer as the judge shrugs in defeat and you're let go.
It's hilarious and stupid
Ironically Bitcoin is less censorship resistant than it could be because it isn't private.
Miners have the ability to censor individual transactions and form targeted blacklists. Wouldn't be possible to even attempt this if it was private.
Because they're wrapped up in an ideology so aren't thinking clearly
It's not surprising that Bitcoin maxis are calling something other than Bitcoin a shitcoin. What is surprising is Monero is probably the only other cryptocurrency that many of them give a pass to, actually use, or respect even if they don't use it:
"Monero is a very good privacy complement to Bitcoin" -Nick Szabo
"I looked at all the other major cryptocurrencies that had adjustable blocksizes and the only one that I thought that didn't completely suck was Monero" -Jameson Lopp
"Maybe you need a Monero" -Michael Saylor
"For really strong privacy, Monero is much better" -Andreas Antonopoulos
"There's a lot of advantages to using Monero" -Matt Odell
"Monero is the only goddamn currency that's used!" -John McAfee
"Monero will be a champion in that space and we'll have a Bitcoin-Monero duopoly" -Max Keiser
"All fiat systems and all tokens outside of Bitcoin and monero (to my knowledge) have middlemen you cannot get rid of" -Adam Curry
"I would say Monero is not a shitcoin. I think it's a very innovative and new research project that works." -Max Hillbrand
"Monero; Just use it. Objectively it's better than Bitcoin [for privacy]...it's obvious" -Amir Taaki
"Monero is closer to our hearts than whatever Bitcoin is turning into today" -Samourai Wallet
"Bitcoin is the reserve currency. Hold it. Privacy coins are transactional privacy. Use them...Monero" -Balaji
"99% of cryptocurrencies are complete and total garbage, but even among the upper echeleon of real ones, Monero is in the top percentile, so it deserves our respect" -Paul Sztorc
"Surprising number of Monero lovers on #Nostr. Itβs the only altcoin that I consider has a community of actual cypherpunks with similarly aligned values as bitcoin." -Guy Swann
"Monero has always been the altcoin outlier for me, never a shitcoin because I have a valid use for it that I can't achieve with #bitcoin." -Peter McCormack
"I have an issue when Bitcoiners get so closed-minded and says Moneros a shitcoin. No it's not. There's some brilliant people there and there's a lot to learn...I'm a fan of Monero." -Nicholas Gregory of Mercury Layer
"monero is the best of all Altcoins" -Calle
"To me Monero is the litmus test in Bitcoin...Monero is such a good money just technically" -Ragnar Lifthrasir of Guns N Bitcoin
"There are altcoins out there that have interesting ideas, but they are very very rare...if a couple altcoins exist, like Monero, where they actually have an interesting idea and a different model that's fine." -Peter Todd
"Monero is doing the job that gave btc its start." -Ray Youssef
I've been using RetoSwap since it first appeared on the scene (around May of last year) and it's only gotten better with time. I use it somewhat regularly and have had zero problems and haven't heard anyone who really has for whatever that is worth. They have a SimpleX groupchat on their website too if you want to ask questions or see whats going on.
Spent a few hours getting it up to date lmao. Glad you like it. Hope someone finds it useful.
Anyone reading this add anything I missed in the comments I'm sure I missed quite a few things.
Don't let these other people in your comments bully away your intellectual curiosity. They're tards. Vast majority of cryptocurrency is garbage, but there are a few cryptocurrencies that are legit and better at certain things, or able to do things that Bitcoin simply can't right now, and may possibly never be able to do.
For example Monero is great for private on-chain transactions and clearly better than Bitcoin at that and probably one of the only cryptocurrencies that gets a pass from many Bitcoiners even if they still think it's a "shitcoin". You don't have to use Monero as a "store of value" to take advantage of it's transactional privacy.
The onus should be on the original people claiming that Monero was traced, but ok I'll play the game.
All articles about the arrests mention credit card fraud and the Mercari e-commerce platform in connection to how they were caught (or give no details at all on how they "traced" Monero):
https://u.today/100-million-yen-crypto-scam-exposed-via-monero-xmr-data-in-japan-organizer-arrested
https://regtechtimes.com/18-caught-in-monero-money-laundering-scheme-in/
https://www.perigon.io/news/finance/2024/10/21/japan-arrests-18-monero-fraud-case
https://cryptoslate.com/japanese-authorities-dismantle-monero-linked-scam-in-landmark-investigation/
Your tool doesn't "automatically eliminates every decoy spender and heuristically identifies the real spender". It's all manual guessing. It's a glorified Monero block explorer that you added buttons onto.
Some LN custodians and LSPs have really good privacy policies
You must be kidding. Privacy policies? Lol
You talk about encryption on P2P Lightning traffic as if it applies to the vast majority of Lightning users on custodians and LSPs. Using a remote Monero node reveals far less data to 3rd parties than custodial LN or LSPs, enforced by encryption (not privacy policies), and all without giving up custody to ecash mints.
Like I said the remote node can't see amounts, addresses, balances, true spend, etc:
https://localmonero.co/knowledge/remote-nodes-privacy
You're correct FCMP isn't currently on Monero, but should be relatively soon. I thought he was saying Monero was the best privacy tool currently available, relative to everything else, and with the most adoption and clear direction.
It has potential edge case attacks, but it is not naively traceable.