8 ms·
And then what? You find they are doing almost the same, move to the biggest forrest you can find and start living on berries and rabbits? Or you decide to cut 1
by erikb 9y ago
And then what? You find they are doing almost the same, move to the biggest forrest you can find and start living on berries and rabbits? Or you decide to cut 1/3 of your savings, buy paypal and show them how to do it the right way?
It's really hard to see any reasonable options you have as source of data.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoSome cryptocurrencies are designed to preserve privacy, to protect people from exactly this problem.
- zerokernel 9y agoI don't think cryptocurrencies are protecting anyone from any problem.
- jstanley 9y agoOK, I'll bite. How is Monero not protecting people's privacy?
- paulsutter 9y agoBecause most Monero transactions are traceable, according to research by the National University of Singapore: https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/338.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/338.pdf If anyone can debunk this I’d love to hear more, but generally I think it’s dangerous to rely on claims of secrecy
- jstanley 9y agohttps://getmonero.org/2017/04/19/an-unofficial-response-to-an-empirical-analysis-of-linkability.html https://getmonero.org/2017/04/19/an-unofficial-response-to-a...
- paulsutter 9y agoThanks for the link. While it’s good to see the paper overstates the problem, it’s also clear that users should not assume that their Monero transactions are untraceable.
- tscs37 9y agoI think the summary of both papers (the initial paper and monero's unofficial response) could be that monero's transactions are reasonably untraceable. Reasonably private should be good enough for most people.
- paulsutter 9y agoIf the goal is more-private-than-bitcoin, yes, it's less traceable than bitcoin. If the goal is bulletproof-from-authorities, not so much.
- Fnoord 9y agoYes, a known example is Monero. The question is, first and foremost, if you should trust cryptocurrencies.
- tormeh 9y agoYeah, but the biggest ones are not inflationary, so they end up as exclusively hype-driven speculative investment vehicles. That's not good for a method of payment.
- Casseres 9y agoMonero is inflationary, but it still might not keep up with coin loss. Even a coin with higher inflation will still be susceptible as a speculative-investment. It would be nice if there was a way to avoid that, and to keep value relatively-stable, but I can't think of anyway that does require trusting 3rd parties.
- Casseres 9y agoTypo, meant: "that does not require"
- cm2187 9y agoPreserving privacy by having a public ledger where everyone can see your transactions?
- Fnoord 9y agoBasically every time I can pay with PayPal I can also pay with iDEAL (local equiv. of IBAN / bank transfer). PayPal just works quicker. It wouldn't surprise me if my current bank (Rabobank) did the same but then I can compare it with other banks available in my country and consider to (finally) make the switch because I've been considering to switch banks for quite some while (one of my options is Triodos [1] who resort to ethical banking / investments). I also want to start a savings account for my child for later. YMMV. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triodos_Bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triodos_Bank
- nerdponx 9y agoThis right here is the reason we need cryptocurrency. Not for speculation, not as a "settlement layer", just for unfettered global economic activity accessible to normal people.
- kennywinker 9y agoWhat could possibly go wrong!