25 ms·

Why Monero

330 points by benkaiser 5y ago

stavros 5y ago
I'm not really happy promoting a cryptocurrency these days, given that most of them are get-rich-quick schemes, but Monero has been solid for the past 5-6 years that I've been using it. It's completely anonymous, sends quickly, has minimal fees, and it hasn't been as full of cultists as some of the other coins I've seen. I use it to pay for some things and it's always a pleasant experience. I recommend it. The only downside is that, due to the anonymity, the clients aren't as convenient (because the server can't know your transactions, it's hard to have "light clients"). MyMonero works really well, though: https://mymonero.com/ https://mymonero.com/
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  My fear with strongly anonymous DeFi is indirectly harming the environment and supporting crime. Sadly doesn't look like Monero resolve these concerns.
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    Ultimately, you just have to let go. Every possible action you take in your life could be taken advantage by criminals. Do you want to let that restrict you ability to lead your life? I don’t.
    - paulryanrogers 5y ago
      Indeed it is a trade-off. And leaks revealing the dirty tricks of the rich and powerful make me wonder how effective KYC and similar controls are in practice. Yet it's that very visibility that motives people to act. So perhaps the ideal is a sliding scale. The more powerful you are then the less anonymity/privacy you should be allowed, at least in financial or political matters.
      - toyg 5y ago
        Careful what you wish for, it's a double-edged sword: do you really want anti-abortion activists abusing funders of Planned Parenthood...? Or anti-immigration extremists harassing funders of NGOs who help Afghan refugees...?
  - stavros 5y ago
    I don't know how it could resolve the "supporting crime" concern, really. When something is anonymous/private, it's going to be used for things you don't like. It's then all about whether you think the tradeoff is worth it. Personally, I think it is, but I understand how others can have different viewpoints. I think the logical conclusion if you take the opposite stance is that you're against anonymity and/or privacy, though.
    - paulryanrogers 5y ago
      TBH I'm against strong anonymity when it comes to money. Seems like it can amplify harm more than other areas like speech or association.
      - stavros 5y ago
        True. The issue I have is that anonymity exists, it's just expensive, so only rich people have it. This makes the choice from "financial privacy or no financial privacy" to "financial privacy for the rich or for everyone".
        paulryanrogers 5y ago
        Good point. And if it's truly a binary choice of only-the-rich or everyone then I'm more inclined to side with anonymity for everyone.
        around_here 5y ago
        Disagree because you’re already getting screwed by the rich. Being anonymous doesn’t divorce from the “getting screwed” class, but it continues to aid the rich.
      - cassonmars 5y ago
        Financial anonymity is important — just because the panic of the day is “secret Nazis” doesn’t make this untrue. Consider a woman trying to escape domestic abuse, who has been financially trapped. If all transactions are untraceable, a $20 to “a grocery store” here and there can very well be her escape route. Same goes for oppressed individuals attempting to escape abusive families, neighborhoods, countries. Realistically the people you’re most worried about have used what they’ve always used to conduct their transactions anonymously: cash.
  - delaaxe 5y ago
    That's like being worried about using the Internet in 1995 because of indirectly supporting porn. Remember, the Internet is only useful for porn and cat pictures, right?
    - paulryanrogers 5y ago
      Financial regulations mitigating crime predate the Internet.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      "Remember" what? Nobody ever thought that. That is just the kind of thing bitcoiners keeps saying that has no basis in actual history.
      - delaaxe 5y ago
        Yes plenty of people thought that, well into 2000-2005. Maybe you hang out too much in tech circles?
        user-the-name 5y ago
        This really, really did not happen.
        johanneskanybal 5y ago
        Not taking a side just a flashback how far away 1995 is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95-yZ-31j9A&ab_channel=TODAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95-yZ-31j9A&ab_channel=TODAY
  - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
    There's lots of things that an order of magnitude more folks do that harm the environment than DeFi/cryptocurrency/shitcoin gambling. I'd love to revisit the environmental impacts of cryptocurrency after we've moved to electric cars, decreased car usage, decreased HVAC waste, made our toilets/sinks/showers more efficient, made our factories run on hydrogen instead of coal, and clean up shipping emissions. Once we're even halfway down that list, then I think we're ready to tackle the environmental question of cryptocurrency.
    - paulryanrogers 5y ago
      That's one approach. Another is to tackle low hanging fruit. What is lost if DeFi were more heavily regulated or outlawed? What is lost if shipping were more more heavily regulated / outlawed? Ultimately we have to do many things, and solutions aren't mutually exclusive.
      - pseudo0 5y ago
        Just put a constant tax on carbon and let people choose between their shitcoins, vacation flights, and sirloin steaks.
      - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
        > What is lost if DeFi were more heavily regulated or outlawed? What is lost if shipping were more more heavily regulated / outlawed? Getting people to agree on "low-hanging fruit" is very difficult. Even on here you'll see people that are fine with using energy on crypto. It'll be an even taller order convincing folks that shipping should be outlawed or tightly restricted, especially folks living in rural car-dominated areas of Anglo countries. Then you'll have to mount a new fight to convince people to heavily restrict the bath and restrict shower usage. Oh and keeping your lights on all night. Then start a campaign to restrict running the AC. There will undoubtedly be folks who'll try specifically to find holes in restrictions as well, such as buying a propane stove on areas where gas stoves are banned, then you'll need to amend all of these restrictions and burn ever more political capital. Much simpler to tax energy based on emissions. If that means PoW crypto will never be profitable, then they can pound sand. That way you also won't have lobby groups grandfather weird exceptions on restrictions to preserve their precious market.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    Oh no, it works like cash! People will do things with money that you're uncomfortable with. If it's criminal, then laws and enforcement and investigation will have to evolve. That doesn't mean "well, I guess we have to give up privacy now. " Not your money, not your business. Privacy is important, and it's a binary proposition. It's either part of the currency or it's not. You can't have any gray area because people are fallible, malicious, and stupid. You design the system to disempower human foibles as much as you can. Monero does a good job of that.
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      Cash is much more difficult to take across borders... Monero is superior to cash for criminal activity in just about every way, the only downside is that it's a bit less liquid. This deflection about it being used in crime less than cash is weak to the point of bad faith. The privacy argument has more to stand on though. Although I will say "not your money, not our business" is a pretty controversial take.
      - rmbyrro 5y ago
        Criminals send illegal goods from Colombia to Europe through amateur submarines [1]. Doesn't require much thinking to guess what submarines come back filled with. It's not that they can't move money illegally already. We wouldn't advocate the usage of horses in modern cities because cars make it easier for criminals to escape law enforcement. I also don't think it's reasonable to not support Monero just because you worry it might be used for criminal activity. [1] https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/colombia-narco-submarines-europe/ https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/colombia-narco-submar...
      - robbedpeter 5y ago
        There should be absolutely nothing controversial with that. What I spend my money on that doesn't harm anyone is nobody's business but mine and whoever I'm paying. If it does harm someone, well, that's why we have laws and law enforcement. It's the harm - the crime - that gets punished or penalized. Just like someone who gets drunk and drives. The results can be heinous, so the action is appropriately and severely punished. Anonymity, or fungibility, doesn't interfere with that. It simply requires that evidence of harm or crime not depend on an abstract exchange of information.
  - SXX 5y ago
    Monero supports crime as much as cash supports crime. Doors and curtains also support crime, but somehow some basic privacy is fundamental human right. For now... Also in some countries police still don't just scan all your bank transactions 24/7 and there is presumption of innocence in criminal law.
    - bb88 5y ago
      > Monero supports crime as much as cash supports crime. Cash has serial numbers which means it needs to be laundered, since banks work with the FBI to trace where bills with serial numbers show up.
      - SXX 5y ago
        Money laundering just make it more expensive for criminals to get the profits. So does crypto due to ever moving exchange rates, comissions, etc. Also just want to remind you that the world doesn't end on US soil and once you moved cash to a different country this kind of tracking becomes more and more complicated.
        arcticbull 5y ago
        How are you going to get huge quantities of cash across borders without anyone noticing? Even the Narcos know thats a bad plan, they used binders of gift cards.
        SXX 5y ago
        I'm not a money laundering expert, but when you already using crypto with a huge chance to lose 10-30% on exchange rate flunctations I don't believe it's that hard to come up with an idea. Let's say you'll make a fake startup funded by VCs from all around the world. There is plenty of people who will love to buy few million dollars with 30% discount. This isn't about some petty crime though, but again it's much easier to move smaller amount of money anyway.
        5y ago
  - gillesjacobs 5y ago
    Financial privacy is a requirement for a free society.
- henriquez 5y ago
  I've played around trading other currencies but Monero is the one I hold dear for the end times. Plus it's fun to mine, you can do it on a CPU instead of needing a massive GPU swarm.
  - galangalalgol 5y ago
    Is the algorithm poorly suited to GPUs or fpgas, or are we just not to that point yet? Proof of stake seems like a good thing.
    - stavros 5y ago
      They purposely design/change it so it's poorly suited to GPUs/FPGAs.
    - randomhodler84 5y ago
      Proof of stake isn’t a good thing actually. Especially in a private cryptocurrency. Monero will remain PoW for its censorship resistance. We can’t have stake oligopolies taking control.
      - Kbelicius 5y ago
        How are mining oligopolies better than staking oligopolies?
        lmm 5y ago
        It's harder for mining oligopolies to exclude new entrants.
        Kbelicius 5y ago
        How? The only way I can think of that staking oligopolies can exclude new entrants is if they somehow manage to remove the crypto from markets. Basically killing their stake. It is far easier for me to buy some crypto and stake it than it is to buy mining hardware and mine.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  > and it hasn't been as full of cultists as some of the other coins I've seen. Didn't they have a Church of Monero a few years back? That was kind of... weird? It was probably started as a joke or something, I can't remember.
  - stavros 5y ago
    Very probably. That's why I said "not as full" :P
  - bb88 5y ago
    Yes. https://twitter.com/churchofmonero https://twitter.com/churchofmonero Also related reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/a8uyze/the_church_of_monero_why_its_dangerous_for_its/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/a8uyze/the_church_o...
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  I'm not really happy promoting a cryptocurrency these days, given that most of them are get-rich-quick schemes, They're get-rich-quick schemes plus money laundering/capital-flight mechanisms. And if you think capital flight is more ethical than a get-rich-quick scheme, I'd like to introduce you to X oligarch on Y continent committing Z poorly publicized genocide. Edit: that said, the way that they facilitate dubious money transfer is pretty what makes them likely to stick around and so one can say with more certainty their value will be maintained. Hope that makes you feel better.
  - DennisP 5y ago
    Oligarchs are well taken care of by the traditional offshore banking industry. They don't need to fall back on crypto like regular folks.
    - doomrobo 5y ago
      One piece of evidence for the above claim: https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2021/03/u-s-sanctions-ukrainian-oligarch-featured-in-fincen-files-investigation/ https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2021/03/u-s-sanctions-ukrai...
    - joe_the_user 5y ago
      That the wealthy have many other avenues for exfiltrating money doesn't change the situation that crypto is an extremely effective method for doing that. A lot of people need as many channels for the exporting of wealth as they can get. Iran's rulers might or might be oligarchs but the use of bitcoin by the Iranian state[1] seems like good evidence that crypto isn't just for the little guy. [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/iran-uses-crypto-mining-lessen-impact-sanctions-study-finds-2021-05-21/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/iran-uses-crypto-mining-l...
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      North Korea would beg to differ, having amassed billions in violation of International sanctions. [1] [1] https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-north-koreas-role-bitcoin/ https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-north-koreas-role-bit...
- delaaxe 5y ago
  I really want to like Monero but I've had one of the worst crypto experience using the official desktop client. The app crashes randomly, hangs, and worst of all, refuses to send transactions using a hardware wallet when running as a full node. The hardware wallet is only able to sign transactions when connected to a remote node, which is much worse privacy wise. Monero needs much more developers & funding to succeed.
  - selsta 5y ago
    Did you open an issue? There is no known bug like you are describing regarding hardware wallets and full nodes.
    - grapist420 5y ago
      “users not reporting issues they have” is annoying. Maybe projects (crypto especially) should offer pizza money level rewards for reporting any valid bug
  - xanaxagoras 5y ago
    If you're "running as a full node" then your full node is the remote node for a hardware wallet, isn't it?. I'm confused. I've only ever used the CLI which provides separate applications for wallet and node, and I connect the CLI wallet over RPC to my local (full) node. My understanding is the GUI works the same way while only presenting the one interface to the end user. But you should have a monerod running under the hood.
    - delaaxe 5y ago
      No the hardware wallet is only used to sign the transaction that's broadcasted by my local node. The failing case was with monerod in the background. Maybe I should look into the CLI. Does it support Ledger?
      - shoghicp 5y ago
        CLI supports Ledger, just need to have it plugged it at the time
- kongin 5y ago
  The lack of cultists is the only reason why I'm even reading these articles. Now if only they could stabilize the price so you can pay for things instead of gamble on it.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    Who are 'they' who will stabilize the price?
    - kongin 5y ago
      The developers.
  - tootahe45 5y ago
    This is why Monero will never work. Anonymity is defeated because i have to buy it when i want to use it, and sell as soon as i receive it. I can't just hold it in my offline wallet because I'd be speculating on the price.
    - quantumBerry 5y ago
      Unless you buy within seconds of your transaction, or sell within seconds of your reception, how would anyone know who you transacted with beyond it may have been with a customer in one of the other thousands of transactions on KYC exchanges that day?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- earnesti 5y ago
  > and it hasn't been as full of cultists as some of the other coins I've seen. LOL. Not my experience at all. Monero shills are the worst.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  Monero is one of the truly useful coins and perversely one of the worst performing coins price-wise. There is a horrible lesson in there somewhere about hype and endless promises and markets. https://cryptorank.io/performance https://cryptorank.io/performance
  - mettamage 5y ago
    I find Ripple and Stellar useful too. I'm not looking at their philosophy or ideology, but I've used both of them to transfer funds quickly. For that, I find them useful. In general, I'm in favor of cryptocurrencies that allow for quick transfers. This is simply a user perspective. My "crypto perspective" isn't too happy about Ripple, but I can't deny that I enjoy using it for quick transfers.
  - faeyanpiraat 5y ago
    Isn’t a stable price a good thing? If I had a dollar that would triple it’s value in a week “just because” I would be suspicious.
    - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
      Do you search out stocks that have a stable price?
      - zwirbl 5y ago
        do you pay your groceries with stocks?
      - csh0 5y ago
        The same qualities that make a stock or asset desirable (appreciation) make for a bad currency. The expectation of wild appreciation discourages transaction and encourages hoarding. This is one of the the reasons why (low) target inflation rates exist. The (slight) devaluation of the currency encourages consumption or investment with the currency and discourages mattress stuffing. You wouldn't buy goods with stocks.
- tromp 5y ago
  It's hard to have a light Monero client, because it has to have some data indexed about all past transactions, whereas a Bitcoin client only needs to maintain the MUCH smaller UTXO set, i.e. the unspent transaction outputs. This is one of the ways in which Monero scales poorly. Another problem is that Monero's PoW is expensive to verify where a good PoW should be instantly verifiable. In fact, it's considered so expensive that by default, the Monero client uses a checkpoint block without verifying all the PoW that led to the block.
  - fragmede 5y ago
    There must be some subtlety I'm missing because you say it's hard to have a light client because there's no way to have a subset of transactions/checkpoint, but then say its PoW is so expensive that starting from a checkpoint is the default.
    - tromp 5y ago
      Keeping data from all tx indexed entails a large memory footprint during all client use. The checkpoint issue affects only the initial sync. Making that trustless by turning off the checkpointing makes turns a moderately slow sync into an extremely slow sync.
  - lawn 5y ago
    Monero's PoW being "expensive" is not an actual scaling concern, and checkpoints makes sense for all blockchains.
    - tromp 5y ago
      Other chains like bitcoin still verify that their checkpoint has the most cumulative work behind it, so you have additional assurance that the miners are also attesting to the checkpoint correctness. In Monero you have to trust the checkpoint to represent the most worked chain. Monero's super expensive PoW also makes it very hard to interface with other smart blockchains that may want to verify the amount of work behind a Monero block, or to support useful techniques like flyclient [1]. [1] https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/226.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/226.pdf
- dna_polymerase 5y ago
  > I'm not really happy promoting a cryptocurrency these days, given that most of them are get-rich-quick schemes I can't agree with that sentiment at all. Sure, there a those schemes, but most of the time they are easy to spot. If you have a look at the top 50 coins on CMC [0], you will find mostly solid projects that have large ecosystems with much brainpower locked in. [0]: https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/
  - stavros 5y ago
    Eh, I don't know of a single one where its fans aren't focused on the price. It's a shame.
randomhodler84 5y ago
Monero is a quality project ignored by the masses. Zcash is also pretty cool too!
hamburgerwah 5y ago
For those that may not be familiar, the relatively strong anonymity on Monero is via a cryptographic mechanism known as "ring signatures". Separate from cryptocurrency they are a useful cryptographic technique for many things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_signature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_signature
- Groxx 5y ago
  I haven't read much on monero / this algorithm, so I'm not sure if it's particularly meaningful, but wikipeda references that being the case for most of 2017-2018 and then the algorithm was changed.
  - lolthishuman 5y ago
    Changed to bulletproof https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/1066 https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/1066
    - selsta 5y ago
      The Wikipedia article is incorrect, Monero still uses ring signatures. Bulletproofs are used as efficient range proofs in RingCT to hide the amount in transactions. https://www.getmonero.org/2017/12/07/Monero-Compatible-Bulletproofs.html https://www.getmonero.org/2017/12/07/Monero-Compatible-Bulle...
      - Groxx 5y ago
        Honestly, comments like this are why I stick with hacker news. Thank you! There's a lot of difficult-to-google info locked up in comments like this, and I truly appreciate the effort spent replying to randos like me :)
- blueprint 5y ago
  that's for sender anonymity, and recipient anonymity is via one-time (stealth) addresses
cosmotic 5y ago
Still has 21 minute transaction time: https://www.monero.how/how-long-do-monero-transactions-take https://www.monero.how/how-long-do-monero-transactions-take
- benkaiser 5y ago
  10 confirmations is a pretty high bar. Normally a single confirmation gives very high confidence in a transaction.
  - price112 5y ago
    Yeah, we can still consider the transaction to be safely received after 1 confirmation and provide goods&service. XMR.to even used 0-conf back in the days https://twitter.com/xmr_to/status/955364047679049728 https://twitter.com/xmr_to/status/955364047679049728 (for hundreds of $) easily. thought, I agree it may be inconvenient.
- tylercubell 5y ago
  In contrast, "Algorand delivers the fastest finality possible thanks to its Pure Proof of Stake (PPoS) algorithm invented by MIT Professor Silvio Micali. The consensus mechanism doesn’t admit forks at all, which reduces the risk of micro forks to zero. The block creation time on Algorand is less than 5 seconds, and all transactions reach immediate finality." [0] And although Algorand doesn't include some of the more "controversial" privacy features, it's still RTBF-compliant. [1] [0]: https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/role-of-transaction-finality-speed-in-nft-minting https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/role-of-transaction-... [1]: https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/right-to-be-forgotten https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/right-to-be-forgotte...
  - olah_1 5y ago
    Algorand is the exact opposite ethos from Monero. They are partnered with the World Economic Forum and being used for things like vaccine passport haha
- Expez 5y ago
ahnick 5y ago
I'd be curious to hear from Monero fans why one might select it over Zcash? Zcash seems to have stronger security guarantees when shielded transactions are used.
- I_cape_runts 5y ago
  Zcash has to have privacy enabled by the user. It’s not automatically private. Monero is automatically private.
  - ahnick 5y ago
    Yes, I understand. That's why I'm specifically asking about the advantage of Monero vs when shielded transactions are used on Zcash.
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      Technical peculiarities aside, if all zcash transactions were shielded each protocol would provide comparable adequate privacy.
  - null0pointer 5y ago
    To expand on this a little bit, non-default privacy means that use of privacy features becomes de facto suspicious activity, thus rendering them useless. Another issue with Zcash is that it had a trusted setup, which is not an issue Monero has.
    - ahnick 5y ago
      > To expand on this a little bit, non-default privacy means that use of privacy features becomes de facto suspicious activity, thus rendering them useless. That's not a true statement as far as I understand how Zcash works. Right now there are >742K ZEC in the shielded Sapling pool, so there are quite a few people using it and you can not tell their shielded transactions apart. https://electriccoin.co/zcash-metrics/ https://electriccoin.co/zcash-metrics/ > Another issue with Zcash is that it had a trusted setup, which is not an issue Monero has. Yes, but they took a number of steps to make sure that the ceremony for creating the trusted setup discarded the keys used and there was no one listening in. (they were geographically distributed and destroyed the hardware)
webwielder2 5y ago
How do I get some monero? I've only ever bought crypto with the consumer-level apps and know nothing about mining. (Original article isn't loading, in case it has any info in there)
- stavros 5y ago
  You can buy it from Kraken.com, for example.
- cornstalks 5y ago
  You can mine it on your computer with some software (e.g., https://xmrig.com/ https://xmrig.com/ is popular but not the only option). Then you typically join a "pool" (because your little CPU is just a drop in the vast ocean of compute power hashing away and the next Monero block). The pool will pay you a little bit of Monero, based on your compute contributions to the pool. They pay the Monero to your Monero wallet, and then it's up to you to decide how to use it. Whether or not mining is financially viable (e.g., electricity cost) depends on a few things. You can use a calculator/website like whattomine.com, cryptocompare.com, coinwarz.com, minerstat.com, etc. to get a rough idea of your potential mining profitability.
teawrecks 5y ago
Monero sounds great as a starting point since it can theoretically mimic an in-person cash exchange as far as anonymity is concerned. But to encourage adoption we need to be able to do more than that. Is it possible to design a "chargeback" mechanism on top of monero? What if I want the ability to allow an intermediary to arbitrate a dispute between me and the other party?
- chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago
  Finality is usually considered a feature of blockchains, not a bug. Chargebacks work on networks like Visa and Mastercard because we trust the network (visa) to step in arbitrate disagreements, but there's no central actor here.
- easrng 5y ago
  >What if I want the ability to allow an intermediary to arbitrate a dispute between me and the other party? Use a 2-of-3 multisig for dispute resolution.
- olah_1 5y ago
  There’s no reason that intermediaries couldn’t be used. But it wouldn’t be part of the actual core tech. There should be multiple options for such things as well. All competing for better service.
wheresmycraisin 5y ago
I've tried using Monero because of it's supposed privacy features, and found that the official desktop gui clients is completely unusable. I'm not just talking usability and design issues -- I'm talking random crashes and freezes, if it manages to launch at all. When I brought these issues to the dev team, I was basically told to fuck off.
- colordrops 5y ago
  I tried mining, tried buying, and tried various wallets, and I couldn't get any of them to work. And I'm a highly paid software engineer with decades of experience.
  - hcurtiss 5y ago
    FWIW - I’ve used both Cake Wallet and Edge Wallet on iOS and both work very well. Fast, cheap, reliable transactions.
- stiltzkin 5y ago
  I had different experience with the GUI client, but you can use CLI or other wallet as Cake Wallet.
- ajkdhcb2 5y ago
  > was basically told to fuck off. Provide information about your issues and they would be grateful. > official desktop gui clients is completely unusable It has improved significantly over time, perhaps this was a long time ago?
- blueprint 5y ago
  who exactly did you tell that to? the project is open source and has no specific corporate sponsorship, and I've never seen anyone tell others to fuck off for reporting a bug. Can you be more specific about who you contacted and how? best way is IRC or github issue.
- mattwilsonn888 5y ago
  That's really interesting one because I saw another comment saying the same thing, but two because I had personally come to the opposite conclusion. I found the Desktop GUI to be one of the best experiences in all of crypto. I had no problems with crashing or freezing, and a lot of subtle UX/UI quirks many crypto interfaces have that cause anxiety were subtly avoided in the Monero GUI. Curious what others think.
henron 5y ago
Monero looks like the best crypto for crime, so probably the most valuable crypto in the long run.
pedalpete 5y ago
I used to hold Monero, my issue with it is that it's main use case of anonymity aids the anti-crypto story of crypto being used for money laundering or other illicit activities.
- stiltzkin 5y ago
  We should not use USD then.
  - pedalpete 5y ago
    That's an argument against paper currency, not for Monero.
- olah_1 5y ago
  It is the common narrative, yes. But it doesn’t need to be. Monero has view keys that allows for audit-ability, for example.
prestigious 5y ago
Without fail every crypto article brings out the cranks of hacker news who sound like luddites/flat earthers
scoofy 5y ago
When you develop a value exchange that is perfectly designed for facilitating human kidnappings and subverting international sanctions, you should not be surprised when other humans decide they value institutions over this level of personal privacy. The narrative that this type of value exchange will protect people is as easily argued that it will put others at risk. We have institutions for a reason, and nobody living in a free country should desire such an absurdly dangerous means of value exchange. At least when you exchange physical currency, it's actually physically difficult for a kidnapper or bank robber to handle the actually physical volume of $1M.
- jpadkins 5y ago
  I can't tell if you are talking about monero or paper currency. Monero is light years easier for law enforcement to find kidnappers (exchanges, honeypots, network access) than cold hard cash. Was there a plague of kidnappers when the world used 'absurdly dangerous means of value exchange' like paper currency and gold? edit: my reply was before you edited to discuss physical currency. $1M in $100 bills is 22lbs. Hardly a deterrent.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    The difference with cash is that the criminal (or an accomplice) has to physically pick it up, drastically increasing the risk of getting identified and/or caught. Even if they send an unwitting person, there will be a witness and evidence.
  - scoofy 5y ago
    Just because you live in a place where kidnapping isn't common, doesn't mean that it is not is common across the globe. https://lb-aps-frontend.statista.com/statistics/275545/kidnapping-ransom-continent/ https://lb-aps-frontend.statista.com/statistics/275545/kidna... The idea that an email asking for a blockchain currency is somehow more difficult than a dead drop of physical currency is absurd. While there are some merits, this type of value exchange is a dangerous vehicle for facilitating human exploitation. We need to start talking about that fact more, instead of the fever dreams that those of us in the free world somehow live in some faux-totalitarian state, simply because you can't legally purchase MDMA or cocaine.
robomc 5y ago
> Monero also opts for a shorter transaction time of 2 minutes, rather than 10 minutes for Bitcoin. Why are people still pursuing this cringely inadequate technology
cowpig 5y ago
How can anyone think this is a good thing? At least other crypto projects have a degree of transparency going for them. I don't understand how people can possibly think that identity obfuscation at scale is a good thing for a financial system. The rule of law and democracy are far from perfect, but it is unquestionably the safest, cushiest time to be alive in human history right now for the average human being. Let's make our financial system completely opaque and make it impossible to enforce laws. That'll really help us! This is a blindness that can only come from a lifetime of extreme privilege.
- api 5y ago
  It’s also possible to argue that your perspective comes from a place of privilege, namely the privilege of living in a country with some respect for human rights and the rule of law. That is an anomaly in human history. Much of the world still lives under governments that are hostile to many of their people, and we can easily slide back to that condition. I also have to point out that cash is largely opaque and we have used cash for centuries. Laws were still be enforced. While cash can be exchanged with no knowledge of anyone but the participants, large scale movements and usage of money requires interactions that are very noticeable and traceable. It’s easy to move money anonymously but very hard to use it that way. Monero doesn’t change this very much.
  - enragedcacti 5y ago
    I don't have a horse in this race, but one difference between cash and monero is that the sheer physical size of cash can cause lots of problems for organized crime[1], to the point that some people advocate for eliminating the $100 bill to make moving large amounts of cash more burdensome [2]. As far as I am aware its irrelevant how much money you are moving in monero until you get up to transaction sizes that effect the price of other monero you hold. [1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/still-using-cash/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/still-using-cash/ [2]https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/opinion/getting-rid-of-big-currency-notes-could-help-fight-crime.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/opinion/getting-rid-of-bi...
- 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
wyager 5y ago
“Scalability” by constantly increasing the block size isn’t really scalability. If monero ever sees high network usage, expanding blocks will push node storage requirements so high that only a small number of nodes will continue to run, destroying decentralization.
- price112 5y ago
  Hope not. But if you compare the cost per gigabyte and internet connection, you'll get some interesting numbers and it's only gonna get cheaper. That's what Monero community counts on. So it hopefully won't be a problem. On top of that, node operators can still run pruned node.
- robot_no_419 5y ago
  I don't have the math at hand but I'm pretty sure at the rate the blockchain is growing and the rate that disk space cost is decreasing, this should not be an issue for quite a few years. I do agree that it will eventually be a problem; at some point, all blockchains will have to move to layer 2 solutions for real scaling.
  - doomroot 5y ago
    Bandwidth is the bottleneck not disk space. I fear that a lot of projects are moving to layer 2 too late. Layer 2 makes bitcoin so much more usable that as a result more hobbyists are running L1 nodes.
lamontcg 5y ago
> Your wallet contains a private key that can prove ownership of "outputs" from previous transactions on the blockchain. If that private key is compromised can law enforcement read your past transaction history? And if law enforcement compromises the private key on the other side of the transaction can they connect the two of you, and all your prior mutual transactions?
- ajkdhcb2 5y ago
  Yes. This is intentional and required to make it possible to opt-in to revealing transaction information. This is useful and enables compliance with current regulations. Of course you can delete that key if you want, and perhaps run multiple wallets with which you can transact with yourself
NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
A wise man once said to me: good money needs to be stealable. Think about it.
price112 5y ago
Once people realize that when they transact a BTC transaction and all their history can be tracked, they won't like it. Most people think they are hidden behind pseudo-address, but that really is not the case anymore. Go figure. Imagine your bank account is transparent. Every transaction can be seen by everyone. Scary stuff... And it's not about illegality. The fact that everyone can know how much money my neighbor has or his spending habits whatever. Just horrible horrible horrible. It's awful. I can't wrap my head around it. And it's only gonna get worse with more KYC. Coinjoin isn't practical. There is nothing that can fix this. Some people already find this troublesome. You might not feel bothered holding 0.1 BTC, but if you have more than that? People are crazy. It maybe isn't problem now, but the future? Financial transparency won't prevent crimes. And KYC doesn't prevent crimes either. Optional privacy also isn't a solution. All transactions must look the same or very similar otherwise you stand out. Monero solves all of this. It still has a long way to go though.
sub7 5y ago
This, like the rest of crypto, enables the world's worst humans. Also, the founder (who loves telling people to stay poor online) is in jail for fraud. I'm shocked. I really hope Gensler and co sack up and shut down these wannabe pirate losers.
- fieryskiff11 5y ago
  stay poor, pleb
- gjs278 5y ago
  stay poor
sdze 5y ago
GNU Taler is (for Europeans at least) the most promising system, because it is controllable (at least on the merchant side). The users themself are anonymous, just like when using cash! That is a good system because it enables governments to still being able to tax businesses and control illegal activities. Such system will also gain more acceptance among the common folks. https://taler.net/en/index.html https://taler.net/en/index.html
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  The most promising? What do you mean? BTC and XMR already work and don't have the downsides of Taler. Usability could be improved for those, yes. Outside transparency is not a benefit. Most people I've talked to about crypto don't see the opacity as a detriment. They do not trust the government or tax policy. Most of these people are also generally happy to pay their taxes but can see reasons when they would want to hide their behavior.
  - sdze 5y ago
    Gnu Taler does not rely on a blockchain. BTCs blockchain is rather power inefficient.
    - numlock86 5y ago
      > BTCs blockchain is rather power inefficient. Pfff, a single transaction is only 1700kw/h (or 820kg of carbon dioxide) with as little as 90g of electrical waste left behind on average. From an economical standpoint that could be much more ... if you are to sell energy or equipment of course. /s
  - lottin 5y ago
    This shows how little cryptocurrency users know about how governments collect taxes. The government doesn't go around checking people's bank accounts in order to get tax information. This would be terribly inefficient. What they do instead is pass laws that require employers to disclose how much they pay their employees and to collect taxes on their behalf, before the taxpayer even receives the money. Therefore private transactions and 'unconfiscatable' money does nothing to prevent governments from collecting taxes, at least as far as ordinary people are concerned.
kybernetyk 5y ago
Monero is my hedge against the state.
habosa 5y ago
Bitcoin is totally useless as a currency because it’s slow, has high transaction fees, and easy to trace. So it’s bad for both regular consumers and criminals alike. Monero is a solid improvement because it has low fees (so far) and is very hard to trace. So it’s popular for criminals or intense privacy types. It’s still far too slow and hard to use to ever be accepted in your local grocery store. It’s also hard to buy with fiat because most exchanges are scared of it. What’s really remarkable is how little any of this has changed since ~2016 which was two crypto boom cycles ago. Every single popular cryptocurrency still has the same massive flaws. They’re all either too traceable, too hard to use, too centralized, too slow, too expensive, or too energy intensive. Most of them are many of those things. In 2010 I was a crypto believer. But the whole space has made so little forward progress in 10+ years. In fact there’s been a lot of backwards progress. Mostly all that’s happened is a lot of people have become obscenely rich from speculation, scams, or the intersection of those two things. Those of us who hoped for a new way to pay for things in real life are still waiting.
- New_California 5y ago
  You are correct on the Bitcoin-is-easy-to-trace point but transactions in the Bitcoin Lightning Network are instant and very cheap. Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency with guaranteed-not-to-change monetary policy and supply cap. That's because Bitcoin as a whole is uniquely hard to change. Monero is great but easy to change and so not a reliable store of value. Bitcoin and Monero need each other badly.
  - tromp 5y ago
    In a few decades, when the block subsidy dwindles to insignificance, Bitcoin relies on a constant backlog of high fee paying transactions to provide security. If that cannot be maintained and Bitcoin becomes prone to 51% attacks, then one can imagine Bitcoin adding a tail emission. A cryptocurrency with a fixed emission of 1 coin per second forever is more guaranteed never to change, as it is already as simple, non-arbitrary and fair as possible.
    - 5y ago
nprateem 5y ago
Monero people may not like it but Particl v3 may be released next week or the week after. It's a privacy coin like monero but comes with a decentralised, anonymous marketplace like ebay. V3 will be the first production-ready, mainstream release ready for primetime. It seems to me one of the most undervalued crypto projects with an actual useful product. https://particl.io https://particl.io
bb88 5y ago
Waaaay down at the bottom you see something like this: > Personal Speculation > Disclosure: I own a small amount of Monero, Bitcoin and Nano. How small? $1M might be small to a billionaire. To others $50k is a large amount. Otherwise it seems like yet another blog post shilling crypto.
- notanzaiiswear 5y ago
  How will you find and maintain experts who are convinced of the greatness of some investments, but refuse to invest, because they want to remain impartial? I think your demands are unrealistic. Also, you could just as well consider it a positive signal (putting money where their mouth is). I guess even better would be posting a proof of ownership. Not sure if that would be possible with Monero, but it would be possible with Bitcoin.
  - akimball 5y ago
    Posting the view key for the wallet would prove ownership (and transaction history). This is how Monero allows audit ability and subpoena compliance without risking the security of funds.
- benkaiser 5y ago
  0.5XMR if you're interested, worth about $125 USD
  - bb88 5y ago
    Maybe put that at the top?
    - joreto 5y ago
      if he wrote a blog post about it and didn't own it, I'd be more worried. also, disclosures are usually at the bottom.
Rijek33 5y ago
Monero is bad because it democratizes offshore accounting. Only us rich people should have this privilege. Is this the gist of anti monero sentiment?
- stiltzkin 5y ago
  The gist of Monero is fungibility.
notanzaiiswear 5y ago
For the dogecoin fans, there is also a similar project based on Monero called Wownero: https://wownero.org/ https://wownero.org/ - that is, technology based on Monero, but more fun. Since I missed to dogecoin hype, I am now rooting for Wow.
- menmob 5y ago
  This is why I hate the cryptocurrency “community”.
  - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
    Why, what do you hate about it? Because they are having fun?
- stiltzkin 5y ago
  You can only trade $wow on tradeorg, wow is not going to get meme adoptions as doge if it is not available on other exchanges or at least supporting Atomic Swaps. Besides people are moving to NFTs.
  - notanzaiiswear 5y ago
    Sure it is not investing advice, and obviously it would have to become available on other exchanges. I wouldn't advise investing in Doge for gains, either.
melenaos 5y ago
I supported monero coin for buying my application, Chordastic. Its almost 6 months and i havent made a singe sale in Monero, but it doesnt matter. Its about widening the purchase power of the coin.
- thepra 5y ago
  Do you have a guide for such incorporation?
  - melenaos 5y ago
    No, I haven't automate it. I show the price in Monero(get current price through cryptocompare API), I ask a deposit to a specific address and to send me the Transaction ID. http://www.chordastic.com/Editor/PurchaseMonero http://www.chordastic.com/Editor/PurchaseMonero
loughnane 5y ago
Monero shines bright in a world where privacy is constantly being eroded. I very much want to live in a future where there is a digital payment method that’s as anonymous as cash. As far as I can tell Monero is the front runner
sireat 5y ago
As the article states the biggest problem is onramp (just like with most crypto). When using it for payments is that it is hard to make a case for a regular user (new to crypto) to use it. The onramp is too painful/expensive/convuluted + payment is without recourse. Joe Customer needs a really good incentive to use crypto. Currently this means something shady. So only normal crypto use is for those who already hold some crypto. PS I've looked for a good solution to this since 2011 and the progress has been glacial.
bob229 5y ago
Cryptos are universally trash and solve no use case that non cranks care about. Stop wasting our timr

330 points by benkaiser 5y ago

I'm not really happy promoting a cryptocurrency these days, given that most of them are get-rich-quick schemes, but Monero has been solid for the past 5-6 years that I've been using it. It's completely anonymous, sends quickly, has minimal fees, and it hasn't been as full of cultists as some of the other coins I've seen. I use it to pay for some things and it's always a pleasant experience. I recommend it. The only downside is that, due to the anonymity, the clients aren't as convenient (because the server can't know your transactions, it's hard to have "light clients"). MyMonero works really well, though: https://mymonero.com/ https://mymonero.com/

paulryanrogers 5y ago
My fear with strongly anonymous DeFi is indirectly harming the environment and supporting crime. Sadly doesn't look like Monero resolve these concerns.
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  Ultimately, you just have to let go. Every possible action you take in your life could be taken advantage by criminals. Do you want to let that restrict you ability to lead your life? I don’t.
  - paulryanrogers 5y ago
    Indeed it is a trade-off. And leaks revealing the dirty tricks of the rich and powerful make me wonder how effective KYC and similar controls are in practice. Yet it's that very visibility that motives people to act. So perhaps the ideal is a sliding scale. The more powerful you are then the less anonymity/privacy you should be allowed, at least in financial or political matters.
    - toyg 5y ago
      Careful what you wish for, it's a double-edged sword: do you really want anti-abortion activists abusing funders of Planned Parenthood...? Or anti-immigration extremists harassing funders of NGOs who help Afghan refugees...?
- stavros 5y ago
  I don't know how it could resolve the "supporting crime" concern, really. When something is anonymous/private, it's going to be used for things you don't like. It's then all about whether you think the tradeoff is worth it. Personally, I think it is, but I understand how others can have different viewpoints. I think the logical conclusion if you take the opposite stance is that you're against anonymity and/or privacy, though.
  - paulryanrogers 5y ago
    TBH I'm against strong anonymity when it comes to money. Seems like it can amplify harm more than other areas like speech or association.
    - stavros 5y ago
      True. The issue I have is that anonymity exists, it's just expensive, so only rich people have it. This makes the choice from "financial privacy or no financial privacy" to "financial privacy for the rich or for everyone".
      - paulryanrogers 5y ago
        Good point. And if it's truly a binary choice of only-the-rich or everyone then I'm more inclined to side with anonymity for everyone.
        around_here 5y ago
        Disagree because you’re already getting screwed by the rich. Being anonymous doesn’t divorce from the “getting screwed” class, but it continues to aid the rich.
    - cassonmars 5y ago
      Financial anonymity is important — just because the panic of the day is “secret Nazis” doesn’t make this untrue. Consider a woman trying to escape domestic abuse, who has been financially trapped. If all transactions are untraceable, a $20 to “a grocery store” here and there can very well be her escape route. Same goes for oppressed individuals attempting to escape abusive families, neighborhoods, countries. Realistically the people you’re most worried about have used what they’ve always used to conduct their transactions anonymously: cash.
- delaaxe 5y ago
  That's like being worried about using the Internet in 1995 because of indirectly supporting porn. Remember, the Internet is only useful for porn and cat pictures, right?
  - paulryanrogers 5y ago
    Financial regulations mitigating crime predate the Internet.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    "Remember" what? Nobody ever thought that. That is just the kind of thing bitcoiners keeps saying that has no basis in actual history.
    - delaaxe 5y ago
      Yes plenty of people thought that, well into 2000-2005. Maybe you hang out too much in tech circles?
      - user-the-name 5y ago
        This really, really did not happen.
        johanneskanybal 5y ago
        Not taking a side just a flashback how far away 1995 is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95-yZ-31j9A&ab_channel=TODAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95-yZ-31j9A&ab_channel=TODAY
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  There's lots of things that an order of magnitude more folks do that harm the environment than DeFi/cryptocurrency/shitcoin gambling. I'd love to revisit the environmental impacts of cryptocurrency after we've moved to electric cars, decreased car usage, decreased HVAC waste, made our toilets/sinks/showers more efficient, made our factories run on hydrogen instead of coal, and clean up shipping emissions. Once we're even halfway down that list, then I think we're ready to tackle the environmental question of cryptocurrency.
  - paulryanrogers 5y ago
    That's one approach. Another is to tackle low hanging fruit. What is lost if DeFi were more heavily regulated or outlawed? What is lost if shipping were more more heavily regulated / outlawed? Ultimately we have to do many things, and solutions aren't mutually exclusive.
    - pseudo0 5y ago
      Just put a constant tax on carbon and let people choose between their shitcoins, vacation flights, and sirloin steaks.
    - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
      > What is lost if DeFi were more heavily regulated or outlawed? What is lost if shipping were more more heavily regulated / outlawed? Getting people to agree on "low-hanging fruit" is very difficult. Even on here you'll see people that are fine with using energy on crypto. It'll be an even taller order convincing folks that shipping should be outlawed or tightly restricted, especially folks living in rural car-dominated areas of Anglo countries. Then you'll have to mount a new fight to convince people to heavily restrict the bath and restrict shower usage. Oh and keeping your lights on all night. Then start a campaign to restrict running the AC. There will undoubtedly be folks who'll try specifically to find holes in restrictions as well, such as buying a propane stove on areas where gas stoves are banned, then you'll need to amend all of these restrictions and burn ever more political capital. Much simpler to tax energy based on emissions. If that means PoW crypto will never be profitable, then they can pound sand. That way you also won't have lobby groups grandfather weird exceptions on restrictions to preserve their precious market.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  Oh no, it works like cash! People will do things with money that you're uncomfortable with. If it's criminal, then laws and enforcement and investigation will have to evolve. That doesn't mean "well, I guess we have to give up privacy now. " Not your money, not your business. Privacy is important, and it's a binary proposition. It's either part of the currency or it's not. You can't have any gray area because people are fallible, malicious, and stupid. You design the system to disempower human foibles as much as you can. Monero does a good job of that.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    Cash is much more difficult to take across borders... Monero is superior to cash for criminal activity in just about every way, the only downside is that it's a bit less liquid. This deflection about it being used in crime less than cash is weak to the point of bad faith. The privacy argument has more to stand on though. Although I will say "not your money, not our business" is a pretty controversial take.
    - rmbyrro 5y ago
      Criminals send illegal goods from Colombia to Europe through amateur submarines [1]. Doesn't require much thinking to guess what submarines come back filled with. It's not that they can't move money illegally already. We wouldn't advocate the usage of horses in modern cities because cars make it easier for criminals to escape law enforcement. I also don't think it's reasonable to not support Monero just because you worry it might be used for criminal activity. [1] https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/colombia-narco-submarines-europe/ https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/colombia-narco-submar...
    - robbedpeter 5y ago
      There should be absolutely nothing controversial with that. What I spend my money on that doesn't harm anyone is nobody's business but mine and whoever I'm paying. If it does harm someone, well, that's why we have laws and law enforcement. It's the harm - the crime - that gets punished or penalized. Just like someone who gets drunk and drives. The results can be heinous, so the action is appropriately and severely punished. Anonymity, or fungibility, doesn't interfere with that. It simply requires that evidence of harm or crime not depend on an abstract exchange of information.
- SXX 5y ago
  Monero supports crime as much as cash supports crime. Doors and curtains also support crime, but somehow some basic privacy is fundamental human right. For now... Also in some countries police still don't just scan all your bank transactions 24/7 and there is presumption of innocence in criminal law.
  - bb88 5y ago
    > Monero supports crime as much as cash supports crime. Cash has serial numbers which means it needs to be laundered, since banks work with the FBI to trace where bills with serial numbers show up.
    - SXX 5y ago
      Money laundering just make it more expensive for criminals to get the profits. So does crypto due to ever moving exchange rates, comissions, etc. Also just want to remind you that the world doesn't end on US soil and once you moved cash to a different country this kind of tracking becomes more and more complicated.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        How are you going to get huge quantities of cash across borders without anyone noticing? Even the Narcos know thats a bad plan, they used binders of gift cards.
        SXX 5y ago
        I'm not a money laundering expert, but when you already using crypto with a huge chance to lose 10-30% on exchange rate flunctations I don't believe it's that hard to come up with an idea. Let's say you'll make a fake startup funded by VCs from all around the world. There is plenty of people who will love to buy few million dollars with 30% discount. This isn't about some petty crime though, but again it's much easier to move smaller amount of money anyway.
        5y ago
- gillesjacobs 5y ago
  Financial privacy is a requirement for a free society.
henriquez 5y ago
I've played around trading other currencies but Monero is the one I hold dear for the end times. Plus it's fun to mine, you can do it on a CPU instead of needing a massive GPU swarm.
- galangalalgol 5y ago
  Is the algorithm poorly suited to GPUs or fpgas, or are we just not to that point yet? Proof of stake seems like a good thing.
  - stavros 5y ago
    They purposely design/change it so it's poorly suited to GPUs/FPGAs.
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    Proof of stake isn’t a good thing actually. Especially in a private cryptocurrency. Monero will remain PoW for its censorship resistance. We can’t have stake oligopolies taking control.
    - Kbelicius 5y ago
      How are mining oligopolies better than staking oligopolies?
      - lmm 5y ago
        It's harder for mining oligopolies to exclude new entrants.
        Kbelicius 5y ago
        How? The only way I can think of that staking oligopolies can exclude new entrants is if they somehow manage to remove the crypto from markets. Basically killing their stake. It is far easier for me to buy some crypto and stake it than it is to buy mining hardware and mine.
cinntaile 5y ago
> and it hasn't been as full of cultists as some of the other coins I've seen. Didn't they have a Church of Monero a few years back? That was kind of... weird? It was probably started as a joke or something, I can't remember.
- stavros 5y ago
  Very probably. That's why I said "not as full" :P
- bb88 5y ago
  Yes. https://twitter.com/churchofmonero https://twitter.com/churchofmonero Also related reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/a8uyze/the_church_of_monero_why_its_dangerous_for_its/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/a8uyze/the_church_o...
joe_the_user 5y ago
I'm not really happy promoting a cryptocurrency these days, given that most of them are get-rich-quick schemes, They're get-rich-quick schemes plus money laundering/capital-flight mechanisms. And if you think capital flight is more ethical than a get-rich-quick scheme, I'd like to introduce you to X oligarch on Y continent committing Z poorly publicized genocide. Edit: that said, the way that they facilitate dubious money transfer is pretty what makes them likely to stick around and so one can say with more certainty their value will be maintained. Hope that makes you feel better.
- DennisP 5y ago
  Oligarchs are well taken care of by the traditional offshore banking industry. They don't need to fall back on crypto like regular folks.
  - doomrobo 5y ago
    One piece of evidence for the above claim: https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2021/03/u-s-sanctions-ukrainian-oligarch-featured-in-fincen-files-investigation/ https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2021/03/u-s-sanctions-ukrai...
  - joe_the_user 5y ago
    That the wealthy have many other avenues for exfiltrating money doesn't change the situation that crypto is an extremely effective method for doing that. A lot of people need as many channels for the exporting of wealth as they can get. Iran's rulers might or might be oligarchs but the use of bitcoin by the Iranian state[1] seems like good evidence that crypto isn't just for the little guy. [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/iran-uses-crypto-mining-lessen-impact-sanctions-study-finds-2021-05-21/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/iran-uses-crypto-mining-l...
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    North Korea would beg to differ, having amassed billions in violation of International sanctions. [1] [1] https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-north-koreas-role-bitcoin/ https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-north-koreas-role-bit...
delaaxe 5y ago
I really want to like Monero but I've had one of the worst crypto experience using the official desktop client. The app crashes randomly, hangs, and worst of all, refuses to send transactions using a hardware wallet when running as a full node. The hardware wallet is only able to sign transactions when connected to a remote node, which is much worse privacy wise. Monero needs much more developers & funding to succeed.
- selsta 5y ago
  Did you open an issue? There is no known bug like you are describing regarding hardware wallets and full nodes.
  - grapist420 5y ago
    “users not reporting issues they have” is annoying. Maybe projects (crypto especially) should offer pizza money level rewards for reporting any valid bug
- xanaxagoras 5y ago
  If you're "running as a full node" then your full node is the remote node for a hardware wallet, isn't it?. I'm confused. I've only ever used the CLI which provides separate applications for wallet and node, and I connect the CLI wallet over RPC to my local (full) node. My understanding is the GUI works the same way while only presenting the one interface to the end user. But you should have a monerod running under the hood.
  - delaaxe 5y ago
    No the hardware wallet is only used to sign the transaction that's broadcasted by my local node. The failing case was with monerod in the background. Maybe I should look into the CLI. Does it support Ledger?
    - shoghicp 5y ago
      CLI supports Ledger, just need to have it plugged it at the time
kongin 5y ago
The lack of cultists is the only reason why I'm even reading these articles. Now if only they could stabilize the price so you can pay for things instead of gamble on it.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Who are 'they' who will stabilize the price?
  - kongin 5y ago
    The developers.
- tootahe45 5y ago
  This is why Monero will never work. Anonymity is defeated because i have to buy it when i want to use it, and sell as soon as i receive it. I can't just hold it in my offline wallet because I'd be speculating on the price.
  - quantumBerry 5y ago
    Unless you buy within seconds of your transaction, or sell within seconds of your reception, how would anyone know who you transacted with beyond it may have been with a customer in one of the other thousands of transactions on KYC exchanges that day?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
earnesti 5y ago
> and it hasn't been as full of cultists as some of the other coins I've seen. LOL. Not my experience at all. Monero shills are the worst.
JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
Monero is one of the truly useful coins and perversely one of the worst performing coins price-wise. There is a horrible lesson in there somewhere about hype and endless promises and markets. https://cryptorank.io/performance https://cryptorank.io/performance
- mettamage 5y ago
  I find Ripple and Stellar useful too. I'm not looking at their philosophy or ideology, but I've used both of them to transfer funds quickly. For that, I find them useful. In general, I'm in favor of cryptocurrencies that allow for quick transfers. This is simply a user perspective. My "crypto perspective" isn't too happy about Ripple, but I can't deny that I enjoy using it for quick transfers.
- faeyanpiraat 5y ago
  Isn’t a stable price a good thing? If I had a dollar that would triple it’s value in a week “just because” I would be suspicious.
  - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
    Do you search out stocks that have a stable price?
    - zwirbl 5y ago
      do you pay your groceries with stocks?
    - csh0 5y ago
      The same qualities that make a stock or asset desirable (appreciation) make for a bad currency. The expectation of wild appreciation discourages transaction and encourages hoarding. This is one of the the reasons why (low) target inflation rates exist. The (slight) devaluation of the currency encourages consumption or investment with the currency and discourages mattress stuffing. You wouldn't buy goods with stocks.
tromp 5y ago
It's hard to have a light Monero client, because it has to have some data indexed about all past transactions, whereas a Bitcoin client only needs to maintain the MUCH smaller UTXO set, i.e. the unspent transaction outputs. This is one of the ways in which Monero scales poorly. Another problem is that Monero's PoW is expensive to verify where a good PoW should be instantly verifiable. In fact, it's considered so expensive that by default, the Monero client uses a checkpoint block without verifying all the PoW that led to the block.
- fragmede 5y ago
  There must be some subtlety I'm missing because you say it's hard to have a light client because there's no way to have a subset of transactions/checkpoint, but then say its PoW is so expensive that starting from a checkpoint is the default.
  - tromp 5y ago
    Keeping data from all tx indexed entails a large memory footprint during all client use. The checkpoint issue affects only the initial sync. Making that trustless by turning off the checkpointing makes turns a moderately slow sync into an extremely slow sync.
- lawn 5y ago
  Monero's PoW being "expensive" is not an actual scaling concern, and checkpoints makes sense for all blockchains.
  - tromp 5y ago
    Other chains like bitcoin still verify that their checkpoint has the most cumulative work behind it, so you have additional assurance that the miners are also attesting to the checkpoint correctness. In Monero you have to trust the checkpoint to represent the most worked chain. Monero's super expensive PoW also makes it very hard to interface with other smart blockchains that may want to verify the amount of work behind a Monero block, or to support useful techniques like flyclient [1]. [1] https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/226.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/226.pdf
dna_polymerase 5y ago
> I'm not really happy promoting a cryptocurrency these days, given that most of them are get-rich-quick schemes I can't agree with that sentiment at all. Sure, there a those schemes, but most of the time they are easy to spot. If you have a look at the top 50 coins on CMC [0], you will find mostly solid projects that have large ecosystems with much brainpower locked in. [0]: https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/
- stavros 5y ago
  Eh, I don't know of a single one where its fans aren't focused on the price. It's a shame.

randomhodler84 5y ago

Monero is a quality project ignored by the masses. Zcash is also pretty cool too!

hamburgerwah 5y ago

For those that may not be familiar, the relatively strong anonymity on Monero is via a cryptographic mechanism known as "ring signatures". Separate from cryptocurrency they are a useful cryptographic technique for many things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_signature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_signature

Groxx 5y ago
I haven't read much on monero / this algorithm, so I'm not sure if it's particularly meaningful, but wikipeda references that being the case for most of 2017-2018 and then the algorithm was changed.
- lolthishuman 5y ago
  Changed to bulletproof https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/1066 https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/1066
  - selsta 5y ago
    The Wikipedia article is incorrect, Monero still uses ring signatures. Bulletproofs are used as efficient range proofs in RingCT to hide the amount in transactions. https://www.getmonero.org/2017/12/07/Monero-Compatible-Bulletproofs.html https://www.getmonero.org/2017/12/07/Monero-Compatible-Bulle...
    - Groxx 5y ago
      Honestly, comments like this are why I stick with hacker news. Thank you! There's a lot of difficult-to-google info locked up in comments like this, and I truly appreciate the effort spent replying to randos like me :)
blueprint 5y ago
that's for sender anonymity, and recipient anonymity is via one-time (stealth) addresses

cosmotic 5y ago

Still has 21 minute transaction time: https://www.monero.how/how-long-do-monero-transactions-take https://www.monero.how/how-long-do-monero-transactions-take

benkaiser 5y ago
10 confirmations is a pretty high bar. Normally a single confirmation gives very high confidence in a transaction.
- price112 5y ago
  Yeah, we can still consider the transaction to be safely received after 1 confirmation and provide goods&service. XMR.to even used 0-conf back in the days https://twitter.com/xmr_to/status/955364047679049728 https://twitter.com/xmr_to/status/955364047679049728 (for hundreds of $) easily. thought, I agree it may be inconvenient.
tylercubell 5y ago
In contrast, "Algorand delivers the fastest finality possible thanks to its Pure Proof of Stake (PPoS) algorithm invented by MIT Professor Silvio Micali. The consensus mechanism doesn’t admit forks at all, which reduces the risk of micro forks to zero. The block creation time on Algorand is less than 5 seconds, and all transactions reach immediate finality." [0] And although Algorand doesn't include some of the more "controversial" privacy features, it's still RTBF-compliant. [1] [0]: https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/role-of-transaction-finality-speed-in-nft-minting https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/role-of-transaction-... [1]: https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/right-to-be-forgotten https://www.algorand.com/resources/blog/right-to-be-forgotte...
- olah_1 5y ago
  Algorand is the exact opposite ethos from Monero. They are partnered with the World Economic Forum and being used for things like vaccine passport haha
Expez 5y ago

ahnick 5y ago

I'd be curious to hear from Monero fans why one might select it over Zcash? Zcash seems to have stronger security guarantees when shielded transactions are used.

I_cape_runts 5y ago
Zcash has to have privacy enabled by the user. It’s not automatically private. Monero is automatically private.
- ahnick 5y ago
  Yes, I understand. That's why I'm specifically asking about the advantage of Monero vs when shielded transactions are used on Zcash.
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    Technical peculiarities aside, if all zcash transactions were shielded each protocol would provide comparable adequate privacy.
- null0pointer 5y ago
  To expand on this a little bit, non-default privacy means that use of privacy features becomes de facto suspicious activity, thus rendering them useless. Another issue with Zcash is that it had a trusted setup, which is not an issue Monero has.
  - ahnick 5y ago
    > To expand on this a little bit, non-default privacy means that use of privacy features becomes de facto suspicious activity, thus rendering them useless. That's not a true statement as far as I understand how Zcash works. Right now there are >742K ZEC in the shielded Sapling pool, so there are quite a few people using it and you can not tell their shielded transactions apart. https://electriccoin.co/zcash-metrics/ https://electriccoin.co/zcash-metrics/ > Another issue with Zcash is that it had a trusted setup, which is not an issue Monero has. Yes, but they took a number of steps to make sure that the ceremony for creating the trusted setup discarded the keys used and there was no one listening in. (they were geographically distributed and destroyed the hardware)

webwielder2 5y ago

How do I get some monero? I've only ever bought crypto with the consumer-level apps and know nothing about mining. (Original article isn't loading, in case it has any info in there)

stavros 5y ago
You can buy it from Kraken.com, for example.
cornstalks 5y ago
You can mine it on your computer with some software (e.g., https://xmrig.com/ https://xmrig.com/ is popular but not the only option). Then you typically join a "pool" (because your little CPU is just a drop in the vast ocean of compute power hashing away and the next Monero block). The pool will pay you a little bit of Monero, based on your compute contributions to the pool. They pay the Monero to your Monero wallet, and then it's up to you to decide how to use it. Whether or not mining is financially viable (e.g., electricity cost) depends on a few things. You can use a calculator/website like whattomine.com, cryptocompare.com, coinwarz.com, minerstat.com, etc. to get a rough idea of your potential mining profitability.

teawrecks 5y ago

Monero sounds great as a starting point since it can theoretically mimic an in-person cash exchange as far as anonymity is concerned. But to encourage adoption we need to be able to do more than that. Is it possible to design a "chargeback" mechanism on top of monero? What if I want the ability to allow an intermediary to arbitrate a dispute between me and the other party?

chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago
Finality is usually considered a feature of blockchains, not a bug. Chargebacks work on networks like Visa and Mastercard because we trust the network (visa) to step in arbitrate disagreements, but there's no central actor here.
easrng 5y ago
>What if I want the ability to allow an intermediary to arbitrate a dispute between me and the other party? Use a 2-of-3 multisig for dispute resolution.
olah_1 5y ago
There’s no reason that intermediaries couldn’t be used. But it wouldn’t be part of the actual core tech. There should be multiple options for such things as well. All competing for better service.

wheresmycraisin 5y ago

I've tried using Monero because of it's supposed privacy features, and found that the official desktop gui clients is completely unusable. I'm not just talking usability and design issues -- I'm talking random crashes and freezes, if it manages to launch at all. When I brought these issues to the dev team, I was basically told to fuck off.

colordrops 5y ago
I tried mining, tried buying, and tried various wallets, and I couldn't get any of them to work. And I'm a highly paid software engineer with decades of experience.
- hcurtiss 5y ago
  FWIW - I’ve used both Cake Wallet and Edge Wallet on iOS and both work very well. Fast, cheap, reliable transactions.
stiltzkin 5y ago
I had different experience with the GUI client, but you can use CLI or other wallet as Cake Wallet.
ajkdhcb2 5y ago
> was basically told to fuck off. Provide information about your issues and they would be grateful. > official desktop gui clients is completely unusable It has improved significantly over time, perhaps this was a long time ago?
blueprint 5y ago
who exactly did you tell that to? the project is open source and has no specific corporate sponsorship, and I've never seen anyone tell others to fuck off for reporting a bug. Can you be more specific about who you contacted and how? best way is IRC or github issue.
mattwilsonn888 5y ago
That's really interesting one because I saw another comment saying the same thing, but two because I had personally come to the opposite conclusion. I found the Desktop GUI to be one of the best experiences in all of crypto. I had no problems with crashing or freezing, and a lot of subtle UX/UI quirks many crypto interfaces have that cause anxiety were subtly avoided in the Monero GUI. Curious what others think.

henron 5y ago

Monero looks like the best crypto for crime, so probably the most valuable crypto in the long run.

pedalpete 5y ago

I used to hold Monero, my issue with it is that it's main use case of anonymity aids the anti-crypto story of crypto being used for money laundering or other illicit activities.

stiltzkin 5y ago
We should not use USD then.
- pedalpete 5y ago
  That's an argument against paper currency, not for Monero.
olah_1 5y ago
It is the common narrative, yes. But it doesn’t need to be. Monero has view keys that allows for audit-ability, for example.

prestigious 5y ago

Without fail every crypto article brings out the cranks of hacker news who sound like luddites/flat earthers

scoofy 5y ago

When you develop a value exchange that is perfectly designed for facilitating human kidnappings and subverting international sanctions, you should not be surprised when other humans decide they value institutions over this level of personal privacy. The narrative that this type of value exchange will protect people is as easily argued that it will put others at risk. We have institutions for a reason, and nobody living in a free country should desire such an absurdly dangerous means of value exchange. At least when you exchange physical currency, it's actually physically difficult for a kidnapper or bank robber to handle the actually physical volume of $1M.

jpadkins 5y ago
I can't tell if you are talking about monero or paper currency. Monero is light years easier for law enforcement to find kidnappers (exchanges, honeypots, network access) than cold hard cash. Was there a plague of kidnappers when the world used 'absurdly dangerous means of value exchange' like paper currency and gold? edit: my reply was before you edited to discuss physical currency. $1M in $100 bills is 22lbs. Hardly a deterrent.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  The difference with cash is that the criminal (or an accomplice) has to physically pick it up, drastically increasing the risk of getting identified and/or caught. Even if they send an unwitting person, there will be a witness and evidence.
- scoofy 5y ago
  Just because you live in a place where kidnapping isn't common, doesn't mean that it is not is common across the globe. https://lb-aps-frontend.statista.com/statistics/275545/kidnapping-ransom-continent/ https://lb-aps-frontend.statista.com/statistics/275545/kidna... The idea that an email asking for a blockchain currency is somehow more difficult than a dead drop of physical currency is absurd. While there are some merits, this type of value exchange is a dangerous vehicle for facilitating human exploitation. We need to start talking about that fact more, instead of the fever dreams that those of us in the free world somehow live in some faux-totalitarian state, simply because you can't legally purchase MDMA or cocaine.

robomc 5y ago

> Monero also opts for a shorter transaction time of 2 minutes, rather than 10 minutes for Bitcoin. Why are people still pursuing this cringely inadequate technology

cowpig 5y ago

How can anyone think this is a good thing? At least other crypto projects have a degree of transparency going for them. I don't understand how people can possibly think that identity obfuscation at scale is a good thing for a financial system. The rule of law and democracy are far from perfect, but it is unquestionably the safest, cushiest time to be alive in human history right now for the average human being. Let's make our financial system completely opaque and make it impossible to enforce laws. That'll really help us! This is a blindness that can only come from a lifetime of extreme privilege.

api 5y ago
It’s also possible to argue that your perspective comes from a place of privilege, namely the privilege of living in a country with some respect for human rights and the rule of law. That is an anomaly in human history. Much of the world still lives under governments that are hostile to many of their people, and we can easily slide back to that condition. I also have to point out that cash is largely opaque and we have used cash for centuries. Laws were still be enforced. While cash can be exchanged with no knowledge of anyone but the participants, large scale movements and usage of money requires interactions that are very noticeable and traceable. It’s easy to move money anonymously but very hard to use it that way. Monero doesn’t change this very much.
- enragedcacti 5y ago
  I don't have a horse in this race, but one difference between cash and monero is that the sheer physical size of cash can cause lots of problems for organized crime[1], to the point that some people advocate for eliminating the $100 bill to make moving large amounts of cash more burdensome [2]. As far as I am aware its irrelevant how much money you are moving in monero until you get up to transaction sizes that effect the price of other monero you hold. [1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/still-using-cash/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/still-using-cash/ [2]https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/opinion/getting-rid-of-big-currency-notes-could-help-fight-crime.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/opinion/getting-rid-of-bi...
0xdeadb00f 5y ago

wyager 5y ago

“Scalability” by constantly increasing the block size isn’t really scalability. If monero ever sees high network usage, expanding blocks will push node storage requirements so high that only a small number of nodes will continue to run, destroying decentralization.

price112 5y ago
Hope not. But if you compare the cost per gigabyte and internet connection, you'll get some interesting numbers and it's only gonna get cheaper. That's what Monero community counts on. So it hopefully won't be a problem. On top of that, node operators can still run pruned node.
robot_no_419 5y ago
I don't have the math at hand but I'm pretty sure at the rate the blockchain is growing and the rate that disk space cost is decreasing, this should not be an issue for quite a few years. I do agree that it will eventually be a problem; at some point, all blockchains will have to move to layer 2 solutions for real scaling.
- doomroot 5y ago
  Bandwidth is the bottleneck not disk space. I fear that a lot of projects are moving to layer 2 too late. Layer 2 makes bitcoin so much more usable that as a result more hobbyists are running L1 nodes.

lamontcg 5y ago

> Your wallet contains a private key that can prove ownership of "outputs" from previous transactions on the blockchain. If that private key is compromised can law enforcement read your past transaction history? And if law enforcement compromises the private key on the other side of the transaction can they connect the two of you, and all your prior mutual transactions?

ajkdhcb2 5y ago
Yes. This is intentional and required to make it possible to opt-in to revealing transaction information. This is useful and enables compliance with current regulations. Of course you can delete that key if you want, and perhaps run multiple wallets with which you can transact with yourself

NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago

A wise man once said to me: good money needs to be stealable. Think about it.

price112 5y ago

Once people realize that when they transact a BTC transaction and all their history can be tracked, they won't like it. Most people think they are hidden behind pseudo-address, but that really is not the case anymore. Go figure. Imagine your bank account is transparent. Every transaction can be seen by everyone. Scary stuff... And it's not about illegality. The fact that everyone can know how much money my neighbor has or his spending habits whatever. Just horrible horrible horrible. It's awful. I can't wrap my head around it. And it's only gonna get worse with more KYC. Coinjoin isn't practical. There is nothing that can fix this. Some people already find this troublesome. You might not feel bothered holding 0.1 BTC, but if you have more than that? People are crazy. It maybe isn't problem now, but the future? Financial transparency won't prevent crimes. And KYC doesn't prevent crimes either. Optional privacy also isn't a solution. All transactions must look the same or very similar otherwise you stand out. Monero solves all of this. It still has a long way to go though.

sub7 5y ago

This, like the rest of crypto, enables the world's worst humans. Also, the founder (who loves telling people to stay poor online) is in jail for fraud. I'm shocked. I really hope Gensler and co sack up and shut down these wannabe pirate losers.

fieryskiff11 5y ago
stay poor, pleb
gjs278 5y ago
stay poor

sdze 5y ago

GNU Taler is (for Europeans at least) the most promising system, because it is controllable (at least on the merchant side). The users themself are anonymous, just like when using cash! That is a good system because it enables governments to still being able to tax businesses and control illegal activities. Such system will also gain more acceptance among the common folks. https://taler.net/en/index.html https://taler.net/en/index.html

R0b0t1 5y ago
The most promising? What do you mean? BTC and XMR already work and don't have the downsides of Taler. Usability could be improved for those, yes. Outside transparency is not a benefit. Most people I've talked to about crypto don't see the opacity as a detriment. They do not trust the government or tax policy. Most of these people are also generally happy to pay their taxes but can see reasons when they would want to hide their behavior.
- sdze 5y ago
  Gnu Taler does not rely on a blockchain. BTCs blockchain is rather power inefficient.
  - numlock86 5y ago
    > BTCs blockchain is rather power inefficient. Pfff, a single transaction is only 1700kw/h (or 820kg of carbon dioxide) with as little as 90g of electrical waste left behind on average. From an economical standpoint that could be much more ... if you are to sell energy or equipment of course. /s
- lottin 5y ago
  This shows how little cryptocurrency users know about how governments collect taxes. The government doesn't go around checking people's bank accounts in order to get tax information. This would be terribly inefficient. What they do instead is pass laws that require employers to disclose how much they pay their employees and to collect taxes on their behalf, before the taxpayer even receives the money. Therefore private transactions and 'unconfiscatable' money does nothing to prevent governments from collecting taxes, at least as far as ordinary people are concerned.

kybernetyk 5y ago

Monero is my hedge against the state.

habosa 5y ago

Bitcoin is totally useless as a currency because it’s slow, has high transaction fees, and easy to trace. So it’s bad for both regular consumers and criminals alike. Monero is a solid improvement because it has low fees (so far) and is very hard to trace. So it’s popular for criminals or intense privacy types. It’s still far too slow and hard to use to ever be accepted in your local grocery store. It’s also hard to buy with fiat because most exchanges are scared of it. What’s really remarkable is how little any of this has changed since ~2016 which was two crypto boom cycles ago. Every single popular cryptocurrency still has the same massive flaws. They’re all either too traceable, too hard to use, too centralized, too slow, too expensive, or too energy intensive. Most of them are many of those things. In 2010 I was a crypto believer. But the whole space has made so little forward progress in 10+ years. In fact there’s been a lot of backwards progress. Mostly all that’s happened is a lot of people have become obscenely rich from speculation, scams, or the intersection of those two things. Those of us who hoped for a new way to pay for things in real life are still waiting.

New_California 5y ago
You are correct on the Bitcoin-is-easy-to-trace point but transactions in the Bitcoin Lightning Network are instant and very cheap. Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency with guaranteed-not-to-change monetary policy and supply cap. That's because Bitcoin as a whole is uniquely hard to change. Monero is great but easy to change and so not a reliable store of value. Bitcoin and Monero need each other badly.
- tromp 5y ago
  In a few decades, when the block subsidy dwindles to insignificance, Bitcoin relies on a constant backlog of high fee paying transactions to provide security. If that cannot be maintained and Bitcoin becomes prone to 51% attacks, then one can imagine Bitcoin adding a tail emission. A cryptocurrency with a fixed emission of 1 coin per second forever is more guaranteed never to change, as it is already as simple, non-arbitrary and fair as possible.
  - 5y ago

nprateem 5y ago

Monero people may not like it but Particl v3 may be released next week or the week after. It's a privacy coin like monero but comes with a decentralised, anonymous marketplace like ebay. V3 will be the first production-ready, mainstream release ready for primetime. It seems to me one of the most undervalued crypto projects with an actual useful product. https://particl.io https://particl.io

bb88 5y ago

Waaaay down at the bottom you see something like this: > Personal Speculation > Disclosure: I own a small amount of Monero, Bitcoin and Nano. How small? $1M might be small to a billionaire. To others $50k is a large amount. Otherwise it seems like yet another blog post shilling crypto.

notanzaiiswear 5y ago
How will you find and maintain experts who are convinced of the greatness of some investments, but refuse to invest, because they want to remain impartial? I think your demands are unrealistic. Also, you could just as well consider it a positive signal (putting money where their mouth is). I guess even better would be posting a proof of ownership. Not sure if that would be possible with Monero, but it would be possible with Bitcoin.
- akimball 5y ago
  Posting the view key for the wallet would prove ownership (and transaction history). This is how Monero allows audit ability and subpoena compliance without risking the security of funds.
benkaiser 5y ago
0.5XMR if you're interested, worth about $125 USD
- bb88 5y ago
  Maybe put that at the top?
  - joreto 5y ago
    if he wrote a blog post about it and didn't own it, I'd be more worried. also, disclosures are usually at the bottom.

Rijek33 5y ago

Monero is bad because it democratizes offshore accounting. Only us rich people should have this privilege. Is this the gist of anti monero sentiment?

stiltzkin 5y ago
The gist of Monero is fungibility.

notanzaiiswear 5y ago

For the dogecoin fans, there is also a similar project based on Monero called Wownero: https://wownero.org/ https://wownero.org/ - that is, technology based on Monero, but more fun. Since I missed to dogecoin hype, I am now rooting for Wow.

menmob 5y ago
This is why I hate the cryptocurrency “community”.
- notanzaiiswear 5y ago
  Why, what do you hate about it? Because they are having fun?
stiltzkin 5y ago
You can only trade $wow on tradeorg, wow is not going to get meme adoptions as doge if it is not available on other exchanges or at least supporting Atomic Swaps. Besides people are moving to NFTs.
- notanzaiiswear 5y ago
  Sure it is not investing advice, and obviously it would have to become available on other exchanges. I wouldn't advise investing in Doge for gains, either.

melenaos 5y ago

I supported monero coin for buying my application, Chordastic. Its almost 6 months and i havent made a singe sale in Monero, but it doesnt matter. Its about widening the purchase power of the coin.

thepra 5y ago
Do you have a guide for such incorporation?
- melenaos 5y ago
  No, I haven't automate it. I show the price in Monero(get current price through cryptocompare API), I ask a deposit to a specific address and to send me the Transaction ID. http://www.chordastic.com/Editor/PurchaseMonero http://www.chordastic.com/Editor/PurchaseMonero

loughnane 5y ago

Monero shines bright in a world where privacy is constantly being eroded. I very much want to live in a future where there is a digital payment method that’s as anonymous as cash. As far as I can tell Monero is the front runner

sireat 5y ago

As the article states the biggest problem is onramp (just like with most crypto). When using it for payments is that it is hard to make a case for a regular user (new to crypto) to use it. The onramp is too painful/expensive/convuluted + payment is without recourse. Joe Customer needs a really good incentive to use crypto. Currently this means something shady. So only normal crypto use is for those who already hold some crypto. PS I've looked for a good solution to this since 2011 and the progress has been glacial.

bob229 5y ago

Cryptos are universally trash and solve no use case that non cranks care about. Stop wasting our timr