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Monero is too good at evading government surveillance. It will never be allowed to reach critical mass of usage to survive as the premier cryptocurrency. It wi

Monero is too good at evading government surveillance. It will never be allowed to reach critical mass of usage to survive as the premier cryptocurrency. It will continue to have a role and prosper next to Bitcoin though. We need both. One to decouple from government control, and the other to evade surveillance. It’s a well-known secret that you can change your Bitcoin to monero, then the Monero back to Bitcoin to “wash” your Bitcoin. Also, with enough time, all the Bitcoins would be dirty. P.S. don’t bother responding if you are coming from the privilege of never having lived under a terrible government.

tasha0663 5y ago
> P.S. don’t bother responding if you are coming from the privilege of never having lived under a terrible government. I lived under an even worse government than you, and find this attitude offensive.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
> It will never be allowed to reach critical mass of usage to survive as the premier cryptocurrency. Why? How are they going to keep it down? I will keep talking about it and trying to use it. Actually managed to get paid with it once. Ironic that the one coin that's actually usable as currency remains obscure.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Did you manage to convert that pay to fiat?
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Yes. Deposited it on Binance, left some XMR in the savings account, exchanged XMR/USD/BRL and withdrew to my bank.
    - lovich 5y ago
      If crypto currencies ever get large enough to be a bother they can just turn off any networked machine that supports crypto. They control the entire internet at the physical level. Until crypto currencies come with their own physical cables and machines, and the army needed to protect it from sabotage/alteration, then it’s going to need at least implicit permission from various governments. This isn’t shadowrun, the digital realm isn’t one entirely separate from reality
      - matheusmoreira 5y ago
        Well, that's the general problem with the centralized internet we enjoy today. Telecommunications service providers have always been in bed with governments. I wonder if we'll eventually move towards a decentralized mesh network. Another possible solution is to somehow get influential people to buy into these systems. That way, they won't want to stop it even if they could.
        lovich 5y ago
        > I wonder if we'll eventually move towards a decentralized mesh network What would they do? We still use address systems based on groups owned by the governments. I’m not even protesting that fact. I’m just amazed that a large group of people think they can have a direct dependency on someone else’s property, and pretend that they are completely independent.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Ah, you must not live in the US then.
smt88 5y ago
El Salvador and China have shown us that Bitcoin is not sufficient to evade government control. Also, exfiltrating value via crypto is not sufficient for most people in oppressive countries. The overwhelming majority need to be able to spend the crypto locally as cash, which isn't possible in any oppressive country except El Salvador.
- mathverse 5y ago
  Crypto is de facto banned in China and yet I see an incredible amount of chinese even those working for state owned corporations trading crypto. Even openly with their profile pics on Twitter. China is sometimes too ridiculous for me to understand.
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    largely due to the coverage of the press many people think China has superpowers when it comes to law enforcement, but that's obviously not the case. 1.4 billion people are hard to manage It's the same way everywhere really. Technically Elon Musk is supposed to have his twitter activity supervised as per agreement with regulators. I don't think that's happening but somehow nobody cares
    - smt88 5y ago
      China doesn't need to 100% enforce the law to effectively make something illegal. Even if they catch and prosecute 1%, their justice system is dangerous enough that most people won't take the risk. For crypto as currency, this is effectively a death sentence. If most people are afraid to hold or trade it, you can't use it locally. It would only be useful to people hoping to exfiltrate value and then leave the country, which is not a majority of people.
      - chrischen 5y ago
        Well tell that to the state employees openly trading crypto as mentioned earlier.
olah_1 5y ago
> It will never be allowed to reach critical mass of usage to survive as the premier cryptocurrency. Monero is getting to the point where it will not need permission. It will soon be added to the decentralized exchange Thorchain. On top of that, the Haveno project is making great progress and will be a Monero version of Bisq. Thorchain will be swaps that don’t require specific orders, much higher liquidity. Haveno is the traditional platform where someone puts out an order and someone buys that exact amount. Oh and I almost forgot about regular atomic swaps which also exist today.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  >Monero is getting to the point where it will not need permission. If you're interested in actually using your currency for anything in the real world other than swapping it for other cryptocurrency you'll always need permission. If I want to go to the supermarket and pay with Monero that will require that legislators deem Monero a legitimate currency. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
  - olah_1 5y ago
    > If I want to go to the supermarket and pay with Monero that will require that legislators deem Monero a legitimate currency. A lot of people use giftcards. That's what people do with bitcoin too. > https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ Completely irrelevant to this conversation.
    - leppr 5y ago
      Actually it's relevant as a reminder of the importance of privacy coins, for they are the only way to avoid wrench attacks.
      - olah_1 5y ago
        You can still get wrench attacked for your Monero in the same exact way. It's just a risk of self-custody of keys and it's a good reason for the industry to push forward better key management solutions (multi-sig + shamir secret sharing, etc)
magicjosh 5y ago
For those interested in mixers, I'm just starting this episode of the Zero Knowledge podcast myself: Mixers with Tornado.cash https://zeroknowledge.fm/111-2/ https://zeroknowledge.fm/111-2/
mcherm 5y ago
> P.S. don’t bother responding if you are coming from the privilege of never having lived under a terrible government. Please don't tell me whether or not to respond. If you want to point out that the question has much more salience for those who have to deal with terrible governments then I think that's a very important point to make and I appreciate you pointing it out. But I come to Hacker News to hear from everyone with insights -- NOT just the subset who happen to live under terrible governments.
- toomanydoubts 5y ago
  To be fair with OP, it's very frustrating to read US-centric responses when you're talking about issues that are not present there. Comments like "it's against the law" or "that's not how the energy industry works" or "software engineers are overpaid" might seem innocent enough, but are really frustrating for those readers who understand that the fact we all speak English online doesn't mean we are all from USA.
  - jonathan-adly 5y ago
    Exactly. Relevant to this discussion, if you are living in a Euro/USD country where everyone will happily accept your currency and you can indirectly affect monetary policy then why would you care? Of course, cryptocurrency would seem useless to you. It’s not the same everywhere though!
    - bb88 5y ago
      If you want a free society you have to live like you're in one. Closing debate on any topic is not a free society.
    - leppr 5y ago
      I know of no country where the average citizen can affect the monetary policy of their currency. Otherwise we wouldn't have had two full years of central bank-fueled upwards wealth redistribution almost everywhere in the world.
bb88 5y ago
> P.S. don’t bother responding if you are coming from the privilege of never having lived under a terrible government. At first the argument was that BTC is transparent which means it's better than the banks. Now it's transparency that is the problem. And now we can't freely debate it on a forum like HN. Money laundering for "good" is still money laundering, and that's what your advocating. And money laundering enables all the "bad" things like bribery, human trafficking, arms sales, drugs, and then nation-state sponsored terrorism. E.g. I keep asking myself, would organizations like NAMBLA like this technology? It would, I think, be a shame for all the "good" you're hoping to create instead ends up causing far more harm for the people you hope to free with it.
- jonathan-adly 5y ago
  You can debate it, I just have nothing to say to you. If you can’t see the problem with governments controlling and monitoring transactions and being able to confiscate private property, then cryptocurrency is not for you. It’s simple - you don’t have to use it and you can call your legislators to ban it. Luckily, it’s permissionless, so no one cares.
  - lovich 5y ago
    If it’s on the internet, it’s up to the permission of whoever owns the hardware which happens to be all these governments. I feel like the crypto arena is conflating the fact that they are small enough to not be worth actually stopping with the idea that they can never be stopped.
    - jonathan-adly 5y ago
      The only way to shut down the Bitcoin network is to shut down the internet all over the world at once and even then - there is ham radio and satellites. Remember, you can say it’s useless (for you.) and harmful. That’s all fair. But, it’s a verifiable, indisputable fact that there are Bitcoin nodes operating in China despite the government ban[0]. You can’t ban Bitcoin, which why the free market deems it valuable. Smart governments know this and move to tax it heavily(India), or move it to work within the state-regulated banks (Russia). But, no you can’t shut the network down without shutting everyone else internet. 0. https://bitnodes.io/ https://bitnodes.io/
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
blueprint 5y ago
Allowed by who? The main problem I see right now are social propaganda attacks and successful attempts at sabotaging the evolution of its research and technology.
sgp_ 5y ago
> Also, with enough time, all the Bitcoins would be dirty. This is a misconception. Coins are only associated with the last identified node. So for example if I sent tainted BTC to Coinbase, sure Coinbase would investigate my account obviously. But the coins can be used from then on as "clean" Coinbase coins, until they hit the next identified node by blockchain analysis companies.
- wmf 5y ago
  If Coinbase accepts the deposit. If they refuse it then the hot potato is back in your hands.
  - sgp_ 5y ago
    Ironically, not necessarily. If you sent funds to Coinbase's provided address and they wanted to refuse/refund it for some reason, your new owned output would likely be marked as clean and from Coinbase. This may vary across circumstances of course. And they may decide to refuse to issue a refund.

tasha0663 5y ago

> P.S. don’t bother responding if you are coming from the privilege of never having lived under a terrible government. I lived under an even worse government than you, and find this attitude offensive.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> It will never be allowed to reach critical mass of usage to survive as the premier cryptocurrency. Why? How are they going to keep it down? I will keep talking about it and trying to use it. Actually managed to get paid with it once. Ironic that the one coin that's actually usable as currency remains obscure.

whimsicalism 5y ago
Did you manage to convert that pay to fiat?
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Yes. Deposited it on Binance, left some XMR in the savings account, exchanged XMR/USD/BRL and withdrew to my bank.
  - lovich 5y ago
    If crypto currencies ever get large enough to be a bother they can just turn off any networked machine that supports crypto. They control the entire internet at the physical level. Until crypto currencies come with their own physical cables and machines, and the army needed to protect it from sabotage/alteration, then it’s going to need at least implicit permission from various governments. This isn’t shadowrun, the digital realm isn’t one entirely separate from reality
    - matheusmoreira 5y ago
      Well, that's the general problem with the centralized internet we enjoy today. Telecommunications service providers have always been in bed with governments. I wonder if we'll eventually move towards a decentralized mesh network. Another possible solution is to somehow get influential people to buy into these systems. That way, they won't want to stop it even if they could.
      - lovich 5y ago
        > I wonder if we'll eventually move towards a decentralized mesh network What would they do? We still use address systems based on groups owned by the governments. I’m not even protesting that fact. I’m just amazed that a large group of people think they can have a direct dependency on someone else’s property, and pretend that they are completely independent.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Ah, you must not live in the US then.

smt88 5y ago

El Salvador and China have shown us that Bitcoin is not sufficient to evade government control. Also, exfiltrating value via crypto is not sufficient for most people in oppressive countries. The overwhelming majority need to be able to spend the crypto locally as cash, which isn't possible in any oppressive country except El Salvador.

mathverse 5y ago
Crypto is de facto banned in China and yet I see an incredible amount of chinese even those working for state owned corporations trading crypto. Even openly with their profile pics on Twitter. China is sometimes too ridiculous for me to understand.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  largely due to the coverage of the press many people think China has superpowers when it comes to law enforcement, but that's obviously not the case. 1.4 billion people are hard to manage It's the same way everywhere really. Technically Elon Musk is supposed to have his twitter activity supervised as per agreement with regulators. I don't think that's happening but somehow nobody cares
  - smt88 5y ago
    China doesn't need to 100% enforce the law to effectively make something illegal. Even if they catch and prosecute 1%, their justice system is dangerous enough that most people won't take the risk. For crypto as currency, this is effectively a death sentence. If most people are afraid to hold or trade it, you can't use it locally. It would only be useful to people hoping to exfiltrate value and then leave the country, which is not a majority of people.
    - chrischen 5y ago
      Well tell that to the state employees openly trading crypto as mentioned earlier.

olah_1 5y ago

> It will never be allowed to reach critical mass of usage to survive as the premier cryptocurrency. Monero is getting to the point where it will not need permission. It will soon be added to the decentralized exchange Thorchain. On top of that, the Haveno project is making great progress and will be a Monero version of Bisq. Thorchain will be swaps that don’t require specific orders, much higher liquidity. Haveno is the traditional platform where someone puts out an order and someone buys that exact amount. Oh and I almost forgot about regular atomic swaps which also exist today.

Barrin92 5y ago
>Monero is getting to the point where it will not need permission. If you're interested in actually using your currency for anything in the real world other than swapping it for other cryptocurrency you'll always need permission. If I want to go to the supermarket and pay with Monero that will require that legislators deem Monero a legitimate currency. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
- olah_1 5y ago
  > If I want to go to the supermarket and pay with Monero that will require that legislators deem Monero a legitimate currency. A lot of people use giftcards. That's what people do with bitcoin too. > https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ Completely irrelevant to this conversation.
  - leppr 5y ago
    Actually it's relevant as a reminder of the importance of privacy coins, for they are the only way to avoid wrench attacks.
    - olah_1 5y ago
      You can still get wrench attacked for your Monero in the same exact way. It's just a risk of self-custody of keys and it's a good reason for the industry to push forward better key management solutions (multi-sig + shamir secret sharing, etc)

magicjosh 5y ago

For those interested in mixers, I'm just starting this episode of the Zero Knowledge podcast myself: Mixers with Tornado.cash https://zeroknowledge.fm/111-2/ https://zeroknowledge.fm/111-2/

mcherm 5y ago

> P.S. don’t bother responding if you are coming from the privilege of never having lived under a terrible government. Please don't tell me whether or not to respond. If you want to point out that the question has much more salience for those who have to deal with terrible governments then I think that's a very important point to make and I appreciate you pointing it out. But I come to Hacker News to hear from everyone with insights -- NOT just the subset who happen to live under terrible governments.

toomanydoubts 5y ago
To be fair with OP, it's very frustrating to read US-centric responses when you're talking about issues that are not present there. Comments like "it's against the law" or "that's not how the energy industry works" or "software engineers are overpaid" might seem innocent enough, but are really frustrating for those readers who understand that the fact we all speak English online doesn't mean we are all from USA.
- jonathan-adly 5y ago
  Exactly. Relevant to this discussion, if you are living in a Euro/USD country where everyone will happily accept your currency and you can indirectly affect monetary policy then why would you care? Of course, cryptocurrency would seem useless to you. It’s not the same everywhere though!
  - bb88 5y ago
    If you want a free society you have to live like you're in one. Closing debate on any topic is not a free society.
  - leppr 5y ago
    I know of no country where the average citizen can affect the monetary policy of their currency. Otherwise we wouldn't have had two full years of central bank-fueled upwards wealth redistribution almost everywhere in the world.

bb88 5y ago

> P.S. don’t bother responding if you are coming from the privilege of never having lived under a terrible government. At first the argument was that BTC is transparent which means it's better than the banks. Now it's transparency that is the problem. And now we can't freely debate it on a forum like HN. Money laundering for "good" is still money laundering, and that's what your advocating. And money laundering enables all the "bad" things like bribery, human trafficking, arms sales, drugs, and then nation-state sponsored terrorism. E.g. I keep asking myself, would organizations like NAMBLA like this technology? It would, I think, be a shame for all the "good" you're hoping to create instead ends up causing far more harm for the people you hope to free with it.

jonathan-adly 5y ago
You can debate it, I just have nothing to say to you. If you can’t see the problem with governments controlling and monitoring transactions and being able to confiscate private property, then cryptocurrency is not for you. It’s simple - you don’t have to use it and you can call your legislators to ban it. Luckily, it’s permissionless, so no one cares.
- lovich 5y ago
  If it’s on the internet, it’s up to the permission of whoever owns the hardware which happens to be all these governments. I feel like the crypto arena is conflating the fact that they are small enough to not be worth actually stopping with the idea that they can never be stopped.
  - jonathan-adly 5y ago
    The only way to shut down the Bitcoin network is to shut down the internet all over the world at once and even then - there is ham radio and satellites. Remember, you can say it’s useless (for you.) and harmful. That’s all fair. But, it’s a verifiable, indisputable fact that there are Bitcoin nodes operating in China despite the government ban[0]. You can’t ban Bitcoin, which why the free market deems it valuable. Smart governments know this and move to tax it heavily(India), or move it to work within the state-regulated banks (Russia). But, no you can’t shut the network down without shutting everyone else internet. 0. https://bitnodes.io/ https://bitnodes.io/

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

blueprint 5y ago

Allowed by who? The main problem I see right now are social propaganda attacks and successful attempts at sabotaging the evolution of its research and technology.

sgp_ 5y ago

> Also, with enough time, all the Bitcoins would be dirty. This is a misconception. Coins are only associated with the last identified node. So for example if I sent tainted BTC to Coinbase, sure Coinbase would investigate my account obviously. But the coins can be used from then on as "clean" Coinbase coins, until they hit the next identified node by blockchain analysis companies.

wmf 5y ago
If Coinbase accepts the deposit. If they refuse it then the hot potato is back in your hands.
- sgp_ 5y ago
  Ironically, not necessarily. If you sent funds to Coinbase's provided address and they wanted to refuse/refund it for some reason, your new owned output would likely be marked as clean and from Coinbase. This may vary across circumstances of course. And they may decide to refuse to issue a refund.