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Small correction: some cryptos are anonymous, Zcash and monero for example. Bitcoin and ether are not, and once those have been rolled into something like the W

Small correction: some cryptos are anonymous, Zcash and monero for example. Bitcoin and ether are not, and once those have been rolled into something like the Winklevoss's Gemini, it is harder to follow them publicly.

throwaway82652 4y ago
But that's not true, even those privacycoins are still technically pseudonymous because transactions are still done by wallet ID. This fundamentally can't be fixed because otherwise you can't have something like a wallet that stores a balance which is assigned to you and only you. Also I would like to point out that the idea you can ever be fully anonymous on the internet is a lot of bunk. Regardless of what kind of cryptography you use or how many obfuscation layers you put things through you're still generating a great deal of identifying data just by accessing other servers. This is a problem I have with most of the marketing behind any privacy technology, it's not just these privacycoins that are making false promises.
- gotaquestion 4y ago
  > This fundamentally can't be fixed because otherwise you can't have something like a wallet that stores a balance which is assigned to you and only you. This statement is false. Zcash's shielded transactions hide both the wallet ID and the transaction via zero knowledge proof.
  - throwaway82652 4y ago
    No it's not false. For practical or legal purposes you will need to have that ID disclosed eventually anyway. And actually it appears that most Zcash users are not even attempting to conceal their wallet IDs.
- gojomo 4y ago
  You should read more about Monero & especially Zcash, because their tech specifically overcomes this "pseudonymous" false-allegation in your 1st paragraph. If they in fact worked like Bitcoin, with balances & account-numbers transparent to everyone, I might believe as you do. But I know the tech obscures both amounts & recipients, so I don't. Your 2nd paragraph, that people are spraying all sorts of privacy-destroying info with every interaction, is mostly true. But it's not essentially true, and with education, & software, & further technical advances, far more privacy than we have now is possible. Especially, far more privacy from criminals & abusive regimes that would persecute/imprison/kill people for dumb reasons.
  - throwaway82652 4y ago
    I have read plenty about them and it's still possible to track those coins through various means using various pieces of metadata. The worst problem with them is probably that the privacy gains are basically useless if you ever plan to cash out on a legitimate exchange. >But it's not essentially true, and with education, & software, & further technical advances, far more privacy than we have now is possible Yeah and that's a huge headache most people don't want to go through, very few even in the privacy community want to have their money tied up in that kind of system forever because it's so cumbersome to use correctly. >Especially, far more privacy from criminals & abusive regimes that would persecute/imprison/kill people for dumb reasons. I have seen no evidence that this kind of technology actually helps those people in any disproportionate way, the same technology can be used by criminals and abusive regimes to conceal their activities and in fact it is being used that way right now. Long-term I think it's unwise for them to use it for that purpose, for the same reason it's unwise for others to use it for the purposes of evading them. Remember that the human factor of people making stupid yet honest mistakes is the biggest vulnerability in any system of this kind.
    - gojomo 4y ago
      Before, I could think you were simply misinformed. But when you say "I have read plenty about them and it's still possible to track those coins through various means using various pieces of metadata", you're either lying or unable to understand what you've read. I could give you my Zcash z-address right now, & there's no way known to cryptographic science for you to know its balance, when and how much ZEC it has received or sent, from or to whom, or even if it's ever been used at all. None of the metadata thrown off gives any hints to that. Even godlike omniscience about my every interaction with the internet, or a man-in-the-middle attack against all my connections to other Zcash nodes always, would only indicate that I have interacted with the network, and likely sent transactions at cerain times. You'd still know nothing about my address's activities. (The case is somewhat weaker for Monero, though savvy Monero users can start to approach Zcash's privacy with some extra steps like 'churning'.) If you keep spreading falsehoods, you're harming people who have a right to know what's technically possible, whether they like the implications or not. And while I'm unlikely to convince you, any other lurkers who want to do their own research, and confirm my claims, should take note: I am providing truthful, reliable info here, under my real name, which you can use to discover many other facts against which to calibrate my credibility (including the fact that I'm a compensated advisor to Electric Coin Company, the original developers of the Zcash software). A anonymous account is spreading falsehoods that will mislead you. Proceed accordingly.
hervature 4y ago
Building on this, what does that tell you about the state of crypto when the coins that actually have libertarian values built into them (Zcash and monero) have not exploded in value? That crypto is generally dominated by marketers and pump and dumps.
- throwaway82652 4y ago
  This is not news to anyone working in cybersecurity. It's still very difficult to sell security technology to the general public. The only people who really want to use it is people who are either very smart technologically or they have a lot to lose. So that basically means only C-level executives, high ranking government officials, very wealthy investors and other rich people, major celebrities, and hardcore computer geeks. It doesn't matter if you try to incentivize it in some kind of money making scheme. And actually it would be very bad if these coins exploded in value because then they would become a bigger target for criminals and fraud just like bitcoin currently is.
- gojomo 4y ago
  It tells me it's still early. Many still think Bitcoin offers anonymity. It takes life experience to fully appreciate privacy, & there's tons of naive enthusiasm in crypto that will "grow up" into better, more-private options. Still, over a number of time periods – including the last year – Zcash's value appreciation has outperformed Bitcoin. The real contest, and shake out of true value, is a multi-decade marathon. If your impression, based on what you've seen, is that "crypto is generally dominated by marketers and pump and dumps", well I suppose you're the expert about what's in your junk info-diet. But even if most email, by count, is spam or promotional, people with good filters see little of it, and it'd be a total misreading of the transformative social/economic value of email to say it "is dominated by marketers". I have good filters against seeing, or spending any attention, on the carnival-barker & naive-speculator froth. (And, any truly momentous economic shift is often wrapped in a phalanx of such pretenders & hangers-on. I don't mistake the lampreys for the whale.) And looking at tangible measures, like total market cap, real innovators with interesting tech & growing histories of stability are a comfortably majority of all value.

throwaway82652 4y ago

But that's not true, even those privacycoins are still technically pseudonymous because transactions are still done by wallet ID. This fundamentally can't be fixed because otherwise you can't have something like a wallet that stores a balance which is assigned to you and only you. Also I would like to point out that the idea you can ever be fully anonymous on the internet is a lot of bunk. Regardless of what kind of cryptography you use or how many obfuscation layers you put things through you're still generating a great deal of identifying data just by accessing other servers. This is a problem I have with most of the marketing behind any privacy technology, it's not just these privacycoins that are making false promises.

gotaquestion 4y ago
> This fundamentally can't be fixed because otherwise you can't have something like a wallet that stores a balance which is assigned to you and only you. This statement is false. Zcash's shielded transactions hide both the wallet ID and the transaction via zero knowledge proof.
- throwaway82652 4y ago
  No it's not false. For practical or legal purposes you will need to have that ID disclosed eventually anyway. And actually it appears that most Zcash users are not even attempting to conceal their wallet IDs.
gojomo 4y ago
You should read more about Monero & especially Zcash, because their tech specifically overcomes this "pseudonymous" false-allegation in your 1st paragraph. If they in fact worked like Bitcoin, with balances & account-numbers transparent to everyone, I might believe as you do. But I know the tech obscures both amounts & recipients, so I don't. Your 2nd paragraph, that people are spraying all sorts of privacy-destroying info with every interaction, is mostly true. But it's not essentially true, and with education, & software, & further technical advances, far more privacy than we have now is possible. Especially, far more privacy from criminals & abusive regimes that would persecute/imprison/kill people for dumb reasons.
- throwaway82652 4y ago
  I have read plenty about them and it's still possible to track those coins through various means using various pieces of metadata. The worst problem with them is probably that the privacy gains are basically useless if you ever plan to cash out on a legitimate exchange. >But it's not essentially true, and with education, & software, & further technical advances, far more privacy than we have now is possible Yeah and that's a huge headache most people don't want to go through, very few even in the privacy community want to have their money tied up in that kind of system forever because it's so cumbersome to use correctly. >Especially, far more privacy from criminals & abusive regimes that would persecute/imprison/kill people for dumb reasons. I have seen no evidence that this kind of technology actually helps those people in any disproportionate way, the same technology can be used by criminals and abusive regimes to conceal their activities and in fact it is being used that way right now. Long-term I think it's unwise for them to use it for that purpose, for the same reason it's unwise for others to use it for the purposes of evading them. Remember that the human factor of people making stupid yet honest mistakes is the biggest vulnerability in any system of this kind.
  - gojomo 4y ago
    Before, I could think you were simply misinformed. But when you say "I have read plenty about them and it's still possible to track those coins through various means using various pieces of metadata", you're either lying or unable to understand what you've read. I could give you my Zcash z-address right now, & there's no way known to cryptographic science for you to know its balance, when and how much ZEC it has received or sent, from or to whom, or even if it's ever been used at all. None of the metadata thrown off gives any hints to that. Even godlike omniscience about my every interaction with the internet, or a man-in-the-middle attack against all my connections to other Zcash nodes always, would only indicate that I have interacted with the network, and likely sent transactions at cerain times. You'd still know nothing about my address's activities. (The case is somewhat weaker for Monero, though savvy Monero users can start to approach Zcash's privacy with some extra steps like 'churning'.) If you keep spreading falsehoods, you're harming people who have a right to know what's technically possible, whether they like the implications or not. And while I'm unlikely to convince you, any other lurkers who want to do their own research, and confirm my claims, should take note: I am providing truthful, reliable info here, under my real name, which you can use to discover many other facts against which to calibrate my credibility (including the fact that I'm a compensated advisor to Electric Coin Company, the original developers of the Zcash software). A anonymous account is spreading falsehoods that will mislead you. Proceed accordingly.

hervature 4y ago

Building on this, what does that tell you about the state of crypto when the coins that actually have libertarian values built into them (Zcash and monero) have not exploded in value? That crypto is generally dominated by marketers and pump and dumps.

throwaway82652 4y ago
This is not news to anyone working in cybersecurity. It's still very difficult to sell security technology to the general public. The only people who really want to use it is people who are either very smart technologically or they have a lot to lose. So that basically means only C-level executives, high ranking government officials, very wealthy investors and other rich people, major celebrities, and hardcore computer geeks. It doesn't matter if you try to incentivize it in some kind of money making scheme. And actually it would be very bad if these coins exploded in value because then they would become a bigger target for criminals and fraud just like bitcoin currently is.
gojomo 4y ago
It tells me it's still early. Many still think Bitcoin offers anonymity. It takes life experience to fully appreciate privacy, & there's tons of naive enthusiasm in crypto that will "grow up" into better, more-private options. Still, over a number of time periods – including the last year – Zcash's value appreciation has outperformed Bitcoin. The real contest, and shake out of true value, is a multi-decade marathon. If your impression, based on what you've seen, is that "crypto is generally dominated by marketers and pump and dumps", well I suppose you're the expert about what's in your junk info-diet. But even if most email, by count, is spam or promotional, people with good filters see little of it, and it'd be a total misreading of the transformative social/economic value of email to say it "is dominated by marketers". I have good filters against seeing, or spending any attention, on the carnival-barker & naive-speculator froth. (And, any truly momentous economic shift is often wrapped in a phalanx of such pretenders & hangers-on. I don't mistake the lampreys for the whale.) And looking at tangible measures, like total market cap, real innovators with interesting tech & growing histories of stability are a comfortably majority of all value.