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Bitcoin maximalists are learning that having a non-fungible and fully traceable ledger might be a problem. Even Satoshi called this out! As is, BTC is somewhat

Bitcoin maximalists are learning that having a non-fungible and fully traceable ledger might be a problem. Even Satoshi called this out! As is, BTC is somewhat of a privacy nightmare. All of your transactions are on the public ledger for anyone with basic knowledge of statistics to correlate and see all of your transactions. Blockchain Analytics is big business! All the things the Treasury is considering to be "suspicious activity" simply can't be tracked with something that's non-fungible and untracable like Monero. This suspicious activity - aka privacy - is just how all monero transactions are done.

thrance 1y ago
If Monero ever came close to Bitcoin's popularity, it would be outlawed. Plain as that. You can't get freedom through technology.
- 1gn15 1y ago
  It's not so black and white. Obviously social and political change is the goal. But in the meantime technology can help if you're living under repression. Take VPNs and Tor helping people jump the Great Firewall of China for example. Obviously, yes, this is a political problem; the GFW shouldn't exist. But it would be foolish to dismiss the technology as a vital part of fighting back against the state.
- user34283 1y ago
  Freedom here means transacting without: -- anti-money laundering safeguards sanctions enforcement consumer protection tax enforcement fraud prevention systems -- It is very true that technology won't get you this freedom from sensible legal requirements we impose on financial transactions. That's obviously a good thing, but I guess people who are in crypto would disagree.
  - palmfacehn 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - user34283 1y ago
      Talk about rejecting nuance, but now the state is "all powerful" because you can't transact privately. Yes, the state has control of finance and transactions. It always does. Democracies are build on principles like Popular sovereignty, political equality, or the rule of law. Private transactions or tax-free property isn't a democratic feature. Yes, it's that obvious.
      - palmfacehn 1y ago
        Even if you accept those premises, reasonable people would expect limits on the power of the state to infringe upon property rights, even when backed by a popular majority. Furthermore, the principle of individual self-ownership is a key starting point for modern, liberal ideas of law. Of course you are free to reject those premises, but I would characterize that as authoritarian rather than obvious.
        immibis 1y ago
        Both should be limited. Almost everything should be limited. Deciding the limits is called politics.
        palmfacehn 1y ago
        Political solutions are often messy and complex. Pragmatic fixes are rarely obvious and overreaches are common. Reforms are ongoing. Conversely, absolutists have no use for nuance. The war on cash is a good example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United... https://ij.org/federal-court-rules-in-favor-of-convenience-store-owner/ https://ij.org/federal-court-rules-in-favor-of-convenience-s...
        Arainach 1y ago
        Something being imperfect doesn't mean that getting rid of it is an improvement. Should civil forfeiture be heavily reformed, and is it being obviously abused? Yes. Is the ability to use cryptocurrency to bypass sanctions, fund oppressive regimes, drive criminal empires, and power a new generation of scams a much worse problem? Absolutely. Proponents of a system explicitly designed to enable financial fraud shocked when governments apply fraud rules to them, news at 11.
  - fatchan 1y ago
    Freedom with crypto means I can pay bills without unjust barriers, and no individual and especially no "financial institution" (ultimately the governments) decides if my transaction goes through or can confiscate the money without confiscating me. With Paypal, Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, and all the payment gateways and controlled entities in between, you will be banned for a "trade secret" reason which they have no legal obligation to reveal. Example 1: https://kiwifarms.st/threads/payment-processor-censorship-visa-mastercard-stripe-paypal-etc.224937/ https://kiwifarms.st/threads/payment-processor-censorship-vi... (You may discredit the source and ignore factual information and numerous examples at your own discretion) When you lost the ability to pay for things, you can be starved, of food and more importantly your principles and dignity. Like many other issues that I consider political, what is important to me and what I believe to be actually righteous in the end is more important than the issues of e.g. personal responsibility from being scammed, or criminal and money laundering transactions. Remember where the term "money laundering" came from.
- nunobrito 1y ago
  Monero has already been delisted from relevant exchanges last year because "reasons". The main website that matched people to trade fiat for monero (localmonero) got closed recently because "reasons". It is pretty popular and outlawed since a while. Basically the only relevant crypto currency used for purchases on the street since several years now. You can look up the number of daily on-chain transactions and tends to be on top every day. You likely would only notice this if you need to donate money for someone with the wrong opinions or live at a non-aligned country.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- GeoAtreides 1y ago
  You are being downvoted, but you are correct. I am east european and I know how hard the fist of the State hits. Sometimes I think westerners see technology like some special moves that you can quickly combo so you can defeat the evil boss at the end. No, there are no special moves, just a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.
- Mouvelie 1y ago
  Which, I believe, would make it even more prevalent. It would be the confession that they cannot control it, and while most people would be deterred by this, I can see a shadow economy growing because (or thanks ?) to this.
- mindslight 1y ago
  > You can't get freedom through technology I'd argue the opposite - if Bitcoin had been created with secure private transactions (untraceability) it would be in the same popular position it is today, but the attacks on it (chain analysis etc) would be failing instead of inevitably marching forward. Your argument seems to rely on an assumption that the insecurity of Bitcoin has been legible and apparent to the [greater] government for most of Bitcoin's life, and so the government allowed it to gain popularity knowing those insecurities would eventually make it succumb to government control. But in general government sees any lack of identification/data as a problem to be rectified, and the popular wisdom for quite some time has been that Bitcoin is "anonymous". so I'd say the government acted as quick as it would have regardless of the actual security properties. It feels like any holding off had more to do with financial lucrativeness rather than an understanding of its long term security flaws. Now that we're here though, Bitcoin does seem like a very strong inoculation against financial privacy technology. Government is now well aware that software/cryptography can be used for money, and the first question asked is why isn't your new niche system grokkable to chain analysis?
- immibis 1y ago
  Monero is outlawed in the EU. It's not illegal to possess, but no business is allowed to touch it. Which proves that it does what it says. (Much like when the police suspect someone of being a drug dealer for using GrapheneOS)
  - ranger_danger 1y ago
    > Monero is outlawed in the EU. Source:
tchock23 1y ago
That assumes Bitcoin maximalists ultimately see it as a means of transaction. The ones I come across in the wild are purely maximalists for speculative purposes and couldn’t care less about the “practical” use cases for it.
- swinglock 1y ago
  Being able to transact is the point of it all. If practical use is not possible that makes it useless and that makes it worthless.
  - teiferer 1y ago
    This has never been the main use outside an unrealistic dream world. Its main purposes are speculation and ponzi-like scams.
    - fluoridation 1y ago
      There are two components to price: what the thing is worth, and what you might be willing to convince someone else to buy it from you in the future for. The latter is the speculative component. The former must be related to some intrinsic property of the thing. For example, an orange has some minimum price, because if nothing else it's composed of matter and so can weight things down. If bitcoin is useless to transact, then its intrinsic worth is zero, so its price is 100% speculative. That's not so much a bubble as just air being pressurized by no container.
      - kjkjadksj 1y ago
        Much like baseball cards and beanie babies.
        psychlops 1y ago
        Companies can make more baseball cards and beanie babies. Enforced scarcity gives bitcoin value.
ibejoeb 1y ago
Yeah. I understand the excitement over the past two decades about the possibility of cryptocurrencies, but it came with a lot of naivete. After the fight to create sovereign central banks, did anyone seriously think that they were just going to give it up? Sure, maybe they can't stop you technologically, but it's very easy to simply make it unlawful, and then the men (and robots) with guns call.
rocqua 1y ago
But with Monero, you see that it is effectively shut off from the Fiat ecosystem entirely. The proposal here clearly lays out how bad Bitcoin is for privacy. But it's not like the more private alternatives are actually allowed to be viable alternatives.
- drozycki 1y ago
  Is this true? Kraken and Bitfinex both seem to support XMR <-> USD
  - weberer 1y ago
    They don't support it for EU customers since 2024 due to new EU regulations. It sucks.
- sterlind 1y ago
  ironically, the inconvenience of exchanging Monero for fiat helps Monero be used as an actual currency. rather than exchanging Monero for cash and then buying things with cash, Monero is exchanged for the things itself.
SubiculumCode 1y ago
Very true. In my opinion, and strictly from an American-centric view, privacy should only extend to transactions within borders between citizens. As soon as it involves transactions from outside our borders, then it is a national security concern. We know, right now, that both Russia and China are fueling internal political tension via massive and sophisticated disinformation/influence campaigns, a certain part of which involves paying influencers, extremists, shady media outlets, maybe a Representative or three in America to push their agendas, foment discontent aiming to destabilize and control the United States. Monero is definitely being used in this information warfare. I am pro-privacy, pro- individual rights, but we have to resolve this central tension of these things and the very real hyper connected world we live in which very real nation-state enemies. I am at the point where I think restricting the internet to allied countries might actually be a good idea, as currently we are leaving citizens unprotected from every nation-state actor who wishes to manipulate us with targeted, data-analytic, bot- and ai-empowered campaign against us. It is out of control, and as long as a monetary instrument like crypto enables that attack surface, it will be hard for me to support crypto-maxamialism.
- beambot 1y ago
  > a certain part of which involves paying influencers, extremists, shady media outlets, maybe a Representative or three in America to push their agendas, foment discontent aiming to destabilize and control the United States. Doesn't this describe every political party and megacorp in the US too...?
  - le-mark 1y ago
    Political parties and mega corps don’t strive to undermine the fabric of democracy itself though.
    - krapp 1y ago
      Are you sure about that?
      - 1y ago

thrance 1y ago

If Monero ever came close to Bitcoin's popularity, it would be outlawed. Plain as that. You can't get freedom through technology.

1gn15 1y ago
It's not so black and white. Obviously social and political change is the goal. But in the meantime technology can help if you're living under repression. Take VPNs and Tor helping people jump the Great Firewall of China for example. Obviously, yes, this is a political problem; the GFW shouldn't exist. But it would be foolish to dismiss the technology as a vital part of fighting back against the state.
user34283 1y ago
Freedom here means transacting without: -- anti-money laundering safeguards sanctions enforcement consumer protection tax enforcement fraud prevention systems -- It is very true that technology won't get you this freedom from sensible legal requirements we impose on financial transactions. That's obviously a good thing, but I guess people who are in crypto would disagree.
- palmfacehn 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - user34283 1y ago
    Talk about rejecting nuance, but now the state is "all powerful" because you can't transact privately. Yes, the state has control of finance and transactions. It always does. Democracies are build on principles like Popular sovereignty, political equality, or the rule of law. Private transactions or tax-free property isn't a democratic feature. Yes, it's that obvious.
    - palmfacehn 1y ago
      Even if you accept those premises, reasonable people would expect limits on the power of the state to infringe upon property rights, even when backed by a popular majority. Furthermore, the principle of individual self-ownership is a key starting point for modern, liberal ideas of law. Of course you are free to reject those premises, but I would characterize that as authoritarian rather than obvious.
      - immibis 1y ago
        Both should be limited. Almost everything should be limited. Deciding the limits is called politics.
        palmfacehn 1y ago
        Political solutions are often messy and complex. Pragmatic fixes are rarely obvious and overreaches are common. Reforms are ongoing. Conversely, absolutists have no use for nuance. The war on cash is a good example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United... https://ij.org/federal-court-rules-in-favor-of-convenience-store-owner/ https://ij.org/federal-court-rules-in-favor-of-convenience-s...
        Arainach 1y ago
        Something being imperfect doesn't mean that getting rid of it is an improvement. Should civil forfeiture be heavily reformed, and is it being obviously abused? Yes. Is the ability to use cryptocurrency to bypass sanctions, fund oppressive regimes, drive criminal empires, and power a new generation of scams a much worse problem? Absolutely. Proponents of a system explicitly designed to enable financial fraud shocked when governments apply fraud rules to them, news at 11.
- fatchan 1y ago
  Freedom with crypto means I can pay bills without unjust barriers, and no individual and especially no "financial institution" (ultimately the governments) decides if my transaction goes through or can confiscate the money without confiscating me. With Paypal, Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, and all the payment gateways and controlled entities in between, you will be banned for a "trade secret" reason which they have no legal obligation to reveal. Example 1: https://kiwifarms.st/threads/payment-processor-censorship-visa-mastercard-stripe-paypal-etc.224937/ https://kiwifarms.st/threads/payment-processor-censorship-vi... (You may discredit the source and ignore factual information and numerous examples at your own discretion) When you lost the ability to pay for things, you can be starved, of food and more importantly your principles and dignity. Like many other issues that I consider political, what is important to me and what I believe to be actually righteous in the end is more important than the issues of e.g. personal responsibility from being scammed, or criminal and money laundering transactions. Remember where the term "money laundering" came from.
nunobrito 1y ago
Monero has already been delisted from relevant exchanges last year because "reasons". The main website that matched people to trade fiat for monero (localmonero) got closed recently because "reasons". It is pretty popular and outlawed since a while. Basically the only relevant crypto currency used for purchases on the street since several years now. You can look up the number of daily on-chain transactions and tends to be on top every day. You likely would only notice this if you need to donate money for someone with the wrong opinions or live at a non-aligned country.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
GeoAtreides 1y ago
You are being downvoted, but you are correct. I am east european and I know how hard the fist of the State hits. Sometimes I think westerners see technology like some special moves that you can quickly combo so you can defeat the evil boss at the end. No, there are no special moves, just a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.
Mouvelie 1y ago
Which, I believe, would make it even more prevalent. It would be the confession that they cannot control it, and while most people would be deterred by this, I can see a shadow economy growing because (or thanks ?) to this.
mindslight 1y ago
> You can't get freedom through technology I'd argue the opposite - if Bitcoin had been created with secure private transactions (untraceability) it would be in the same popular position it is today, but the attacks on it (chain analysis etc) would be failing instead of inevitably marching forward. Your argument seems to rely on an assumption that the insecurity of Bitcoin has been legible and apparent to the [greater] government for most of Bitcoin's life, and so the government allowed it to gain popularity knowing those insecurities would eventually make it succumb to government control. But in general government sees any lack of identification/data as a problem to be rectified, and the popular wisdom for quite some time has been that Bitcoin is "anonymous". so I'd say the government acted as quick as it would have regardless of the actual security properties. It feels like any holding off had more to do with financial lucrativeness rather than an understanding of its long term security flaws. Now that we're here though, Bitcoin does seem like a very strong inoculation against financial privacy technology. Government is now well aware that software/cryptography can be used for money, and the first question asked is why isn't your new niche system grokkable to chain analysis?
immibis 1y ago
Monero is outlawed in the EU. It's not illegal to possess, but no business is allowed to touch it. Which proves that it does what it says. (Much like when the police suspect someone of being a drug dealer for using GrapheneOS)
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  > Monero is outlawed in the EU. Source:

tchock23 1y ago

That assumes Bitcoin maximalists ultimately see it as a means of transaction. The ones I come across in the wild are purely maximalists for speculative purposes and couldn’t care less about the “practical” use cases for it.

swinglock 1y ago
Being able to transact is the point of it all. If practical use is not possible that makes it useless and that makes it worthless.
- teiferer 1y ago
  This has never been the main use outside an unrealistic dream world. Its main purposes are speculation and ponzi-like scams.
  - fluoridation 1y ago
    There are two components to price: what the thing is worth, and what you might be willing to convince someone else to buy it from you in the future for. The latter is the speculative component. The former must be related to some intrinsic property of the thing. For example, an orange has some minimum price, because if nothing else it's composed of matter and so can weight things down. If bitcoin is useless to transact, then its intrinsic worth is zero, so its price is 100% speculative. That's not so much a bubble as just air being pressurized by no container.
    - kjkjadksj 1y ago
      Much like baseball cards and beanie babies.
      - psychlops 1y ago
        Companies can make more baseball cards and beanie babies. Enforced scarcity gives bitcoin value.

ibejoeb 1y ago

Yeah. I understand the excitement over the past two decades about the possibility of cryptocurrencies, but it came with a lot of naivete. After the fight to create sovereign central banks, did anyone seriously think that they were just going to give it up? Sure, maybe they can't stop you technologically, but it's very easy to simply make it unlawful, and then the men (and robots) with guns call.

rocqua 1y ago

But with Monero, you see that it is effectively shut off from the Fiat ecosystem entirely. The proposal here clearly lays out how bad Bitcoin is for privacy. But it's not like the more private alternatives are actually allowed to be viable alternatives.

drozycki 1y ago
Is this true? Kraken and Bitfinex both seem to support XMR <-> USD
- weberer 1y ago
  They don't support it for EU customers since 2024 due to new EU regulations. It sucks.
sterlind 1y ago
ironically, the inconvenience of exchanging Monero for fiat helps Monero be used as an actual currency. rather than exchanging Monero for cash and then buying things with cash, Monero is exchanged for the things itself.

SubiculumCode 1y ago

Very true. In my opinion, and strictly from an American-centric view, privacy should only extend to transactions within borders between citizens. As soon as it involves transactions from outside our borders, then it is a national security concern. We know, right now, that both Russia and China are fueling internal political tension via massive and sophisticated disinformation/influence campaigns, a certain part of which involves paying influencers, extremists, shady media outlets, maybe a Representative or three in America to push their agendas, foment discontent aiming to destabilize and control the United States. Monero is definitely being used in this information warfare. I am pro-privacy, pro- individual rights, but we have to resolve this central tension of these things and the very real hyper connected world we live in which very real nation-state enemies. I am at the point where I think restricting the internet to allied countries might actually be a good idea, as currently we are leaving citizens unprotected from every nation-state actor who wishes to manipulate us with targeted, data-analytic, bot- and ai-empowered campaign against us. It is out of control, and as long as a monetary instrument like crypto enables that attack surface, it will be hard for me to support crypto-maxamialism.

beambot 1y ago
> a certain part of which involves paying influencers, extremists, shady media outlets, maybe a Representative or three in America to push their agendas, foment discontent aiming to destabilize and control the United States. Doesn't this describe every political party and megacorp in the US too...?
- le-mark 1y ago
  Political parties and mega corps don’t strive to undermine the fabric of democracy itself though.
  - krapp 1y ago
    Are you sure about that?
    - 1y ago