5 ms·

Would someone please explain to me the pros and cons of this existing?

cowpig 6mo ago
pro: if the world devolves into an authoritarean hellscape, people will still have a form of undetectable currency until they find a way to get rid of this con: this improves the chances if the world to devolving into an authoritarean hellscape
- rationalist 6mo ago
  Moreso than controllable, trackable money helps the world devolve "into an authoritarean hellscape"?
Cider9986 6mo ago
Do you already know how a regular Cryptocurrency works and want to know about Monero specifically? Or do you not know anything about Crypto?
- consumer451 6mo ago
  I am very aware of cryptocurrency, some of the intricacies, and possibly most of the use cases. I asked an honest question about the pros and cons. Every technology has pros and cons, right?
  - ofrzeta 6mo ago
    Monero is the most anonymous of the mainstream cryptocurrencies. That's also the reason why it is increasingly outlawed (at least in the EU).
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    - consumer451 6mo ago
      Maybe I did not state my orinignal question correctly. What are the pros of Monero, and what are the cons? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pros_and_cons https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pros_and_cons
      - Cider9986 6mo ago
        Really up to you personally what is a pro and a con. For me this is a starting list. A lot of these are a result of the technical differences as well as I listed the technical differences. Pros: 1% inflation no fixed supply (makes it more of a currency than an asset) privacy by default, fungibility—every coin is the exact same, no coin history prevents financial surveillance by corporations, protects against government abuses, useful tool for activists, journalists, minorities, useful for domestic abuse survivors, useful for businesses sending money across borders, protects against stalkers, protects against advertisers profiling you, reduces identity theft, prevents databreaches of personal info, pushes forward cryptography, allows people to purchase drugs (you decide if this is good or bad), prevents financial censorship, allows anonymous donations, low fees, more decentralized than bitcoin due to RandomX CPU mining, prevents crypto robbery, allows you to buy your adult content without anyone knowing. large developer community iirc 3rd after bitcoin, eth less volatile than other cryptos usually most used crypto for payments when accepted at merchants Cons: 20 minutes to use funds again hard to aquire number go up slower hard to convert back to fiat hard to convert to fiat used by "criminals" lots of nazis like it used for unethical purposes
        littlecranky67 6mo ago
        All of the pros - minus the inflation - also exist for Bitcoin-over-Lightning. Non of the cons exist for Lightning. Especially no waiting time. In lightning you can spend your received bitcoin after a split-second - no waiting whatsoever.
        KaiserPro 6mo ago
        > no waiting time apart from waiting for the confirmation, otherwise you're in double spend territory.
    - littlecranky67 6mo ago
      Which is its biggest weakness. Lightning over Bitcoin is decently anonymous, too. Given that is just a layer-2 technology and can be developed further and evolutes outside of Bitcoin protocol changes, makes it more flexible and has shorter innovation cycles. And outlawing bitcoin has become basically impossible after the large amount of ETF inflows. Monero is nice technology, but I think the ship has already sailed for Bitcoin (and L2 solutions like lightning).
      - rglullis 6mo ago
        Isn´t the experiment in El Salvador proof that Bitcoin does not work as a currency? If you think it isn't, then do you have any measurable pass/fail test for it?
        littlecranky67 6mo ago
        El Salvador is the worst example, as they have been bribed by the IMF to get rid of bitcoin. I would also wan't to learn how the situation in El Salvador would be any different if they adopted Monero instead - I think it would be the same outcode. I am not a bitcoin-as-currency evangelist. I see it more as digital gold, and gold is not a currency today. It will have its role as a store of value and fallback unit of trade that keeps government currencies in check - another pillar in financial checks-and-balances.
        neonstatic 6mo ago
        > El Salvador is the worst example, as they have been bribed by the IMF to get rid of bitcoin. So the 'true cryptocurrency' hasn't been tried yet, eh? ;)
        littlecranky67 6mo ago
        That was not my argument at all. First I said, I don't see bitcoin as currency at all. Second, major nation states have always tryed to use their power to force other nations to use their currency (petrodollar, cough). This is nothing specific to crypto, but something also specific to traditional fiat currencies. Any high-volatile asset such as bitcoin is IMHO not suited as currency. The good news is, with the bitcoin taproot upgrade and latest lightning standards, you can actually issue stablecoins over bitcoin's taproot asset protocol, and send it over the existing lightning network. My bet is on stablecoins-over-lightning as currency, and bitcoin as store of value. One blockchain to rule them all, other chains not need (for financial transactions at least).
SOLAR_FIELDS 6mo ago
The US Federal Government specifically calls out Monero as one of the coins that it hates, which means that it must be quite effective at achieving its goals. So the pro is that you know it works. The cons are nothing specific to Monero, just general criticism of cryptocurrencies. Not being a deep crypto user myself, at least, I haven't heard anyone speak of any flaw specific to Monero that isn't shared by a significant portion of the remainder of all of these coins
- thaumasiotes 6mo ago
  > The US Federal Government specifically calls out Monero as one of the coins that it hates, which means that it must be quite effective at achieving its goals. So the pro is that you know it works. Official condemnation doesn't work like that. Facebook's cryptocurrency, Libra, was also condemned, and we know it didn't work because it never actually existed.
- Cicero22 6mo ago
  One admittedly minor issue is that since monero is ASIC resistant, its very attractive to run on compromised computers. Other coins suffer this as well I'm sure, but I don't have any data on this. I guess this is mainly a hunch.

pro: if the world devolves into an authoritarean hellscape, people will still have a form of undetectable currency until they find a way to get rid of this con: this improves the chances if the world to devolving into an authoritarean hellscape

rationalist 6mo ago
Moreso than controllable, trackable money helps the world devolve "into an authoritarean hellscape"?

Cider9986 6mo ago

Do you already know how a regular Cryptocurrency works and want to know about Monero specifically? Or do you not know anything about Crypto?

consumer451 6mo ago
I am very aware of cryptocurrency, some of the intricacies, and possibly most of the use cases. I asked an honest question about the pros and cons. Every technology has pros and cons, right?
- ofrzeta 6mo ago
  Monero is the most anonymous of the mainstream cryptocurrencies. That's also the reason why it is increasingly outlawed (at least in the EU).
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - consumer451 6mo ago
    Maybe I did not state my orinignal question correctly. What are the pros of Monero, and what are the cons? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pros_and_cons https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pros_and_cons
    - Cider9986 6mo ago
      Really up to you personally what is a pro and a con. For me this is a starting list. A lot of these are a result of the technical differences as well as I listed the technical differences. Pros: 1% inflation no fixed supply (makes it more of a currency than an asset) privacy by default, fungibility—every coin is the exact same, no coin history prevents financial surveillance by corporations, protects against government abuses, useful tool for activists, journalists, minorities, useful for domestic abuse survivors, useful for businesses sending money across borders, protects against stalkers, protects against advertisers profiling you, reduces identity theft, prevents databreaches of personal info, pushes forward cryptography, allows people to purchase drugs (you decide if this is good or bad), prevents financial censorship, allows anonymous donations, low fees, more decentralized than bitcoin due to RandomX CPU mining, prevents crypto robbery, allows you to buy your adult content without anyone knowing. large developer community iirc 3rd after bitcoin, eth less volatile than other cryptos usually most used crypto for payments when accepted at merchants Cons: 20 minutes to use funds again hard to aquire number go up slower hard to convert back to fiat hard to convert to fiat used by "criminals" lots of nazis like it used for unethical purposes
      - littlecranky67 6mo ago
        All of the pros - minus the inflation - also exist for Bitcoin-over-Lightning. Non of the cons exist for Lightning. Especially no waiting time. In lightning you can spend your received bitcoin after a split-second - no waiting whatsoever.
        KaiserPro 6mo ago
        > no waiting time apart from waiting for the confirmation, otherwise you're in double spend territory.
  - littlecranky67 6mo ago
    Which is its biggest weakness. Lightning over Bitcoin is decently anonymous, too. Given that is just a layer-2 technology and can be developed further and evolutes outside of Bitcoin protocol changes, makes it more flexible and has shorter innovation cycles. And outlawing bitcoin has become basically impossible after the large amount of ETF inflows. Monero is nice technology, but I think the ship has already sailed for Bitcoin (and L2 solutions like lightning).
    - rglullis 6mo ago
      Isn´t the experiment in El Salvador proof that Bitcoin does not work as a currency? If you think it isn't, then do you have any measurable pass/fail test for it?
      - littlecranky67 6mo ago
        El Salvador is the worst example, as they have been bribed by the IMF to get rid of bitcoin. I would also wan't to learn how the situation in El Salvador would be any different if they adopted Monero instead - I think it would be the same outcode. I am not a bitcoin-as-currency evangelist. I see it more as digital gold, and gold is not a currency today. It will have its role as a store of value and fallback unit of trade that keeps government currencies in check - another pillar in financial checks-and-balances.
        neonstatic 6mo ago
        > El Salvador is the worst example, as they have been bribed by the IMF to get rid of bitcoin. So the 'true cryptocurrency' hasn't been tried yet, eh? ;)
        littlecranky67 6mo ago
        That was not my argument at all. First I said, I don't see bitcoin as currency at all. Second, major nation states have always tryed to use their power to force other nations to use their currency (petrodollar, cough). This is nothing specific to crypto, but something also specific to traditional fiat currencies. Any high-volatile asset such as bitcoin is IMHO not suited as currency. The good news is, with the bitcoin taproot upgrade and latest lightning standards, you can actually issue stablecoins over bitcoin's taproot asset protocol, and send it over the existing lightning network. My bet is on stablecoins-over-lightning as currency, and bitcoin as store of value. One blockchain to rule them all, other chains not need (for financial transactions at least).

SOLAR_FIELDS 6mo ago

The US Federal Government specifically calls out Monero as one of the coins that it hates, which means that it must be quite effective at achieving its goals. So the pro is that you know it works. The cons are nothing specific to Monero, just general criticism of cryptocurrencies. Not being a deep crypto user myself, at least, I haven't heard anyone speak of any flaw specific to Monero that isn't shared by a significant portion of the remainder of all of these coins

thaumasiotes 6mo ago
> The US Federal Government specifically calls out Monero as one of the coins that it hates, which means that it must be quite effective at achieving its goals. So the pro is that you know it works. Official condemnation doesn't work like that. Facebook's cryptocurrency, Libra, was also condemned, and we know it didn't work because it never actually existed.
Cicero22 6mo ago
One admittedly minor issue is that since monero is ASIC resistant, its very attractive to run on compromised computers. Other coins suffer this as well I'm sure, but I don't have any data on this. I guess this is mainly a hunch.