Replying to Avatar Seth For Privacy

Main points are:

1) Most people will come into cryptocurrency through Bitcoin

2) Bitcoin has "good enough" privacy in some cases, and can be drastically improved still

3) Bitcoin's network effect mean that my work on Bitcoin can have an outsized impact compared to Monero

4) Monero doesn't need what I can do as much anymore, lots of other's have taken up the mantle

5) If no one sticks around in Bitcoin to push for non-custodial/private usage, that will die and Bitcoin will be a Panopticonic nightmare for the world, so I can keep doing my part to push against the tide of "adoption", KYC, and custodial wallets etc.

6) Lightning shows a lot of promise of non-custodial usage + privacy improves, all of which is possible and most needed solutions have already been proposed
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viktorv 2y ago

Excellent summary Seth, glad you took this path. I learned a lot from you about Monero and benefited greatly. Re: Bitcoin, Points 2 and 5 specifically were very important to me personally and for us as a business. Pushed us to increase our focus on Bitcoin (shifting from earlier XMR priority) and coming up with projects to contribute + going to meetups/conferences to learn and build relationships. The upside is tremendous, failure is catastrophic given the potential, and there is a lot each of us can do to contribute.

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Seth For Privacy 2y ago

Glad to hear it!

I definitely agree, while I think XMR *support* is vital, I don't think you as a business can ignore Bitcoin support because of it.

Biggest thing for me is just ensuring as many merchants as possible allow the optionality of Monero payments as preserving privacy with Monero is still *so* much simpler than Bitcoin/LN today.

In an ideal world Monero doesn't have to exist long-term because Bitcoin's privacy tooling and self-custody solutions improve enough!