If lightning was as private as Monero wouldn’t they ban exchanges from using it? 🤔 💭
Discussion
What exchange uses lightning
Seems like most do these days
As I can remember exchanges that implemented lightning, they took it out because nobody was using it. And I don't recall any exchange using lightning. I don't consider Cash App or strike an exchange.
How are they not an exchange they KYC you and exchange bitcoin for fiat??
Because they btc only. Im looking for an actual exchange with the crypto market that has lightning like bitunix or something like that. Which one is using lightning so i can use them
Several exchanges accept Bitcoin Lightning Network transactions, including Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, Bitfinex, and OKCoin. Then there is like Strike, Bull Bitcoin, not sure about Cash App, Shakepay, etc.
They will eventually but they haven't seen it as a big problem yet because most people don't use lightning on exchanges
So Monero is more of a thread because it has greater adoption than Lightning?
Threat*
Threat to what? Monero isn't a threat to the monetary system like bitcoin because it doesn't beat inflation enough to demand more adoption. Monero doesn't have a supply cap. So if monero isn't growing in purchasing power at a faster rate than bitcoin, it won't be adopted by majority of people. And if it isn't adopted in large numbers, then you'll be stuck in the fiat system. Why? Because you can't pay your mortgage in monero. You can't pay it in bitcoin either but which currency is more likely to be accepted by everyone in 10 years? It's bitcoin. So as long as people want to live in a home, you have to convert to fiat first. Unless bitcoin dies, monero can't be the answer. Money is a winner take all game. History supports this view.
I’m talking about exchanges banning Monero by being forced by regulators why would they take the effort to ban it if is wasnt any threat.
And if the threat is the privacy then why not ban lightning too. Same reason they went after Samourai they don’t want private bitcoin tx to exist
The problem with samourai is that they were centralized. That was a bad mistake. I don't think it's a coincidence they went after samourai right when they started to decentralize it. They didn't even have real evidence they just made up some bs excuse and then started building a case against them.
But again private transactions is a big enough threat to build a case against ppl with no real evidence as you put it. Message seems pretty clear to me.
They had no case. That's what I'm trying to argue. The don't need one. If you believe that 2 + 2 = 4 but I have a gun to your head and say that 2 + 2 = 5 then I am right. There is no justice. They don't need to build a case. They just need to maintain the image that they built a case and delivered justice. And people are retarded so they don't notice and proceed as usual. They can literally make a case based on anything they want because no one can stop them. They'll kill you.
One more point. As I mentioned before, these regulators are human. They operate off incentives just like we do. The reason lightning isn't banned MAY simply be because they don't want to lose the revenues they generate off capital gains taxes. If you send bitcoin from an exchange to a base chain address, you can then move that into lightning. Banning lightning on exchanges doesn't stop lightning from being private. So it may not make a big difference to regulators and chainaysis if you withdraw main chain or through lightning. But you are giving these regulators too much credit. They are not as smart as you are making them out to be. If chainalysis can't track lightning because it's impossible, it is in their best interest to hide that information from regulators because they want more money for themselves.
And if we are going to make reaches based on little evidence, you could argue that this is just a psyop to make monero seem like it's more private in order to make bitcoiners think that lightning isn't private. And that makes bitcoiners more likely to pay their capital gains taxes. That's what regulators care about more than anything else after all: money and power. If monero grew in popularity, the potential return on capital gains taxes would be higher. Then regulators would be more likely to add monero back to the exchanges. I'm not saying these things are true but if we are going to make arguments without evidence and just speculation, you can speculate a million different things in millions of directions.
The thing is Monero is growing independent of CEX. The future we are building just ignores centralised third parties as stated in Satoshi's whitepaper.
Why would I care about capital gains, when there is a sufficient secondary market and DEX. You are caught in the old TradFi paradigm, but with orange color.
Yea pretty suspect they were on the verge of decentralizing whirlpool coordination + adding Monero swaps for toxic change around the same time they were raided
Yea I remember listening to a podcast about them working on decentralized coordinators and shortly Samourai wallet was down and they were arrested they both side must have sensed the urgency.
You want to know why.
TVL in LN is abyssimal. Of that low number 90%+ is controlled by bank like operators that have deals with chainanalytic companies (Binance, Kraken,...).
That's the network side.
Then you have the user side.
90% of users use custodial services with 0 privacy.
If you use LN in a self-custodial way you are such an exception that you stick out between all the others which ironically increases your fingerprintability.
As LN growth the centralisation that liquidity demands will only ever increase.
There is strength in numbers.
Idk. Regulators are humans too and they don't always behave rationally. Also, there are ways to de-anonymize monero. nostr:npub1yxp7j36cfqws7yj0hkfu2mx25308u4zua6ud22zglxp98ayhh96s8c399s has shown this. So if your argument that monero is more private simply because regulators chose to ban it isn't a strong piece of evidence.
Yea in summary if you send it to a KYC exchange or you swap it with a transparent chain you can link it up to a person but this is more user error type of gotcha. It’s not evidence it is a thought experiment.
It's the biggest threat there is. That you can not see that makes you more of a BTC normie, that signed up for the fiat gains.
Enjoy your ETF IOU KYC NGU coin that's now pumped and dumped by BlackRock like a shitcoin.
Btc normie is wild lmao you monero bros really want to be different so bad
SHUT UP SHITCOINER, NGU AT ALL COSTS!!! TO DA MUUN!!! 🚀🚀🚀🌕🌕🌕
Are there any good resources on lightning privacy? Exchanges ban things based on association not actual tech
Conclusion
The lighting network still falls short of the words of Eric Hughes in his “Cypherpunk Manifesto”. While at first glance lightning seems more private than layer one payments by taking payments off-chain, one has to consider how lighting enables these off-chain payments in the first place to understand how users' privacy might be affected when using the network.
Short answer: they aren’t directly comparable as “privacy stacks,” because they solve different problems. Bitcoin with Lightning Network (LN) focuses on scalable, low-fee, fast off-chain payments for Bitcoin, whereas Monero is a privacy-centric on-chain cryptocurrency. If your metric is privacy by default and on-chain unlinkability, Monero has stronger built-in privacy. If your metric is scalable payments for Bitcoin with reasonable privacy protections, Lightning offers different trade-offs.
Key dimensions to compare
Privacy model
Monero: On-chain privacy by default. RingCT, stealth addresses, and ring signatures hide amounts, senders, and recipients on-chain. Strong unlinkability between transactions.
Bitcoin + LN: Privacy is not default. LN enhances efficiency but reveals more network-level metadata. Payments traverse channels and hops; there can be metadata leaks about transaction graph and user activity unless additional privacy tactics are used (e.g., onion routing, privacy-preserving routing, avoiding reuse of channels). On-chain Bitcoin remains public.
Layering and scope
Monero: Pure on-chain privacy. No separate layer required.
LN: A second-layer solution on top of Bitcoin. It offloads many transactions from the main chain, enabling micropayments but adding complexity and different privacy considerations (channel opening/closing on-chain, liquidity management, routing). Privacy is affected by how channels are opened/closed and how nodes observe traffic.
Fungibility and auditability
Monero: High fungibility due to hidden amounts and addresses. Hard to trace or blacklist funds.
Bitcoin + LN: Fungibility is not as strong. On-chain UTXOs are traceable; LN payments can be subject to network-level analysis, though it’s less transparent than on-chain Bitcoin. Some privacy-enhancing research and implementations exist but aren’t as robust as Monero’s default privacy.
Security model and trust
Monero: Privacy is cryptographic and protocol-driven. Security rests on ring signatures, RingCT, stealth addresses; no trusted setup.
LN: Security depends on channel state, liquidity, routing integrity, and eventual on-chain settlement. User needs to manage channel state, opening/closing costs, and potential liquidity risk.
Adoption and ecosystem readiness
Monero: Strong privacy feature set; narrower merchant/integration adoption due to regulatory concerns and fungibility debates.
LN: Growing ecosystem for Bitcoin payments, wallets, and services. More scalable for merchant adoption and everyday payments; mais awareness of privacy trade-offs is increasing.
Concrete privacy considerations for LN
Channel creation: Opening a payment channel requires a transaction on-chain (on Bitcoin) that is visible. This can leak some timing and counterparty information.
Route privacy: LN uses onion routing (Sphinx-like). In practice, adversaries with network visibility and global topology knowledge could infer payment paths or correlate payments, especially if many hops share the same nodes.
Channel topology: Reusing channels and clustering payments through the same route can create fingerprinting opportunities.
Watchtowers: To protect against invalid states, users may rely on watchtowers; this adds trust and complexity.
Liquidity and liquidity-based privacy: Limited liquidity can reveal user preferences (where funds are moving), potentially reducing privacy.
Practical guidance
If your primary goal is strong, default privacy for value transfers, Monero remains the better option for on-chain privacy.
If you want Bitcoin-level settlement with scalable microtransactions and are willing to accept less-than-default privacy, LN is compelling and widely deployed.
For privacy-conscious Bitcoin users, consider:
Using LN with privacy practices: avoid reusing channels, use different routing peers, and consider privacy-focused wallets that minimize metadata leakage.
Keeping a mix of on-chain and off-chain activity to reduce linkability, while understanding that on-chain privacy remains lower than Monero.
Being aware of regulatory and exchange implications, as LN usage can still be observed by operators and network observers.
Bottom line
Bitcoin LN and Monero target different problems: LN aims to scale and speed up Bitcoin payments with an added privacy layer that is not as strong or default as Monero’s on-chain privacy.
If privacy is your core requirement, Monero offers stronger, default privacy; LN can complement Bitcoin’s scalability but does not reach Monero’s level of on-chain confidentiality.
For practical use, evaluate your threat model: if you must transact privately and fungibly, Monero is superior; if you need Bitcoin-like settlement with high throughput, LN is valuable but accept the privacy trade-offs.
I guess only a small fraction of ln operates with good privacy. And you could sum up the still accepted coins / 2nd layers as having privacy optional like it is with BTC LN LTC ETH ZEC ...