I’m referring to the anonymity *set* = the number of people who use the network.
Monero’s is too small to be appealing from a privacy standpoint, and coinjoins work just fine on Bitcoin
Discussion
Hard enough finding vendors that accept bitcoin, good luck finding someone that accepts monero
Not true, you might just not be familiar enough.
Spend Monero directly (Physical goods and digital services):
-monerica (massive merchant directory)
-moneromarket(dot)io
-kycnot(dot)me
...and Darknet Markets!
You can also buy gift cards with Monero, for just about anything, to fill the gaps:
-coincards
I was referring to physical vendors (P2P). For gift cards I’d rather buy one from Walmart in cash.
Do you mean buying at physical locations in person? Then yes, very limited. I think that is the case for a lot of crypto.
But there are many places for buying physical goods and digital services online directly with Monero. The gift cards are just a bridge to cover anything else you can't find.
Anonymity (unknown identity) and privacy (unknown actions) are two different concepts. You can be anonymous without privacy, be private without anonymity, or have both.
Bitcoin will never be private without hardforking. It is a public blockchain. You can obfuscate actions with coinjoins, but this is not privacy. All actions are known, and even when done correctly, can be saved and potentially be used with future data and tech to de-obfuscate.
So the most you can hope for on Bitcoin is to be anonymous and obfuscate your actions.
Your anonymity set is not all Bitcoin users either. It is only as large as everyone off CEXes and buying KYC free (small fraction of bitcoiners). Also, how many Bitcoin users coinjoin at all? How many users coinjoin every spend? Not many.
"Monero’s is too small to be appealing from a privacy standpoint, and coinjoins work just fine on Bitcoin"
Darknet Markets, some of the most adversarial testing grounds on the planet, disproportionately increasing adoption of Monero would not agree with you.
Exactly! Thank you for the explanation! You have explained it super! And that's exactly how it behaves!