If you buy and spend p2p there is essentially zero fungibility and privacy risk. Can be seen on chain but with no identify attached to UTXOs it is private. Private does not equal anonymous.
Discussion
Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.
Eric Hughes
Cypherpunk Manifesto
The problem is that most people on ramp to crypto at centralized exchanges where this filtering exists. It's fine that you take the right steps to avoid being screwed from the traceable nature of the chain, but it is traceable and that can result in lost funds for people who aren't even aware that this risk exists.
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This is true if you only transact anonymously and P2P, which means not using it as digital cash. If you gave that Bitcoin to your grandma, or to a business, you might unknowingly be giving them Bitcoin that was stolen in ransom attacks or used in DNMâs, and which would get their account frozen if/when they try and exchange it for fiat.
Cash must be memoryless to fulfill its function as cash. It must be highly fungible and liquid in order to permeate all areas of society and circulate between strip clubs and churches without ever developing a history or an identifying characteristic.
Purchasing anonymously and P2P protects your privacy, but it changes nothing about the fungibility of the Bitcoin itself. If you use anonymous P2P Bitcoin as cash, you could be putting others at risk who might naively deposit a ransomed BTC into Coinbase.
If you gave your grandma cash stolen from a bank your grandma might get interrogated and accounts frozen. So cash is not fungible either under your criteria.
Or you might get arrested at the border because your bills have traces of drugs on them. Cash is not fungible. Cash can be traced by SN therefore not fungible. See how rediculous this FUD is when your really logic the same criteria to cash. Under this criteria cash is non fungible but most people consider cash fungible. These theoretical outlier cases are FUD.
The difference is that serials aren't generally tracked in each transaction which allows gaps to exist.
Yes one is a physical good and one is a digital âgoodâ so they have different characteristics however a sat is interchangeable for another sat this is what fungibility is. They are equal. Traceability is a person liability not a bitcoin liability. Just like cash be traced to illegal activity is a personal liability not a liability to cash.
Ignoring ordinals and the fact that some sats are apparently more equal than others, there is a huge difference between serialization and a totally open ledger of transaction history. Banks can see entry and exit points, but Chainalysis can watch the actual flow from wallet to wallet and track the exact trajectory of each coin easily. This is a huge amount of data, which means youâre not only forever associated with everyone you ever transact with, youâre associated with everyone they transact with too, and that data never goes away. Even if you donât care about Chainalysis being able to monitor you, if you have a savings account then sending someone Bitcoin from it means revealing to them exactly how much BTC you own, and lets them watch all of your on chain activity forever after.
This is not cash. Even accounting for serialization, I never have to spend a second thinking about the consequences to my financial privacy when I hand somebody $5. I will never know if my $5 bill has been used for drugs or strippers or crime, and I can rest assured that if I choose to use it for those things, or donate it to my church, nobody will ever be able to track it back to me 10 years from now.
All sats are equal value. Same as pure gold. If someone values the imbedded data in a sat and if willing to pay a premium price that is like someone willing to pay a premium for a gold coin from a certain mint they value that imbedded data in the coin. The gold in self the value is the same.
Chainanalysis is a concern I am well aware of it. However the solution already exist. If you buy you sats p2p your identity is not tied to your UTXOs. Secondly if you use tools like whirlpool in breaks links for past transactions to future transactions. I donât care if someone sees a UTXO on chain if they cannot associate it with me. That is privacy. Like ticker tape on the stock exchange. You see the transactions but not the identity.
I think maybe the breakdown is between what happens in reality vs what the code says. In the code yes a sat is a sat, and generally this is how most people look at it. However in reality chain analysis makes it a lot easier to follow sats than physical dollars in spite of the literal serial number printed on them which if used would make the dollar not fungible.
It is possibble to "wash" your sats so to speak, but this activity is also visible (it just detaches you from that activity [hopefully]). Laundering money is also something that can get you in a bit of trouble if you become interesting to government. While I'm not saying we should follow laws just for the sake of following laws, I do think maintaining a certain level of plausible deniability is important, especially if you think that your activities might be interesting to the state for one reason or another (taxes, illegal activity, whatever).
"traceability" is built into bitcoin. It requires effort with physical assets. With current technology that effort requirement is too great for it to be useful with monero.
Why does our grandma or non-techy friends need to know how to have perfect opsec to reasonably transact privately with bitcoin? Do we really expect them to know every intricacy like us? Why not make that as easy and foolproof as possible?
I'm sure a vast majority of bitcoiners don't even know how to do this properly. And even those of us who do have to actively maintain that privacy going into the future. One false move and it is all undone. It is a valiant first attempt but just bad design in that aspect imo.
Do we really think Granny is gonna adopt XMR?
Yea, it is funny, but many subscribe to hyperbitcoinization global adoption prophecy. Are non-techy (AKA most of the world) left out of that?
It would be more likely if the image wasn't only one of criminality. There are valid reasons to prefer privacy, and it should be opt out rather than opt in.
Why not?? Age is not a barrier, the important thing is the desire to learn, a wallet with a btc qr is the same as a wallet with a the xmr qr, the difference is that to get the same privacy in btc you have to do a mix with a special wallet, pay some fees and the scenario is complicated, in monero it is intrinsic.
The difference is every time I make a cash transaction it is not broadcast and publicly available to the world along with my historical tx graph, remaining balance, and potentially my net worth. (Bitcoin worst case is worse than cash)
You can't trace the full history of cash. Even with SNs, all you can do is know the end points - where it was withdrawn and where it was deposited/confiscated. All the hops and p2p actors in between are not available.
I can accept that serialized bills aren't really fungible but in practice the tracking isn't done. If a drug dealer buys a pack of cigarettes at the corner store with a 20 they got from a junky there is no proving it. The laws are constructed such that when you get caught with both drugs and money they assume the money is drug money unless you can prove otherwise. If it were the case that drug money wasn't fungible then they'd track down the previous owners of any confiscated currency.
The point Iâm making is these outlier scenarios do not stop cash from being fungible, same as bitcoin. If one business decides not to accept you bitcoin because the chain analyzed it back to some illegal activity that doesnât make all bitcoin non fungible. Same as if a cash transaction was declined due to criminal activity doesnât make all cash non fungible.
I think the difference is the likelihood that it can realistically be traced and the fact that chain analysis is largely automatic. Even if they made a law that said all bills must be tracked there would be businesses and individuals that failed to comply and that would create gaps.
It's also not one company. It's every normie inclusive onramp to cryptocurrency, governments, and any other interested 3rd party that can analyze the chain.
Yes, physical cash is not completely perfect. But we're trying to achieve as close as possible the fungibility of an ideal money.
Would you knowingly choose to include the property of traceability in your implementation?
Send said btc into LN...spend.
Decent privacy for the spender, still bad for the receiver.
https://github.com/lnbook/lnbook/blob/develop/16_security_privacy_ln.asciidoc#attacks-on-lightning
"Decentralized"
> However, in June 2020, researchers noted that the single most central node observed close to 50% of all LN payments, while the four most central nodes observed an average of 72% payments.
Ahhh classic dimwit, you do know you can run your own node if you want...right?
Were talking breaking UTXO history..
Many options to do so, for varied purposes.
Bitcoin is the cream of the crop for good reason,
Use xmr if you want idgaf, i just feel bad for people who get fooled into hodling it for dumb reasons.
Ok. If you believe BTC will outpace XMR in value over the longterm, you don't have to hodl XMR to take advantage of it's superior privacy and fungibility. That's a separate issue. But yes, do whatever you want idgaf either.
You all are not necessarily saying this - I just have a problem with claiming BTC is the best in every aspect imaginable. Clearly not true. Some maxis cannot admit that another crypto could have any advantage over bitcoin.
You guys also can, but dont admit that privacy is a spectrum that is highly dependant on etiquette of the individual & spend ability.
I'd rather put in the effort to obtain bitcoin privately, so I can later spend it wherever i want.
I believe that to be quite an easy accomplishment that advantages the user far beyond what monero can offer me.
The beauty of hiding in plain sight within the largest anon-set đ¤.
Are you under the impression that you can spend Bitcoin anywhere?
So far ive been able to spend my bitcoin everytime ive needed to through various channels.
Are you under the impression that monero has more merchants and liquidity than Bitcoin? đ¤Ş
You canât really spend either anywhere, practically nobody accepts any sort of crypto.
Bitcoiners have largely lost all adversarial thinking that has made it great.
They expect the best, and plan for the best as if they have already won, but the game has just started. The state has not seriously cracked down at all yet.
Now that we've gotten to what I call the "cope" part of the argument...
Funny meme, but no idea where you're getting me coping from.
Was Bitcoin created to solve the problem of liquidity? Guess what has more liquidity than Bitcoin: Cuckbucks
Man, you really dont understand shit đ¤Ş.
"Are you under the impression that monero has more merchants and liquidity than Bitcoin? đ¤Ş"
No, you're either just forgetting what your point was or your argument is just weak.
Holy moly đ¤Ş, in the context of privacy & spending - not some vague pissing contest of liquidity.
Where yes, some of the best ways to keep your private stack spendable, historically, was done in the most globally liquid monies - USD, GBP, Euro.
If you're trying to make some meandering point about liquidity and anonymity set, fine.
But don't act like all of bitcoin's liquidity is your anonymity set when it is a tiny fraction that is more comparable to Monero anonymity set.
And the ease and effectiveness of that privacy is a whole other argument.
If you feel like youre better off using monero, go for it man.
They are adults, (I hope), can't stop them.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.
You can lead a human to knowledge, but you can't make them think.
Drop you XMR address and I'll send you some.
87Xh2agsyo5P7B5EyrmDmuiLTDNPZyePChn7HEFYYDDGdXq9oabgSbfBU7VCDk6iTGVGwnyG7tn3JibVEKp4Kds91H9PBE4
Sent
Who else wants to catch these XMR hands? đ ShiShi? Rex?
received from you extremely fast, arrived within seconds 0.031310000000 xmr. thank you.
tell people that if they install the monero gui and download the blockchain they can mine monero on any computer, even on the phone. some people mine it on their car stereo. bitcoin could be mined on any computer until 2015 or so then it became impossible. today it can only be mined with special asics which are extremely expensive, short in supply and regulated. buyers need to submit all of their personal data before they get it shipped. the entry into bitcoin mining is extremely high, only corporations or billionaires can enter.
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on 0.03131 xmr the fee was only 0.00003066 XMR
yes! Holy Moly đ¤Ł
Bitcoin is the only crypto currency most regulators donât see as a security. So state crack downs bring it on.
This is the cucked attitude I'm talking about. The whole point of crypto is making the opinion of regulators irrelevant, otherwise it is useless.
Bitcoin/Crypto canât be regulated itâs the extanges that need to be. Mass adoption canât happen without regulation of the scam ponzi extanges. Crypto is about self custody, peer to peer and scarcity. However regulation over the centralized part of Bitcoin/Crypto is completely fine. You shitcoiners hate that because half the shit coins are centralized ponziâs. đ¤Ł
Not only can Bitcoin be regulated, it would be easy to do.
Tell that to China bud also Itâs much harder in democratic countryâs.
This guy is relying on the good graces of his government for bitcoin to succeed. Laughable.
Thereâs a Difference between success and mainstream. Bitcoin has already succeeded in my eyes. I can see why BTCfiend muted yâall. You shitcoiners talk more than bots do jeeezus. Muted bye.
This. Itâs entirely possible that Bitcoin, or all crypto, could be hyper regulated or made illegal in the future and thereâs nothing anyone can do about it.
Itâs not the savior people think it is.
The only thing im saved from is debasement.
Everything else is possible, yet the probability of certain events occurring varies widely between jurisdictions.
I'm betting on Bitcoin's characteristics, you're not - so be it - but its a lame argument if you dont provide specific jurisdictions with some sore of timeline - that at least would be a more respectable prediction / use of everyone's time.
I hope Bitcoin succeeds and becomes better and better to the point where Monero is not needed.
But sometimes it seems like the same mindset that made it great is not prevalent in Bitcoin's community anymore for the most part.
not enforceable
It absolutely is. This is delusional.
explain how?
Well, you have to report it on your taxes, so thereâs already a de facto registry of who owns crypto. The only convenient way to get it is through an exchange, all of which collect your ID, your address, etc. And for most coins you can see a record of every transaction.
I honestly canât imagine many things easier to enforce than Bitcoin regulation.
This is laughable. The point of Bitcoin is to exit the government digital system. If I need to, I sell Bitcoin for cash or spend it. You are heavily indoctrinated unfortunately. I've never used an exchange in my life unless its decentralized and KYC free running over tor and vpn like BISQ. And im sure many others here operate the same way. There is a lot we can teach you.
they key word you mentioned is "convenient". Not everyone prefers "convenient" ways. *sigh*
Yes, they do. Massive cope.
sheeple will be sheeple
again not enforceable for those who have the desire to know what they are doing. Good luck preaching :)
But that's not what you said. You said it's unenforcable. The reality is it would be easy.
Bitcoin exchanges are not Bitcoin. Banning Bitcoin is unenforceable.
You're right privacy is a spectrum, so why not make it as easy as possible to achieve and hard as possible to mess up that privacy?
Bitcoin anon set is only as large as those who stick to best privacy practices, it is not all of bitcoin.
A very tiny fraction of bitcoiners do this.
This just isn't true, messing up privacy is exactly the same action both ways.
No it isn't the same at all. Way more pitfalls with Bitcoin.
Privacy with Monero is not only much easier, but superior (receiver and amounts are never revealed onchain) and covers more layers compared to Bitcoin.
