In regards to "tracking": small dark pool >>> large transparent pool
You can't use amount analysis on Monero like you can with Bitcoin because they're hidden with CT.
Receivers are also unknown unlike Bitcoin because of Stealth Addresses. They could be any Monero user that has ever existed.
Your IP is also hidden from other nodes on the network thanks to Dandelion.
So all this traffic size talk is moot when your traffic is fully exposed
Well the amount of transactions performed daily on the bitcoin blockchain is about 30 times more then on XMR. XMR chain is more private on-chain. the issue is on-boarding value and off boarding value from the chain. any Atomic swap on and off become much more traceable. Of course you can say, "ill leave my monetary value on chain". but by doing so, diminishes your purchasing power. so people have to sacrifice there privacy to off board. With Bitcoin, there is methods off chain to make your on-chain transactions private. They can stay on chain after, because the owner knows that it will maintain its purchasing power when left there.
now you could refute my claim. But the free market is pricing it in. the very market caps and adoption of both chains are showing the value and usefulness bitcoin is over monero
All white market transactions are irrelevant when it comes to permissionless money because they are all permissioned.
Regulators can set any arbitrary rule on Bitcoin transactions there, up to, and including, banning them.
Black markets (AKA actual free markets), which darknets are a subset of, are the only real metric for Bitcoins value prop (permissionless transactions)
Bitcoin was the first mover and had the largest network effect on DNMs. That Monero is single-handedly taking over, despite that huge advantage, should tell you something.
This situation of being banned and regulated on “white” markets is applied to both btc and xmr. The rails for btc on this market has grown and the the rails for xmr has shrunk. Yea of course it has taken over the dark markets despite that area shrinking. Because once an individual has completed exchanging value on the dark market. They need to transfer that value out. No one with any financial literacy will not atomic swap out of it. Learning the extra steps of using 2nd layers, tor, and coinjoin for btc basically makes xmr pointless. Its an extra learning curve to make kyc btc into non-kyc btc. Xmr is a slow, imploding star
I 100% agree with your first sentence.
My point is vast majority of Bitcoins adoption and "rails" stem from the white market. My point is none of that matters for it's value prop since those transactions are all permissioned.
Monero on the other hand is systematically being banned from every white market exchange and further cementing itself in the only real permissionless and free markets (Black markets).
Almost no users will do those last things you mentioned which will affect your crowd to hide in, and those things don't magically make Bitcoin private. It's still a transparent ledger and you're still leaking on chain data that can be used to unmask you.
You can't make "no-KYC" into "non-KYC" by swapping. That central record of how much crypto you bought will always exists. You should always be buying no-KYC if you care about that.
of course there is a record of the customer on an exchange buying any asset from a kyc exchange. what I am saying is that the asset itself can be obfuscated with methods (using xmr atomic swaps is an option) to remove traceability of the asset and can be spent or sold as the user wishes as a non-kyc asset. there is always a traceable onboarding aspect of any asset, unless you buy with cash. That goes for monero too. The data set on the bitcoin blockchain is massive despite being completely transparent. once traceability is severed. the user can hide in plan sight. monero on the other hand, on-boarding and off-boarding can be incrimanating with such a small data set and niche use case. The only reason to use it over btc, is for illegal drugs, firearms, and sex trafficking/prostitution. there is always plausible deniability to obfuscated btc transactions. plus there is a whole can of worms with auditing and code bugs with a small network having hardforks (its strength can be its down fall as a network). there is also the fact that the data storage to make it private is extremely blotted compared to btc. If the first mover was monero and it had the same level of adoption. Running a personal node would not be possible for most people. which would doom the monero network with centralization. Privacy improvements are best on 2nd layer protocols.
Ok, well I was just being clear that KYC and forward privacy are two different things because it read like you were conflating them. And again, almost no users obfuscate their Bitcoin.
Doesn't matter how massive the data is. We have computers now. All of that history is "flattened" and can easily be parsed by chain analysis companies especially when they have access to data sets from large exchanges and government bodies.
I don't know if you're being funny about the "illegal drugs, firearms, sex trafficking, prostitution" part. Because that's exactly what they accused Bitcoin of in the past and will also accuse self-custodial Bitcoin users of in the future too. Except in that case it's easier to prove what it was used for and tie to someone (correctly and incorrectly i.e. Roman Sterlingov).
Now you're drifting into hypotheticals about auditability and scalability that have nothing to do with the original topic; privacy.
"almost no users obfuscate their bitcoin". well almost no users, use monero....
Your argument is not that xmr is better, but that humans are to lazy and dumb to be able to use privacy tools outside a main chains protocol. If XMR had any value over BTC, then the free market would be reflecting that. you want to know the ultimate private currancy...paper fiat...
BTC is up over 450% in the last 5 years. XMR is up 80ish percent. clearly people are using obfuscation tools, because the market is reflecting it gives zero shits about the main chain privacy of monero or any other privacy coin. the only use case for monero is atomic swapping in and out of for more obfuscation. which i think the 20k transactions that are performed on xmr chain can reflect
Don't marry your coins bro....its money and its a soft one
oh yeah, joke or not about the drug and firearms comment. reality is, that's what law enforcement and auditors will jump to if they know you own it. sad reality.
Say what you will, but it's indisputably easier for lazier/unskilled users and even skilled users to stay private with Monero than Bitcoin. It is better in that sense and in the sense that it is actually private (not merely obfuscation).
White markets aren't free markets. They're permissioned. So whenever you flash centralized ledger gambling/speculation price charts it is entirely irrelevant for Bitcoins value prop and security architecture.
Yes, paper cash is great privacy, but is irrelevant since we're talking about digital currencies. I can't send or receive physical cash digitally.
You're accusing me of "marrying my coins" as if you aren't just as married to yours. Pot meet kettle.
Yea and that same drug and firearm comment is what they're going to use against any self-custodial coinjoining Bitcoiners. No difference in rhetoric if it is still a real threat to them. If they're not saying that anymore you should be wondering why.
Yes, Bitcoin has more transactions, I'm not disputing that, but how many of those transactions can you count? Your crowd to hide in isn't all Bitcoin transactions. It isn't even most. It's not that large once you rule out all known entities (whether KYC'd, which is probably most logically if most people use CEXs, or pseudos that don't coinjoin).
Lopp did a rough estimate not too long ago and something like ~0.001% of transactions were coinjoins. Even if you think he is a magnitude or several off that is still almost nothing.
Doesn't matter if a small few are keeping good practices if you can rule them out from the vast majority of others that are not. They are all KYC'd or pseudonymous entities that can even be potentially unmasked with enough on and off chain data (timing, amounts, addresses they interact with, IPs, etc).
