I’ve heard the argument that privacy on the base layer presents a challenge for ensuring the hard cap/inability to inflate the supply. I agree with the argument you make but similarly, I’m not comfortable resting on that one.

I just laugh, give them a hfsp, and make my lightning and ecash txns which are much more private than all the "privacy coins"

I’ll give you my main points off the top of my head that tend to come up a lot. There’s no one answer obviously, which is actually part of the entire point. But each of these is often relevant depending on the context:

• Amount obfuscation at the base layer has the trade off of lower scarcity guarantees and invisible bugs causing irreparable damage.

• Mixing or obfuscation at the base layer has numerous options but almost all restrict some other capability and come with higher computation costs

• A significant part of the privacy problem currently in Bitcoin is more to do with the proximity that every UTXO has to fiat on/off ramps. Meaning privacy will naturally improve simply as the organic circular economy grows.

• Coinjoins are actually pretty great and you should use Wasabi wallet as a daily driver.

• Lightning is very private for the payer.

• A big limitation in getting privacy is liquidity. Almost all the altcoins lose a ton of their benefit through low liquidity and the need to bridge in and out with centralized services or other open protocols, negating any potential benefit.

• Privacy isn’t a check box. It requires nuance, a plethora of different vectors to protect (that are also always changing) and constant vigilance. There is no such thing as a single, permanent privacy solutions. There are thousands of attack vectors and losing one can make all the others worthless.

• Privacy will have many thousands of solutions catering to many millions of specific needs and use cases. It is arguably a bad idea to attempt a one-size-fits-all solution at the base layer, that could potentially be obsoleted, or have unknown consequences down the road.

• ecash is one of the best private payment systems built to date and it has stood the test of time.

• if your argument relies on that people have chosen to not care about privacy (ie. “Look at the ETF!” or “look people use KYC exchanges!”), then you are also arguing that almost no one will care about a coin who’s sole purpose is privacy… which also seems relatively true. The issue is about what level of privacy can be obtained by the people who value it. Not that people who don’t care, don’t care… which would be obvious.

The most important value, by miles, is having an open, decentralized, and permissionless base layer to build upon, so that any and all solutions can be tried, and any and all networks can be accessed no matter who or where you are in the world.

Bitcoin has this, plus more liquidity than any other digital money in the world. The privacy problem will continue to be solved and improved and no other network will be able to provide as good of privacy and as great of a monetary network to use it than Bitcoin. No altcoin even holds a candle to it.

My 2 Sats

Different tools, different trade-offs.

When it comes to private on-chain transactions in particular - Monero is obviously better for that than Bitcoin and it works right now. Don't understand why some can't just admit that simple fact.

If someone wants to talk about other things like supply cap, supply bugs, transaction weight, hard forks, adoption, price, etc. that's fine, but those are all different arguments to be had