Sovereign Matt

@Sovereign_Matt

Bitcoin is NOT Decentralized!

While Bitcoin's design aims for decentralization, ASIC mining has led to large-scale industrial mining warehouses concentrated in cold climates with cheap electricity (e.g., China pre-ban, Kazakhstan, Texas, Canada). This centralization of mining power challenges the original vision of a truly distributed network.

Bitcoin is NOT Peer-to-Peer!

Bitcoin's limited block size (1MB) prevents it from scaling for everyday transactions, making custodial solutions (e.g., exchanges, Lightning Network custodians) necessary for it to function as a Medium of Exchange. This reliance on third parties undermines the peer-to-peer nature of the network.

Bitcoin is NOT Secure!

Bitcoin's security budget depends on transaction fees subsidizing miner incentives as block rewards decline. However, on-chain transactions are decreasing, leading to concerns about long-term miner incentives and potential security risks from 51% attacks or insufficient hash rate.

Bitcoin is NOT Scarce!

While the protocol enforces a 21M BTC cap, custodians can engage in rehypothecation, fractional reserves, and IOU-based Bitcoin (e.g., paper Bitcoin on exchanges). If most users trust custodians instead of using Bitcoin on-chain, the practical scarcity is diluted.

Bitcoin is NOT Private!

Bitcoin's global public ledger records every transaction forever, making it less private than a bank account. Chain analysis firms (e.g., Chainalysis, Elliptic) track transactions, de-anonymizing users and enabling surveillance, leading to worse privacy than traditional finance.

However, Monero is the real deal:

Monero is Decentralized!

Unlike Bitcoin, Monero uses an ASIC-resistant mining algorithm (RandomX), ensuring mining remains accessible to CPU miners. This prevents industrial-scale mining centralization, allowing a more distributed and fair mining landscape.

Monero is Peer-to-Peer!

Monero is actively used in real-world transactions as a true Medium of Exchange, particularly in peer-to-peer markets and Darknet Markets (DNMs). Due to delistings by regulated exchanges, Monero has thrived as a censorship-resistant currency, with people using it for private transactions rather than just holding.

Monero is Secure!

Monero's tail emission ensures miners will always have a predictable and stable block reward (0.6 XMR per block forever), preventing the security budget crisis that Bitcoin faces. Additionally, since Monero is widely used as P2P cash, the natural transaction volume helps sustain miner incentives.

Monero is Scarce!

Monero enforces dynamic block sizes and a predictable emission curve. While tail emission introduces a small inflation (0.6 XMR per block, ~0.87% yearly decreasing over time), this eventually stabilizes into an equilibrium where lost coins balance out new supply. This ensures Monero remains scarce but usable, unlike Bitcoin, where hoarding leads to liquidity issues.

Monero is Private!

Monero's privacy tech is unmatched:

(1) Ring Signatures obscure the sender.

(2) Stealth Addresses hide the recipient.

(3) RingCT (Ring Confidential Transactions) hides the transaction amount.

Unlike Bitcoin, Chainalysis firms have repeatedly failed to trace Monero transactions. The IRS even placed a bounty on breaking Monero’s privacy, yet no one has successfully cracked it. In 2024, Monero will introduce Full Membership Proofs (FMP), further enhancing anonymity by making every coin in the supply appear equally spent.

Monero isn’t just another crypto project—it’s working exactly as Satoshi envisioned in the Bitcoin White Paper as decentralised, secure, scarce, and private peer-to-peer cash.