Monero supply is unlimited, there's hard forks every six months, it's more unsecure and mediocre to provide any meaningful privacy improvements.
But the only question really is, why would anybody store their wealth on something less secure and rely on weaker assurances? 🤔
Six month hardforks is an exaggeration. Necessary hardforks to improve privacy and efficiency. No contentious hardforks because Monero users value protocol improvements. Unlike 2017 Bitcoin blocksize wars and segwit half measure. Couldn't even avoid userbase splits even without hardforks. Meanwhile Bitcoin still has zero default privacy and coinjoins are weak obfuscation.
Monero has strong default privacy, real world fungibility, and magnitudes cheaper txs fees than Bitcoin. Monero is a better p2p digital cash. Bitcoin can excel in it's SoV niche.
You're going to have to backup "mediocre to provide any meaningful privacy improvements" comment while Bitcoin transaction graph and amounts are completely open.
Monero:
Maybe Alice sent $[?] to [?]
Bitcoin:
Alice definitely sent $X to Bob
No one is forcing you to store your wealth in it... You can't walk and chew gum?
#Bitcoin LN:
Maybe Alice sent $[?] to [?]
The 'necessary' hardforks your shirtcoin that offers a temporary privacy are always decided at the top, kicking out all users that disagree with them. Congrats 🤙💜
#Real Bitcoin LN:
Maybe Alice sent $X to Bob
Your reciever privacy blows and amounts can be discovered. And all criticisms of "temporary privacy" also apply to LN as anyone can be collecting that data to break in the future as well:
"We identified 27,183 private channels, discovered hidden balances, and showed how a passive adversary can infer payment endpoints with very high probability."
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.12470.pdf
Your hardforks also apply to LN. You kick out all users that disagree. Congrats on the cognitive dissonance 🤙
But isn't it that we have two, distinct, very different use cases here?
One is a long term store of value. Cold storage. Significant percentage of one's savings. Protection from inflation.
On this one, I think Bitcoin clearly wins vs Monero.
Scarcity. Network effect. Market cap. Adoption level.
The other use case, in my view, is a use for daily transactions. Hot wallets. Frequent payments. Fees matter. Speed matters. Privacy matters.
For this, we probably need to compare Monero with Lightning.
On this one, I think the verdict is less evident. I can imagine a scenario where I convert my Bitcoin, small amounts, to Monero, using some non-kyc exchange and using Monero for some transaction where privacy is very important for me, eg to buy a VPN , where I want to make sure the vendor cannot identify me. Does that make sense?
But yes, perhaps equally well or better, I could use Bitcoin for this, with coin joins and lightning, to achieve privacy and speed and low fees. Without a need to convert to a different cryptocurrency...
I think time will tell which one becomes more popular. Today both options are complicated.
My heart is closer to Bitcoin. For sure as a digital gold, probably also for day to day transactions.
One more scenario is also possible. Neither Bitcoin nor Monero becomes widely adopted for a daily use, in our lifetime, and so it will only be a long term store of value, treasury reserve asset.
For this use case, I definitely bet on Bitcoin.
Agree with you. Just different use cases. Bitcoin or Monero can't do it all. Spread focus too thin between many things and you'll suck at everything.
I partially disagree with comparing Monero to Lightning. You're comparing an L1 to an L2 instead of another L1. And with that comes many downsides to Lightning (requires active node to secure your funds, less secure, requires funding channels to use, centralized hubs, only the illusin of final settlement, not truly p2p, etc, etc)
All without ever achieving solid privacy in the first place. Reciever privacy is bad and amounts can be derived by a passive adversary. Sender privacy is ok.
In a high fee environment, Lightning isn't that cheap, and unexpected forced closed channels make paying high on chain fees unavoidable. npub169n9eaf0t20j0nefwqlqtnqcpsym22k2nw6e3tevtrrru4et7wrsh5w47v
Yes, good point, too. Thanks for sharing. Indeed I compared L1 with L2 and for sure lightning has drawbacks... Good news is, I think it will continue getting better over time.
I think some things can improve to a certain extent, but others are just unavoidable trade offs based off the nature of lightning network itself.
