Caveat:
Lightning can potentially at some point in the future™ offer better privacy. Let's ignore the fact that Monero is not static and constantly upgrading privacy as well.
Let us also ignore any trade offs Lightning brings with it such as interactivity (AKA shitty UX to use sovereignly), centralized hub dependance for smooth experience, non-P2P nature, liquidity juggling, unusable for moderately large payments, and weaker off chain security garuntees.
Well said sir. Much more articulate than me.
Did you guys listen to the concerns raised by Giacomo et al? Virtually everyone wants privacy in the Bitcoin space, there are technical reasons why Monero will continue to lose in the race to become generally accepted money.
Time for us to embrace peer to peer purchases, Coinjoin and second layers.
I don't mind the criticisms about Monero because you're right some are true.
What I do mind is bitcoin maxis lying (ignorantly or intentionally) that L2 is a solution with no trade offs and a complete replacement for Monero, or that on chain obfuscation is privacy.
Darknet Markets are increasingly choosing Monero while Lightning has virtually 0 adoption on DNMs a highly adversarial environment where this stuff is put to the test. Shitcoins are used more than Lightning.
Fair. I would just say that all of us maximalists would love for there to be perfect privacy on Bitcoin, it’s just not a trade off worth the costs.
I don’t know there seems to be some possibilities to make it a real possibility on bitcoin like Bip300. But some core devs are aggressively against the idea of soft fork that tweaks the current miner incentives.
It’s frustrating to say the least. Now changes in bitcoin take years. In the early years there was updates every few months.
Don’t break what’s not broken. You mess it up the price will crash and we are all left HFSP. Do you really want that? Take it slow we are not in a race here, bitcoin only wins by leaving it alone. Unless it becomes a global store of value it will eventually die
Longer it takes. The slower adoption will be.
It’s like shooting ourselves in the foot imo.
Get bitcoin code complete then devs can relax and sit back. Enjoy bitcoin for what it is perfect money.
Yes, I even agree, at this point it would do more harm than good to change bitcoin even if we could since ossification and conservativeness has become such a major value.
I think Bitcoin and Monero have different priorities, some being mutually exclusive like auditability vs privacy. It's fine though because I can use both for their strengths. One to save, one to spend.
Most of your characterizations of lightning are wrong. Typical monero shill misrepresenting lightning and burying his head over the fact monero will NEVER work at scale. Ditch the shitcoin token, build trustless 2wp, the sidechain would still have inferior ux for payments vis-a-vis lightning
I have never bought Monero or owned Monero!
I bought the lightning hype like everyone else. But in reality the UX is terrible unless you use a custodial wallet.
You're now pivoting from privacy to scaling. But thats ok.
Which of my criticisms about lightning is wrong? And explain why. I doubt you can. Everything said was basic facts about LN.
You're confused. Global adoption is not an obsession in Monero like it is with Bitcoin. We are not deluded enough to think everyone in the world is going to be using our coin for everyday transactions.
It's hilarious that you think Lightning is going to scale globally since it takes on chain transactions to onboard in the first place. Now, what? I'm stuck on a weaker security layer forever with my entire stack? On chain will be prohibitively unusable for all but the wealthy of bitcoiners in that future. Pray your channels aren't force closed!
Using LN sovereignly is a UX nightmare, not beginner friendly at all, but you simultaneously want every average joe in the world to use it. The outcome is they won't use it soveriegnly. And everyone will use it in a custodial panopticon form just like they do today. Even w/ nostr zaps where people should know better. ~90% use LN custodially (WoS, Chivo, Alby, Bitcoin beach). Remainder use Phoenix (not trustless or private). The truly masochistic run their own nodes.
You're sharing a screenshot from a consensys shill who can't transact if infura goes down?
Lightning is 1000x more scalable than any shitcoin chain and has potential to scale another 1000x. Look into covenants, hierarchical channels, multiparty channels, multipath payments, route blinding... your understanding of lightning is outdated by at least 4 years. The fact that there's no reliable source of public data for lightning is proof enough of lightning privacy, which continues to evolve. IRS has a $650k bounty to crack lightning privacy.
Alby is not necessarily custodial. That's how little you understand
Monero is not about scaling for everyone?
So who should have privacy and who shouldn't?
Monero can support roughly 100x more transactions on current protocol with no more upgrades without straining current tech limits. It already cut down transaction size by ~80% since inception. It's scalability will keep improving over time and consumer tech is always getting better.
Monero is for anyone, not necessarily everyone. If you think the masses are going to want to live in a state of cryptoanarchy I think it sounds pretty copium... But anyone that wants is free to use Monero it is open and permissionless.
My take :
Bitcoin Onchain for hodling
LN for quick / easy payment (eg, buying a gift card)
Monero for private transactions when needed
I run a LN node and agree that it’s not for noobs. In the current situation, most people will use custodial solutions like WoS.
Do you trust the privacy with how you acquire Monero? Most people use Bitcoin to squire Monero, which essentially like Coinjoin to an attacker. They know you had it but they don’t know where it’s at now.
Liquidity is a big part of privacy. People aren’t generally holding Monero so the market cap is smaller and you’re hiding in a smaller crowd.
Why are you guys jumping in and out of altcoins rather than just buying Bitcoin privately and/or coin joining?
You can onramp P2P directly to Monero KYC-free using LocalMonero or Bisq.
You can also atomic swap for XMR if you have BTC using unstoppable swap. Samourai Wallet just announced a crosschain atomic swap for XMR <-> BTC yesterday. Or use Trocador.app if you have other crypto.
Yes, liquidity is important, but I hope you don't assume the whole Bitcoin network is your anon set... It is smaller than one would think. If users have their bitcoin on KYC centralized exchanges❌. If they don't coinjoin at all after withdrawing ❌ If they use remote public nodes not behind tor/i2p ❌. This consitutes the majority of normies and Bitcoin users.
Coinjoins are inferior privacy.
Encryption > Obfuscation
Monero completely hides amounts and recievers from the chain. There is no transaction graph. Where as in a coinjoin all connections and data is there and can be saved and used with future data to deobfuscate. Or you can mess up and consolidate coins connected to you.
I'm not jumping in and out of alts. I'm saving with Bitcoin and spending with Monero. I don't recommend going BTC -> XMR -> BTC. Probably the worst way to obtain privacy on Bitcoin. You're involving a third party. Trivial to trace if not done correctly. (Timing attacks, amount analysis, etc)
Most recommended:
BTC -> XMR -> Spend XMR
Alternatively:
BTC -> Coinjoin -> Spend BTC
