There is no second-best 
Discussion
At least #Monero offers decent privacy for cheap and without headaches. Many people on earth needs that today.
Agree, but it’s auditability issues and other complications caused by its anonymity make it much less favorable as a global economic system. There’s obviously a use case for privacy-oriented solutions, but I wouldn’t categorize them as second-best. Rather a tool for an extremely narrow audience.
Bitcoin is good enough for most users and provides options to stay pseudonymous given that you follow basic privacy practices.
nostr:npub1dergggklka99wwrs92yz8wdjs952h2ux2ha2ed598ngwu9w7a6fsh9xzpc covers these in his article here: https://www.swanbitcoin.com/bitcoin-privacy-best-practices/
I don't think #Monero is in competition with #Bitcoin to become the new global economic system. However as a cryptocurrency I could easily sees it as a second best as it's decentralized, community driven, private by default. Like you said it's a tool, just like #Bitcoin and like #Bitcoin it does things well and other things aren't ideal. The privacy on Bitcoin do exist and avoiding KYC when buying is probably the easier steps. However the peace of minds that #Monero brings while spending is a big advantages over all the amazing privacy tools for #Bitcoin that are used by a really small number of #plebs .
I think privacy on Bitcoin L1 and L2 will improve over the year.
Monero is the only “crypto” I don’t want to bash, cause it does have a use case and does it’s job.
It is important to highlight though, that people often get overly relaxed, assuming that by using monero they become totally untraceable, which leads them to making rookie mistakes and get discovered cause of the credit card info somehow connected to their transaction, or some other dumb stuff, like IP leakage and so on.
Nothing's perfect nor #Bitcoin neither is #Monero
It's important to be critic and keep building or testing as privacy is a cat and mouse game.
These are the conversations I like to see, especially here on #nostr. Based in reality, privacy solutions are real world uses that deserve a head nod, not a complete disregard.
100% portfolio allocation isn't right, but 0% isn't right, either.
Just my 2 SATs.
True, you can get a false sense of security and get lazy.
But IP leakage is less of a problem with Monero tbf. Dandelion++ obfuscates it even if you don't mask it. Much harder to make mistakes on Monero vs Bitcoin.
The "can't be audited" argument is weak when you consider a few things...
1) Exactly 100% of bitcoiners run a node and call it a day. Exactly like you audit with Monero. No Bitcoiner is taking advantage of it's transparency/simple math and scrutinizing the whole blockchain to make sure everything is correct.
2) AND an exploited inflation bug would be equally catastrophic if it happened to Bitcoin or Monero. Once it happens it is too late. There is no good solution. You can't undo it without hurting users.
So, who really cares if you can see it. You will know it was exploited directly with Bitcoin, or indirectly with Monero, but nothing can be done about it. The damage will be done.
This is actually great, i’m stealing it for muh normies 🤩
It shouldn’t just say everything else… it should say, “Dumpster Fire” 🗑️ 🔥
