Just like you are not using centralized services for your social media. Don’t use centralized services for your Bitcoin. Then you’ll never be chain analyzed. Pay with Bitcoin. Or use P2P exchanges. Make P2P exchanges the standard
We all need to be very aware that what nostr:npub1sn0wdenkukak0d9dfczzeacvhkrgz92ak56egt7vdgzn8pv2wfqqhrjdv9 is describing here is not some distant dystopian future. It's our dystopian reality.
In May, Elliptic, together with researchers from MIT and IBM, developed a dataset to identify "the shape of money laundering" on the blockchain.
This dataset attempts to predict money laundering activity that has "not yet been labeled" by distinguishing between what the dataset defines as "anomalous signatures" and Bitcoin transfers between "licit services".
Falling out of these clusters deemed normal by intelligence financed corporations already leaves you penalized. Avoid KYC services? Flagged. Can't tie your transactions to a bank account? Flagged. Frequent user of coinjoins? Flagged.
You are already being debanked because a computer program has decided that you are a money launderer – not because you did something illegal, but because your transactions are deemed abnormal – and you have no legal recourse as suspicious activity reports swear financial institutions to absolute secrecy.
It's the full on criminalization of privacy in finance. The future is here, and it's Orwellian.
Discussion
Monero fixed that.
It ain't no coincidence that most western governments are trying to squash it as hard as possible.
We need easier on/off ramps between bitcoin and monero. Bitcoin wins as store of value, but monero is great for payment privacy.
I was so excited for what Samourai were developing in Beta (alpha?) with their Monero Swaps. I hadn’t yet tried it sadly.
I used to think Monero was a great idea. But honestly, I'm not so sure anymore. nostr:npub1s33sw6y2p8kpz2t8avz5feu2n6yvfr6swykrnm2frletd7spnt5qew252p has a great video talking about this issue. I think he's brought some good points to the discussion. https://youtu.be/1LTT7wwyUAQ
Matthew the type of guy to say the market is always right when it comes to Bitcoin, but tell you why it's wrong when it comes to Monero on the only truly free and permissionless markets on the planet
Matthew the type of guy to say "Bitcoin already won the money race" and how network effects and first mover advantages are supreme, but have no explanation for the Monero-shaped darknet elephant in the room
Matthew the type of guy to extol Bitcoins decentralized ledger, but then almost always refers to it's price charts and volume on centralized ledgers
Matthew the type of guy that talks about anonymity sets and hiding in large crowds, but then uses a transparent, deterministic, and weakly pseudonymous blockchain
Matthew the type of guy that likes to bring up robust global circular economies, but never spends and is obsessed with hodling
Matthew the type of guy that talks about hot potato money, but doesn't mention Monero is delisted from almost every major exchange Bitcoin is on yet STILL holding it's own *despite* that MASSIVE disadvantage
I'm 100% in Bitcoin and agree with the network effect thing, but am becoming concerned at Bitcoins lack of privacy. Monero was issuing 50 coin blocks every 2 minutes up until the beginning of last cycle, that probably explains the price crash better than lack of use. Bitcoin and crypto in general is in a price discovery phase. When it comes to adoption and spending, privacy is a 10x improvement. I anticipate Bitcoin will adopt sufficient privacy, but I'm starting to doubt.
SeraiDEX should help with this. But right now there is Unstoppable Swap, Bisq, Haveno, and Trocador
And robosats
Liquidity and UX are very poor unfortunately. They are like the Mastodons of P2P before Nostr existed.
Yes true in general, but particularly for UnstoppableSwap and Haveno (very new). There is a new CCS proposal to make the UX a lot better for UnstoppableSwap. Also excited to see what Serai brings.
Don't know much about it but n3xB looks interesting
https://repo.getmonero.org/monero-project/ccs-proposals/-/merge_requests/477
I am not sure how Monero fixed bridging the global economy, which the majority still sell product and services only for fiat, into anything.
Not to mention those who held onto Monero instead of Bitcoin, has diminished in purchasing power relative terms.
Both can exist at the same time. People are free to choose. But P2P solution is currently sorely inadequate nevertheless
If would put your money on BNB on the last 6 years it would outperform bitcoin.
Cryptocurrency is NOT about casino-style speculation. If you want to speculate with coins then learn Forex since speculation is a thing for virtual coins.
The word "crypto" means "hidden" in latin.
You never got privacy with that bitcoin.
Snowden just told you the same thing.
McAfee said the same.
It was from the start a coin designed to make easier tracking of drug transactions. There is a reason why it isn't used any longer on the underground.
You don't even find it suspicious that governments are promoting bitcoin while at the same time shutting down monero which keeps on surviving at a good price.
You're in this field just for the casino aspect of the coins and that's OK, just avoid mixing that with privacy and freedom.
Monero has its utilities, mostly as a stop gap for privacy transactions. But it has little chance to become the world’s store of value, medium of exchange, adefacto of account. To do so it requires a market cap and liquidity large enough such that there’s small enough volatility to be half of all of the world’s transactions. Its simply not happening.
Monero is the short time preference version of Bitcoin where it cannot wait for price stability and privacies properties to emerge. These properties are slow to emerge on Bitcoin because of the need to be a ‘sly and roundtable way to introduce something they can’t stop’. In fact, Monero is effectively slowed, if not already stopped, because its simply not sly enough. Monero is the idealistic but impossible perfect that is in the way of the practical and already working good that is Bitcoin.
Medium of exchange and privacy properties will continue to improve on Bitcoin, at a rate that will not overly alarm, and effectively penetrate the authoritarians. Only Bitcoin has a chance to truly separate money from the state and become the one defacto money for humanity.
Monero is already separated from any state or government machine. It is the crypto currency used today on the streets to buy stuff.
You didn't bought bitcoin 10 years, why would you buy monero now.
Just don't complain that nobody told you about this earlier.
Monero is not only separated from the state. It’s separated from the entire economy at large. It is not separating The Money from the state tho. Monero is not The Money and never will. Bitcoin can be.
The problem is also the other side of the transaction. Which he talked about too.
My friend is one of the best hackers in the world and he does not share his PGP key. I asked him why she he said he does not trust that people who communicate with him can protect their endpoints. Having a false sense of privacy then makes things worse.
I don't agree, but I can see what he's talking about. You can be doxxed by the people you transact with.
Absolutely. But you can also always find a different counterparty if its a decentralized P2P platform.
of course, I am promoting nostr:npub1mftv2j67vayavkks8rqev3u8jjhefe86tf80msstfxvpunk9vmps6prkl3 heavily and there are other good platforms as well. But that does not remove the problem completely. Say you sold something illegal and dangerous, like unpasteurized milk. The counterparty of the sale was selling heroin. The cops caught him and they want to trace the coins. He does not know your name, but tells them where you met. You wore a mask, right? unfortunately the CCTV recording leads them to your car which you entered after the trade.
It's overblown story, but I'm saying this - don't be fooled that if you don't show your ID, you have privacy. Real privacy is extremely hard. Were you carrying a phone in your pocket? Did you take Uber? Bought a coffee around a corner and paid with card?
Right now this is hard and you have to be a target, but this is getting automated and soon it will be all automatic.
Until all transactions in the world are conducted natively with Bitcoin, decentralized P2P is the best we’ve got. Native Bitcoin adoption will require price stability, and we are easily a decade away from widespread Bitcoin adoption at the mom and pop merchant level.
Platforms like Vexl is good. But they are like Blue Skys and Mastodon before Nostr. We need an open protocol for decentralized exchange. Not a lot of inter-incompatible little silos of centralized P2P solutions.
In particular, Vexl’s starting screen asking for my phone number tho, is not a good sign whatsoever…
The phone number is your web of trust. Vexl doesn’t know your phone number nor does anyone else. Everything happens client side.