I've always been curious, what's the deal with Monero? Years ago I understood that it's private so you can't trace transactions right? Isn't that a good thing? Is there a centralization issue or some reliance on a "third party" to make it happen? If somehow bitcoin could be exactly the way it is, but the transactions are untraceable, would that not be better than a public ledger for everyone to see? Or is the privacy issue solved with layers built on the bitcoin network anyway so monero is just another shitcoin? Being bitcoin only I don't really get why "altcoins" are so attractive to people? Most of them are worse than using a centralized server anyway so why even make them?
Discussion
Moneros heart is in the right place but it's just not setup to be a true global currency. The way they achieve the privacy makes serious trade offs that make it unviable in my opinion
sounds like you got it about right.
monero has L1 privacy
which requires additional complexity to ensure supply
and Bitcoin might someday get good Lx privacy
which would make it redundant
everything is tradeoffs
Monero has its own proof-of-work blockchain, and it is very similar to Bitcoin's design. The main differences are the way transactions are recorded (private but larger data size), the time to produce each block (2 minutes), the block reward schedule (fixed at 0.6 XMR), and the proof-of-work algorithm (ASIC-resistant so CPUs are the best miners).
I think a lot of people are sleeping on mining Monero with their desktop computers. Swap it to BTC if you want, but why let your asset be unproductive? Computers are Monero space heaters. And there will be a lot of used PCs for sale this year because Microsoft is forcing companies to replace anything older then 8th-gen CPUs for Windows 11.
lol jokes on you
i mine with surplus solar energy
but its true that the few dollars you make in XMR will be offset by the few dollars you spend on electricy
Monero will always have an edge over Bitcoin for privacy because it's chain is encrypted (along with the advantages/disadvantages that brings and vice versa).
For privacy/fungibility/targeted censorship resistance:
encrypted chain+L2 > transparent chain+L2