#Monero folks are still riding that same train, thinking privacy must come from complexity and obfuscation rather than scale and adoption. They miss the bigger picture: Bitcoin’s privacy improves naturally over time, while Monero’s “solution” relies on a small, niche network that can be analyzed with enough effort.

Privacy isn’t just about hiding—it’s about blending into the crowd. The more people use Bitcoin peer-to-peer and over Lightning, the harder it gets to track anything. Monero will always have its hardcore supporters, but in the long run, Bitcoin’s decentralized network, adoption, and continuous improvements make it the real answer.

The lesson? Simplicity and scale beat complexity every time. But some folks just love their rabbit holes. 😆

#Monero (XMR) was not pre-mined, but there was an interesting twist in its early history. It started as BitMonero, a fork of #Bytecoin (BCN), and Bytecoin was heavily pre-mined—about 80% of its total supply was already in existence at launch. That’s what triggered controversy and led to the Monero fork in 2014.

What Happened?

Bytecoin’s Dirty Secret – When people realized 80% of Bytecoin was already mined before the public even knew about it, trust was shattered.

Monero Forked from It – A group of developers split from Bytecoin, launching BitMonero (soon renamed Monero), with a fresh emission schedule and no pre-mine.

Completely New Mining – Monero started with zero coins in existence and used a proof-of-work model from block 1, meaning it wasn’t just handed to early insiders.

The Magic Premine Debate

While Monero itself wasn’t pre-mined, its origin from Bytecoin, which was pre-mined, is what raises eyebrows. Some suspect that the same people behind Bytecoin could have also had influence over Monero’s early days. But that’s speculation, as Monero was completely rebuilt with a fairer distribution.

Bottom Line:

Bytecoin = Pre-mined scam.

Monero = Forked from it, but started fresh.

No “magic” instant supply dump like some altcoins.

It’s cleaner than most projects, but its roots in a shady pre-mined coin will always be a little suspect.

When the foundation is shaky, how solid can the structure really be? #Monero distanced itself from Bytecoin, just like Ethereum tried to distance itself from the DAO rollback—but the origins still matter. If something began with questionable ethics, how can you fully trust what follows?

Ethereum had its "oops, undo that" moment when they rolled back the blockchain after the DAO hack, proving it’s not immutable. Monero, while better in comparison, still carries the stain of Bytecoin’s shady pre-mine. Even if it started fresh, the fact that it was born out of a scammy project raises questions.

Bitcoin didn’t have to fork from a broken system—it was built right from day one. That’s the difference. Clean origins matter. No trust required.

It’s funny how many of these projects try to fix problems that only exist because of their own flawed beginnings.

When the foundation is shaky, how solid can the structure really be? #Monero distanced itself from Bytecoin, just like Ethereum tried to distance itself from the DAO rollback—but the origins still matter. If something began with questionable ethics, how can you fully trust what follows?

Ethereum had its "oops, undo that" moment when they rolled back the blockchain after the DAO hack, proving it’s not immutable. Monero, while better in comparison, still carries the stain of Bytecoin’s shady pre-mine. Even if it started fresh, the fact that it was born out of a scammy project raises questions.

Bitcoin didn’t have to fork from a broken system—it was built right from day one. That’s the difference. Clean origins matter. No trust required.

It’s funny how many of these projects try to fix problems that only exist because of their own flawed beginnings.

When the foundation is shaky, how solid can the structure really be? #Monero distanced itself from Bytecoin, just like Ethereum tried to distance itself from the DAO rollback—but the origins still matter. If something began with questionable ethics, how can you fully trust what follows?

Ethereum had its "oops, undo that" moment when they rolled back the blockchain after the DAO hack, proving it’s not immutable. Monero, while better in comparison, still carries the stain of Bytecoin’s shady pre-mine. Even if it started fresh, the fact that it was born out of a scammy project raises questions.

Bitcoin didn’t have to fork from a broken system—it was built right from day one. That’s the difference. Clean origins matter. No trust required.

It’s funny how many of these projects try to fix problems that only exist because of their own flawed beginnings.

Changing the protocol because of nft fad is short term thinking. People still don't understand what they hold.

I think Tether over Bitcoin is potentially a battle we were unaware of and have therefore lost 😂

#Bitcoin shows the way to the future.

Gender As I Experience It

I was born trans. That is my sex differentiated characteristics set at different times in fetal development were not consistent enough with the gender I was assigned at birth. Most of the ones that I think underlie gender as one experiences it internally were set more to the female end of the spectrum despite other external appearing ones set male. Eventually I transitioned, decades ago, to live and present in my internally experienced primary gender. However I think male/female are poles in a continuum at best. There are aspects of me that are biologically set to male and others to female. The female predominates for experienced gender and is where I decided to publicly hang my hat as well.

Sex, sexuality, gender identity or experienced gender, and gender expression are all continuums and can vary. Yes there are norms of the various curves most people cluster around. But still continuums.

All my life I have also been resistant to the entire gender noise and resentful of all the emphasis that is put upon it. I am very glad I transitioned and I am much more sane and happy in female being in the world than I ever was in attempted male being in the world. But they are both projections and roles and dancing around and within expected presentations/feeling tones/emotion ranges/ hormonal mixes/etc. At deeper levels of my being I know that neither is fundamental to what I really am. I know that much of what anyone does or cares about is not male/female bifurcated at all. The entire idea is meaningless at some level and yet so deeply part of human experience.

At some level I still feel like I am acting. Much much less acting and far less frustrating and alien as female than as male but still at some level acting. When do I get to just be me with no glimmer of acting is a question I still wrestle with.

When I was a child presented with a form with a box for male or female I would often be stuck trying to decide which to mark. I have aspects of both and have experienced lived in both to some degree.

I increasingly think of myself as a nonbinary trans woman. Most of these gender hard wirings, if you will, in me are female. However I am tired of being squeezed into a pretend disjoint category for “gender” at all. It doesn’t feel fully “me”. I am quite sure I am not a “man”. But "male" or "female" are settings of some aspects of the totality of “me” and not others, many of which do not meaningfully have a gender label, whether they transcend gender or such categorization simply does not apply.

Do we need to charge a 25% premium to Americans starting tomorrow? 🤔

People trying to decide on a superior cryptocurrency often focus on just one metric (e.g. speed).

If a crypto can process more transactions per second than Bitcoin, is it better?

No. This speedy crypto would have to sacrifice security, decentralization, immutability, durability etc.