Why are no anonymous altcoins being widely utilized?

[thelibertycap]

because its still fairly easy to hide btc profit from taxman if you aren't stupid and impatient, when governments get their act together coins with anon features will increase in popularity, that could take a while i mean look at how useless authorities are at catching cybercriminals, they are 5 years behind

exactly.
and hiding from taxes is far bigger market than black markets.
most of the world think bitcoin is anonymous and 100% fungible.
they even haven't heard about other coins yet.

- anonymous coins emerged when bitcoin was in a long and brutal downtrend
- it's not easy to make a proper anonymous altcoin and the tech needs to prove it is good first
- we don't even have a proper dark marketplace which is mandatory to see any widespread use of anon

when you count in all the little things, i think the answer why we have no wide use is quite clear

[TinEye]

Not enough liquidity for them to be able to move big amounts. Using exchanges, mixers etc it is easy to wash BTC so there is no reason to try an altcoin which is difficult to liquidate.

As anaylsis programs get better, this will become a much less viable option(Google chainanaylsis and what happened a few days ago with Bitcoin). Besides that, when you use mixers, there's a high chance of getting someone else's tainted coins, whether it be a scammer or whatnot, there's a chance you'd be getting dirty coins back. And, of course, there's the chance of the mixer scamming you yourself and just running away with your Bitcoins.

Mixers on bitcoin are great in theory but in practice have never really worked well for all the reasons you state. Also:

1. Mixers may be honeypots that are themselves collecting data or being spied upon. There is no way for you to ever know.
2. You can't really mix very much on most mixers, because the volume going through them is low. Try to mix a lot and you either get a lot of your own coins back, or you wait forever.

Except that big amounts have and are being successfully liquidated. The latest is the 7000 BTC from Bter hack.

Compare this to any altcoin and it is difficult to see how it can be done through them. There is simply nowhere near enough volume.

[smooth]

Not enough liquidity for them to be able to move big amounts. Using exchanges, mixers etc it is easy to wash BTC so there is no reason to try an altcoin which is difficult to liquidate.

As anaylsis programs get better, this will become a much less viable option(Google chainanaylsis and what happened a few days ago with Bitcoin). Besides that, when you use mixers, there's a high chance of getting someone else's tainted coins, whether it be a scammer or whatnot, there's a chance you'd be getting dirty coins back. And, of course, there's the chance of the mixer scamming you yourself and just running away with your Bitcoins.

Mixers on bitcoin are great in theory but in practice have never really worked well for all the reasons you state. Also:

1. Mixers may be honeypots that are themselves collecting data or being spied upon. There is no way for you to ever know.
2. You can't really mix very much on most mixers, because the volume going through them is low. Try to mix a lot and you either get a lot of your own coins back, or you wait forever.

Except that big amounts have and are being successfully liquidated. The latest is the 7000 BTC from Bter hack.

Compare this to any altcoin and it is difficult to see how it can be done through them. There is simply nowhere near enough volume.

Using an altcoin as a bitcoin mixer largely suffers from the same issues as any other bitcoin mixer, and I agree in practice it may be worse. You are still going through some kind of chokepoints (exchanges, etc.) which will keep logs, and as you say volume will be an issue (though not so much if you are willing to do it slowly over time; same with bitcoin mixers).

Good anonymous coins simply eliminate the need for mixers altogether by keeping the blockchain opaque. If I wanted to move 7000 BTC worth of XMR privately as XMR (not converting it) I literally could do it quite easily even though that's something like half of the total capitalization of the coin.

Obviously 7000 BTC worth of XMR is unlikely unless XMR gets a lot bigger.

[TinEye]

Using an altcoin as a bitcoin mixer largely suffers from the same issues as any other bitcoin mixer, and I agree in practice it may be worse. You are still going through some kind of chokepoints (exchanges, etc.) which will keep logs, and as you say volume will be an issue (though not so much if you are willing to do it slowly over time; same with bitcoin mixers).

Good anonymous coins simply eliminate the need for mixers altogether by keeping the blockchain opaque. If I wanted to move 7000 BTC worth of XMR privately as XMR (not converting it) I literally could do it quite easily even though that's something like half of the total capitalization of the coin.

Obviously 7000 BTC worth of XMR is unlikely unless XMR gets a lot bigger.

You can move, but you can't sell them and thats the issue. Recall the NXT hack from Bter, the hacker was willing for a cut price deal rather than sell them.

An anonymous coin by itself is not attractive enough to become big enough. If it is something else which becomes big and happens to have the anonymity feature then that can be used later.

[smooth]

Using an altcoin as a bitcoin mixer largely suffers from the same issues as any other bitcoin mixer, and I agree in practice it may be worse. You are still going through some kind of chokepoints (exchanges, etc.) which will keep logs, and as you say volume will be an issue (though not so much if you are willing to do it slowly over time; same with bitcoin mixers).

Good anonymous coins simply eliminate the need for mixers altogether by keeping the blockchain opaque. If I wanted to move 7000 BTC worth of XMR privately as XMR (not converting it) I literally could do it quite easily even though that's something like half of the total capitalization of the coin.

Obviously 7000 BTC worth of XMR is unlikely unless XMR gets a lot bigger.

You can move, but you can't sell them and thats the issue. Recall the NXT hack from Bter, the hacker was willing for a cut price deal rather than sell them.

I agreed with you that moving funds through (meaning into then out of) an altcoin as a means of using that altcoin as a mixer is not a good use case.

An anonymous coin by itself is not attractive enough to become big enough. If it is something else which becomes big and happens to have the anonymity feature then that can be used later.

This is where I'm not sure. Forget about the idea of using the alt as a mixer and consider that people may simply value their privacy and not want to go through the trouble of a special "mixing" process at all. Sure if you are a hacker and you want to wash 7000 stolen BTC then going through mixers, gambling sites, exchanges, etc. are fine.

Normal people, dealing in smaller amounts where the liquidity of many alts is perfectly adequate, or even routine modest-sized business transactions, aren't going to do that and may still not want their affairs broadcast out on a public blockchain. They may prefer to simply use a monetary system that doesn't have so much built-in visibility to begin with that you need mixers.

Even if this is only a minority of people, that may still be a very large market, just as there is a large market for financial privacy in the conventional banking system.

[TinEye]

Even if this is only a minority of people, that may still be a very large market, just as there is a large market for financial privacy in the conventional banking system.

What I am saying is that it is a chicken and egg problem. It becomes useful if there is a large number of users, which will come if it is useful. If it initially was useful due to other features besides anonymity then it could gain the required userbase before being useful for its anonymity.

[no141]

Personally, I think a future proof coin would need to be held by a lot of people, a modest paying POS coin, that no one can massively stockpile. Everyone may brainstorm on how to make a coin be kept by the masses and used, but that it's not useful to horde in large quantities.

I like clam today, but it's already getting stockpiled. Dash now will be a hit, but will there be a time that it transitions to POS. And if bitcoin transitions to POS at some point, all bets are off.

[oblox]

Dash now will be a hit, but will there be a time that it transitions to POS. And if bitcoin transitions to POS at some point, all bets are off.

There is nothing in the pipeline about Dash transitioning to POS, let alone BTC. Might it be practical in the future (years, if not decades down the road), perhaps, but no where near to being reality at this juncture.

[daggerpunt]

because its still fairly easy to hide btc profit from taxman if you aren't stupid and impatient, when governments get their act together coins with anon features will increase in popularity, that could take a while i mean look at how useless authorities are at catching cybercriminals, they are 5 years behind

exactly.
and hiding from taxes is far bigger market than black markets.
most of the world think bitcoin is anonymous and 100% fungible.
they even haven't heard about other coins yet.

- anonymous coins emerged when bitcoin was in a long and brutal downtrend
- it's not easy to make a proper anonymous altcoin and the tech needs to prove it is good first
- we don't even have a proper dark marketplace which is mandatory to see any widespread use of anon

when you count in all the little things, i think the answer why we have no wide use is quite clear

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[Nxtblg]

and hiding from taxes is far bigger market than black markets.

So is servicing the underground economy, which consists more and more of folks hiding from laws and regulations. Case in point: an illegal immigrant running a hot-dog stand, nail salon, or whatnot. Slowly, the U.S. is becoming similar to Hernando de Soto's Peru.