Why is monero the only recommended privacy coin on this forum?

[_act_]

Moderators, please do not move this topic, I will like bitcoin board posters to contribute because they are the people that recommend monero most.


Some people know the importance of privacy coins, example is to convert bitcoin to a privacy coin and convert it back to bitcoin which can be an alternative to mixing and coinjoin.

According to what I have read online, there are many privacy coins, I have read about dash, zcash and many other altcoins to be a privacy coin, but on this forum, only monero is talked about. If monero only the true privacy coin? Are those like dash and zcash also a privacy coin or not truly a privacy is the reason you people are not them? Or this is related to centralization and decentralization?

[Apocollapse]

Because Monero is the first privacy coin who existed rather than other privacy coins, the another thing many people suggest Monero is 100% private rather than other privacy coins that run in other way to make it privacy. It has been stated Zcash is more regulatory friendly (which possible it can be regulated) and Dash is using CoinJoin, I have read on many posts said CoinJoin has a flaw and not really private.

Monero: Monero is the best-known privacy coin and has the largest market cap of the bunch, as of this writing. Forked from an earlier coin called Bytecoin in 2014, Monero anonymizes critical details such as both the sender and recipient, as well as the amount of the transaction, using techniques such as ring signatures and single-use addresses. Each coin is also fungible, unlike with Bitcoin, because they are indistinguishable and have no traceable history.

Zcash: Heavily influenced by Bitcoin (and featuring the same 21 million coin cap), Zcash implements zk-SNARKs to ensure that all needed conditions are met for a valid transaction without exposing any personal, confidential data. Zcash offers multiple transaction types ranging from fully public to fully private, so it’s potentially more regulatory-friendly than Monero, and fully shielded transactions can include private memos, as well. Zcash development is led by the for-profit Electric Coin Company.

Dash: Forked from Bitcoin with the aim of improving upon the original cryptocurrency, Dash can mix multiple transactions with CoinJoin (called PrivateSend) to obscure potentially identifying details. Dash similarly makes its privacy features optional, and also has an InstantSend option for rapid transactions that are confirmed within two seconds. Dash has found popularity in countries that have seen enormous inflation with their respective fiat currencies.

[Yogee]

..... Are those like dash and zcash also a privacy coin or not truly a privacy is the reason you people are not them? Or this is related to centralization and decentralization?

Dash started marketing themselves as the first privacy centric coin and a Monero competitor but they took a 180 turn after some centralized exchanges started delisting them. Dash team even said in a tweet that the label "privacy coin" given to them is a misnomer and that all transactions are transparent like bitcoin.
- https://twitter.com/Dashpay/status/1345093269919854592
- https://twitter.com/RTaylor05/status/1345158216586391552

There were also several reportd that chainalysis can track 99% of Dash and Zcash transactions.

You can't consider them as privacy coins after all that.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Why is monero the only recommended privacy coin on this forum?

Because it's the only privacy coin which is actually private.

[aysg76]

Yeah Monero is complete anonymous and transactions can't be traced while using this coin.It is believed that Satoshi was the real founder behind Monero to provide complete anonymity to the users with the different identity of
Nicolas van Saberhagen back in 2013 with the introduction of white paper which you can read here: https://bytecoin.org/old/whitepaper.pdf

It is different from bitcoin and other crypto using public ledger as you can track the wallet address and account through bkockchain in bitcoin but in Monero the case is different as keys are mixed while you make a transactions.

It uses Ring signatures and stealth address while you make transactions to keep up the privacy of the transactions and if you wan to check about how it works read here



But you know many restrictions are imposed on usage of Monero due to AML policies as they want to track you but if you want privacy into bitcoin also then you can use mixing services which many of us use while make transactions to be safe.

[ABCbits]

Or this is related to centralization and decentralization?

It's true for some coin (e.g. Dash has masternodes), although it's not the main reason.

There were also several reportd that chainalysis can track 99% of Dash and Zcash transactions.

And it's mainly because both Zcash and Dash doesn't enforce privacy feature. Additionally Dash privacy feature basically is just coinjoin which handled by masternode.

[tranthidung]

Privacy or anonymity?

[Guide] Decent mixing methods. I think you are missing between privacy and anonymity. You can not have it 100% but Monero is one of the best.

grin is now accepted for forum payments. Theymos was excited about grincoin technically too but the admin wrote and emphasized that there is issue with coin emission and did not recommend to buy or invest in grincoin.

[PrivacyG]

Because Monero does straight up full anonymity while other privacy coins offer just enhanced privacy that has some flaws.  This raises some issues.

First of all, with coins that have optional privacy like Dash or Z Cash, you get one big problem.  The community is split up into two, giving everyone the possibility of looking at the more private one as the suspicious side of the coin.  If you and I use monero, we both get the same level of privacy so basically even if you do not care about privacy at all, nobody can say I am more suspicious than you are because both of us are under the same camouflage.

Second.  When you have optional privacy you know where to attack.  Monero's blockchain is not public unlike Bitcoin's.  So even if we both make a transaction and you do not care about your privacy, there is hardly any way someone can find out where to begin an attack of de anonymization.  If we have optional privacy and you turn yours off, they already know I am the one who tried to stay hidden and so they know who to go after.

Third.  Fungibility is starting to become an issue with Bitcoin I must say.  Now that tainted coins are becoming trendy for institutions and exchanges, your 1 Bitcoin are not always equal to my 1 Bitcoin.  Monero solves this issue by making sure there is no visible history of your coins.

I think Monero will continue to survive and live a long life next to Bitcoin.  Bitcoin has the big advantage of being first and catching the public's eye.  But with privacy becoming less and less prominent all around the world and with everything going digital and cashless, I think there will be a time where people will start looking for a more private alternative of Fiat or even of Bitcoin.  Blockchain Analysis is definitely advancing up to an eerily intrusive level as well, so at some point in a future world we might have Bitcoin as the replacement for Card and Monero as the equivalent for Cash.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[LoyceMobile]

Because it's the only privacy coin which is actually private.

For that reason, Monero is one of the few altcoins I would consider using. It's a low-fee replacement to pay for my VPN (instead of using a Forkcoin).

[Alisha-k]

Monero is most discussed because it has a mix of cryptographic data security and privacy. It is top most when compared to other privacy coin. How do you feel when you know your transactions can't be traced? It definitely gives you this sense of protection knowing too well your transactions are highly anonymous and secure

[Little Mouse]

Yeah Monero is complete anonymous and transactions can't be traced while using this coin.

I'm really not sure since I barely have a lot of knowledge on this but long ago (most likely in 2018/19), I have read an article where they mentioned that it was possible to trace Monero transactions even. I can't find the article at the moment, I tried with google and found an article by coingeek where they mentioned with the help of CipherTrace tool, Monero transactions can be traced.

grin is now accepted for forum payments.

Not anymore.

There were a total of only 10 grin transactions. Currently grin is not accepted because it broke a while ago and I never got around to fixing it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I have read an article where they mentioned that it was possible to trace Monero transactions even.

It isn't. Everyone who has tried has failed.

CipherTrace's method for tracing Monero transactions was to combine a whole bunch of off chain data, such as people publicly posting their addresses or transactions, data from centralized exchanges and other third parties, social media profiles, and so on. They did not manage to do anything on chain. The IRS offered a $1.25 million bounty to anyone who could trace Monero transactions. CipherTrace were unable to claim it.

After going unclaimed for over a year, the IRS instead gave $500k each to Chainalysis and Integra to work on Monero tracing tools, with the prize of a payout if they could build anything useful. No prize payout has been made.

Note that no other "privacy" coin has ever had such a bounty, because they can all already be easily and widely traced by a whole variety of blockchain analysis firms.

[BIT-BENDER]

I think when it comes to privacy coins many people would rather go for the privacy coin that has proven itself the most so far, and has more longevity than others and monero fits in, I know some other privacy coins (I won’t do any advert for them by mentioning names) but they have good utilities as well but monero is seen as the pinnacle of privacy coin and people won’t risk going for others

[nakamura12]

If you are looking for a privacy coin then Monero is what most people use to hide their transaction when they don't want to be trace. When monero is used then it is proven by many people that it really is a privacy coin that really done its job. I don't see many people discussing about using privacy coin other than Monero and so far, monero didn't failed what many people wanted when using it that is why it is recommended by most.

[uchegod-21]

Monero is always the first to mention when privacy and total privacy I needed. Some acclaimed privacy coins are proven not to be as private as they claim or they have optional privacy settings, which cannot be considered to be a totally private coin. Unlike Monero which is arguably the oldest privacy coin. In two years time, it will clock a decade. So, it has been tested overtime since it's protocol is purely open source.
Another big factor is that Satoshi is indirectly linked to Monero, so that Satoshi vibe is still there.

After making some research about Monero, I began to wonder why it's adoption isn't expanding much. This coin has the potential to excel and last as long as bitcoin can last. Well, maybe its time is not come yet, so many are not interested about their privacy yet.

[_act_]

If I get you all correctly, monero is the true privacy coin because it is fully private. Even there was a recent upgrade to litecoin which is called Minblewinble, it helps privacy between users too, it is optional just like dash and zcash. Dash and zcash can just be considered just as litecoin if talking about privacy coin, they are coins that are partly privacy and partly public, it depends on users choice, they are coins that exist in a way that some people can option for privacy and some people can option for public transaction that is transparent like bitcoin transaction, no wonder Chainanalysis said that most dash and zcash transactions can be traced, unlike monero. This can only lead to a conclusion that a semi privacy coins like dash and zcash are not privacy coins.

[2stout]

Because it is truly private- basically untraceable, proven and established history, and open source vs proprietary.  Other "privacy coins" have talked a good game but come to find out they are pseudo-private, a let down.  Monero is tried, true, and trusted and it has earned all of these, in addition to being the 1st truly, untraceable private coin.

[dkbit98]

I think some people recommended mimblewimble privacy techonology even for Bitcoin, and I remember some discussion about that subject from few years ago in forum.
After litecoin added mimblewimble with success it's possible someone could add this to Bitcoin as well, but it's only optional feature and therefor has it's flaws.
Despite Monero shady past, we have to admit that it's working, it has simple private transactions, dev team is working on improvements, and it does have real use case.
I would like to see all this features available in Bitcoin, but I think this is highly unlikely and probably impossible to happen.