Bitcoin Vs Monero - Privacy as the world becomes more dystopian

[barto123]

Monero is quietly gaining lots of adoption on websites, services, exchanges, dark net markets etc.

I'm sure it's not true for exchange (Centralized ones) since legal makes it much harder or even impossible to list Monero on their exchange.

Node count has passed BTC and mining hash rate is growing rapidly as you don't need an Asics, just your PC.

Can you share which source data you use for Monero node count?

Also scaling is another issue, Bitcoin fees are 1000x Monero fees.

But don't forget there are less TX created on Monero network compared with Bitcoin network. Monero TPS is also lower than BTC due to higher TX size and lower block size, despite lower block time.

yeah i don't even consider centralized exchanges, they will be short lived in my opinion as atomic swaps, dex's etc grow & privacy becomes more important


here's my source for node count bitcoin vs monero:

https://bitnodes.io/
https://monero.fail/map

yeah true, however it looks to me if monero has same TPS as bitcoin it would still be quite a lot cheaper with dynamic block sizes

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[ABCbits]

here's my source for node count bitcoin vs monero:

https://bitnodes.io/
https://monero.fail/map

Thanks for the link. Although it's not directly comparable since bitnodes.io show number of total reachable nodes in last few hours while monero.fail shows total reachable nodes in last 2 weeks.

yeah true, however it looks to me if monero has same TPS as bitcoin it would still be quite a lot cheaper with dynamic block sizes

I don't think dynamic block help much since what matters most is how much transaction created by Monero users.

[coinerer]

We have similar feelings.  Knowing Bitcoin, starting to use Monero in parallel for the first time is harder than it sounds.  It is not as easy as 1 2 3 for sure.  If you use Dogecoin it is one thing but using Monero is different.  Particularly because Monero is for PRIVACY, so more care is necessary if you want to keep it that way.  Wallet is different, Transactions look different et cetera.

I hope some day some body smart enough will drop some ELI 5 type of Monero Documentation.  Answering all What, How and Why questions.  There are definitely a lot of things I misunderstand about Monero even if I have been using it for a very long time already.

Luckily the documentation here is good and easy to read.

But yeah Monero is superior to Doge (which I still dislike). In fact I don't like anything other than Bitcoin and Monero. The way I see it is totally privacy-centered. I want to achieve the highest privacy possible and Monero is a great asset in this regard.

Yes monero is a privacy coin and it has enough privacy to used but this coin is not much profitable. if you think only about your privacy then Monero is for you but if you think about privacy and potential profit too then Bitcoin will best. i want both so bitcoin is for me. If you want to compete between Bitcoin and Monero then Bitcoin will always be ahead in this field. Because no other coin compares to Bitcoin. so i always support bitcoin

[Synchronice]

Monero is quietly gaining lots of adoption on websites, services, exchanges, dark net markets etc.

Are you sure it is getting a lot of adoption on exchanges? Because I know there's a lot of DEXes that are supporting Monero, but it seems like centralized exchanges are rushing to drop it like a hot potato (because "money laundering" and "crime" and ... you get the idea).

If we want to protect privacy, we shouldn't use centralized exchanges, right? So, who cares?

I've said many times before that Monero is the only coin other than Bitcoin which I own and use, and the only altcoin I consider not to be a shitcoin. It shares many of the good things about bitcoin - decentalized, PoW, no premine, etc. - while also being far more private if used properly. I don't think it will ever replace bitcoin, but I also think it is one of the only altcoins which will continue to grow and continue to be used many years in the future.

The only reason bitcoin grows is that it is still an innovation, attracts people and it's possible for governments and financial institutes to control bitcoin by improving blockchain analysis and implementing massive KYC and making it illegal to hold Bitcoin without verifying yourself. I.E. if government can control it like your bank transactions, they'll let it's adoption to grow.
At the moment, Monero is the only solution. It's the only coin that offers everything and is still massively adopted.
Monero is the Tor of currencies while other altcoins act like a VPN.

The reason why I believe privacy is #1 concern is because the direction in which the globalists are taking the world is complete control of everything. The want to control every living thing. Sounds like a conspiracy theory until you realize they say it in plain sight.

That's not a conspiracy, that's reality. Controlled society can't do riots, can't protest. Government needs slaves, people with the lack of critical thinking. Probably soon, you won't have to study math and other subjects, your AI might do that for you but that will make average Joe dumb.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Thanks for the link. Although it's not directly comparable since bitnodes.io show number of total reachable nodes in last few hours while monero.fail shows total reachable nodes in last 2 weeks.

Perhaps a more fair comparison would be against bitnodes' Global Node list.

Monero is the Tor of currencies while other altcoins act like a VPN.

I wouldn't say altcoins are like a VPN at all. Many have even worse privacy than bitcoin does. Just take the biggest altcoin Ethereum as an example - they use an account based model rather than an UTXO based model, meaning all your ETH transactions (and all your stupid token transactions too) are all intrinsically linked together.

[barto123]

I don't even use CEX's so I didn't consider even them lol. I meant on swap sites, P2P platforms (Bisq), DEX's, atomic swaps etc

Indeed Bitcoin is more like gold SoV and Monero is more cash. Lightning adoption isn't going anywhere by the looks of it. Coinjoin is expensive in high fee environment as and not really that private. In the mean time Monero is cheap & easy & does give you ample privacy. government don't like it, so there's your proof it works.

Daily transaction count for Monero hasn't changed much in the last 3 years. I'm not sure its adoption is going anywhere either.
https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/monero-transactions.html

For every new merchant that accepts Monero I see two or three that accept Lightning. This is purely anecdotal so I'm not sure which one has the advantage.

Monero is quietly gaining lots of adoption on websites, services, exchanges, dark net markets etc.

Node count has passed BTC and mining hash rate is growing rapidly as you don't need an Asics, just your PC.

Node count isn't a very reliable measure because you can cherry pick whichever source is more favorable to your argument. MoneroHash says Monero has 3k nodes while Monero.Fail says it's 22k. For Bitcoin it's 16k nodes according to Bitnodes and 63k according to Luke Dashjr's website.

At the start of scamdemic, Monero started to get more adoption - have zoom out further than 3 years.

I've been in Bitcoin since 2015, there's been so much more Monero discussion last couple years. A lot of people realizing they need more privacy as this digital prison comes online.

Bitcoiners must know it's not private enough. Almost all my coinjoined UTXO's have been censored lately. Yes I do try to use Bisq where I can.

I was hopeful for lightning - just checked 1ml.com - looks stagnant IMO. I remain hopeful, I just prefer Monero at this stage.

Yes, you might be right about node count. However Monero people are similar to Bitcoiner's. A lot of us run nodes. I'd say the number is up there regardless.

[DapanasFruit]

I love bitcoin, however i see privacy as the #1 concern going forward. Monero is quietly gaining lots of adoption on websites, services, exchanges, dark net markets etc. Most of the truth & freedom movement appear to recommend it over Bitcoin. Also scaling is another issue, Bitcoin fees are 1000x Monero fees. Thoughts please. I want some honest opinions here.

There is no question that on the area of privacy, Monero got it over Bitcoin and that is why organization and people who are really concerned on this factor can be choosing to use Monero rather than any other coins including BTC for that matter. Being a privacy coin, Monero is on the top of the list and can continue to be one as such for many long years. The only "disadvantage" is that many governments are wary of Monero as this is something that is truly beyond their eyes to see. Now, I have no problem with Monero though I am not one of its holders nor did I use it to transfer or buying anything. What is important is that people got choices according to the specifications of their situation.

[apogio]

The only "disadvantage" is that many governments are wary of Monero as this is something that is truly beyond their eyes to see.

This is an "advantage" as far as I am concerned. Governments can't control Bitcoin, nor Monero. The latter is definetely more private, having implemented both stealth addresses and ring signatures. To tell you the truth, I believe Monero serves its purpose very well. It's a private currency that can be used as a medium of exchange. Bitcoin, on the other hand serves a great purpose as a store of wealth, since it is more scarce and has limited supply. I love bitcoin and I use it for payments, even though I see a lot of hate regarding its higher fees. But I use it and I encourage everyone to use it.

[BlackHatCoiner]

The only "disadvantage" is that many governments are wary of Monero as this is something that is truly beyond their eyes to see.

This is an "advantage" as far as I am concerned.

It is a little bit of both, in my opinion. Sure, it is an advantage in the sense that they have even less control over the network. But, it's also a disadvantage, because it cannot let itself spread in the same variance as with Bitcoin.

Merchants and customers usually don't care about their privacy, whereas the government cares more than anyone about the merchants' and customers' privacy. So, there's not enough resistance from both sides. You can argue the same about Bitcoin, but the difference is that it's surveilled by the governments (and even that way, it's been attacked constantly, imagine).

[DeathAngel]

XMR is far better than Bitcoin if privacy is your goal. I just worry about the likelihood that it stays around for too much longer. Governments have been relentlessly pressuring exchanges to delist it & most have obliged. It’s so good at maintaining your privacy that its strength is its downfall. It’s great for privacy if your only plan is to use it as a medium of exchange. As an investment or long term hodl it’s awful & Bitcoin is far better.

[ChiBitCTy]

Monero's recent delisting on a major exchange ( I think it was Binance, but I could be wrong) is proof of why in my humble opinion should NEVER be made entirely anonymous.  This would end bitcoins chance at ever becoming a world wide currency system.  Governments already have a hard enough time accepting it as is, if it were to completely become anonymous, making the blockchain private..nearly every government in the world would shut it down.  More countries haven't shut down the use of Monero in their nation because it's not real popular.  I could go on and on about this, but this is my quick synopsis. 

[apogio]

whereas the government cares more than anyone about the merchants' and customers' privacy.

What do you mean by that? I am not sure I understood. Unless you meant that governments care about not allowing merchants' and customers' being private, so they can always keep an eye on their trades and their identities.

Monero's recent delisting on a major exchange ( I think it was Binance, but I could be wrong) is proof of why in my humble opinion should NEVER be made entirely anonymous.  This would end bitcoins chance at ever becoming a world wide currency system.

Do you think Satoshi chose to make Bitcoin pseudonymous and not anonymous for this reason? I mean it could be an argument, that if Bitcoin had Monero's features, then the governments would want to shut it down instead of surveilling it.

[BlackHatCoiner]

This would end bitcoins chance at ever becoming a world wide currency system.

I think that Bitcoin's optional privacy is a good selling point from a government's perspective. However, I am not convinced Satoshi deliberately did this. I mean, he reinvented money as concept, denationalized it; made money that is impossible for the state to intervene. He pretty much raised the middle finger to the entire financial and banking system. It's quite hard to buy that he was afraid. Anything but that. If he had thought Bitcoin's privacy wasn't good enough, or had known how to implement better privacy techniques, I believe he would have done it.

What do you mean by that? I am not sure I understood. Unless you meant that governments care about not allowing merchants' and customers' being private, so they can always keep an eye on their trades and their identities.

That's what I meant. Government cares about invading into everyone's privacy more than anyone. It sort of survives by that.

[cryptosize]

Monero's recent delisting on a major exchange ( I think it was Binance, but I could be wrong) is proof of why in my humble opinion should NEVER be made entirely anonymous.  This would end bitcoins chance at ever becoming a world wide currency system.  Governments already have a hard enough time accepting it as is, if it were to completely become anonymous, making the blockchain private..nearly every government in the world would shut it down.  More countries haven't shut down the use of Monero in their nation because it's not real popular.  I could go on and on about this, but this is my quick synopsis. 

You cannot shut down Monero or Bitcoin, just like you cannot shut down BitTorrent or Tor or any other decentralized protocol running on the permissionless TCP/IP.

What you're talking about is delisting certain cryptocurrencies from CEX and ETF custodians such as BlackRock, which would remove USD liquidity from the ecosystem and cause downwards pressure on the fiat price/valuation. Is that correct?

Do you think Satoshi chose to make Bitcoin pseudonymous and not anonymous for this reason? I mean it could be an argument, that if Bitcoin had Monero's features, then the governments would want to shut it down instead of surveilling it.

Satoshi wanted to implement XMR features on BTC, long before XMR was born:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770.msg9074#msg9074

Maybe he didn't have enough time, maybe not enough programming expertise, who knows... it's endless speculation at this point.

Did Satoshi care about BlackRock's ETF? Most likely not.

And please stop assuming that it's possible to shut down decentralized, permissionless protocols, because it's not.

Nobody can shut down Monero even if the price drops all the way down to $1 or even $0.01. OTC trades will still exist, DEX too.

[apogio]

And please stop assuming that it's possible to shut down decentralized, permissionless protocols, because it's not.

Nobody can shut down Monero even if the price drops all the way down to $1 or even $0.01. OTC trades will still exist, DEX too.

I didn't mean it this way. The only way to shut them down would be to permanently shut down the internet. But even then, Blockstream has developed the Satellite which transmits the blockchain from space, without needing internet. That's unnecessary of course, because nobody can shut down the internet and even if they did, they would damage the current financial system too. Which of course is not their intention. I don't know who this "their" refers to, but you got the point.

As far as Monero is concerned, the only problem with the constant exchange price drop is that consumer goods are valued in FIAT, which is then converted to Monero, if you want to find a merchant that sells for Monero. So, they suffer from that. But if you can find a merchant that wants 1 XMR for product A, and doesn't care how much 1 XMR is worth in FIAT terms, then you can be confident that this merchant has deeply understood the value of Monero and Bitcoin. They are both P2P cash systems and should be treated as such!

[thecodebear]

Monero's main problem is its main feature. The powers that be simply won't allow a system with total privacy, because govts and law enforcement agencies need SOME ability to track criminals, terrorists, etc. Bitcoin, being pseudonymous allows the public monetary privacy if you put in the work to do things privately, but they can still track transactions through centralized exchanges, so there is still that ability to try to track and stop criminals.

Basically, total privacy is a safe haven for bad people. The powers of the world won't make it easy to use that sort of thing so Monero will never get popular enough with average people to get widely used.

While Bitcoin has enough privacy to be useful for the average person, but not so much privacy that its a safe haven for bad people. It's pretty much the perfect threading of the needle between those two things. Though we do indeed need more ability for privacy in Bitcoin for the average person through stuff like decentralized exchanges and whatnot. Right now its actually TOO hard to gain privacy with Bitcoin because centralized exchanges are the arteries of the ecosystem and they of course have to follow what the govt tells them to do. Decentralized exchanges need to gain a lot more volume to make them useful. Once we have a healthy mix of CEXs and DEXs for Bitcoin I think we'll have that best case scenario where people who want privacy can have it, but people who are using bitcoin in a bunch of illegal operations probably won't be able to retain perfect privacy under a lot of law enforcement scrutiny.

It's the old play of ideals vs the reality of what society needs. Monero leans too much on the ideal and not enough on what society needs, while Bitcoin is probably the best possible split of both those things. Hardcore privacy idealists will like Monero more, realists will like Bitcoin more. And, obviously, there's orders of magnitude more realists and just everyday people than there are hardcore privacy idealists, so Monero will remain a niche coin for them.

Monero is pretty much the only cryptocurrency besides Bitcoin that I think can realistically be called an actually currency, but it will remain in its niche and so will never be a very useful currency. While Bitcoin will continue to grow in to the world's alternate to national currencies and become humanity's global currency.

[barto123]

Yes, financial privacy are important, but there are bigger problems with it that needs to be considered.. if you want to allow that.

We know 100% anonymity is directly linked to criminal actions and we should find solutions to expose criminals and still protecting people's financial information.

Do we want the blood of innocent victims of child abuse or victims of terrorism on our conscience, when people use this technology to pay for child porn or when they buy weapons to kill innocent people in the streets as part of some religious war?

yes a small percentage of society are criminals, however most are just trying to pay their bills are look after their family

the real issue is a group of super rich pedophiles who run the world - they commit every crime under the sun and get away with it. they have weaponized everything. wars, money laundering, terrorism, theft, extortion, rape...everything, at least 17m people dead from the vaccine. they evidence is irrefutable.

surveillance is one of their main weapons of control, privacy coins like monero is massive - that's why binance, largest centralized exchange just delisted it. they're slowly coming for your privacy. 2020 during lockdowns lots of 5G infrastructure went up. no extra speed. it's for an AI prison. crazy conspiracy theory until you realize it's the truth.

[PrivacyG]

While Bitcoin has enough privacy to be useful for the average person, but not so much privacy that its a safe haven for bad people. It's pretty much the perfect threading of the needle between those two things.

But this is also what could break Bitcoin in the future.

I understand entirely your point and you do have one.  But then let me flip the situation over and think about it differently.

Since Bitcoin offers a way to Privacy for those who seek it but also a way to de conspire most Transactions of the people who do not care or of the people who make mistakes along the road to Privacy.  Is it not safe to assume there is no risk here for us who want Privacy?  If you can differentiate between what is a de conspired Transaction and a 'Private' one, then the 'Private' ones can easily become targets.

By this I mean precisely what Centralized Exchanges do about UTXOs coming from Mixers and Coin Joins.  If I can get a ban hammer and suspect flag for spending my 'Private' Bitcoin then I think this can easily break Bitcoin and make it similar to what we know CBDCs will be like.  Lack of Privacy through induced fear.

On the other hand.  Monero offers Privacy by default.  By using Monero no body knows any thing about any Transaction.  You can spend and receive and no body knows shit.

This gives it a HUGE advantage.  The only way Monero can be broken is through huge crack downs and a big ban hammer.  Will this really happen?  Will we really listen to a ban hammer?  If Monero gets the hammer.  Is that not a dystopia?  If yes then who the hell will listen to any thing any more.  It would mean any thing we will try to do privately equals suspicion.  It means Monero will thrive in the underground.  Which also means the Fiat we know today will be cash less too and the only option to stay private is by using Monero.

I am split 50 and 50 on this situation.  Truth is that we are living a time surrounded by uncertainty.  You never know what comes next and unfortunately it looks like only worse and worse situations and decisions are made.  Monero is in my eyes never going to die because they just can not kill it.  If they do not know and can not find out who is using it then there is no target to attack.

[arabspaceship123]

Monero's good because it's doing a job. Govt's want it delisted in exchanges they'll give licences to because they don't want privacy coins used. XMR's only useful if you've got markets to to sell or exchange it that's why they'll try to drive it out of business.

Monero is pretty much the only cryptocurrency besides Bitcoin that I think can realistically be called an actually currency, but it will remain in its niche and so will never be a very useful currency. While Bitcoin will continue to grow in to the world's alternate to national currencies and become humanity's global currency.

[PrivacyG]

XMR's only useful if you've got markets to to sell or exchange it that's why they'll try to drive it out of business.

This is what makes Monero stand still and strong even if largest Exchanges remove it.  There are a lot of Decentralized opportunities to convert Monero into other Cryptocurrencies.  There is even Atomic Swap possibility between Monero and Bitcoin.  There will in consequence ALWAYS be an option and a Market for it.  I honestly doubt it is going any where unless Europe or The United States ban it.  Even then, underground it will continue to thrive in my opinion.  You can ban Open Source legally.  But you can not stop Monero nor can you find its users easily.

If Coins like XRP get in this same mud Monero is in, it would die quickly and painfully.  Look at Monero however.  Every body hates on it all of a sudden but it is still on the rise.  Monero simply can not die for now.