Bitcoin Vs Monero - Privacy as the world becomes more dystopian

[Pmalek]

I'm not sure there's any "decentralized" exchange for XMR.

What about AgoraDesk? It supports Monero but I am not sure of it's decentralized nature. They have an arbitration feature but I don't know much about it. LocalMonero is basically the same thing with a different name. 
Isn't UnstoppableSwap a decentralized solution for Monero?
Also, Robosats supports Monero. I think it's still centralized, but there was a proposal to make it decentralized. No idea how far they have come with that. If I remember correctly, there was talk about the decentralized solution becoming custodial during trades, so that's not optimal.

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[arabspaceship123]

If you receive XMR from a KYC exchange, they don't know who sent it to you, only that you received XMR. If you send XMR from a KYC exchange, they will know the address you are sending it to & the amount, but nothing beyond that. They really have no idea what you are using it for unless they ask you and you tell them.

Traders wouldn't want their exchanges to know how much XMR they've received & sent or their dates. They'd prefer to keep their deals private but if a privacy coin doesn't give it they do it outside the centralised exchange. If ppl want privacy I'd ask them to use any DEX.

I'm not sure there's any "decentralized" exchange for XMR. Maybe AtomicSwap supports it but I'm not sure, and they've had troubles recently. ThorSwap doesn't support it at all. There are only KYC exchanges, non-KYC exchanges, and swapping services (a mixture of KYC and non-KYC).

Exch.cx
Bisq
UnstoppableSwap

Exch.cx XMR rates are the highest I've found. UnstoppableSwap's the lowest.

[Sarah Azhari]

To me it seems Monero is something that should not be ignored.

Yes me too, Monero is one of the coins besides BTC which has good privacy and scalability to invest. Monero also has good movement prices from 2018, and 2021 and maybe next 2024 will pass a new ATH ($475). Monero also has the same trend as BTC, so that situation, many people focus on buying Monero when BTC comes to halving near. But, I still don't know what is good software wallet for keeping Monero for a long time?. I just know that BTC has electrum, but I still don't know about Monero?, Because I heard that someone just lost his Monero on wallet CSS (community Crowdfunding System).

By the way, when we talk about Monero (Altcoin), is this thread on the right board?

[jossiel]

But when you've said about it gaining lots of adoptions from exchanges, you have to consider the news of it being delisted mostly in popular exchanges and I think in some other global exchanges as well.

As far as I see it, being delisted from KYCed centralized exchanges is a good thing - it proves that Monero works, the government are unable to trace it or deanonymize it like they can do with every other coin, so instead they are resorting to delisting it. Delisting shows that it works. And as I said before, no one who actually uses Monero cares about this since they aren't using KYCed exchanges in the first place.

Yeah, it's actually good riddance since the main purpose and what monero is boasting for is its privacy and anonymous feature which is ideal for people that want to keep themselves anonymous. And if it's on a centralized exchanges that asked for the user/trader's identity through KYC, that defeats the purpose of it. So, it's truly a good thing and a blessing in disguise for those that sees it being delisted.

But it is understandable that it's still needed to stay in some major exchanges for its liquidity and volume. IMO, we will not see it as a stand alone crypto like mostly used only for P2P trades because of these cexes that won't delist it.

There's a big issue on it and as we can see, it's being cracked by the governments.

So is bitcoin. We are seeing mining pools like F2Pool censoring transactions the government tells them to. We are seeing wallets like Wasabi censoring inputs the government tells them to. We are seeing regulations which will ban self custody and mean bitcoin can only be bought, stored, and sold on fully KYCed centralized exchanges. And yet no one seems to care that bitcoin is marching towards a government permissioned network. Bitcoin is being cracked down on by governments even more strongly than Monero is. The difference is they can't do any of these things with Monero, so they are just forcing it to be delisted instead.

Probably it's because that with government intervention on Bitcoin, this gives us the thought that 'yeah, they're supporting Bitcoin' but if we clear that path on the actuality is you're right. Many of us seems to unnotice what's actually happening on Bitcoin and they've got more control on it and can easily done than Monero. I just hope that purpose of Bitcoin won't be defeated and someday, we don't have to rely on these cexes and governments. But the truth is, this is inevitable for it as part of "adoption".

[OcTradism]

Probably it's because that with government intervention on Bitcoin, this gives us the thought that 'yeah, they're supporting Bitcoin' but if we clear that path on the actuality is you're right. Many of us seems to unnotice what's actually happening on Bitcoin and they've got more control on it and can easily done than Monero. I just hope that purpose of Bitcoin won't be defeated and someday, we don't have to rely on these cexes and governments. But the truth is, this is inevitable for it as part of "adoption".

I don't consider that they, governments want and are doing it because they are supporting Bitcoin. They are doing this because:

They can not stop Bitcoin.
They can not stop their citizens to access a big innovation in human history.

So they have to create as many barriers as possible to reduce the adoption growth of Bitcoin and want to do more regulations to control financial flows in society. They are doing this to help central banks have more tools to trace their citizen financial flow and gain tax for their government.

Are they doing this for benefit of citizens? I see no.

[nutildah]

I'm not sure there's any "decentralized" exchange for XMR.

What about AgoraDesk? It supports Monero but I am not sure of it's decentralized nature. They have an arbitration feature but I don't know much about it. LocalMonero is basically the same thing with a different name. 
Isn't UnstoppableSwap a decentralized solution for Monero?
Also, Robosats supports Monero. I think it's still centralized, but there was a proposal to make it decentralized. No idea how far they have come with that. If I remember correctly, there was talk about the decentralized solution becoming custodial during trades, so that's not optimal.

These are all companies that charge fees. If their server were to go down, there'd be no way to utilize them. This is the same reason I don't consider something like Uniswap to be a DEX... everyone is dependent on a single server, website, or single point of failure, so they are not decentralized.

An exception to this is ThorChain which utilizes liquidity pools of coins on different blockchains to perform swaps. The fees are paid to the liquidity providers rather than a company.

[o_e_l_e_o]

They can not stop Bitcoin.

Except it seems that they can. Make 51% of the hashrate comply with their OFAC sanctions as F2Pool have done, and bitcoin is firmly under their control. At that point they can censor any transaction they choose.

An exception to this is ThorChain which utilizes liquidity pools of coins on different blockchains to perform swaps. The fees are paid to the liquidity providers rather than a company.

Bisq is completely peer to peer in the same way that bitcoin is - you run the software locally and connect directly to other peers (over Tor). You can also run your own Robosats instance, and Robosats is developing processes to make it easier for these instances to talk to each other: https://github.com/RoboSats/robosats/blob/main/federation.md

[Kruw]

We are seeing wallets like Wasabi censoring inputs the government tells them to.

You are lying, Wasabi Wallet is completely non custodial, it cannot censor inputs.  Your keys, your coins.

[apogio]

You can also run your own Robosats instance, and Robosats is developing processes to make it easier for these instances to talk to each other: https://github.com/RoboSats/robosats/blob/main/federation.md

In case someone runs an Umbrel node, Robosats is built-in and is super easy to use! I have used it really a lot.

Of course Robosats can be installed from scratch, but I needed to clarify how easy it is to run it on an Umbrel node.

[Pmalek]

You are lying, Wasabi Wallet is completely non custodial, it cannot censor inputs.  Your keys, your coins.

Hey, you forgot to mention that Wasabi is also open-source. They are not going to be happy with you if you make such oversights. In the future, whenever someone mentions anything negative about Wasabi, your job is to hit them with the we are open-source and baaam, that will shut them up. If they are advertising a mixer, you also call them a thief to really get your point across.

o_e_l_e_o wasn't lying. Your wallet's main coordinator uses the services of a blockchain analysis company to check the history of the coins people want to coinjoin. If the blockchain analysis company isn't happy with its secret findings, it tells you to prevent the person to register those UTXOs for a coinjoin. Therefore, your main coordinator supports a made-up nonsense called taint and censorship.

Now it's the perfect time to tell the community that they should run their own coordinators. I haven't heard that in like a week. But that's not the point. The point isn't that everyone can run their own coordinator. The point is that you, a so-called privacy service, directly or indirectly supports censorship and considers certain coins dirty because someone tells you to do it.   

[Kruw]

You are lying, Wasabi Wallet is completely non custodial, it cannot censor inputs.  Your keys, your coins.

Hey, you forgot to mention that Wasabi is also open-source. They are not going to be happy with you if you make such oversights. In the future, whenever someone mentions anything negative about Wasabi, your job is to hit them with the we are open-source and baaam, that will shut them up. If they are advertising a mixer, you also call them a thief to really get your point across.

o_e_l_e_o wasn't lying. Your wallet's main coordinator uses the services of a blockchain analysis company to check the history of the coins people want to coinjoin. If the blockchain analysis company isn't happy with its secret findings, it tells you to prevent the person to register those UTXOs for a coinjoin. Therefore, your main coordinator supports a made-up nonsense called taint and censorship.

Now it's the perfect time to tell the community that they should run their own coordinators. I haven't heard that in like a week. But that's not the point. The point isn't that everyone can run their own coordinator. The point is that you, a so-called privacy service, directly or indirectly supports censorship and considers certain coins dirty because someone tells you to do it.   

No, that is the point:  ANYONE can run their own coordinator since the Wasabi software is entirely open source.

[jossiel]

Probably it's because that with government intervention on Bitcoin, this gives us the thought that 'yeah, they're supporting Bitcoin' but if we clear that path on the actuality is you're right. Many of us seems to unnotice what's actually happening on Bitcoin and they've got more control on it and can easily done than Monero. I just hope that purpose of Bitcoin won't be defeated and someday, we don't have to rely on these cexes and governments. But the truth is, this is inevitable for it as part of "adoption".

I don't consider that they, governments want and are doing it because they are supporting Bitcoin. They are doing this because:

They can not stop Bitcoin.
They can not stop their citizens to access a big innovation in human history.

So they have to create as many barriers as possible to reduce the adoption growth of Bitcoin and want to do more regulations to control financial flows in society. They are doing this to help central banks have more tools to trace their citizen financial flow and gain tax for their government.

Are they doing this for benefit of citizens? I see no.

Well, for those countries that have strict implementation of their rules. Adopting it and having all of those regulations can still be said that this is favorable to its citizens that are in Bitcoin.

They don't have to hide in shadows but you know these times, it's better to remain unknown and lowkey with all of the crimes happening related to Bitcoin robberies and violence that were reported on the media.

I have put apostrophe on it and that's what I am highlighting that there's a meaning about the adoption and of course the thought about making us think that they're supporting it. In every support, there's always the agenda that they can't deny like those that you've mentioned.

[crwth]

There are a lot of reasons why people are opting for the more privacy part knowing that they don't want anything to be governed or any information leaked about themselves. I think a dystopia is kind of an overreaction toward what is happening because it's still not at that level where you are dehumanized or something. Fearful, maybe, but that might be because of what you are doing with it as well that's why some people are frightened of it because of their use case or application.

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

Can you explain this further OP? I want to know what you mean by this.

[arabspaceship123]

That's what govts are trying to do. It's possible they're concerns are legit but if they're going to use laws to pressure exchanges or ppl to surrender user info it's worrying what they're going to do with it. If ppl want to hide bitcoin trades they're using a mixer but if they want to hide trades using Monero they're using swaps to XMR but swapping back to BTC. It isn't free.

Paying more fees for greater privacy isn't a bad deal in a big bro society.

For several governments and agencies to be against mixers they bring some level of privacy to Bitcoin, it is an indication that they will see privacy coins as a big threat to their power.

They are not just against mixer but they are against any technology that will give us privacy and they will do whatever it takes to make sure that they deprive us from our privacy. We can see how they have bought some mining pool over to be on their side so that they can control which transaction should be added to the mining pool or not. And as humans due to greed, they forgot that it is only us that can make bitcoin more private by protecting bitcoin from the government. Monero has a better privacy than bitcoin because nobody cares about it, but everyone is after bitcoin for their own selfish reason.

[SamReomo]

Monero is the best coin for those who love to have transactions that are fully anonymous and that can't be tracked by anyone. I would possibly go with Monero without any hesitation because the coin is among the best coins that we have in the crypto market and it offers the best privacy which's way better then Bitcoin and the fees that Monero offer are low as compare to Bitcoin fees.

I would say that I like to use both Bitcoin and Monero as both of them are the best crypto-currencies out there, I know that no altcoin can compete Bitcoin as it's the king of the crypto world but I would still say that the features Monero offers are unique and anyone who knows about that coin would most probably favor it.

I also believe that Monero is a good alternative during the network congestion times as the fees of the transactions aren't high and the Monero transactions are quite fast. If I have to choose Bitcoin vs Monero then I would go with both of them, surely I would prefer Bitcoin more but I won't ignore Monero as well because that coin is truly an awesome one.

[virasog]

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).

You are right that Monero should not be ignored though. Both of these coins solve different kinds of problems.

While Bitcoin provides you with a transparent blockchain ledger where everyone can see the transactions but i am afraid that for this to be workable perfectly, we also need a transparent honest world where people may not try to misuse this transparent data 

Monero solves a lot of problems for a common man who needs to hide the transactions from the cruel government system (by the way Satoshi developed Bitcoin in order to have an alternative monetary system not controllable by the authorities but by the people).

We will see CEX stop the support for privacy coins in order to comply with the regulations and this is the same that they are implementing KYC to cope with regulations. Anyways even though no centralized exchange supports XMR. it will still be widely used in the decentralized world.

[Pmalek]

No, that is the point:  ANYONE can run their own coordinator since the Wasabi software is entirely open source.

I got to hand it to you. You are not giving up in defending the undefendable. No matter how pointless it is, or the fact that absolutely no one supports the idea of your open-source client using secret findings by a malicious entity that is against both you and me. But it's always good to know on what side you stand.

We will see CEX stop the support for privacy coins in order to comply with the regulations and this is the same that they are implementing KYC to cope with regulations.

We have already reached that point, and many popular centralized exchanges have delisted Monero, with others surely to follow suit in the future.

[arabspaceship123]

Owners of crypto exchanges are finding American regulators on their backs but I don't see it as a negative development if every CEX delists privacy coins. If they're going to get removed it won't stop swaps ppl are going to be directed to DEX's because privacy coins won't go out of business.

We will see CEX stop the support for privacy coins in order to comply with the regulations and this is the same that they are implementing KYC to cope with regulations.

We have already reached that point, and many popular centralized exchanges have delisted Monero, with others surely to follow suit in the future.

[bbc.reporter]

well it will depend on your intentions

if you plan on using cryptocurrency for your business that will require you transactions with other clients, monero might not be the best choice for you however like you said monero is famous for its  privacy that it’s considered the most anonymous cryptocurrency right now

while btc is decentralized, monero is still far more private

However, in reality it is arguable because regulators can crackdown on your business for accepting a cryptocoin that cannot be placed under their surveillance. I reckon to use Monero, you should also be anonymous. This coin is not for legal businesses because it will only a risk to be harrassed by the government. How many exchanges have delisted Monero because of this?

[FinneysTrueVision]

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.