[XMR] Monero Speculation

[Johnny Mnemonic]

... I feel like a majority of the public (sadly) don't and wouldn't really care if their transactions are public...

They will certainly care when merchants stop accepting their non-fungible bitcoins because some algorithm decides they're tainted. Privacy is hardly the issue.

Money that isn't fungible will eventually cannibalize itself.

[owm123]

... I feel like a majority of the public (sadly) don't and wouldn't really care if their transactions are public...

They will certainly care when merchants stop accepting their non-fungible bitcoins because some algorithm determines they're tainted. Privacy is hardly the issue.

Money that isn't fungible will eventually cannibalize itself.

It hasnt stopped bitcoin to be #1 cryptocurrency. And most people even dont know what fungability means. I myself, for example, have never heard about such a term before getting interested in crypto. Good luck expalining this to people who just want to use crypto, rather than go and read bitcointalk forums, or r/monero or any other such website.

[rpietila]

[lack of fungibility] hasnt stopped bitcoin to be #1 cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin's exponential progress is strongly violated now already, and lack of fungibility is the only real objective reason behind it. Blocksize debate is an annoyance.

Why no other crypto has surpassed Bitcoin, is of course because they have the same problem! Jumping between leaking ships...

[Johnny Mnemonic]

... I feel like a majority of the public (sadly) don't and wouldn't really care if their transactions are public...

They will certainly care when merchants stop accepting their non-fungible bitcoins because some algorithm determines they're tainted. Privacy is hardly the issue.

Money that isn't fungible will eventually cannibalize itself.

It hasnt stopped bitcoin to be #1 cryptocurrency. And most people even dont know what fungability means. I myself, for example, have never heard about such a term before getting interested in crypto. Good luck expalining this to people who just want to use crypto, rather than go and read bitcointalk forums, or r/monero or any other such website.

Again, no explaining will be necessary when your money suddenly becomes useless. I'm sure you'll know exactly what fungibility means at that point.

[generalizethis]

... I feel like a majority of the public (sadly) don't and wouldn't really care if their transactions are public...

They will certainly care when merchants stop accepting their non-fungible bitcoins because some algorithm determines they're tainted. Privacy is hardly the issue.

Money that isn't fungible will eventually cannibalize itself.

It hasnt stopped bitcoin to be #1 cryptocurrency. And most people even dont know what fungability means. I myself, for example, have never heard about such a term before getting interested in crypto. Good luck expalining this to people who just want to use crypto, rather than go and read bitcointalk forums, or r/monero or any other such website.

Not knowing what a right ventricle is doesn't stop your heart from needing one. And cash needs fungibility.

[GingerAle]

... I feel like a majority of the public (sadly) don't and wouldn't really care if their transactions are public...

They will certainly care when merchants stop accepting their non-fungible bitcoins because some algorithm determines they're tainted. Privacy is hardly the issue.

Money that isn't fungible will eventually cannibalize itself.

It hasnt stopped bitcoin to be #1 cryptocurrency. And most people even dont know what fungability means. I myself, for example, have never heard about such a term before getting interested in crypto. Good luck expalining this to people who just want to use crypto, rather than go and read bitcointalk forums, or r/monero or any other such website.

Not knowing what a right ventricle is doesn't stop your heart from needing one. And cash needs fungibility.

METAPHOR SLAM!

ooooh, 45 cents. Getting into my buying range again.

[owm123]

... I feel like a majority of the public (sadly) don't and wouldn't really care if their transactions are public...

They will certainly care when merchants stop accepting their non-fungible bitcoins because some algorithm determines they're tainted. Privacy is hardly the issue.

Money that isn't fungible will eventually cannibalize itself.

It hasnt stopped bitcoin to be #1 cryptocurrency. And most people even dont know what fungability means. I myself, for example, have never heard about such a term before getting interested in crypto. Good luck expalining this to people who just want to use crypto, rather than go and read bitcointalk forums, or r/monero or any other such website.

Not knowing what a right ventricle is doesn't stop your heart from needing one. And cash needs fungibility.

I think I agree that fungibility is important. But I dont see how would it lead to demise of bitcoin, and how it would benefit monero. I can understand privacy and anonymity issues with bitcoin, but consequences of the lack of fungability in bitcoin are still not clear for me.

[Andretti83]

I think the most convincing example of fungability necessity for me was when some bitcoin exchange did not accept bitcoins from someone, because allegedly those bitcoins was connected to some dark market activity.

It's not like money should be fungible for criminal operations, but its a good example when some bitcoins != usual bitcoins. This is impossible with monero.

[Eastwind]

I think the most convincing example of fungability necessity for me was when some bitcoin exchange did not accept bitcoins from someone, because allegedly those bitcoins was connected to some dark market activity.

It's not like money should be fungible for criminal operations, but its a good example when some bitcoins != usual bitcoins. This is impossible with monero.

But those coins can go to mixer and come out a different ones.

[fairglu]

Beyond privacy, what's missing in BTC and XMR is a "right to mistake" of sorts, the ability to undo a transaction if you fat-fingered or messed up in any way.

Of course this would have to be a sort of "immediate undo", not over the course of hours or days, but having a blockchain-level protocol that allows for this would be welcome. Sometimes you want an immediate payment, sometimes you just want to be sure.
Could also work in a two way fashion with an "honest" party, like a well-established merchant: you would send you payment, merchant would display if the payment is okay or not, and you would then be able to confirm. If merchant never got anything (because you sent to wrong address f.i.), or merchant says it's not ok (because of incorrect amount f.i.), you could recover your funds (shameless plug https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1157818.0)

[MoneroMooo]

I think the most convincing example of fungability necessity for me was when some bitcoin exchange did not accept bitcoins from someone, because allegedly those bitcoins was connected to some dark market activity.

It's not like money should be fungible for criminal operations, but its a good example when some bitcoins != usual bitcoins. This is impossible with monero.

But those coins can go to mixer and come out a different ones.

That's the real life equivalent of going to the neighborhood dodgy guy to exchange your banknotes against other ones whenever you get paid, in order to be able to spend them. Hardly something convenient or safe.

Besides, mixing will spread any taint. At some point, mixing will mean tainted in, tainted out. Unless you pay a heftier and heftier premium to get some of the dwindling untainted supply...

[dEBRUYNE]

I think the most convincing example of fungability necessity for me was when some bitcoin exchange did not accept bitcoins from someone, because allegedly those bitcoins was connected to some dark market activity.

It's not like money should be fungible for criminal operations, but its a good example when some bitcoins != usual bitcoins. This is impossible with monero.

But those coins can go to mixer and come out a different ones.

MoneroMooo already made a great comment on this. In addition, read this extensive and great post about fungibility by dnaleor -> https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/374ss5/the_problem_with_bitcoin_that_everyone_seems_to/

[smooth]

I think the most convincing example of fungability necessity for me was when some bitcoin exchange did not accept bitcoins from someone, because allegedly those bitcoins was connected to some dark market activity.

It's not like money should be fungible for criminal operations, but its a good example when some bitcoins != usual bitcoins. This is impossible with monero.

But those coins can go to mixer and come out a different ones.

That's the real life equivalent of going to the neighborhood dodgy guy to exchange your banknotes against other ones whenever you get paid, in order to be able to spend them. Hardly something convenient or safe.

Besides, mixing will spread any taint. At some point, mixing will mean tainted in, tainted out. Unless you pay a heftier and heftier premium to get some of the dwindling untainted supply...

What incentive does someone with "good" coins have to use a mixer under this scenario? I think none unless there is some kind of financial inducement. That translates into the tainted coins being worth less and the untainted ones being worth more. Which means whenever you go to spend coins you are going to have to negotiate with the recipient over how much your particular coins are worth. This sounds almost like a barter system, and largely unworkable.

[rpietila]

When I had a coin shop back in the days, a man approached me with an offer to sell 1 kilo gold bars with swastikas on them and (he) offered spot-20% due to the stigma. I laughed at him and said that buy a sledgehammer instead and you get about spot-5% from anyone.

He apparently did since I never heard of the guy anymore. Shame, lost even the 5% by being too much of a smartass 

(5% of a kilobar in the days was $2,000, each.)

Morale of the story: gold is fungible.

[owm123]

I think the most convincing example of fungability necessity for me was when some bitcoin exchange did not accept bitcoins from someone, because allegedly those bitcoins was connected to some dark market activity.

It's not like money should be fungible for criminal operations, but its a good example when some bitcoins != usual bitcoins. This is impossible with monero.

But those coins can go to mixer and come out a different ones.

Mixers are not good, as you mixing with potentially "more dirty" bitcoins than your own. So I would avoid any bitcoin mixers.

[dEBRUYNE]

Crosspost from ANN:

Some interesting reddit comments that are crosspost worthy:

Fluffypony explaining libraryzing in response to my comment:

GUI will probably be released after libraryzing is done (devs are currently working on it, see design goals -> https://getmonero.org/design-goals/), without libraryzing it makes no sense to "wire up" the GUI.

The design is already done, see following link for some sneak peaks -> http://imgur.com/a/ERheR

It's just fun terminology we adopted after the "daemonize" effort:)

No, it's not merely "modularising" it, it is a separation of concerns into actual libraries that can be implemented into any Monero-related project (including the binaries). This was the initial spec I wrote up a little while ago:

The code should provide 4 libraries, binaries should be built using these statically by default. libs only needs to be a build target / cmake switch.

No app logic / core / verification / p2p / consensus functions should exist outside of these libraries. Binaries implementing this can layer whatever they want on top, but all essential functionality should be provided in these libraries

libMoneroStorage
BlockchainDB for blockchain storage/validation, as well as a class to handle wallet data. TODO: need to figure out blocking during reorgs, and prioritising data requests from the daemon over anything else.

libMoneroAccount
All other wallet (account) functions. Create accounts, recover, mnemonic seeds, etc. etc. Uses libMoneroStorage for wallet cache / key data.

libMonero
Connection to the network (effectively the daemon), uses libMoneroStorage for blockchain storage. Unless explicitly specified via a flag of some sort, there should only be one instance of libMonero running. In other words, if I'm running the daemon, and then a fire up another daemon, all it should do is hook into the already running libMonero one via IPC. The instantiated libMonero should only shut down when there are no longer active handles to it (or when a controlled shut down is requested). Binaries tapping into that functionality should also know and expect that they may receive a controlled shutdown signal, and should be able to either terminate or hang around waiting for the library instance to be available again.

libMoneroRPC
Provides JSON HTTP(S) RPC interface to libMonero and libMoneroAccount. This is effectively a standalone server that feeds commands back to libMonero or libMoneroAccount via 0MQ IPC. Can provide a single port with /daemon and /account endpoints, or multiple ports.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/3ltrxt/its_happening_stepbystep_every_month_since_i/cv9hix0?context=3

smooth's comment about disclosing individual payments on a case by case basis:

The white paper says:

In case Alice wants to prove she sent a transaction to Bob’s address she can either disclose r or use any kind of zero-knowledge protocol to prove she knows r (for example by signing the transaction with r).

If you disclose r (a random number chosen per-transaction) then anyone can perform P = Hs(rA)G+ B to determine the one time address (which in turn is stored on the blockchain) being used to send to Bob. (A,B) is Bob's public (stealth address) key. G is a constant, and Hs() is a hash function. This has no connection to other transactions you may have performed. The ability to retrieve r was not implemented in the original cryptonote code, but we added it recently in github.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/3lvjw1/eli5_how_can_a_monero_transaction_be_publicly/cv9x3dv

[SmoothCurves]

It's amazing that Moneroj are selling for 0.47 cents. Anyone reading this post 5 years from now will be wishing so hard they were in our spot.

[Hueristic]

I think the most convincing example of fungability necessity for me was when some bitcoin exchange did not accept bitcoins from someone, because allegedly those bitcoins was connected to some dark market activity.

It's not like money should be fungible for criminal operations, but its a good example when some bitcoins != usual bitcoins. This is impossible with monero.

But those coins can go to mixer and come out a different ones.

Kind of off topic but this thread has been slow so I'll jump in as well.

When the government decides to make it mandatory for business to not accept tainted coins, which it will inevitably will, those that have gotten them even by legal means will lose them. This is the most important aspect of fungability. Using a mixer with good coins right now is as retarded as it gets. If the canary in the coal mine (exchange not accepting tainted coins) was not enough to convince then those that lose deserve to.

The only reason this has not made a bigger splash is because those invested in BTC refuse to propagate the fact their coin is compromised. The writing is on the wall.

[owm123]

It's amazing that Moneroj are selling for 0.47 cents. Anyone reading this post 5 years from now will be wishing so hard they were in our spot.

Or, they will be glad they did not buy it. In 5 years, monero devs can be long gone and the coin be long dead.

[nakaone]

It's amazing that Moneroj are selling for 0.47 cents. Anyone reading this post 5 years from now will be wishing so hard they were in our spot.

Or, they will be glad they did not buy it. In 5 years, monero devs can be long gone and the coin be long dead.

jep - in that case they lost 47 cents per coin on a risky invenstment backed by a top-notch technology with the potential to a) fill a niche and b) become a new kind of asset class.....

we all have confirmation biases as well as well as endowment effects over here and I personally think that there are many cryptos, including bitcoin, that are vastly undervalued... but nothing is so oddly priced as monero.