[XMR] Monero Speculation

[ol92]

With Bitcoin developers having mentioned possible development (yeah right lol) of "Confidential Transactions" they see that privacy AND moreso fungibility of bitcoin is a huge issue moving forward.

Yes, i think they slowly start to realize that lack of privacy and fungibility is a problem.

But what would happen with monero, if bitcoin actually managed to introduced  these features. If this would happen, that there would be no point in monero? Could monero survive, if bitcoin incorporated zerocash or whatever technique to ensure privacy and fungibility of transactions?

Bitcoin seems to have chosen the regulatory compliance way : it can't go at the same time fully to the anonimity way. At best they will add some privacy features...
Seeing how changing blocksize is challenging the unity among bitcoin developpers, how could they radically change the core to attein similar privacy/fungibility than monero.

[americanpegasus]

Any currency which is not truly decentralized and dangerous is not revolutionary, and therefore not important.  
  
I'm pretty sure there is an elegant way to make this argument, but just imagine if at the dawn of the personal computing revolution certain nations had realized the danger of such devices and created their own boxes for their citizens which only performed approved operations - as always, the technology doesn't lose, the country does because they fall behind their peers on the tech tree.  
  
Actually this exact situation happened in the UK with automobiles, which was one of the reasons that America surged ahead in the development race.  Again and again, countries that allow their citizens free reign over these 'dangerous' technologies that interconnect them advance far more rapidly than their peers.  
  
Yadda Yadda velocity of information and money...  Yadda.... Metcalfe, etc etc  
  
Anyway, for cryptocurrency to be revolutionary and powerful it must be dangerous and unhindered.  If you try to mandate any portion of the technology you get stuck with a crippled bitcoin-like implementation and never make it to the real deal: Monero.  
  
Monero (cryptonote) is the dangerous new technology...  Instant money with privacy is as threatening as instant information with privacy (possibly more) and it seems worrisome to let your population have access to that kind of power.  
  
But the nation that does will become the richest and most powerful nation on Earth...  Eventually they may even begin to absorb the wealth and prosperity of other nations that choose not to give their citizens unrestricted access.  
  
Once again, Russia will be on the wrong side of history and it's very frustrating.  
  
I've always had a soft spot for Russians but even after all these years they fail to understand their ego and isolationism has been fucking them for centuries while the rest of the world surpasses them...  Simply because they are willing to talk to each other. 
 
My country is no different: if we choose to attempt to lock down our population from Cryptonote while Asian nations like Singapore and China embrace it, well, that will become the new first world. 
 
It might be hard for us to see (especially shortsighted politicians), but by allowing Cryptonote to flourish in the people we will unlock an age of productivity and innovation that will dwarf anything that has ever come before. 
 
Imagine 40 more companies the size of Apple and Microsofts being based in your country -  that's the potential we face if we get this right. 

[wpalczynski]

With Bitcoin developers having mentioned possible development (yeah right lol) of "Confidential Transactions" they see that privacy AND moreso fungibility of bitcoin is a huge issue moving forward.

Yes, i think they slowly start to realize that lack of privacy and fungibility is a problem.

But what would happen with monero, if bitcoin actually managed to introduced  these features. If this would happen, that there would be no point in monero? Could monero survive, if bitcoin incorporated zerocash or whatever technique to ensure privacy and fungibility of transactions?

This will never happen with Bitcoin.  It would be a violation of the social contract as far as all the VC money is concerned.  The only reason so much VC money has been invested is due to its transparent nature, it has the blessing of many governments and regulators which monero would never have.  Nor would any other non-transparent ledger.

[americanpegasus]

As I just said, the technology is already here and is an order of magnitude better than Bitcoin.   
 
You can try to ban or slow it, but you're just going to end up fucking yourself. 
 
"Why are all the businesses going to Kerplakistan!?" 
 
"Because sir, that's where they are allowed to make use of amazing new technology which allows them to reach the next level of economic progress." 
 
It's not something you can control - this is the inevitability of the system.  You can't uninvent Cryptonote, so you must embrace it...  Or else you will become the new third world.

[owm123]

As I just said, the technology is already here and is an order of magnitude better than Bitcoin.   
 
You can try to ban or slow it, but you're just going to end up fucking yourself. 
 
"Why are all the businesses going to Kerplakistan!?" 
 
"Because sir, that's where they are allowed to make use of amazing new technology which allows them to reach the next level of economic progress." 
 
It's not something you can control - this is the inevitability of the system.  You can't uninvent Cryptonote, so you must embrace it...  Or else you will become the new third world.

The same can be said about cryptonote. Just like cryptonote seems to be better now than bitcoin, next year or 5 years from now, we may see something new, that is much better than cryptonote. Time will only tell.

[Melbustus]

With Bitcoin developers having mentioned possible development (yeah right lol) of "Confidential Transactions" they see that privacy AND moreso fungibility of bitcoin is a huge issue moving forward.

Yes, i think they slowly start to realize that lack of privacy and fungibility is a problem.

But what would happen with monero, if bitcoin actually managed to introduced  these features. If this would happen, that there would be no point in monero? Could monero survive, if bitcoin incorporated zerocash or whatever technique to ensure privacy and fungibility of transactions?

This will never happen with Bitcoin.  It would be a violation of the social contract as far as all the VC money is concerned.  The only reason so much VC money has been invested is due to its transparent nature, it has the blessing of many governments and regulators which monero would never have.  Nor would any other non-transparent ledger.

Agreed. I contend that a big part of bitcoin's relatively easy pathway into mainstream consciousness and potential use (eg, merchants don't have to do KYC when accepting a btc payment) is because of its transparent nature. As I've probably noted in this thread before, Lawsky even mused during the early-2014 hearings that "maybe we should require all crypto currencies to have a transparent blockchain".

So, Bitcoin may layer in partial, especially opt-in, measures (eg, confidential transactions), but I doubt it'd ever implement un(trace|link)ability at the protocol level by default. And that's the key reason monero has lasting value whereas nearly every other alt does not: properties for which there's demand that bitcoin will (probably) never fill. Properties which also make it more "pure" from a monetary-theory point of view, which I find interesting.

That said, I do question whether monero's ultimate value is capped due to resistance it'll likely run into, but that wouldn't happen before another few orders of magnitude in price.

[smoothie]

With Bitcoin developers having mentioned possible development (yeah right lol) of "Confidential Transactions" they see that privacy AND moreso fungibility of bitcoin is a huge issue moving forward.

Yes, i think they slowly start to realize that lack of privacy and fungibility is a problem.

But what would happen with monero, if bitcoin actually managed to introduced  these features. If this would happen, that there would be no point in monero? Could monero survive, if bitcoin incorporated zerocash or whatever technique to ensure privacy and fungibility of transactions?

1. If bitcoin implements features that match monero's then monero would probably be irrelevant.

2. But I doubt they will implement anything on a substantial level of development (or change) to the code base.

3. Zero cash doesn't exist yet right?

[smoothie]

With Bitcoin developers having mentioned possible development (yeah right lol) of "Confidential Transactions" they see that privacy AND moreso fungibility of bitcoin is a huge issue moving forward.

Yes, i think they slowly start to realize that lack of privacy and fungibility is a problem.

But what would happen with monero, if bitcoin actually managed to introduced  these features. If this would happen, that there would be no point in monero? Could monero survive, if bitcoin incorporated zerocash or whatever technique to ensure privacy and fungibility of transactions?

This will never happen with Bitcoin.  It would be a violation of the social contract as far as all the VC money is concerned.  The only reason so much VC money has been invested is due to its transparent nature, it has the blessing of many governments and regulators which monero would never have.  Nor would any other non-transparent ledger.

Then what would make you think people would want to create MONERO businesses/services that governments would not support essentially?

[iCEBREAKER]

It appears XMR is in early 2010 stage of where bitcoin was. But it may be even earlier as there is no GUI and in its place is a GIGANTIC engine put into a tiny automobile.

Accumulation phase is now AKA early adopters.

With Bitcoin developers having mentioned possible development (yeah right lol) of "Confidential Transactions" they see that privacy AND moreso fungibility of bitcoin is a huge issue moving forward.

XMR is at the same stage as BTC after its first moon to $5 and retrace to 50 cents.  I think that was 2011 or 12.

And we do have a GUI.  More than one, in fact.

The fact that freshly mined BTC enjoy a 10% premium over 'used' ones demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt that, absent an opaque complementary blockchain like XMR, BTC is the dictatorship-enabling "bad digital cash" PanoptiCoin Chaum warned us about.

At this point, worse-than-cash-or-gold fungibility is the elephant in bitcoin's living room.  Sidechains (and thus CT) are moving forward and will take the taint issue to the forefront of public concern as deployment plays out.

[smoothie]

It appears XMR is in early 2010 stage of where bitcoin was. But it may be even earlier as there is no GUI and in its place is a GIGANTIC engine put into a tiny automobile.

Accumulation phase is now AKA early adopters.

With Bitcoin developers having mentioned possible development (yeah right lol) of "Confidential Transactions" they see that privacy AND moreso fungibility of bitcoin is a huge issue moving forward.

XMR is at the same stage as BTC after its first moon to $5 and retrace to 50 cents.  I think that was 2011 or 12.

And we do have a GUI.  More than one, in fact.

The fact that freshly mined BTC enjoy a 10% premium over 'used' ones demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt that, absent an opaque complementary blockchain like XMR, BTC is the dictatorship-enabling "bad digital cash" PanoptiCoin Chaum warned us about.

At this point, worse-than-cash-or-gold fungibility is the elephant in bitcoin's living room.  Sidechains (and thus CT) are moving forward and will take the taint issue to the forefront of public concern as deployment plays out.

CORRECTION: Bitcoin went from $0.05 to $1 to $0.60 then to $32.

I would say in terms of pure time we are in 2010 times. (1.5 years after launch).

True, well what I meant was no OFFICIAL GUI.

As more bitcoins get stolen or scammed the fungibility issue will become more and more to the forefront of people's attention.

Right now it is block size debate (which after much thought to me is a waste of time).  <----- so much time, money, and talk wasted on discussing such a small issue that there is no demand for really. Not many new players are willing to PAY (i.e. Hire bitcoin as trace mayer says it) to have a larger block size.

Eventually the FUNGIBILITY issue of bitcoin will make headlines and will be in article titles in the press. <--------------- Smoothie Prediction 

[wpalczynski]

With Bitcoin developers having mentioned possible development (yeah right lol) of "Confidential Transactions" they see that privacy AND moreso fungibility of bitcoin is a huge issue moving forward.

Yes, i think they slowly start to realize that lack of privacy and fungibility is a problem.

But what would happen with monero, if bitcoin actually managed to introduced  these features. If this would happen, that there would be no point in monero? Could monero survive, if bitcoin incorporated zerocash or whatever technique to ensure privacy and fungibility of transactions?

This will never happen with Bitcoin.  It would be a violation of the social contract as far as all the VC money is concerned.  The only reason so much VC money has been invested is due to its transparent nature, it has the blessing of many governments and regulators which monero would never have.  Nor would any other non-transparent ledger.

Then what would make you think people would want to create MONERO businesses/services that governments would not support essentially?

Because there is still a demand for such services regardless of regulatory blessing or not.  I don't think the issues Bitcoin is having will make it go away nor would I want it to.  I believe it has its place in the financial ecosystem as does Monero.

I think we are very fortunate that the first crypto currency that came to be and served as an introduction to the world was a public ledger rather than a private one because the regulatory and legislative leeway Bitcoin has received would not have been possible with a private ledger IMHO.

[canth]

With Bitcoin developers having mentioned possible development (yeah right lol) of "Confidential Transactions" they see that privacy AND moreso fungibility of bitcoin is a huge issue moving forward.

Yes, i think they slowly start to realize that lack of privacy and fungibility is a problem.

But what would happen with monero, if bitcoin actually managed to introduced  these features. If this would happen, that there would be no point in monero? Could monero survive, if bitcoin incorporated zerocash or whatever technique to ensure privacy and fungibility of transactions?

1. If bitcoin implements features that match monero's then monero would probably be irrelevant.

2. But I doubt they will implement anything on a substantial level of development (or change) to the code base.

3. Zero cash doesn't exist yet right?

Given the lack of agreement about blocksize, stealth addresses, coinjoin and a slew of other features it seems rather unlikely that BTC would achieve parity with Monero anytime in the near future.

[iCEBREAKER]

Any currency which is not truly decentralized and dangerous is not revolutionary, and therefore not important.

Let's refactor that declaration into a spec, by substituting in Sztorc's Scythe:

Code:

Any currency without the engineering requirement to be Above The Law is not revolutionary, and therefore not important.

This appears to be a valid instance of Ranvier's Razor:

Code:

Anyone who isn’t actively working to expand and empower the informal economy is wasting their time.

This kind of philosophical clarity is useful for defending crypto's ramparts from XT-type Bad Ideas.   

[smooth]

I think we are very fortunate that the first crypto currency that came to be and served as an introduction to the world was a public ledger rather than a private one because the regulatory and legislative leeway Bitcoin has received would not have been possible with a private ledger IMHO.

There are other paths though, and it isn't necessary for the first to even succeed at all. For example, Napster -> blah blah -> Bittorrent. Arguably in this case it didn't as we had digicash and others that failed earlier. Bitcoin was the minimum viable product that could resist being quickly destroyed by centralization (and that it was conceived as an improved successor to those earlier failures was explicitly stated by satoshi)

[wpalczynski]

I think we are very fortunate that the first crypto currency that came to be and served as an introduction to the world was a public ledger rather than a private one because the regulatory and legislative leeway Bitcoin has received would not have been possible with a private ledger IMHO.

There are other paths though, and it isn't necessary for the first to even succeed at all. For example, Napster -> blah blah -> Bittorrent. Arguably in this case it didn't as we had digicash and others that failed earlier. Bitcoin was the minimum viable product that could resist being quickly destroyed by centralization (and that it was conceived as an improved successor to those earlier failures was explicitly stated by satoshi)

My point is that it paved the way.  I think the landscape would be vastly different and adoption of cryptocurrencies nowhere near where it is if the first one created wasn't a public ledger.

[iCEBREAKER]

With Bitcoin developers having mentioned possible development (yeah right lol) of "Confidential Transactions" they see that privacy AND moreso fungibility of bitcoin is a huge issue moving forward.

Yes, i think they slowly start to realize that lack of privacy and fungibility is a problem.

But what would happen with monero, if bitcoin actually managed to introduced  these features. If this would happen, that there would be no point in monero? Could monero survive, if bitcoin incorporated zerocash or whatever technique to ensure privacy and fungibility of transactions?

1. If bitcoin implements features that match monero's then monero would probably be irrelevant.
2. But I doubt they will implement anything on a substantial level of development (or change) to the code base.
3. Zero cash doesn't exist yet right?

Given the lack of agreement about blocksize, stealth addresses, coinjoin and a slew of other features it seems rather unlikely that BTC would achieve parity with Monero anytime in the near future.

Zero cash is still in the whitepaper phase.  Its fundamentals involve some undesirable, possibly intrinsic/unavoidable trade-offs and compromises (ie, a trusted third party and bloat-prone tx|blockchains).

The BIP process is healthier than ever before.  It has been reinvigorated thanks to stimulus provided by the Fork of July, and perhaps even XT's lulzy failed governance coup. Please stop Buttcoining just because you Gavinistas didn't get your way, despite copious amounts of hand-wringing melodrama.

The results of #ScalingBitcoin will be eventual agreements about (if not blocksize) stealth addresses, coinjoin, and a slew of other features (ie sidechains|CT).  Those non-controversial new featues cannot be directly compared to the universal contention necessarily involved in hard forks which risk catastrophic consensus failure occurring at the exact moment the socioeconomic ecosystem bifurcates into civil war.

Confidential Transactions on sidechains represent a medium-term possibility of a (possibly near-perfect or superior) substitute good for Monero.  Let's not dismiss ridicule notion because it doesn't suit the Monero 4evar narrative, or dismiss the challenge because of butthurt at Blockstream/Theymos/p2pool/etc.

Competition is a good stream for us end-users.  The possibilities of leisurely cross pollination in peacetime and horizontal gene transfer in emergencies strengthen both systems.

As for the narrow speculative POV, XMR's sort-of-first mover advantage may be neutralized by transfer of Bitcoin's undisputably-first mover status to its sidechains.

But sidechains and CT are unproven so a significant period of time, to accumulate Lindy effects appropriate to wealth storage, is required.

Then there is the possibility of adapting SC/LN for XMR, so our favorite mustang can become the opaque Father to complement Bitcoin's transparent Mother of All Settlement Chains.

That will take some new crypto, or at the least a novel arrangement of existing primitives.  We can't do it yet, but may not have to endure such heavy lifting alone.  The Cryptonote people are still Out There Somewhere and if anyone knows how to scale 100% trust-free 100% anon blockchains, it's probably Nick Szaborhagen's group.

[owm123]

The fact that freshly mined BTC enjoy a 10% premium over 'used' ones demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt that, absent an opaque complementary blockchain like XMR, BTC is the dictatorship-enabling "bad digital cash" PanoptiCoin Chaum warned us about.

At this point, worse-than-cash-or-gold fungibility is the elephant in bitcoin's living room.  Sidechains (and thus CT) are moving forward and will take the taint issue to the forefront of public concern as deployment plays out.

Unfortunately this is not the case any more (the bold part). I think  you mean here the Mint Exchange mentioned in this article. The Mint Exchange is no more. I dont know what has happened with it. Maybe it it failed because no one was interested in fresh bitcoins, feds closed it down, or some technical issues lead to its disappearance.

The Mint Exchange was perfect example of what non-fungible bitcoin means, and what would never happen with monero. But there is no Mint Exchange now, nor any similar service I'm aware off.

[smooth]

The fact that freshly mined BTC enjoy a 10% premium over 'used' ones demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt that, absent an opaque complementary blockchain like XMR, BTC is the dictatorship-enabling "bad digital cash" PanoptiCoin Chaum warned us about.

At this point, worse-than-cash-or-gold fungibility is the elephant in bitcoin's living room.  Sidechains (and thus CT) are moving forward and will take the taint issue to the forefront of public concern as deployment plays out.

Unfortunately this is not the case any more (the bold part). I think  you mean here the Mint Exchange mentioned in this article. The Mint Exchange is no more. I dont know what has happened with it. Maybe it it failed because no one was interested in fresh bitcoins, feds closed it down, or some technical issues lead to its disappearance.

The Mint Exchange was perfect example of what non-fungible bitcoin means, and what would never happen with monero. But there is no Mint Exchange now, nor any similar service I'm aware off.

joinmarket is superficially similar in that you have to pay a premium to induce others to mix with you. However, you have no control over the taint status of the other coins, so what should happen rationally is that only heavily tainted coins would be offered, still with a liquidity premium.

[iCEBREAKER]

The fact that freshly mined BTC enjoy a 10% premium over 'used' ones demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt that, absent an opaque complementary blockchain like XMR, BTC is the dictatorship-enabling "bad digital cash" PanoptiCoin Chaum warned us about.

At this point, worse-than-cash-or-gold fungibility is the elephant in bitcoin's living room.  Sidechains (and thus CT) are moving forward and will take the taint issue to the forefront of public concern as deployment plays out.

Unfortunately this is not the case any more (the bold part). I think  you mean here the Mint Exchange mentioned in this article. The Mint Exchange is no more. I dont know what has happened with it. Maybe it it failed because no one was interested in fresh bitcoins, feds closed it down, or some technical issues lead to its disappearance.

The Mint Exchange was perfect example of what non-fungible bitcoin means, and what would never happen with monero. But there is no Mint Exchange now, nor any similar service I'm aware off.

You really think Mint Exchange is the only place where people buy new coins at premium prices?  Wow, that's adorable.

[owm123]

The fact that freshly mined BTC enjoy a 10% premium over 'used' ones demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt that, absent an opaque complementary blockchain like XMR, BTC is the dictatorship-enabling "bad digital cash" PanoptiCoin Chaum warned us about.

At this point, worse-than-cash-or-gold fungibility is the elephant in bitcoin's living room.  Sidechains (and thus CT) are moving forward and will take the taint issue to the forefront of public concern as deployment plays out.

Unfortunately this is not the case any more (the bold part). I think  you mean here the Mint Exchange mentioned in this article. The Mint Exchange is no more. I dont know what has happened with it. Maybe it it failed because no one was interested in fresh bitcoins, feds closed it down, or some technical issues lead to its disappearance.

The Mint Exchange was perfect example of what non-fungible bitcoin means, and what would never happen with monero. But there is no Mint Exchange now, nor any similar service I'm aware off.

You really think Mint Exchange is the only place where people buy new coins at premium prices?  Wow, that's adorable.

So could you give some links to exchanges or sites that offer this? They would be useful examples of problems associated with non-fungibility of bitcoin.