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Ask HN: Why are privacy coins like Monero not seeing wide adoption?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are privacy coins like Monero not seeing wide adoption?

#61

Post by concordDance »

edent wrote: post #16

As with anything - what's the user need? The vast majority of people don't seem fazed about their credit card company knowing they've bought a sex toy. Hell, if Amex offered double-cashback at PornHub I expect they'd be inundated. For those which do want a bit more privacy, it's dead easy to buy a single-use gift card or cash card. Will that stop the police from tracing you? No, but it makes it harder for a company t…

> So you're left with things which are (rightly or wrongly) illegal. Or incredibly taboo.

I presume giving money to Canadian protestors is the former?

Re: Ask HN: Why are privacy coins like Monero not seeing wide adoption?

#62

Post by jancsika »

Because blockchain-based cryptocurrencies have a terrible UX and don't scale for shit.

Even if someone hand-delivered a smart-phone that had a Monero wallet on it to facilitate me paying for a banned_book_123, it's still an order of magnitude fussier and slower than, say, using a Visa gift card. Or cash.

And what happens if I somehow fuck up the transaction? It has none of the protections offered by the Visa gift card, with all of the shit-out-of-luck properties of physical cash.

On the other hand, it doesn't scale well and thus cannot be used for digital microtransactions.

Any of the solutions I see for scaling could just be used without having a blockchain-based cryptocurrency on the backend.

Anyhow, when it's this difficult to use, it seems perfectly logical that it only gets used in niche cases where the sender/receiver is willing to eat the cost of all the friction, headache, and risk-of-loss of using it (not to mention price fluctuations). So ransomware, paying for illegal goods... what else is there?

Related: I think the motto of blockchain should be: A Solution Begging for a Problem. All these HN posts about it make me think of "The Herlihy Boy" from SNL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXyW5w5RRFY

Re: Ask HN: Why are privacy coins like Monero not seeing wide adoption?

#63

Post by Semaphor »

edent wrote: post #16

As with anything - what's the user need? The vast majority of people don't seem fazed about their credit card company knowing they've bought a sex toy. Hell, if Amex offered double-cashback at PornHub I expect they'd be inundated. For those which do want a bit more privacy, it's dead easy to buy a single-use gift card or cash card. Will that stop the police from tracing you? No, but it makes it harder for a company t…

> So you're left with things which are (rightly or wrongly) illegal. Or incredibly taboo.

While I mostly agree with what you wrote, I take exception to this. Wanting more privacy can be an ends in itself.

Of course, as I said, I agree with you, this doesn’t really broaden the pool of people who need Monero by a meaningful amount ;)

Re: Ask HN: Why are privacy coins like Monero not seeing wide adoption?

#64

Post by fl0id »

apeace wrote: post #32

There are basically two compelling reasons to use a privacy coin: - You are doing something illegal and don't want to get caught. - Powerful actors in the economy are abusing their power, and you want to avoid/prevent that abuse. Most people are not criminals, so let's focus on the second use-case. If the government created a 1000% tax on all person-to-person transactions, you can bet nearly everyone would switch off…

And it’s seemingly impossible or at least very hard to onboard onto mobile coin. Couldn’t find one Fiat exchange, so it’s basically useless.

Re: Ask HN: Why are privacy coins like Monero not seeing wide adoption?

#65

Post by tromp »

lawn wrote: post #17

So I agree that transferring of value and for payments is where the usefulness is, but I think there are two reasons why the adoption is lagging: 1. Most people only care about speculation, and don't care at all what cryptocurrencies are or what they can do. And Monero doesn't do much for these people. 2. Monero is more inconvenient to use than Bitcoin is. SPV wallets aren't possible, so you need to rescan all output…

Monero is not a better Bitcoin; it just makes different tradeoffs [1].

[1] https://phyro.github.io/grinvestigation/why_grin.html

Re: Ask HN: Why are privacy coins like Monero not seeing wide adoption?

#66

Post by openfuture »

mindcrime wrote: post #14

I can see some really good uses for something like Monero - for example, purchasing a VPS anonymously. I would definitely consider that a desirable thing to be able to do. And I know at least a few VPS providers take Monero, so we're all good right? No. Here's the rub... the problem I see, and what makes Monero less usable to my way of thinking, is the "last mile" problem of getting value in and out of the Monero eco…

Already commented elsewhere but this is called the oracle problem. It is essentially the tragedy of the commons w.r.t. bureaucracy; i.e. why should I be truthful about the state of the world if I can lie and make a profit because what I say will get recorded as truthful in the bureaucracy... this is the same as "corruption" and "fake news" etc.

We already know how to solve this problem fyi but it seems no one is interested in helping me implement it.

Re: Ask HN: Why are privacy coins like Monero not seeing wide adoption?

#67

Post by lawn »

tromp wrote: post #65
lawn wrote: post #17

So I agree that transferring of value and for payments is where the usefulness is, but I think there are two reasons why the adoption is lagging: 1. Most people only care about speculation, and don't care at all what cryptocurrencies are or what they can do. And Monero doesn't do much for these people. 2. Monero is more inconvenient to use than Bitcoin is. SPV wallets aren't possible, so you need to rescan all output…

Monero is not a better Bitcoin; it just makes different tradeoffs [1]. [1] https://phyro.github.io/grinvestigation/why_grin.html

You're right that it makes different trade-offs, but in doing so it becomes a better currency than Bitcoin.

Re: Ask HN: Why are privacy coins like Monero not seeing wide adoption?

#68

Post by apeace »

paxys wrote: post #59

Can my mom get started with it in under 5 minutes? If not, it will never see wide adoption.

As I mentioned in another thread, this is where MobileCoin excels. I encourage people to give it a try.

The only problem right now is buying the MobileCoin in the first place. I live in the U.S. and the process was, uh, sketchy at best.

But if the payer in the transaction already has MobileCoin, it's a breeze from there. If your mom can do Venmo, she can do it. It's instant, fees are basically zero, it shows you the dollar amount, and it comes with the same strong privacy as Signal itself.

From what I have seen, MobileCoin is positioned to be the winner on all fronts. It's the only cryptocurrency I've ever seen that actually feels usable -- and I'm including back when Bitcoin was $10 and you could actually send transactions on the network.

Re: Ask HN: Why are privacy coins like Monero not seeing wide adoption?

#69

Post by [deleted] »

salawat wrote: post #11
bergenty wrote: post #6

I watched as Monero was gradually dropped from a lot of the major exchanges over time with no real reason being provided. Same with zcash. My conspiracy theory is that there is a coordinated effort to make truly anonymous coins unusable.

It is not a conspiracy theory. It is literally how financial regulations mandate the financial system works. Non-cash anonymous financial transactions have been no-no for a long while, in particular under AML/KYC. Over a certain amount, even cash transactions get wrapped in KYC/AML papertrail for law enforcement facilitation.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why are privacy coins like Monero not seeing wide adoption?

#70

Post by throw1234651234 »

Semaphor wrote: post #63
edent wrote: post #16

As with anything - what's the user need? The vast majority of people don't seem fazed about their credit card company knowing they've bought a sex toy. Hell, if Amex offered double-cashback at PornHub I expect they'd be inundated. For those which do want a bit more privacy, it's dead easy to buy a single-use gift card or cash card. Will that stop the police from tracing you? No, but it makes it harder for a company t…

> So you're left with things which are (rightly or wrongly) illegal. Or incredibly taboo. While I mostly agree with what you wrote, I take exception to this. Wanting more privacy can be an ends in itself. Of course, as I said, I agree with you, this doesn’t really broaden the pool of people who need Monero by a meaningful amount ;)

The problem is that Monero doesn't guarantee privacy. X bought something from company Y. Company Y makes Z. X bought Z. How does whoever wants to know know? Because it was shipped by a major carrier.
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