The Criminal Underworld Is Dropping Bitcoin for Monero

Post by htormey » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

the_stc wrote: post #75

jatsign wrote: post #56

Monero's big problem, right now, is that the fees are high - around $3. They're working on "Bulletproofs" that will reduce the size of transactions, and hopefully fees, by 80%. Zcash has more advanced crypto, but it takes nearly a minute to generate a private transaction on a normal computer. My favorite "privacy" coin is PIVX. It uses the zerocoin protocol and is fast with low fees. Die-hard privacy advocates don't…

The problem is that miners cost in USD but Monero fee is set in XMR, fixed. If fee goes down 80% but XMR/USD goes up again 5 times then the problem persists. Not an easy thing to fix! If Bulletproofs and the new CT format come in and the mandatory ringsize is increased to a level providing some privacy, the fees would be very worthwhile. But with ringsize 5 they are certainly excessive! We should hope they increase t…

Post by everdev » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 4:32 PM UTC

the_stc wrote: post #79

ifdefdebug wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wtf is an "extrajursidictional company"? Do you mean you are running a tax evasion scheme?

An extrajurisdictional company operates outside of existing jurisdictions. It might be helpful to think of us as being headquartered in space...if our opsec is correct, we might as well be! (Otherwise I'll be arrested and our contingency procedures will kick in to work with the successor.) It is not for tax evasion: we fully intend to comply with tax law everywhere we offer service, though there are some practical is…

Post by jackpeterfletch » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 4:36 PM UTC

jackpeterfletch wrote: post #93

vadimberman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how did it work with the Silk Road?

You had one central oracle (Silk Road) of dealer/buyer reviews, and dealers put up a deposit. Scamming was rife, but largely mitigated by the fact that the dealer cant effect their reviews and nor can the buyer. The dealer has the choice to not sell to you based on your history, the buyer has the choice to not buy from a dealer with a bad history. Other than that, bitcoin had little to do with its security apart from…

Post by ErikAugust » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

indescions_2018 wrote: post #86

jatsign wrote: post #56

Monero's big problem, right now, is that the fees are high - around $3. They're working on "Bulletproofs" that will reduce the size of transactions, and hopefully fees, by 80%. Zcash has more advanced crypto, but it takes nearly a minute to generate a private transaction on a normal computer. My favorite "privacy" coin is PIVX. It uses the zerocoin protocol and is fast with low fees. Die-hard privacy advocates don't…

The other competitor being mentioned on dark markets is XVG: https://vergecurrency.com/

Post by ErikAugust » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

apo wrote: post #78

vadimberman wrote: post #45

A question to the experts: why don't the criminals use smart contract platforms like Ethereum? My amateurish take is that, for instance, a smart contract could work as an untraceable distributed Silk Road with escrow and everything else. Because there is no one machine where everything runs, it's impossible to shut down the server; there is nothing that links these transactions together, except for the commonly used…

It's sad to see the "Bitcoin doesn't do smart contracts" line repeated so faithfully - even implicitly as in your question. It's rubbish. Bitcoin supports smart contracts, and has done so since launched in 2009. Even the simplest Alice-pays-Bob transaction is actually running a smart contract written in Script, a Forth-like language custom built for Bitcoin. Bitcoin also supports metacoin protocols that create tradea…