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Why Monero

benkaiser.dev

141–150 of 394 posts

Re: Why Monero

#141
post #105
post #2

I'm not really happy promoting a cryptocurrency these days, given that most of them are get-rich-quick schemes, but Monero has been solid for the past 5-6 years that I've been using it. It's completely anonymous, sends quickly, has minimal fees, and it hasn't been as full of cultists as some of the other coins I've seen. I use it to pay for some things and it's always a pleasant experience. I recommend it. The only d…

The lack of cultists is the only reason why I'm even reading these articles. Now if only they could stabilize the price so you can pay for things instead of gamble on it.

Who are 'they' who will stabilize the price?

Re: Why Monero

#142
Once people realize that when they transact a BTC transaction and all their history can be tracked, they won't like it. Most people think they are hidden behind pseudo-address, but that really is not the case anymore. Go figure. Imagine your bank account is transparent. Every transaction can be seen by everyone. Scary stuff... And it's not about illegality. The fact that everyone can know how much money my neighbor has or his spending habits whatever. Just horrible horrible horrible. It's awful. I can't wrap my head around it. And it's only gonna get worse with more KYC. Coinjoin isn't practical. There is nothing that can fix this. Some people already find this troublesome. You might not feel bothered holding 0.1 BTC, but if you have more than that? People are crazy. It maybe isn't problem now, but the future?

Financial transparency won't prevent crimes. And KYC doesn't prevent crimes either.

Optional privacy also isn't a solution. All transactions must look the same or very similar otherwise you stand out.

Monero solves all of this. It still has a long way to go though.

Re: Why Monero

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've played around trading other currencies but Monero is the one I hold dear for the end times. Plus it's fun to mine, you can do it on a CPU instead of needing a massive GPU swarm.

Is the algorithm poorly suited to GPUs or fpgas, or are we just not to that point yet? Proof of stake seems like a good thing.

Designed to be CPU mined: https://github.com/tevador/RandomX

Re: Why Monero

#144
post #2

I'm not really happy promoting a cryptocurrency these days, given that most of them are get-rich-quick schemes, but Monero has been solid for the past 5-6 years that I've been using it. It's completely anonymous, sends quickly, has minimal fees, and it hasn't been as full of cultists as some of the other coins I've seen. I use it to pay for some things and it's always a pleasant experience. I recommend it. The only d…

> and it hasn't been as full of cultists as some of the other coins I've seen.

LOL. Not my experience at all. Monero shills are the worst.

Re: Why Monero

#145
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really happy promoting a cryptocurrency these days, given that most of them are get-rich-quick schemes, They're get-rich-quick schemes plus money laundering/capital-flight mechanisms. And if you think capital flight is more ethical than a get-rich-quick scheme, I'd like to introduce you to X oligarch on Y continent committing Z poorly publicized genocide. Edit: that said, the way that they facilitate dubious…

Oligarchs are well taken care of by the traditional offshore banking industry. They don't need to fall back on crypto like regular folks.

North Korea would beg to differ, having amassed billions in violation of International sanctions. [1]

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-north-koreas-role-bit...

Re: Why Monero

#146
post #16

I'd be curious to hear from Monero fans why one might select it over Zcash? Zcash seems to have stronger security guarantees when shielded transactions are used.

The best answer I've seen, is that zero knowledge proofs as Zcash uses in isolation are superior to the ring signatures that Monero uses, but Zcash has one major flaw in that it allows its anonymity pool to be small.

What I mean by this is that transactions in Monero are always private, while users of Zcash can choose to send public transactions. What this does is it makes the group of users who send private transactions through Zcash much smaller and far, far more susceptible to being identified through metadata and process of elimination.

This is heavily simplified - and Monero community members would be happy to get into the weeds with you about it if you were to visit their realms on the web, I'm sure.

Re: Why Monero

#147
post #8

Still has 21 minute transaction time: https://www.monero.how/how-long-do-monero-transactions-take

10 confirmations is a pretty high bar. Normally a single confirmation gives very high confidence in a transaction.

Yeah, we can still consider the transaction to be safely received after 1 confirmation and provide goods&service.

XMR.to even used 0-conf back in the days https://twitter.com/xmr_to/status/955364047679049728 (for hundreds of $) easily.

thought, I agree it may be inconvenient.

Re: Why Monero

#148
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money laundering just make it more expensive for criminals to get the profits. So does crypto due to ever moving exchange rates, comissions, etc. Also just want to remind you that the world doesn't end on US soil and once you moved cash to a different country this kind of tracking becomes more and more complicated.

How are you going to get huge quantities of cash across borders without anyone noticing? Even the Narcos know thats a bad plan, they used binders of gift cards.

I'm not a money laundering expert, but when you already using crypto with a huge chance to lose 10-30% on exchange rate flunctations I don't believe it's that hard to come up with an idea.

Let's say you'll make a fake startup funded by VCs from all around the world. There is plenty of people who will love to buy few million dollars with 30% discount.

This isn't about some petty crime though, but again it's much easier to move smaller amount of money anyway.

Re: Why Monero

#149
post #58

“Scalability” by constantly increasing the block size isn’t really scalability. If monero ever sees high network usage, expanding blocks will push node storage requirements so high that only a small number of nodes will continue to run, destroying decentralization.

Hope not. But if you compare the cost per gigabyte and internet connection, you'll get some interesting numbers and it's only gonna get cheaper. That's what Monero community counts on. So it hopefully won't be a problem.

On top of that, node operators can still run pruned node.

Re: Why Monero

#150
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zcash has to have privacy enabled by the user. It’s not automatically private. Monero is automatically private.

Yes, I understand. That's why I'm specifically asking about the advantage of Monero vs when shielded transactions are used on Zcash.

Technical peculiarities aside, if all zcash transactions were shielded each protocol would provide comparable adequate privacy.
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