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Why Monero

benkaiser.dev

161–170 of 394 posts

Re: Why Monero

#161
post #18
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…

I really want to like Monero but I've had one of the worst crypto experience using the official desktop client. The app crashes randomly, hangs, and worst of all, refuses to send transactions using a hardware wallet when running as a full node. The hardware wallet is only able to sign transactions when connected to a remote node, which is much worse privacy wise. Monero needs much more developers & funding to succeed…

Did you open an issue? There is no known bug like you are describing regarding hardware wallets and full nodes.

Re: Why Monero

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? The whole "I don't understand how people can possibly think that identity obfuscation at scale is a good thing for a financial system" can be answered by, "Will you share your entire transaction history and account balances with the entire world? Why not?"

Most people agree that financial regulations regarding money laundering are a good thing. You're arguing a strawman, no one is saying everyone's banking transactions should be on a blockchain.

>Most people agree that financial regulations regarding money laundering are a good thing

Not people who've done any research on the matter. Regulations on money laundering have been almost completely ineffective at reducing crime (the end goal); the drug market is bigger than ever. What they do achieve is imposing a significant burden on individual and small businesses, while large banks like HSBC can get away with money laundering by paying a nominal fine.

Money laundering regulations are like the financial version of the war on drugs: completely ineffective at what they set out to do, succeeding only at giving the government more power and making life harder for the powerless.

Re: Why Monero

#163
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…

Monero is one of the truly useful coins and perversely one of the worst performing coins price-wise. There is a horrible lesson in there somewhere about hype and endless promises and markets.

https://cryptorank.io/performance

Re: Why Monero

#164
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read much on monero / this algorithm, so I'm not sure if it's particularly meaningful, but wikipeda references that being the case for most of 2017-2018 and then the algorithm was changed.

Changed to bulletproof https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/1066

The Wikipedia article is incorrect, Monero still uses ring signatures. Bulletproofs are used as efficient range proofs in RingCT to hide the amount in transactions.

https://www.getmonero.org/2017/12/07/Monero-Compatible-Bulle...

Re: Why Monero

#165
post #161
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really want to like Monero but I've had one of the worst crypto experience using the official desktop client. The app crashes randomly, hangs, and worst of all, refuses to send transactions using a hardware wallet when running as a full node. The hardware wallet is only able to sign transactions when connected to a remote node, which is much worse privacy wise. Monero needs much more developers & funding to succeed…

Did you open an issue? There is no known bug like you are describing regarding hardware wallets and full nodes.

“users not reporting issues they have” is annoying. Maybe projects (crypto especially) should offer pizza money level rewards for reporting any valid bug

Re: Why Monero

#166
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.

I prefer Zcash's privacy perspective, but one thing I've noticed about using both is the zcash cli wallet is pretty terrible (especially if you're using shielded addresses) and the monero cli wallet is among the most user friendly cli apps that I've ever used.

Little touches like that keep making me reconsider the project in a favorable light.

Re: Why Monero

#167

I've tried using Monero because of it's supposed privacy features, and found that the official desktop gui clients is completely unusable. I'm not just talking usability and design issues -- I'm talking random crashes and freezes, if it manages to launch at all. When I brought these issues to the dev team, I was basically told to fuck off.

When was the last time you tried the desktop GUI? It has improved significantly over the years.

Also you should try out Feather wallet[1], it has a more classic Qt design.

[1] https://featherwallet.org/

Re: Why Monero

#169
post #50

When you develop a value exchange that is perfectly designed for facilitating human kidnappings and subverting international sanctions, you should not be surprised when other humans decide they value institutions over this level of personal privacy. The narrative that this type of value exchange will protect people is as easily argued that it will put others at risk. We have institutions for a reason, and nobody livi…

These are good points, but they all go away if the crimes you're most worried about are the ones being committed by the people who run your institutions.

Re: Why Monero

#170
post #50

When you develop a value exchange that is perfectly designed for facilitating human kidnappings and subverting international sanctions, you should not be surprised when other humans decide they value institutions over this level of personal privacy. The narrative that this type of value exchange will protect people is as easily argued that it will put others at risk. We have institutions for a reason, and nobody livi…

I can't tell if you are talking about monero or paper currency. Monero is light years easier for law enforcement to find kidnappers (exchanges, honeypots, network access) than cold hard cash. Was there a plague of kidnappers when the world used 'absurdly dangerous means of value exchange' like paper currency and gold? edit: my reply was before you edited to discuss physical currency. $1M in $100 bills is 22lbs. Hardl…

If I have $10k in the bank and I want to turn it into cash, were do I get it without having the bills pass through a machine that scans their serial numbers?

And if you receive that $10k in cash, how do you deposit it without the same risk?

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