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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?

#81

Post by opportune »

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…

Agree with this. Exchanging for fiat is hard. Most people will go cash->other crypto via centralized exchange -> monero via decentralized or p2p exchange. Then back the same way.

It’s not really that complicated if you are comfortable managing wallets and making on-chain tx’s, but your average person in crypto is probably just buying crypto on a centralized exchange (most of which don’t support monero, though some do) and also selling it there.

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

#82

Post by soco »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #49
Afforess wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reads as incredibly tone-deaf, but I'll give it an honest answer. Hierarchy of needs. Maslow is obviously not accurate, but people focus on basic survival and prioritize themselves and their families first. You do not even reach the level of contemplation of politics until you have food, shelter, comfort and a degree of safety. Most Americans struggle to satisfy all of these consistently. If you want mor…

fair enough, so your claim is essentially that people likely would, but are struggling to survive in the short run and therefore the long run is basically presumed to not matter?

It does matter, but first things first. If you struggle to breathe your first priority won't be finding food, but your entire energy will go into solving the most urgent problem.

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

#83

Post by newswasboring »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #34
woodruffw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s no small irony that the simplest answer is the right answer here: you can’t force consumers to use your product. They need a reason to use it, and none of the current ones are sufficiently compelling.

I've always wondered why consumers seem to lack foresight though? Like the foresight of governmental / corporate dystopias due to information asymmetries. or foresight that exclusively buying goods manufactured abroad will eventually affect your home price as your neighbors one by one lose their local jobs... Do we know why people act in such a way? Edit: I'm quite shocked at the deep presumption of negativity. I was…

Tone deafness of your comment aside, this is just like... your opinion man. We don't know this will happen for sure, neither do we know this will not happen. People are not going to spend their time worrying about something that might not happen. There are enough bad things in everyone's life which are certain.

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

#84

Post by soco »

rr888 wrote: post #47
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…

There are a bunch of people that want to send cash to family in Cuba/Russia/Iran. Also Chinese people want to get foreign currency. I guess they are combinations of 1 & 2.

Both those need cash at the endpoint, and exactly here is the big problem.

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

#85

Post by riedel »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #34
woodruffw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s no small irony that the simplest answer is the right answer here: you can’t force consumers to use your product. They need a reason to use it, and none of the current ones are sufficiently compelling.

I've always wondered why consumers seem to lack foresight though? Like the foresight of governmental / corporate dystopias due to information asymmetries. or foresight that exclusively buying goods manufactured abroad will eventually affect your home price as your neighbors one by one lose their local jobs... Do we know why people act in such a way? Edit: I'm quite shocked at the deep presumption of negativity. I was…

I rather see a dystopian future from unregulated asset flow with no limits and no taxation. Cash for me is a good tradeoff between freedom and necessary control. I would e.g. opt into any equivalent digital currency that does not allow speculation , accumulating or transfer of amount greater than 10k per year or natural person.

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

#86

Post by maerF0x0 »

zichy wrote: post #46
maerF0x0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered why consumers seem to lack foresight though? Like the foresight of governmental / corporate dystopias due to information asymmetries. or foresight that exclusively buying goods manufactured abroad will eventually affect your home price as your neighbors one by one lose their local jobs... Do we know why people act in such a way? Edit: I'm quite shocked at the deep presumption of negativity. I was…

Having the supposed foresight, I can tell that cryptocurrencies are definitely part of the dystopia.

trying to spark a genuine dialogue...

> definitely part of the dystopia.

How so?

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

#87

Post by soco »

selectodude wrote: post #60
maerF0x0 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always wondered how much money laundering is in mining. It seems pretty benign to buy a whole bunch of CPU/GPUs on the used market and then have them mine you cryptocurrencies (not just monero, but notably monero is CPU favorable). This might be a massive onramp for fiat to cryptocurrencies. A quick google talks a lot about tumblers and other buy/sell strategies, but I'm curious about mining. I would hate to b…

I admit that this is speculation because I don't have the free time or desire to do some sort of deep dive, but the NFT market absolutely reeks of money laundering. Point being - why bother going through all that effort to actually mine stuff when you can just buy and sell NFTs a few times to clean money.

But can you actually clean real money with NFTs? I assume no bank will accept your answer "I just exchanged my stock of coins"...

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

#88

Post by lawn »

tromp wrote: post #79
lawn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Many of the properties listed in that comparison table make it a worse currency. The prime ones being poor scalability (not only large txs but also having to track all historical outputs, not just the unspent ones) and poor second layer support (no relative time locks).

This list doesn't even list the important properties of a currency, such at it being fungible or it being cheap to transfer, both which directly disqualify Bitcoin.

Also, both of the ones you list are the same (scalability), whose purpose is to keep transfer fees low. Which, again, Bitcoin utterly fails at.

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

#89

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

Having worked for a startup designing cryptographic privacy protocols, I think I can say that it's simply not something most consumers are interested in.

Anonymity in particular over pseudonymity only has compelling use cases for frankly, illegal activities. There are others of course, they're just not compelling.

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

#90

Post by sebastianconcpt »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #34
woodruffw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s no small irony that the simplest answer is the right answer here: you can’t force consumers to use your product. They need a reason to use it, and none of the current ones are sufficiently compelling.

I've always wondered why consumers seem to lack foresight though? Like the foresight of governmental / corporate dystopias due to information asymmetries. or foresight that exclusively buying goods manufactured abroad will eventually affect your home price as your neighbors one by one lose their local jobs... Do we know why people act in such a way? Edit: I'm quite shocked at the deep presumption of negativity. I was…

Normal people is afraid of think and openly discuss things that are too bad to be considered feasible. Hence a compulsion to silence the messenger downvoting your comment in this case.

It's very immature (or complicit with what you categorized as dystopian there).

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