The three-way lovers were too much for me and my little kiddos and so we turned it off. Thankfully! I then missed the last supper portion.

It’s annoying that nearly everything is sexualized these days. I can’t seem to watch “family friendly” TV anymore for fear of my kids having sex porned into their eyes.

I just watched and he said gold and silver are better than bitcoin (because “if you went back in time gold & silver would be accepted but not Bitcoin”). So he may know about bitcoin but I’m not sure if he’s pro-bitcoin? To be fair, he talked about it while discussing his sponsor that sells gold & silver.

Be he says he hates fiat and is a bit of a prepper so odds are good that he likes Bitcoin (or will eventually).

I’m warming up to the idea of anarchy but I’m curious if we have any examples of it. Are there any peoples that practice it now or in the past? I think the ideas are interesting but do we have any real life examples that are compelling?

I didn't. I tested positive for COVID and felt a bit sick but no worse then normal flu. The best thing was that I lost my sense of smell for a month or two and it was awesome since I took turns changing kid diapers. 😃

I eventually plan to be FIRE and if I live off of bitcoin I'd worry about bear markets. My current thought is to have a year or two worth of income in fiat so I can tap into that without touching my bitcoin.

If/when my stack ends up being large enough such that a 80% correction wouldn't hurt then I'd go all in.

Do you think covenants will be coming any time soon? They sound like a good idea but most folks seem gun shy about any changes. I'm guessing we need some distance from the NFT mess and then maybe folks will be open to another soft fork? But, how long will that be? Seems like a few years in my estimation. In the mean time, if some folks are building out some scaling concepts it seems like a fine thing to do.

I'm not sure I agree that the MSB topic will be as big of a deal as you think. I do think the US will want to go after them. Will they be able to in the end or will it go to the supreme court? And even if so, is there no way nym mints wouldn't be able to exist? Most of the bitcoin folks I follow are nyms or might as well be. Besides, I'm not going to stress about losing $1k across a few mints.

And, will MSB apply to a small group using a fedimint? Perhaps, but that sure would be bad optics if the US went after a small family, community, organization for hosting a mint for themselves simply to avoid transaction fees, for example.

Or maybe I'm too optimistic.

I’m not sure I understand the hostility. It’s not like eCash is going away. Complaining about it seems like pissing in the wind.

We can’t stop banks or exchanges from custodying bitcoin for people. At least fedimints spread out the rugpull problem.

Folks that ask how to avoid fractional reserve with bitcoin seem to missing the fact that banks and exchanges can already do that. At least with fediments people have more options (and I understand there are some solutions being worked on to avoid fractional reserve in mints).

Best folks can do is remind people to self-custody on-chain when possible.

Oh, dope. I hadn't heard about Oxchat before. I'll look into it. Thanks!

So what options are there? If you want to have a private conversation between yourself and a loved one that is far away how would you communicate? Can't use SMS, can't use phone, can't use most chat tools, can't really use email.

Seems like you'd have to use something like PGP or ProtonMail for email. For chat it seems like maybe SimpleX or Signal? Or, are you saying you just can't have private conversations anymore unless it's in-person?

In-person is great, but if family lives thousands of miles away then what options are there? I guess you could maybe send snail mail, but that's going to really slow down the conversation.

I don’t have a dog in this fight but it seems like you’re saying eCash would replace on-chain coins. One is for pocket money one is for savings.

Sadly, the US is staring to suck and the MSB argument is legit. That being said, there are other countries.

I’ve written fairly consistently for about 15 years now. If doing it digitally, I recommend Obsidian. One reason being that the files are plain text so regardless of what app you use you’re not locked into some obscure format. Another reason is that the wiki-like format makes it easy to make summaries of each day, each month, and each year. So it’s really easy to go back and find when big events happened.

I’m in the process of copy/pasting old entries (obscure formats) and it’s been cool to see what I was thinking way back when. I went through some dramatic moments during my dating years and so it’s nice to see how much better life is now as a married dude.

The only negatives I can think of are: (1) how private are my thoughts if digital, and (2) do I ruminated about bad things if I’m writing about complaints and/or hopes for the future too much?

That being said, you can encrypt the folder with something like VeraCrypt and sometimes you have to force yourself to count your blessings instead of complain.

Thanks!

You make a good point. There have been wars throughout time where the underdogs won for various reasons. As in, one side is fighting for something - often religion, freedom, or some cause the soldiers believe was noble. And, I could see the money printer weakening citizen's resolve (causing a weakened army).

It'd be interesting to see if there have been any books or studies that tracked wars and how often the side with the least money won. Maybe money has much less to do with it then one would think.

Can't anyone start a community? Maybe you or another big Monero person could start it? Though, to be honest, you'd have to be comfortable with a lot of trolls. I'm all for being a bitcoin maxi but some folks do tend to push it too far.

To be fair, there are a lot of coins that are scams so it's fair to be very skeptical and call it out and I think bitcoin maxis are generally a good thing. But some are certainly overboard and ought to be more secure about their positions instead of being so defensive. And, Monero has been around for a long while now so it's pretty clear it's not a scam at this point.

Is it your assumption then that Monero won't need any layer 2 tech and that the base layer will be able to scale out well enough? That'd be cool, if so. If it can't, if it requires a layer 2 or 3 to scale then I go back to my argument which is that Bitcoin can get privacy on layer 2 and/or 3 (fediments and ecash, for example). If the vast majority of the world is using Bitcoin layer 2 or 3 and you get privacy with that then how is Monero better?

I'll fully admit that Monero is better than Bitcoin on the base layer in terms of privacy - of course, no shock there. However, neither of them can scale to any large degree on their own (as far as I understand) and both would need layer 2 or 3 tech to scale, right? And again, if privacy can be had on bitcoin layer 2 or 3 then I'm just not sure I see the benefit of Monero in the long term.

In the short-to-medium term perhaps Monero is better. Or, if governments go nutty quickly (before bitcoin layer 2/3 can get enough privacy) then Monero will be the only real option to avoid corruption. So, I'm glad we have Monero for the possibility of short-to-medium term corruption. That being said, my vote (aka my money) is on bitcoin in terms of it's long-term potential and demand. But, I'm glad that Monero exists.

It's moot if layer 2 bitcoin gets privacy. As in, if both Monero and Bitcion require Layer 2 or Layer 3 to scale to the world AND if privacy can be had in Layers 2 or 3 then I'm not sure I see the benefit of Monero in the long run.

I think the argument about bankers and countries is far from weak. Look at the gold standard back when it was a thing. It was huge. Countries were using it all the time. If Bitcoin (or Monero, or any other) become a world reserve currency then nations, bankers, etc will be using it - they will either want to or have to. If there is a far superior money/asset then everyone will want to use it. Now, I suppose you could argue that fiat will never die and crypto will always be a second-class citizen. If that's the case, then my argument is weak.

Anyway, I appreciate your replies. I do like Monero and keep an eye on it. I, personally, think bitcoin will get privacy on layer 2 or 3 and that it'll become the common way to use it. I could be totally wrong, though. In the meantime, I'd be more than happy if Monero got way bigger and was accepted in way more places. I see no reason why I wouldn't trade my bitcoin for Monero to have privacy when buying stuff (assuming I can't get it with layer 2/3 bitcoin). I like that folks are building out multiple solutions - and Monero may very well be the one that tops the list.

Agreed, folks should be open minded. It is sad to see some folks that are rather bull -headed about just having a discussion. I'm a pretty hardcore bitcoiner and have studied it pretty well - I therefore have confidence in my opinion and can be open-minded. Folks that fight against an open discussion seem less secure to me.

That being said, @kristapsk may know what he's talking about (I don't think he's being closed minded like some folks in this thread). Otherwise, @Hamstr, do you know if Monero can scale as well or better than Bitcoin?

I think the question of scaling is relevant because IF layer 2 becomes the norm in the future and IF layer 2 can have privacy then that seems like a win for bitcoin. Or, said another way, at that point, what value does Monero have over bitcoin?

No kidding. Or, heck, maybe owe 100% and put the rest in something like Bitcoin that historically increases in value at a rate much higher then the underpayment penalty. Though, it'd be bad if it was a bull market.

Sweet, so the precedent is set and Samourai Wallet shouldn't be prosecuted either. Right?!?

Hah.

Between income tax, sales tax, property taxes, other misc taxes, and inflation I imagine the average US citizen probably pays at least 30% taxes. Add in indirect expenses like compliance costs (AML-KYC) and other regulations and maybe it's even higher.

If every tax payer had to pay all of that tax during tax season I imagine we'd have seen a revolt already. But, the US is an evil genius and they spread it around throughout the year and make it too confusing for most folks to notice. Heck, most folks are happy because they're "getting a refund."

So what are the tradeoffs of Monero? Is it just small in market cap due to it coming out later? I thought you can't buy it on most exchanges? It's going to be hard for it to grow at any reasonable rate if hardly anyone can buy it. :(

Can it scale better than Bitcoin? If not, and everyone has to use Layer 2 tech on Monero then how is that any diff/better than using Layer 2 bitcoin (assuming privacy could be had in Layer 2, which it seems like it maybe can, though, I'm no pro).

Let's figure another scenario. Let's say Monero becomes the world reserve currency. No one can track anyone. Is that a good thing? Though maybe not possible and maybe it'll never happen, but I like the idea (and maybe it's only an idea) that bigger institutions (countries, banks, etc) have money that's traceable (bitcoin) but then normal citizens have some privacy (Layer 2). If countries and bankers use Monero is it a good thing that everything is hidden by default?

Can Monero scale way better than Bitcoin? If not, and it requires Layer 2 tech then it's a bit moot since Bitcoin is building out Layer 2 pretty quickly and privacy is coming with it. It's already pretty close to grandma level. My young kiddo is already pretty good at Layer 2 tech.

If Monero can scale WAY better than Bitcoin and if privacy becomes WAY more important to people vs gains then perhaps Monero will take the lead. Sadly, though, people care more about growth than privacy - at least right now. And again, if bitcoin has enough time to mature Layer 2 tech then it's highly possible privacy and growth will be better with Bitcoin.

Personally, I think to have a global ledger that could be the world reserve currency we SHOULD have an open ledger like Bitcoin so as to keep bankers, countries, politicians, etc honest. The privacy could be done at smaller, Layer 2-3 levels for average citizens. But, who knows what the future holds.