Muun is a centralized third-party. Located in the USA no less.
Unless you are gonna tell a trucker to run and manage lightning node this is not the solution.
Only on-chain or only Paynyms.
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At least Muun doesn't have enough of keys to make transaction with your funds, you have to co-sign it. When using Turbo channels in Muun there is some limited time during which you have to trust Muun to not execute a double spend. On the other hand Turbo channels can be disabled in the app. Otherwise Muun can't take your funds, they don't custody it.
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Any mobile wallet can basically seize almost all user funds at any moment. They can push out an auto update with a new function that says "send all user funds on this device to address xyz." Phone wallets just aren't safe and should not hold big amounts of money. They are for your weekly spending money.
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Agreed with this. As soon as the amounts get over thousands of USD, then it's definitely the best to get hardware wallet. Or is there any other reasonable option? Maybe also worth considering something like Casa with multisig setup at that point.
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Once you get into the thousands of USD, a full node would even be better.
Your node your rules
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It's a step up for sure.
I still worry about:
  • Their centralized lightning node being taken down
  • Their submarine swap service being taken down
  • Doxxing dissidents by seizing the logs about user metadata and user transactions (necessary for operating a centralized lightning node)
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When the lightning node or swap service goes down, you should be able to recover using the open source tool, no?
I agree with the last point - there is a risk with them being able to log user metadata.
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Depends on when was the latest submarine swap. Usually happens after doing a big tx where they can take fees to do that.
Best case scenario only 1% of funds haven't been swapped yet. Worse case scenario 100% of funds haven't been swapped yet.
Temporary trust is still trust.
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Its really possible to live with bitcoin as a basse today.
Hate to say it, but any recommendation other than “convert it to monero” is setting these people up to fail.
Converting gift cards won’t help when the government has flagged your wallet and subpoena’d the gift card companies.
And achieving perfect privacy with BTC requires a level of technical skill that these people don’t have.
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Achieving perfect privacy with anything requires a level of technical skill that normies don’t have. At least with bitcoin they don't give full control of their money to the developers and don't have to worry about inflation bugs.
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Achieving perfect privacy with anything requires a level of technical skill that normies don’t have
when i say “Perfect privacy”, i mean privacy that is appropriate to your threat level. i think it’s extremely disingenuous to say “well perfection is impossible so they should just have none”.
compare the level of knowledge required to have privacy on lightning vs on monero. i couldn’t get a straight answer even on this website about lightning privacy, and this place is filled with technical and knowledgeable people lol.
At least with bitcoin they don't give full control of their money to the developers
What does this mean?
and don't have to worry about inflation bugs
People are recommended to run bitcoin tech that is multiple releases old for the same reason. Bugs happen everywhere.
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when i say “Perfect privacy”, i mean privacy that is appropriate to your threat level
What is the threat level for the truckers? How much privacy do they need? What should they do to attain that level of privacy?
i think it’s extremely disingenuous to say “well perfection is impossible so they should just have none”.
I agree. They should use any standard lightning wallet.
What does this [full control by developers] mean?
Monero has regular hard forks. Regular hard forks = insufficient code review. Without code review, the developers who release the hard forks can use any of those hard forks to steal all user funds.
Bugs happen everywhere.
Inflation bugs in bitcoin are easily detected and remedied. They aren't easily detectable in monero and are therefore are not easily remedied.
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What is the threat level for the truckers? How much privacy do they need?
Consider any political dissident. Your fiat is frozen, and you can’t spend your crypto because anyone that does business with your wallet will be punished.
What should they do to attain that level of privacy?
Converting to monero would be a really simple way to fix it. I suppose they could use a coinjoin to a new bitcoin wallet, but chainanalysis can still track that. They could follow a user guide for how to “clean your bitcoin with lightning” but I was not able to understand the guide.
They should use any standard lightning wallet.
What privacy does Lightning provide? I’ve listened to multiple podcasts on this topic specifically and everyone says the same thing. Mumbling about how it doesn’t really provide privacy, but how they are looking to add new features in the future that will make it more private.
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you can’t spend your crypto because anyone that does business with your wallet will be punished.
I'm confused, I don't think you are saying that Canadians are punished if they do business with blacklisted bitcoin addresses but it's perfectly fine for them to do business with monero addresses. Is that what you are saying?
Converting to monero would be a really simple way to fix it.
If you tell people to "just convert to monero" they will probably do it on an exchange and dox themselves to it. They will probably hold their money on the exchange (unless you give them further instruction) and any transactions they make to other users will be similarly doxed. Bam, their account gets frozen.
If you give them the further instruction "move your money to your own wallet" they will probably use a light wallet and dox their ip address to the node operator whose node allows that wallet to see what's happening on the blockchain. That node operator is subject to sudden arrest or investigation by the government, and he can even be forced to stop servicing a particular user's wallet. Normie gets screwed again.
If you give the normie even further instructions to not only move his funds to his own wallet but also run his own node, you are giving him about just as many instructions as a bitcoiner would give except we would also say "use a privacy wallet such as joinmarket or samourai or wasabi or any lightning wallet."
What privacy does Lightning provide?
It is very difficult for an attacker to identify the sender or the amount sent. If the recipient is running a tor node (which the majority are) it is also very difficult to connect the recipient to a real world identity.
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but it's perfectly fine for them to do business with monero addresses
Yep. Because they can just transfer the monero to a new wallet and nobody is the wiser. Problem solved. Obviously every move you make on Bitcoin is tracked from place to place.
It is very difficult for an attacker to identify the sender or the amount sent.
Correct me if Im wrong, but aren’t most lightning channels rented from nodes? So the node you’re buying the channel from sees your lightning wallet address?
If the recipient is running a tor node (which the majority are)
So you do expect the lightning user to run their own node over tor? That’s not “just use any lightning wallet” anymore.
it is also very difficult to connect the recipient to a real world identity.
How do you onboard on to lightning without doxxing yourself?
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Also truckers that start with Bitcoin, should consider this: 3 levels of stashing https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/bitcoin-be-your-own-bank-think-like
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