566 sats \ 6 replies \ @siggy47 8 Aug 2023 \ on: Monero is not what I thought. I've changed my mind bitcoin
I heard a very clear explanation of why monero's base chain privacy is its biggest problem by Tuur Demeester on Marty Bent's TFTC podcast. Check it out:https://fountain.fm/episode/EP5FUbCTYPr2e7FGBF8F Bitcoin’s chain is verifiable. Monero's is not. An inflation bug, for instance, can go undetected In monero, and it's possible that's already happened.
An inflation bug, for instance, can go undetected In monero, and it's possible that's already happened.
It's more than possible; it's very likely. Imagine spending a month of full-time work to find an inflation bug, but the bounty is not worth it. You'd be tempted to quietly inflate the supply of Monero in order to compensate yourself for the time you spent working. And then you'd disclose the bug to prevent someone else from finding it and making Monero worthless, which would prevent you from exploiting future inflation bugs. So there is a very clear risk/reward ratio for finding and subtly exploiting inflation bugs in Monero.
What's more, Monero developers, notably FluffyPony, say that you shouldn't hold XMR -- that you should only hold it long enough to buy something. This is the opposite of what most other cryptocurrency developers say, which is to buy and hold. I have to wonder if some of the Monero developers are subtly trying to keep people from getting wrecked in the event that some random person finds an inflation bug and dumps on all the exchanges.
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A lot of useful info in the sidebar: https://www.moneroinflation.com/ "We are 9y 114d 11h 20m 29s without an inflation bug" (i.e. since the launch of Monero in 2014) and here: https://sethforprivacy.com/posts/dispelling-monero-fud/#you-cant-audit-the-monero-supply
Block rewards are transparent and can be seen in any block explorer such as https://xmrchain.net
Nodes verify the supply via cryptographic range-proofs, meaning that it can be mathematically proven for every transaction that inputs - outputs = 0, without publicly revealing the exact amounts (only the sender and recipient can decrypt the encrypted amounts).
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exactly, the range proofs and the key frames verification makes a good cryptographic combination for verifications and legitimacy of transactions.
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exactly!
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Sure, verifiability is a whole other argument, but what does that have do with the topic at hand: privacy?
There was a hidden inflation bug in Bitcoin only one anonymous user knew. They couldve easily exploited it, but very luckily they were an honest actor who secretly let the devs know (who couldve also decided to exploit it).
An exploited inflation bug would be catastrophic once it happened to either Bitcoin or Monero. Attackers have the advantage. There is no good solution to fix an exploited inflation bug without hurting honest users on either Bitcoin or Monero.
If they had exploited it, or it happens again in the future, how would detectable inflation help after the fact? It wouldnt.