>  But Pedersen Commitments and Range Proofs are pretty well established at this point. They're based on cryptography from the 80s so I'm not very worried. 

I haven't heard of that before, have to look more into it. Thanks for sharing

> There are other critical areas where Bitcoin uses cryptography for security, yet these concerns never seem to come up there. Which seems a bit convenient to me.

Can you give some examples?

RedRadish688

As for unknown inflation risk I'll give you that. Monero is technically more at risk (thats the trade off - privacy VS auditability). But Pedersen Commitments and Range Proofs are pretty well established at this point. They're based on cryptography from the 80s so I'm not very worried. Zcash was messing with some untested neo moon math at the time so that is not surprising.

There are other critical areas where Bitcoin uses cryptography for security, yet these concerns never seem to come up there. Which seems a bit convenient to me.

yo2xncv0

Monero amount privacy is actually quantum proof. It uses Pedersen Commitments which are 'perfectly hiding' in a technical sense meaning even quantum computers can't break it:
'"Perfectly" binding or hiding means that even with infinite computing power it would be impossible to break'

https://docs.grin.mw/wiki/miscellaneous/switch-commitments/#properties-of-commitment-schemes

But no, sender and receiver privacy are not quantum proof atm. FCMP++ and Seraphis are being worked on and will change this though and allow L2s as well.

I agree that ephemerality is a better property to have for privacy than permanent blockchains, but unless you're running your on LN node and only using unannounced channels exclusively (how many users realistically do this?), Lightning leaks too much data. Receiver privacy is bad and amount privacy is not guaranteed from larger routing nodes. It's also trivial for large nodes to save all transaction data going thru them and break them later.

What is worse is that most Lightning users are on custodians or using LSPs which provide no privacy.

The incentives naturally lead to centralizing transactions through these large nodes (cheaper fees and less chance for transactions to fail)

Another thing, that is not discussed often enough, when Monero is sold as an idiot proof privacy solution is the risk of post quantum deanonymization. Even monero researchers agree, that this is inevitable, it might be 5 years from now, it might be 40 years. And while it's generally accepted, that coins can switch their encryption algorithms when quantum computers become are real thing, nobody can remove what has already been written to the ledger.

So depending on your threat model, it might be necessary even with monero to act like transactions are traceable, the same way you would do with bitcoin. One could argue, that lightning can provide even more protection here, as the transactions are dispersed across different nodes.

"There are different reasons why someone would want to use Bitcoin. Circumventing government restrictions...preventing governments from stealing from you through money printing..."

AKA black markets. You're agreeing with me. That's the only value prop. If you're going to follow the rules (white market transactions require permission - includes having your money taxed and inflated by default) there is no point in using Bitcoin. It's worse to use than fiat in that case. Regulators can impose any arbitrary restrictions they want on white market Bitcoin transactions up to, and including, banning them.

"...That's why we have additional layers"

Which almost everyone uses custodially or with permission (custodial lightning and LSPs - look no further than zaps on StackerNews)

"The difference is people in the Bitcoin community are also receiving a lot of criticism for making such statements, while the monero community seems quite complacent with these solutions."

What? Show me custodial solutions being pushed by the Monero community. There isn't any.

"What do you believe about Monero?...which role do you think Monero will play?...Will it just remain a niche currency for Dark markets?"

Black markets (AKA free markets) are the only permissionless markets. Liberty has always been niche. Most people don't care and go along with surveillance and control for convenience. 

I think Bitcoin could be the currency used between nations in the future, but they won't allow the same privilege for their denizens unless it comes with high restrictions (KYC, OFAC, approved-custodians, etc ). If you don't want to go along with that you'll have to cross into black markets. And you'll need reliable anonymous and private ways of transacting for that.

"Can it handle the current throughput of bitcoin and lightning without running into issues? Just through bigger blocks?"

Over time, yes (consumer tech improvements, protocol scalability upgrades, etc). Example is bulletproofs upgrade that reduced transaction size by ~80%. Monero is even more nimble in adapting than Bitcoin to these things since the community is more open to upgrades.

If it's sudden, massive, and sustained adoption, no, not without becoming centralized. But all crypto has that problem including Bitcoin/Lightning.

If Bitcoin, in it's much greater popularity and userbase, has time to figure it out, then so does Monero.

as long as a currency is fungible and has private markets of exchange (DEX's) it can handle infinite levels scaling since all other blockchains become defacto L2's. 

no need for lightning on monero or any other jerry rigged cope

something bitcoin cannot do


> What meaningful level of adoption do you think Bitcoin will reach? If it is even adopted world wide, yet 99% of users are transacting with custodians and under permissioned white markets...those transactions are pretty meaningless for it's core value prop. Might as well use fiat in those cases because there is no difference. I don't think most people want to transact with Bitcoin or Monero in any true sense

There are different reasons why someone would want to use Bitcoin. Circumventing government restrictions and surveillance can be one of them, preventing governments from stealing from you through money printing is another one. So I don't see why not everyone on this planet can gain from using it. And yes, on-chain bitcoin together with lightning are not enough for this, but there are still enough people within bitcoin who are trying to find solutions without compromising self custody.

> but if no one can afford to make a transaction on your chain no one is going to run a node for it.

That's why we have additional layers. Big value movements happen on the first layer, smaller on the higher layers -> total adoption still going up. Also, I don't think the bitcoin community is fundamentally against an increase of blocksize (we had indirectly some increase even with segwit). The trade-offs are just taken much more carefully into account.

> I don't know if you're expecting me to defend some other persons argument?...Well Bitcoiners are literally pushing Ecash as a method to scale Bitcoin, so your camp is not very different.

The difference is people in the Bitcoin community are also receiving a lot of criticism for making such statements, while the monero community seems quite complacent with these solutions.

What do you believe about Monero? Can it handle the current throughput of bitcoin and lightning without running into issues? Just through bigger blocks? Or which role do you think Monero will play? Will it just remain a niche currency for Dark markets?

What meaningful level of adoption do you think Bitcoin will reach? If it is even adopted world wide, yet 99% of users are transacting with custodians and under permissioned white markets...those transactions are pretty meaningless for it's core value prop. Might as well use fiat in those cases because there is no difference. I don't think most people want to transact with Bitcoin or Monero in any true sense:
https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Permissionless-Principle

1. Gigablockers are just as ridiculous as microblockers. Your blocks can be 1KB small, but if no one can afford to make a transaction on your chain no one is going to run a node for it. Nodes will also centralize with adoption over time if they are too small.

2. I don't know if you're expecting me to defend some other persons argument?...Well Bitcoiners are literally pushing Ecash as a method to scale Bitcoin, so your camp is not very different.

I think we can afford to scale the blocksize conservatively...just a little 👇
![](https://m.stacker.news/35834)

bitcoin

What are your thoughts on Bitcoin losing the Darknet

Monero is definitely good from a privacy perspective, but there are still the issues that make it unrealistic for me that I can reach the adoption level of bitcoin.

First the supply is not auditable, risk of an inflation hack, has already happened with zcash.

Also I am still not convinced that it can scale. I was listening recently to an interview with someone that is highly regarded in the monero community about potential scaling solution and his two suggestions were:

1. Scaling through elastic block size: The block size discussion has been held enough time and it simply leads to centralization. Certainly, even Andreas Antonopoulos admitted recently, that you could always increase it a little as hardware improves, but looking at how much fatter transactions are in monero compared to bitcoin, I see the monero blockchain already exceeding the 8TB SSD size, if it had the current scale of bitcoin adoption. 8 TB is currently more or less the maximum you can get for consumer level SSDs.
2. It can always scale through other coins: This is just fucking ridiculous, I really don't see how someone in all seriousness can use such an argument. This is like me saying that bitcoin can scale through dogecoin and litecoin.