Thanks for engaging

You say that but what most normal people, no coiners ask about any crypto currency is "what can I buy with it?". This is my point. No "crypto" has reached this goal. I know you can buy some things with monero. You can use it peer to peer. Granted, it doesn't have to be dominate but it does need to reach scale to have true utility.

This is why many economists do not consider bitcoin money. It is not a widely accepted medium of exchange. Hasn't been adopted widely yet. Both are very limited in adoption. It is a hard sell today to get businesses to adopt bitcoin. Monero is an even harder sell. You can see that right?

If bitcoin can't achieve wide adoption it will die. Same goes for monero. Then privacy does not matter. For what its worth I don't think there will only be one crypto. There will always be many but one will "win". Monero might survive but I don't see it ever becoming dominate or even achieving wide adoption. Not unless we see a radical change in the values of societies toward privacy. Seems unlikely in my lifetime at least.

My circle is mostly no-coiners and people that do not care about privacy. Many in privacy and monero communities seem to be talking in echo chambers much like bitcoiners do (to be fair). When you talk to the average Joe you get a reality check.

You make some valid points but the main issue is that in order to be a valod medium of exchange it needs to be widely accepted. Bitcoin is the closest to achieving this but is a loong way from it still. Due to monero's goals I doubt it will ever achieve this. I wish I was wrong. Time will tell. Almost all 'alt-coins' are some sort of scam. This is why calling them alts is also not good. They aren't. Monero at least seems to have a valid use case. I just don't think it will win in the long run. But I am not here to convince anyone. I wanted to hear arguments against monero. I know why it exists. At least I think I do.

That's true

In the end we will see which chain wins. Privacy is important regardless. It is hard to have privacy without wealth and hard to have wealth without privacy.

Ah, I get you now.

Here's a question I have for monero people.

Any shitcoin must answer the same objections that bitcoin faces. To me this is forgotten when we start debating the merits of other projects. "Privacy coins" are one of the few shitcoin categories where bitcoin will say... you have a point. We've thought of that. That needs a solution. Or, we have a solution. It just needs adoption.

I agree with you. This is what free markets achieve. I do think most monero bros underestimate how much bitcoiners value privacy. Bitcoiners seem more pragmatic and less narrowly focused on privacy. We need sovereignty, sound money, and privacy. The first two IMO are much harder than privacy.

That's interesting.

The point isn't philosophical here. The point they were making was you are already compromised.

A better argument would be that you can interact with a company like Amazon if they accepted Monero by using a PO box service and using an alias. Its not really about a "right" to privacy. That stands regardless of money features.

I don't get what you mean here? Bitcoin's difficulty adjustment algo means if large mining ops stop mining, because bitcoin fails then CPU mining may again be viable. Its not one or the other. Maybe I misunderstand you.

Its a double edged sword. The inability to have a sanction list just means the whole blockchain is sanctioned at some point. Pretty much is now.

Done

Monero folks seem to focus on tax avoidance I think. If that is the goal you are correct. You can't un-kyc bitcoin in that way. Here's the real problem I think super is getting at. Linking your transaction history with a party you have a transaction with. Unlinking yourself and maintaining more privacy in the bitcoin eco system / blockchain. Correct me if I am wrong there.

I think one of the best arguments a monero person has is that even without KYC if someone has poor bitcoin Opsec they are exposing info to someone they transact. Thing is, this all comes down to better wallets that use best practices and make it hard to have bad Opsec.

I think the big issue I have with monero is getting the cart ahead of the horse with privacy.

I think you are right about the response. The follow up to it is... yeah. Where am I gonna use this monero. We get back to network effect which is the same thing you get from no-coiners. Where do I spend my bitcoin. So we get back to adoption and NGU which like it or not is gonna be what gets people into the network. I always come back to game theory when I think about "privacy coins". I went through a phase of thinking they had a real place. The more I think about it at best their place is temporary and very narrow. As bitcoin grows in adoption they get weaker. Network effects are real. These problems of privacy are not only solvable but most future bitcoiners do not CARE about privacy.

That would be beautiful

100% there are exceptions but they are like bitcoin bros that are good at repeating talking points but have no depth. They are just good at memes.

Well said @SpaceHodler. This is the experience I have had. Their scope is to narrow.

With the ASIC resistance though... I do not have the technical knowledge to say for sure but something tells me that what they are doing can be routed around. I very well could be wrong but it sounds like something that could be figured out to me. I'm guessing the only reason it hasn't is due to a very low desire to do so. Which is the real issue for me with Monero. The network seems to small and no way it ever even comes close to bitcoin... so what's the point.

Thanks @supertestnet

Interesting. Been wondering if anyone would make use of YubiKey in the bitcoin space

The common thread I get from Monero bros that complain about bitcoin is that they undervalue bitcoin's replacing fiat by creating a massive network that is trustless and transparent enough to give people confidence in the supply as well as no tricks.

Its not surprising because most of the world is economically illiterate as well as pro government. Bitcoin's privacy problems are low hanging fruit when you do not consider the bigger benefits and larger goals. Privacy is possible and as the adoption grows will become easier.

One question we should always ask about anything that hopes to gain world wide adoption is what would that look like. I don't hear that from Monero people. Maybe its just because I haven't listened to their best and brightest. Most I run into online are very difficult to communicate with. Worse that your average bitcoiner which is pretty bad.