They are vague about the details.

Most likely got them as they left Monero (offramping onto an exchange or naively swapping in and out of transparent crypto) like all these articles claiming to have "traced" Monero.

Makes for good clickbait though

Did you watch the video?

First part has the Chainalysis agent in awe of how private Monero is. The rest of the video is him being very unconfident and admitting it was mostly guess work and probability.

Required the victim to use a malicious node controlled by Chainalysis and not using a VPN or TOR to hide their IP. Basically a network level attack. And in the end nothing was conclusive.

He still couldn't see how much Monero was being sent or who this person was sending to. If anything this highlighted the strong privacy Monero provides.

FCMP upgrade that is in the works will render even this edge case attack ineffective (assuming you are using your own node or TOR/VPN) since it gets rid of ring signatures and makes the sender a potential member of the entire chain instead of "only" having 15 decoys

I agree with you that it is wrong, unethical, and illogical. I'm just describing the facts of the current situation and likely worsening future.

I also like to use crypto for everyday payments. But it's more for ideological reasons like yourself. Spending Bitcoin on white markets for everyday transactions is such a tiny segment of people. Only the real believers will do that. It makes no sense for normal people to do it for multiple reasons (digital fiat is cheaper, faster, convenient, follows the rules of white markets, and widely accepted)

Bitcoin can only compete with government money if you are making the transactions they don't want you to (black market AKA free markets). If you are making transactions only under their rules on their markets they control, of course they are going to play unfairly and make it onerous to use there...they also use legal ambiguity to make businesses fearful

Addressing your Monero comment: That's true they don't care about privacy. But vast majority of people don't care about sovereignty, being free and responsibility that comes with it either. So I'm not concerned with them. Bitcoin and Monero will only ever appeal to a small group of freedom loving individuals (custodians and permissioned use doesnt count i.e. exchanges. I'm talking about really using it). And that's fine. It's a power we didn't have before.

Most don't understand the root of inflation either. It's obvious to us because we are immersed in this stuff and in a bubble. Ask the average Joe on the street and he either doesn't know or doesn't care about that stuff.

Agree that the EU can pound sand. I'm just saying when they get their way, the only escape is non-compliance via black markets (The true free markets). We see this all thru history when government clamps down.

Either way governments are not going down without a fight. Fiat dominance is an existential crisis for them and they'll do every dirty and violent thing they can to maintain it.

Saving with Bitcoin or any crypto on the white market doesn't protect your "investment" or "savings" (or only fleetingly so). Your savings are already being leeched from if you ever spend/trade it on the white market. Governments will continue increasing taxes to offset any savings (i.e. realized and unrealized capital gains taxes) or make any arbitrary rules they want. We already see them starting to do this.

At some point white market Bitcoin savings and transactions will be as manipulated as any other fiat/stock/financial instrument. They can even make it illegal to use "self-hosted" wallets (like legislation being proposed in Europe) and require you to leave your Bitcoin with "certified custodians" where they can print IOUs freely and rug you.

If you refuse any of this you are now in black market territory again.

Using white markets means you are relying on politics to secure your wealth yet again (defeats the entire advantage of Bitcoin). If you wanted to follow the rules, digital fiat money is already superior to Bitcoin at that.

Maybe not at this moment, but we're talking about the future. I expect both Bitcoin and Monero to grow over time and other layers to emerge. Obviously they wouldn't do half a billion at once, but broken up and over time, and smaller amounts for covert operations. The same way 3 letter agencies use Tor.

That wasn't an argument on the viability of anarchy. It was just a fact about Bitcoin. If its security and success is at the mercy of regulations then it failed it's entire value prop. We already have money backed by politics; it's called fiat

There is no advantage to making a Bitcoin transaction that follows the rules and is "regulatory friendly" and "compliant". Why not just use digital fiat for those transactions? It's the most rule following thing to use. Cheaper, faster, and has a much larger network effect than Bitcoin too. Bitcoin is black market money at it's core. All white market transactions are permissioned by definition.

I find this argument schizophrenic...

If these systems are permissionless...What stops governments from just using Coinjoins/lightning for privacy like you do? Or even swap to Monero or whatever privacy coin for when they want a transaction to be private? They can just hide behind a veil of "national security", "top secret", or "classified" like they already do.

If you're relying on politics and regulations for Bitcoin to succeed...you still don't understand Bitcoin. It's entire architecture is designed to operate without permission from any authority.

Did you even read it?

"If you're swapping Bitcoin for Monero frequently, it could leak some information" Well, duh, Bitcoin is the weak link there for privacy. You get information leaks because of Bitcoins transparency, not because of Monero. "However, it's unlikely that Monero itself has been compromised" Dude you didn't even read your own article. You're linking stuff that helps my case not yours 😂

If Finland claims to have broken Bitcoins public private key pairs should we just immediately believe them with no evidence? Or could they be misleading/exaggerating/misspeaking or just flat-out lying as shown above in your own article? Since when do Bitcoiners just take the state at it's word anyway?

Again, you don't understand how Pedersen Commitments work. This is already established cryptography. That link I sent you explains very succinctly why this particular commitment scheme is quantum proof for it's hiding property, even against INFINITE computing power, but I'm assuming you didn't read that either.

...To be fair I couldn't believe it either for a long time until confirming it with more research and asking other cryptographers

Big claim but nothing to back it. Show us what makes you think that. And, like I said before, if it is true that they have a quantum computer that can break Moneros encryption, then it also means they can break your Bitcoin private keys and steal your Bitcoin.

You should learn how Pedersen Commitments work and realize that I'm specifically talking about the hiding property being quantum proof for amount value and receiver address(with the caveat from my previous comment). FCMP upgrade will include sender into this:

""Perfectly" binding or hiding means that even with infinite computing power it would be impossible to break the property"

Lmao your explanation is also an argument for Moneros encryption too

Matter of fact Moneros amount privacy is quantum computer proof because pedersen commitments are "perfectly hiding". Same thing for receiver privacy if an adversary can only observe the chain and doesn't have access to the original address.

That's exactly what people mean when they say "Darknet Markets". That's the common understanding.

Sure they can use it your way if they want to confuse whoever they're talking to, but colloquially no one ever refers to DEXs over tor as Darknet Markets...

If they can break Moneros amount and address encryption they can do the same thing to your Bitcoin private keys...

Bisq, Haveno, BasicSwapDEX, UnstoppableSwap (all used or can be used through tor)

LocalMonero/AgoraDesk (really popular p2p exchange that had a tor site and recently closed down presumably because the uncertain legal climate around Samourai crackdown)

Monero is delisted from almost every major centralized exchange. The most recent one was Binance earlier this year (largest exchange on the planet by far). Theres only a handful left like Kraken and only in the USA if i remember right.

No I'm sure it's not all p2p, but willing to bet it's disproportionately p2p vs Bitcoin and other crypto because of the above

It's not my problem what other people associate it with. I could care less. It's as stupid as associating cash with "a way to buy drugs"

That's just the common understanding of DNMs. I'm not the one who made it that way. Even if we take up your broader definition of DNMs, which I'm not necessarily opposed to because it makes sense, lightning STILL remains largely unused there. Again, don't see how it helps your case but go for it.

The reason why "criminals" using it is important is if it protects those users, the ones working under extremely adversarial markets, then it shows it will protect any average user in practice. Not just in theory, which is all lightning has been so far. It hasn't been stress-tested in those conditions yet. Those markets have completely rejected it. You can speculate why that is, but that is just a fact. Maybe it will change with BOLT12 we'll see.

Yea, BBC and ProPublica have sites on the darknet. How does that make them a DNM? Your point?

"So I recommend not spreading the "crime only" definition. It is harmful to privacy because it scares away legitimate users. There's nothing wrong with DNMs" And theres nothing wrong with making voluntary transactions either. You can use Monero for whatever you want just like cash. Drugs or boring groceries. That's what makes it digital cash.

You're not bursting any narrative. You're just being pedantic and stretching the common understanding of a darknet market. Robosats is a fiat crypto exchange over tor.

Robosats is also very very low daily volume even among other low volume DEXs, so I don't see how it helps your point, that's why you had to make a cumulative chart to make it seem larger than it is.

All major darknet markets accept and recommend Monero. Some major ones, like Archetype, are even exclusively Monero-only. You dont have to take my word for it you can easily go see for yourself. A few even accept LTC. But you won't find a single one that accepts lightning. It's not a thing.

Something is only considered a problem in relation to a goal. I think this is important to stress because if it has a different goal then of course everything it does will look like a problem.

From the Bitcoin perspective a few problems with Monero are: -No fixed supply -Opaque supply -No fixed blocksize -ASIC resistance

From the Monero perspective these same things are: +Future mining security +Privacy, fungibility, and targeted mining censorship resistance +Low transaction fees, more throughput +Decentralized, accessible, and discrete mining

Yea they were wrong even at the time of typing that. The top 5 darknet markets all accept Monero. A couple of those even exclusively accept Monero only.

In most real world payments you're operating on the white market, making permissioned transactions, so why use Bitcoin at all? Fiat is better in that case if you're asking permission anyway.

The only real use case Bitcoin has is on darknet markets, a subset of black markets, and that is getting taken over by Monero

#1 You would have to coinjoin every single transaction which no one does (especially after recent events). That would get expensive fast in time and money. #2 Is a stretch. Payjoins are obfuscation. They don't hide/encrypt amounts. #3 Is weaker on a transparent chain. Counterparties can easily figure out which address they sent to and watch where it goes going forward. Even third parties can most likely figure it out given any two combinations of amount, time, and sender address.

Last part reminds me of this meme