Oddbean new post about login | logout Bitcoin is good for anarchy. In an anarchist system, economic transparency would prevent people from doing shameful things. XMR would encourage terrible things.
I agree with the first line but not the rest. I'm a privacy maximalist.
In the absence of law, is there any good reason for transactions to be private?
Anarchy is no ruler. Doesn't mean no rules. Private property and the respect is a rule. Bad people will always exist. Also how else would I hide what the gift for my (future) gf is if not for Monero?
She could just not stalk your transactions. Monero enables the trade of sex slaves. Public transactions helps prove private property right. If everyone knows you have 5 bitcoin for a house, then it cannot be disputed. With no ledger, you could pay 5,000,000 Monero or whatever for a house, and the seller could simply say you didn’t, and there would be no grounds for dispute.
I actually think Monero has a ViewKey for transactions that could be used for such scenarios. Bitcoin already has bad actors. I think this is a pretty low bar of argument.
They're called viewkeys. Monero is optionally transparent. That's how you would prove you sent the payment.
Btw seeing 5 Bitcoin move from one address to another proves nothing by itself. There's nothing on the blockchain that says "this proves it was for a house" or "this address belongs to the person selling me the house". Seller could simply say you didn't either: "Sorry, you mustve sent it to someone elses address by mistake. Tough luck."
You just contradicted yourself saying transparency opens you to attack. How does an unrelated third party know who a wallet belongs to?
No I didn't. If you merely did what I said above you could easily be scammed. I would assume both parties are identifying themselves if they're making a transaction that large and getting contracts/lawyers/notaries (third parties) to confirm addresses to identities, but all that occurs off the blockchain. Transparency does open you to attack. The difference is Monero is optionally transparent, only if you want it to be, and only for a specific transaction. Can't do much with just that. They still don't see your balances or who else you've transacted with. Bitcoin is always transparent and you're tying your identity to your history and future transactions that have nothing to do with those counterparties and third parties you're involving.
In the absence of law, is there any good reason to have curtains over your windows? Maybe I don't want my wife knowing about a surprise gift I bought her. Or my grandmother knowing I bought drugs. Privacy and law have little to do with one another.
law should protect privacy
In the absence of law, why would exchanges do KYC? Is your grandmother staring at the ledger all day? Obviously a public ledger is very different from a glass house. And why wouldn’t you want your grandmother to know you bought drugs? Because it is shameful. This is exactly my point. A public ledger could discourage shameful activity. Even if you don’t want someone to know something, if they are doing chain analysis and stalking your transactions, you could use LN and basically completely prevent them from know what you bought. The major benefit of a public ledger is that it can be audited. A public ledger would prevent shady deals between business and government. Monero would only make those deals easier. Privacy has a place but so does transparency.
I don't want some system preventing me from doing shameful things if I want to do them and keep them private. That sounds like a nanny structure that I would absolutely opt out of for certain activities.
It is not a system or structure. It is similar to how money used to work. You had to physically go somewhere to spend money, this discouraged certain activities as people might see you going to those places. But now that everything is digital, there is no similar form of accountability. And again, you can opt out by using lightning network. Having absolute obscurity all the time makes auditing impossible. Monero transactions cannot be audited, Monero is specifically designed to enable transactions that you would not do in a public space. Bitcoin neuters corruption, while Monero enables it.
"if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide." privacy isn't about hiding deceit or "shameful things." it's about having space without judgment and the ability to decide what others know about you. you DO want the ability to make decisions for yourself without considering how others would view your actions. that doesn't make you a bad person. but insisting that others need to do things exactly as you think they should, with the tools and methods you prefer, does make you a bad person. and a bad anarchist.
If I can deduce you have a lot of BTC, I would have reason to try to get them. Especially in absence of law.
How exactly would you accomplish that?
How to get shot 101
The bigger guns win. Why even invite that when you can completely avoid it unless necessary?
The reason is your own security and the security of your family. Don't be stupid and think you opt out with a transparent blockchain where everyone can see everything.
How does people knowing the transactions you make compromise your security? You act like there is no way to trade BTC privately.
Are you kidding? Here is how https://github.com/jlopp/physical-bitcoin-attacks/blob/master/README.md
Well how would anyone know my wallet belongs to me?
If you were able to monitor texts of some random phone number, you might not know their identities at this moment, but given enough time you would have enough info to figure it out. Who else they text, what time they text, the actual content of their texts, etc Public transactions is an attack vector. Everyone you transact with can at least see partial balances, see where it came from, and follow it going forward. Even if you coinjoin every single transaction you have to forever maintain it. One future consolidation mistake undoes everything. Even bitcoin privacy wizard make mistakes. 99% of people aren't going to coinjoin let alone every transaction.
In an anarchist system, economic transparency would prevent people from doing shameful things. Exactly is this why got invented, lightning will enable what Monero does or enuts. And if someone feels the need to be attracted by your amount of money in a bad way I mean :old_gun: prepare to defend yourself. nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzp30pwducmtffm54cqc4cxyyhftks5uhrv30eukxjz2dud273tk9lqqs24z8a09v6zhe2kwycl0puszuefk62dypx76ctjduveqtaxcqlhzcaw6td0
Without financial privacy there is no freedom. They have Bitcoin now exactly where they want to have it, they want to know everything about your transactions, they spend millions for chainanalysis and co. Bitcoin is now in a very very dangerous state for opt out ppl. But thanks not the end, it will get worse.
Why is financial privacy good?
How stupid can a statement be? Such statements are dangerous for all noobs nostr:nevent1qqs24z8a09v6zhe2kwycl0puszuefk62dypx76ctjduveqtaxcqlhzcpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgtczyrz7zume3kkjnhftsp3tsvgfwjhdpfewxezlnevdyy5mc64azhvt7qcyqqqqqqg5et9kg
It's just a tool. All tools can be used for bad things just like Bitcoin. Comes with the territory if you want to have a permissionless neutral money. The only other option is a permissioned CBDC surveillance panopticon