Oddbean

I think you missed the point of the conversation. Bitcoin is the absolute best way to truly own property and protect against the devaluation of currencies. But the cypherpunk dream of private money is gone. There are no more and will never be more Silk Roads. Bitcoin has no privacy on the base chain, the opposite in fact, it’s a public ledger. Now that bitcoin is no longer in its infancy governments and agencies track every wallet and transaction and control the on and off ramps. If you own bitcoin and believe that it will continue to grow in value then you better be prepared for that future. Keep every record and receipt because they will come for you eventually and they will get their cut so be ready. A non KYC stash will be radioactive. You might be ok with a small amount but a lot and you might as well be a drug cartel stuck with millions that you have to do something with. Avoid that. Keep records. Pay your taxes. If you want privacy then use something that is private like monero.

Okay, but if you’re using Monero, you’re still either using fiat on-ramps (just like Bitcoin) or you’re doing P2P. If you keep your Monero or Bitcoin segregated P2P, it’s essentially the same. Big brother is still tracking almost all you do, where you go etc. unless you are *highly* sophisticated. If you’re that sophisticated, you can learn to Coinjoin, use lighting etc. Average people don’t sleep good at night being criminals no matter what coin they’re using. Monero is a false sense of security. They’ll come for the Monero people too and catch most of them. Our best bet is to hold something that can keep us out of the poorhouse while the dollar denominated fiat ship goes down. If it gets bad, who cares if crap is KYC’d? Or maybe governments adopt the best money out there and we immigrate to places that value our economic value and allow us some freedoms. We can dream of the perfectly sound lightsaber currency but that doesn’t exist. I’m just tired of this shilling of an inferior technology, confusing new people and scaring them away from Bitcoin because it’s not perfect.