Oddbean

I would agree with you if any of the altcoins were of similar quality in terms of fundamental soundness. None are even playing the same game much less on the same field. I mean no offense but your strategy of let's see what hits and diversifying your portfolio is a long term strategy based on a flawed premise that more than one coin will emerge. But alts will all go to zero in the long term because none are truly solving a problem they aren't creating for themselves or doing it better than something else that already exists. Fundamentals matter in the long term. Maybe there will be those that limp along. Some will pump, all will dump. Plenty of scalping to be had, no doubt. But you're going up against forces stronger and more connected than you. I've been on the inside of both the crypto and traditional hedge fund worlds in a professional capacity for my entire career. I know how it works and the little guy rarely wins.

Believe it or not, but I 100% agree with what you wrote there. As I've written elsewhere, the three most valuable features of any financial system are adoption, adoption and adoption. #bitcoin has it. 99.99% of #altcoins don't, they are purely speculative in their uses. #monero (XMR) is the exception that proves the rule. Its value proposition is the ring signature - every transaction is a mixer. That's why its not listed on KYC exchanges, but is often the only currency accepted on many darknet markets. #monero's economy, other than mining, is almost entirely whores, poker and blow. This also describes #nevada, I hear :-p. But that is a real economy, and why its also why its extraordinarily stable for an #altcoin - its a medium of exchange more than a speculative asset. #bitcoin is my #1, and ~90% of my holdings. #monero is #2, and about 10%. The others, yeah #shitcoin is not an unfair descriptor, but if I find another gaining real world adoption I'll look at buying it.

Users often joke Monero is the real stable coin. Hovers around average of ~$150 for years. Maybe you already know this, but ring signatures are only 1 of 3 of Monero's privacy layers and only apply to the sender. It is the relatively weakest part because it is "just" obfuscation. The real magic is Monero's encrypted amounts and receivers (confidential transactions and stealth addresses). Completely hidden - can't be derived by looking at the blockchain. Meaning the transaction graph (sprawling connections of senders and receivers) doesn't even exist on Monero, unlike 99.9% of cryptos.

Not completely true, but you're right in a sense. Double edged sword though. That same thing is what makes it actually private and fungible vs something like Bitcoin. If this worries you don't save with it. Use it like cash. https://sethforprivacy.com/posts/dispelling-monero-fud/#you-cant-audit-the-monero-supply

There are better ways to have both privacy and a simple way to audit the supply like Bitcoin. My idea of a privacy coin would work something like this: 1. Have a network of relay nodes constantly running symmetric data streams for uniformity, randomly routing data through the network in broken-up chunks 2. Have every minimum unit of the currency (every "Satoshi" equivalent) be its own keypair. When a user signs a transaction, it tells the network to generate new keypairs for each one in the transaction and give the recipient the new private keys 3. The public can see the pubkeys for every unit of the currency, but can't see which ones were and weren't transacted together in each block, because of each node in the network transmitting data in separate split-up chunks along random paths

Again tho, I love Monero because the feds might not nostr:nevent1qqs879pmct3s23m2frlg2w6jwlrj9syrp5uyqy38jmyfwmdf3ahcfjcprpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezucn0denkymmwvuhxxmmdqgsvcs0qqy6epuus8r586uksfqufkq38g8uentshnyxry372nf8hpzcrqsqqqqqpvdf3xs

Would this really get around that problem or it it just "shifting" it over? Is there any crypto already existing that does something similar? Split up in chunks part kind of sounds like sharding. Trying to fully understand what you're describing, but sounds like a cool idea

It should fix the supply auditing problem, automated tools should be able to track the supply and transaction volume and stuff like with other cryptocurrencies, just not have "wallet addresses" to associate transactions and amounts with Your wallet becomes a manager for a million little tiny wallets (if you have a million Satoshi equivalents) However the aspect you say is like "sharding" may not be enough for privacy on its own. I'm thinking of it as basically something like Tor, but with each node always connecting to 2 others to transmit random data to each other at a constant bitrate for uniformity. This would solve issues Tor has with eavesdroppers being able to track traffic, but still would have Tor's issue of there being potential for anonymity to be compromised by malicious relay nodes. I'm sure another layer of anonymity could and should be added to my design. I think Monero has something to offer there, conceptually. Pushing anonymity tech forward takes a lot of math, need more brain power than mine.

You must not be paying attention to say no other #crypto other than #Bitcoin is solving a problem. I agree that 99% of crypto are worthless copycats launched by founders looking to get rich quick but there are a dozen of solid projects that have brought real innovations. That said, it’s true that from an investment perspective most crypto have been seriously underperforming #BTC because of their premine. If you look at the last bull market, some crypto like #Ethereum and #Monero have performed similarly than Bitcoin and have not retraced to 0. Bitcoin still remains the safest buy and hold investment in the space but others will do well too.

Ethereum, Monero, Avalanche, eCash, Radix, Akash, ThorChain, Mina, Idena, Rai etc. All these are legit projects aiming to address problems that Bitcoin doesn’t address or at least not well enough.

I don't see what (real) problems any of them actually solve? Most of those are L1 blockchains and their only innovation is more tps but with plenty of other downsides like centralization. None of which are being used except to create more L2 shitcons. Development of L2 solutions like lightning completely negate any benefits of those tokens. Ethereum has smart contracts but that's only opened the door to more scamcoins. Bitcoin can be programmed in a similar fashion with the onset of covenants. But do we really need it? Is it solving a real world problem or just coming up with an unnecessary albiet novel use case? Ecash is a precursor implementation of bitcoin as I understand it. But it utilizes a mint which I struggle with. Seems like an inferior bitcoin to me. Montero has privacy so I give you that.

Off the list I provided, only #Ethereum is expanding via L2. I named Ethereum because it’s the first blockchain that brought smart contracts enabling #Defi. Like it or not, you can’t say it’s not an innovation. Other blockchains have features/use cases not covered by #Bitcoin or are looking to scale DeFi or payments on L1. It’s funny you mention #Lightning as a major vulnerability just got uncovered. Also, Lightning is just not Bitcoin. You’re looking at the wrong #eCash. Here is the one I’m referring to https://e.cash/ . It’s actually a fork of #BitcoinCash and développer by the founding #BCH team. They aim to scale P2P payment on-chain with sub-second finality. They already implemented 1-block finality. I haven’t said that any of these blockchains don’t have trade-off against Bitcoin. You asked for #blockhain that innovates and that’s what I provided.

Thanks for the pointers. Here's a few more projects that try to solve real problems that Bitcoin doesn't try to solve: Handshake - censorship resistant DNS Arweave - permanent web storage (aims for at least 200 years) Chia - novel, low cost consensus mechanism Filecoin - low cost, decentralized storage Zcash - privacy Chainlink - Oracle services Nym - incentivized mixnet Kleros - decentralized dispute resolution Tari - private NFT's

It's like saying there will only be one tool that you will ever need, a screwdriver, so we don't need hammers anymore. You said it yourself, they are playing different games. Different specialties and trade-offs. Even Bitcoin has things it is bad at. If you need strong default privacy, real world fungibility, and very cheap tx fees (all without giving up custody, permissionlessness, or final settlement) - a better p2p digital *cash* - then Monero is the best tool for that job. You don't invest or save in cash - you use it as a MoE. If get rich quick schemes are ones #1 priority above all else...well it is no wonder to me they don't see value in anything else.

If privacy matters monero has a use case but if you're following good practices, the psudoanominity of bitcoin+lightning is enough for most use cases. Not all, so I'll give you that one. I don't claim bitcoin to solve everything. It does what it says it does and it does it well. Most other tokens don't. But in terms of an investment or store of value, monero won't be the one.

Historically, Bitcoin has done much better than Monero price-wise, so it's an understandable position. There are many who "save in bitcoin, spend in monero" One can control supply and argue bitcoin has properties more conducive to a SoV, but ultimately bitcoin/monero can't control the other side of the equation - the fickle winds of demand. There are many issues with the "privacy" of bitcoin (opt-in, relatively expensive, tedious, slow, easy to make mistakes, nothing is hidden, degrades over time) and even lightning, but I think we mostly agree