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Uxellodunum | 9 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag +1 
 Suppose my lack of conviction towards Monero comes from this:

"bitcoin is an awesome store of value, but it needs a 2nd layer for greater privacy and to solve the fungibility problem. lightning is maturing. cashu is also maturing. monero solves the spend issue now with privacy baked in on a protocol level. it is currency. it's meant to be spent."

Lightning may be maturing, but we're zapping sats on Nostr and recently made purchases using Lightning as well. Monero may be spendable now, and may indeed solve the scalability of microTXing now but it doesn't seem to be as widespread in terms of adoption. What resources would you suggest looking at?

I guess my question then becomes, what does monero solve that bitcoin cannot solve with layers(even if it takes a while)?
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SaberhagenTheNameless | 9 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag +9 
 Layers will always have different trade offs and use cases from L1s. None are full replacements.

Simple example:
Cashu/ecash: ✅Great privacy, ❌custodial
Liquid: ➖Modest privacy, ❌custodial
Lightning: ➖Modest privacy, ✅self-custodial
Monero: ✅Great privacy, ✅self-custodial

And in reality, the way 95% of users use Lightning, with custodians and LSPs, they have almost no privacy. Look at the zaps you're talking about and wallet downloads. All WoS, Alby, etc. All because it's sovereign UX complexity and annoyances.

While *onchain* Bitcoin adoption dwarfs Monero, that doesn't translate to Lightning. Most merchants accept on-chain Bitcoin, not necessarily Lightning, Liquid, Ecash. I think Monero adoption is comparable to Lightning and in many cases and markets it actually has more adoption.

In DNMs, there is no LN adoption (because its lesser privacy and complex sovereign UX). It's predominantly Bitcoin and Monero, with Monero specifically preferred, and rapidly rising in all markets. One of the top 3 only accepts Monero, and the other two prefer Monero.

A few interesting facts:
-Monero has the #1 trade volume on Bisq by far, Bitcoins largest DEX,  above fiat currencies or any other crypto
-Monero is the preferred and rising star of darknet market currency. The birthplace of Bitcoin.
-Samourai Wallet, one of the largest Bitcoin coinjoin projects, introduced Monero atomic swaps recently.
-Most FOSS privacy projects and businesses accept payment in Monero. Some purchases and donations largely come from Monero. (Tor, IVPN, Mullvad, SimpleLogin, AnonAddy, SimpleX, Molly, GrapheneOS, Silent Link, CoinCards, ShopInBit, etc)
-Most prominent privacy educators and content creators accept Monero donations. Some exclusively (Seth For Privacy, Gabriel Custodiet, Mental Outlaw, The Hated One, Rafael LaVerde, Naomi Brockwell, Surveillance Report, Rehrar, Sam Bent, Juraj Bednar, etc)
-Ethereum developers are developing atomic swaps with Monero
-BCH just finished a Monero atomic swap
-DarkFi is merge mining with Monero
-Tor implemented a PoW algorithm to help against DDOS based off a similar mining algorithm to Moneros