Leaked Chainalysis Monero Tracing

There's a video that's being so weakly censored that it might be on purpose, of an internal meeting of Chainalysis presenting to law enforcement of how they trace Monero.

I'm NOT going to link to the video because it's got some IP addresses of the malicious nodes that Chainalysis runs, which will bring unwanted pressure on our clearweb Linux tech support website.  The goal of our organization is NOT to get you to run a darknet market, it's to get fundamental privacy rights with technology.

But I must say this, the way Chainalysis was effective in catching darknet market guys, was when they swapped Monero to Bitcoin.  And so the people who push for Bitcoin only, are really pushing for a world where you need a ph.D in computer science to be private.

Now you're saying "oh but I'm not running a darknet market, so why do I need that level of privacy?"  But if Bitcoin goes to the moon like you say it will, there will be tax implications of this.  Everytime you buy a coffee, there's capital gains tax up or down.  This will crush the use of it in the real world as money, unless it's private enough that it can't be enforced.

If Bitcoin becomes as popular as you say it will, there will be a violent response from the state to crush it.  And so I'm telling you if you don't care about privacy for people with low technical skills, then Bitcoin is really just an ETF.


People that want to evade taxes should use cash

Also, no one is paying for coffee with on chain bitcoin txns (strawman fud). People will most likely use ecash which has plenty of privacy


Are you saying monero is private and its bitcoin exchanges that make monero weak? So people should use and stay in monero?


I don’t like taxes but I’ll pay them, the goal is to store value, not avoid taxes. There is definitely risk from state suppression of self custody, which only works with KYC. More plebs should acquire nonKYC BTC to hedge against this and eventually spend p2p. KYC from exchanges sucks, it’s too bad that’s currently the model that everyone complies with.


If the goal is just to store value, there already is a gold ETF.  And if there's no privacy, if fiat's value collapses, one has to pay the absurd tax on the hyperinflation.  How's that preserve value if you're bleeding out capital gains from them printing?  Ironic a guy named “god” is saying he wants to obey because he’s powerless

Wouldn't you agree that having more privacy would increase the comfort of people to use cryptocurrency for real world cash over speculation when it's bought in their name?


In this case, they were ruling out Monero spend outputs as not the real decoys.  However, this Monero only information doesn’t have any value, until it exits Monero into something tangible.  This happened to the darknet market guy they traced when he switched to Bitcoin, and the swap website had these poison outputs.

Bitcoin is ok.  I'm just saying the "Bitcoin only" hazing narrative


You’re correct cash is popular.  However, cash has local theft risk and can’t be used online.

Ecash is custodial is it not?  That’s the opposite of privacy, a third party can see all.

Coffees could be private with bitcoin lightning layer 2, but how many people are going to fork over $500+ to setup a self-custody node?  That's my point


I used to buy coffee with on-chain transactions all the time up until 2017 when I left cryptocurrency entirely for five years because of the transaction fees.


I was thinking about buying monero by swapping it for BTC.
So what is the best way to get monero?


Kycnot.me.  It lists a few exchanges that swap lightning for XMR. Thats the way to go in my opinion.


TradeOrge is on cloudflare but cheap.  There's a few swap sites:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/swaps/index.html

However keep in mind that buying KYC bitcoin and swapping for XMR is riskier than buying KYC XMR, because you could be on the hook for crimes done with that bitcoin after you no longer control it


Depends what country you're in and what you mean by "best" (cheap/quick? most trustless?), but here are a few more options

With fiat: Bisq, Haveno-reto, Robosats

With crypto: Trocador, BasicswapDEX, UnstoppableSwap

Also:
note19ylte2km8c3lz94l422hfssj25a75nw7kwu0kf55svd4tpr9ekvqrn36c5


I smell cope.

Its imagination that monero will overtake bitcoin as the dominant money on privacy alone. Plebs can get caught using monero too if they aren't careful with how they acquire/spend it. You didn't provide more details and chainalysis is a black box


First off, it's not just privacy but also issues with custody on lightning.  Most people aren't willing to spend the time or money (or can't afford) to self-custody lightning.  We documented the issues with custodial bitcoin in an earlier post with Hayek.  And how it mirrors problems with the fractional reserve banking system.

Second, regarding this situation, they were able to rule out Monero outputs by running malicious nodes, but those outputs had no meaning if it stayed within Monero itself.  As soon as someone swapped it for Bitcoin at a business that can be given a supenea, then it is a lead, and in this case, got a vendor doing XMR->Bitcoin in colombia.

If they are running that many monero nodes, they are running that many lightning nodes, and custody is a huge issue then


Correction, this dude wants privacy to make it functional as real world money, when the tax reporting requirements would crush the average person’s interest in getting all of this data, and reduce arbitrary enforcement


Custodial LN is like leaving your bitcoin on an exchange. If someone is selling on darknet markets AND using custodial LN then they kinda have a death wish.

Onchain fees are 2-3 sats/vb at the moment. Anyone can open a self custodial channel and turn on MPP so that small denominations are getting routed around.

I think it would be naive to think they didn't have LN nodes up and running, but like I said,  they're a black box. They make sh$t up like with the bitcoin fog guy and get away with it. Who knows what they really can or can't derive from the LN network.


Yes on-chain btc fees are crazy low now, which I assume is due to low use.  If true, that is not a good argument for scaling.

And no, I am NOT saying darknet market evasion is the reason for privacy.  I'm saying if users have to actually calculate the capital gains/loss on every little purchase, they will avoid using Bitcoin for cash to not have to do that.  The only way to make them feel that they do not have to, is if it's private against advanced adversaries.

All the deep state has to do is to make an example of ONE REGULAR person for SMALL amounts, and the entire bitcoin lightning as cash concept will be killed.  They can promote that person in the media all day.


It's like tor .oninons vs exit nodes.


Leaked Chainalysis Monero Tracing

There's a video that's being so weakly censored that it might be on purpose, of an internal meeting of Chainalysis presenting to law enforcement of how they trace Monero.

I'm NOT going to link to the video because it's got some IP addresses of the malicious nodes that Chainalysis runs, which will bring unwanted pressure on our clearweb Linux tech support website.  The goal of our organization is NOT to get you to run a darknet market, it's to get fundamental privacy rights with technology.

But I must say this, the way Chainalysis was effective in catching darknet market guys, was when they swapped Monero to Bitcoin.  And so the people who push for Bitcoin only, are really pushing for a world where you need a ph.D in computer science to be private.

Now you're saying "oh but I'm not running a darknet market, so why do I need that level of privacy?"  But if Bitcoin goes to the moon like you say it will, there will be tax implications of this.  Everytime you buy a coffee, there's capital gains tax up or down.  This will crush the use of it in the real world as money, unless it's private enough that it can't be enforced.

If Bitcoin becomes as popular as you say it will, there will be a violent response from the state to crush it.  And so I'm telling you if you don't care about privacy for people with low technical skills, then Bitcoin is really just an ETF.


Both risky in their own regards.


>Onchain fees are 2-3 sats/vb at the moment

why do people keep making this dumb "but it's not raining today" argument? we've both seen the fee charts many many times. $50 UTXOs have become unspendable more often than solana downtime. if maxis get the adoption they feel entitled to, $50 UTXOs will become unspendable all the time. everyone will be forced into a custodial lightning wallet unless they are wealthy enough to be the custodian.


So buying bitcoin and swapping it to monero is the only way to get monero (outside of physically exchanging cash)?


That example isn't unique to bitcoin alone. It applies to all KYC'd "crypto" including monero.

I mean, thats one of the reasons bitcoiners have this HODL culture. In most countries there IS a capital gains tax from spending bitcoin. So why would one spend it when they could spend their worse money first.

There's an argument that this kind of thing might be good as it shows why noKYC often comes at a premium but its worth it.


Some of us didn't think we'd see fees this low ever again.

That's what it is for now. Everything has tradeoffs. People who want to put in $50 will have to start with custodial LN, liquid or an ecash/fedimint IOU. If they don't continue to stack, then they will stay there. Hopefully they'll learn the benefits of bitcoin and continue to stack towards selfsovereignty by either transferring that onchain in a larger UTXO, or into a self custodies LN channel for spending.

The stuff you argue about for Bitcoin is the same stuff your other block chains will need to deal with once they get significant adoption. Which is unlikely ever to happen.


I would say something like Bisq, Haveno, Robosats

All P2P, behind Tor, and no-KYC

Make your own offers if you want it cheap (the trade-off though is you'll likely have to wait for someone to take it)


"The stuff you argue about for Bitcoin is the same stuff your other block chains will need to deal with once they get significant adoption. Which is unlikely ever to happen."

Not true.

Even with the same traffic Monero would have similar fees as it does right now because of dynamic blocksize. The reason Bitcoin fees get high when more people are trying to use it is users are bidding on limited block space to get their transactions in.


So you're saying monero scales 8 billion people on the base layer? Why don't other block chains just put dynamic blocks and we don't need to argue anymore cause it works.

Because it hasn't been tested yet.


Haveno is your gateway.

https://haveno-reto.com


You're changing the topic. All I said was Monero doesn't suffer from the high fee stuff. You claimed it did.


Yeah but if all you do is HODL KYC bitcoin, then how's that really improve people's freedoms?

It's not getting people off banks, which is the real issue.  It's not private.  It's just a new gold ETF.

Cryptocurrency is unique to stop fractional reserve banking.  Just helping with inflation can be done with anything.  People could hedge inflation with gold ETFs and it would be similiar


I don’t like taxes, I don’t wish to comply, but it’s impossible to subvert the state by refusing to pay cap gains taxes on KYC bitcoin. Non KYC when used p2p would be different - like cash, absurd to try to enforce taxes on it. So I think getting some nonKYC is a better first step - privacy from the get go, use like cash p2p, reporting “cap gains” is up to you

18% cap gains on my KYC BTC making 1000+% gains in a hyperinflation scenario is still a huge net profit, should I take it (probably won’t). Cap gains are the cost of using kyc btc

There is *some* privacy on the base layer of bitcoin as you know. Base layer privacy can’t be complete - tradeoff for ability to audit entire blockchain. Current layer 2/3s are working on better privacy

I take it you are a monero maxi, which is cool, we bitcoiners have a lot in common with you. I do plan to learn more about monero, I just don’t see how the game theory plays out - I expect returns on BTC to vastly outpace XMR, and I don’t see the state embracing a “privacy currency”. I do use BTC primarily as store of value, even if the parasitic US gov is leeching value from cap gains, while it matures to a point where ppl wanna use it as med of exchange. I’m fine with waiting for better L2 privacy solutions to arrive for bitcoin while I hodl.

I want to love monero. I’ll learn more about it. Also I really am god, that’s not just my username


To quote Seth, I am not a monero maxi, I am a freedom maxi.

Bitcoin has a key role by being on exchanges, as XMR will be delisted someday

This being said, I encourage you to learn about all your options and technology.  As again, my goal is getting people off banks.  The whole inflation/saving thing is only one of many benefits.


Basically you can keep bitcoin for the "money goes up" thing, but in real world it is only monero that is used nowadays for purchases.

Anything else is just not safe for either the buyer or the seller.