Oddbean new post about login | logout You cannot validate the total supply of #monero in circulation.
And that's a good thing?
You cannot validate the total supply of #bitcoin in circulation either
Is that a good thing??
I mean this is a bit of a pointless argument in semantics, but if Michael was referring to the total supply, circulating or not, you can see the total supply produced by mining for both Bitcoin and Monero. It’s essential that the total supply is available otherwise the value is meaningless. As for the total currency in circulation, it’s impossible to tell for any currency. People with cryptocurrency have died and the private keys lost, same as how cash can be misplaced.
But you can see how much bitcoin is issued by typing: bitcoin-cli gettxoutsetinfo Bitcoin is the only sufficiently decentralized protocol with a finite supply. Knut Svanholm calls this absolute mathematical scarcity. According to Knut, absolute mathematical scarcity is a discovery rather than an invention that cannot be replicated. That's what makes bitcoin different, nit the "block chain." A million new block chains cannot rediscover absolute mathematical scarcity, but monero is infinite. Monero has better privacy. The early cypherpunks desired privacy for philosophical reasons, but most people on the world today do not value privacy. Most people desire to display wealth, drive fancy cars, wear fancy clothes, and buy VIP tickets at bitcoin conferences. Privacy is necessary for an open society, but it appears society does not desire to be open.
Yes you can. It’s basic math. Supply schedule is fixed in code. You just count backwards from the current block.
That is the total supply in existence. It isn't really possible to know the total circulating amount of any given currency, as some gets lost over time
Everything is accounted for on the block chain. Whether it moves or not is irrelevant.
But isn't Monero also on the blockchain?
Yes, but all transactions are private so you can’t see the amounts or who sent or received the Monero. There is one special case of coinbase transactions, where the network pays miners in new Monero. In that case the transactions are partially transparent to show the amount sent to make the total Monero supply transparent
Yes you can you do it exactly as any Bitcoiner would. By running a node.