Oddbean

If it can't by food from your local farmer (colloquially expressed as "a" coffee) how is it supposed to defeat them? You need to take different angles into account and one is to sustain yourself while fighting. Now we live in a world where we can have both at the same time. Thanks to Monero AND Bitcoin. It's not big blockers or Monero guys refusing this point of view. It's Bitcoiners who are not in for the right reasons. They don't want freedom. They want to become the new rulers.

1. Bitcoin can buy coffee but that's never the function of a base layer serving 8 billion people. When you buy a coffee with a credit card you are using a L2-L3 payment without final settlement. If Monero served 8 bn people then its base layer could not be used for buying a coffee. Since almost nobody uses Monero, you can absolutely buy a coffee on its base layer. If a form money becomes widely used then it won't make economic sense to buy a coffee on its base layer. 2. Scaling Bitcoin to meet the needs of 8 billion people will primarily happen on L2-L3 since the base layer must be secure, decentralized and allow noderunners to run local nodes. Ignoring this fact is an appeal to magical thinking. We can't achieve bandwidth for 8 bn people on a secure base layer. 3. Bitcoin is rules without rulers. If you want decentralization, property rights and liberty for all, Bitcoin game theory can achieve that while Monero doesn't have that sort of impact on politics. Monero might be useful as dark money at some point but it is not a store of value that can enact a positive pressure on nations/jurisdictions to increase individual liberties. The game theory of Bitcoin will pressure nations to either lose capital in capital flight, or, improve individual liberties in order to keep capital (Bitcoin). Liberty arbitrage requires a global store of value. I wrote a piece on the game theory of why taint will not work against Bitcoin and it also lays out how liberty arbitrage works. This is dependent on Bitcoin being a global store of value. nostr:nevent1qqsyp39g9ykyclhvg2xxq3m5e6speyjdumzwk2llp2q3r630jkxrj5spz3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuvrcxajju7re0gpzqg75jw2xzfv9wpk89yy2tcusf723wl4qs7cr9hdle55xyvzv0kvrqvzqqqqqqygngr7g

I would argue that both have roughly the same impact on politics. Yin and yang. Otherwise Monero wouldn't have been delisted under government pressure and attacked for over half a decade. I guess we are also preparing for different things. Monero does not need to prepare for things that Bitcoin is already good at. Bitcoin won't go away. It also does not need to prepare for 8B user tomorrow. From a privacy perspective it's good to use something non permanent like LN or ecash on top of Monero. But I am fine to exchange my Monero on the spot for whatever cryptocurrwncy or method a merchant accepts. There is a need for private digital cash that is none custodial and there is a need for private wealth (offshore banks). Bitcoin is good to become digital gold and a reserve asset.

I agree that the establishment attacks on Monero are despicable. Dark money must be allowed in a free society and if it is not we are heading toward tyranny. A black market is a free market and I support that. Monero has a different function than Bitcoin and cannot have the same impact on politics. Capital leaving a jurisdiction because the jurisdiction is authoritarian will have an impact on politics. This is the domain of Bitcoin game theory. Jurisdictions that respect individual liberties will attract capital (Bitcoin) and outcompete authoritarian jurisdictions. Monero cannot achieve this as dark money. Bitcoin over LN, Liquid and other L2-L3 solutions will be the everyday 'e-cash' formats. L1 will be for store of value only. In a free market competition the user can achieve a desired balance between speed, cost and security. Bitcoin and Monero aids different liberty mechanisms. I am personally not into Monero, but dark money might be useful at some point, so I am not ruling out the possibility that Monero will have a liberty impact. It is just that its liberty function can be achieved equally well by a Monero competitor.

Bitcoin has first mover advantage. So has Monero. It's unlikely any competition will take the provacu kings crown. It's constantly increasing market share. Appreciating both aspects dark and light gives us more strategic leverage to tackle governments.

Agreed. Cash is dark money and it is important that people have access to dark money in the digital age. History has demonstrated to us what crimes surveillance regimes can commit when they go unchecked. Under authoritarian systems, dark money will always be vital. It is my hope that Bitcoin can compete with Monero on L2-L3's in regards to dark money. The base layer obviously cannot be both a store of value and dark money at the same time. As such Bitcoin and Monero occupy different niches.