alt.hn

4/20/2026 at 9:33:15 PM

Monero Community Crowdfunding System

 https://ccs.getmonero.org/ideas/

by OsrsNeedsf2P

4/21/2026 at 9:11:28 AM

I'll echo the sentiment that Monero seems like the "best" cryptocurrency in that it has all of the benefits of Bitcoin + actual privacy.

And interestingly, it's one of the least-used least-hyped options. It's as though we didn't actually want privacy in our money system.

I think a hint into this is actually in one of these posted features: https://repo.getmonero.org/monero-project/ccs-proposals/-/me...

One of the reasons for building a proper payments system is "Casino games"...

by resonious

4/21/2026 at 11:12:31 AM

It seems that many high-quality things (or otherwise aspirational things) take on Esperanto names (disclosure, I am an Esperantist). While Monero is no doubt a cool crypto-currency, it is even cooler that it has inspired some crypto-curious people to learn Esperanto[1] instead!

While I am here, I might as well give you a brief Esperanto lesson. Mono = money, ero = piece/quantum. So, "pano" = bread, "panero" = bread-crumb. Thus, "monero" = coin.

Many previous international currencies (all of them created with Swiss involvement), were also given Esperanto names: Spesmilo (thousand speso's (speso is analogous to "penny")), Stelo (star).

There is even a luxury watch-brand (from Switzerland) called "Movado", which is Esperanto for "Movement" (made back when watches were made with mechanical movements).

And I also learned, from the linked thread (disclosure, I am a participant), that there is a soft-drink called "Mirinda". This is an adjective that means "awe-worthy".

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Esperanto/comments/1sobiko/comment/...

by nz

4/21/2026 at 12:08:30 PM

> interestingly, it's one of the least-used least-hyped options. It's as though we didn't actually want privacy in our money system.

There is lots of interest from individuals. But governments all around the world have done their best to suppress it. They indeed do not like privacy and independence. They are the ones who sued and pressured exchanges into delisting Monero.

by Hendrikto

4/21/2026 at 9:39:40 AM

Its been made very difficult to actually buy it

by puskavi

4/21/2026 at 10:09:24 AM

You can go to an ATM and purchase a coin and use a DEX to convert almost instantly.

by ddtaylor

4/21/2026 at 11:16:27 AM

wouldn't that defeat the privacy purpose? wouldn't someone be able to see that it was your card in the ATM, when they traced back the monero as exchanged for a coin that was exchanged for your fiat?

ETA: just to be clear - that's a genuine question. I don't know much about monero, so if it really is possible to have untraceable money, that seems like a prudent investment for precaution. I've just always assumed that digital money is inherently traceable, so I always assumed genuine privacy is a mirage. I assume I'm wrong about that, somehow, so I'm curious about the mechanisms of that anonymity.

by catapart

4/21/2026 at 12:19:20 PM

The DEX will likely leak the fact that you received the monero, but after that there is no more paper trail. So you can spend it as you like.

by resonious

4/21/2026 at 11:40:27 AM

Part of the reason is that you can’t buy it on Coinbase.

by brightball

4/21/2026 at 12:13:51 PM

Because of government pressure. It was delisted by lots of exchanges purely based on government fear of privacy and independence, not any technical or demand reasons.

by Hendrikto

4/21/2026 at 11:51:13 AM

Coinbase doesnt sell it which annoys me, but probably due to legal regulation I am sure. Its a shame too, I think its probably one of the most interesting cryptocurrencies.

by giancarlostoro

4/21/2026 at 9:32:31 AM

Privacy is available in bitcoin as a layer-2 solution such as Lightning. When Trump made the popular and media-broadcast bitcoin transaction during his campaign, he did so over lightning. Privacy alone is thus not a big reason to abandon bitcoin and move over to another chain.

by littlecranky67

4/20/2026 at 10:23:15 PM

Monero has consistently exceeded the rest of crypto in community, integrity to mission, and use-case. True digital cash.

FCMP++ upgrade will be huge for sender privacy bringing Monero's technical strength in line with ZCash.

The new site[1] looks great as well; it was funded by the CCS.

[1] https://getmonero-redesign-impl.vercel.app/

by Cider9986

4/21/2026 at 12:56:05 AM

Very awesome set of replies you’ve left in this thread. So nice to see.

I will be buying some Monero for the first time because of this thread.

by Dig1t

4/21/2026 at 4:06:49 AM

I'm glad you gained something! Welcome to Monero!

Drop a Monero address here and I'll send you a tiny amount for your first transaction.

I recommend CakeWallet, which is cross-platform, user friendly, and does a lot of good for the community, but any of the wallets recommended on the official[1] website are fine.

p.s. you or anyone can reach out via my contacts in bio if you have any questions about Monero.

[1] https://cakewallet.com/

[2] https://www.getmonero.org/downloads/

by Cider9986

4/21/2026 at 6:33:10 AM

I would actually recommend to just use a hardware wallet. The monero-cli or the Monero GUI-Wallet are sufficient. Just drop your wallet onto an USB stick with LUKS encryption. Get your recovery seed + wallet height written by hand and bury them somewhere in your garden, or your parents garden in safe box.

Drop me your address, and I will also send a little bit your way, to get you hooked!

by zhouzhao

4/21/2026 at 9:26:20 AM

Cypherpunks write code.

45nQZrXEDSL8UPj7DeJRrcdFkAteCajG4bGGsQP7cmWwiZU63dpfWe9RPpas38BAU4Kwv5NSKBsnacXewQszMhrx7fgTQLe

by arcmutex

4/20/2026 at 10:33:38 PM

[flagged]

by mothballed

4/20/2026 at 11:28:33 PM

> regulatory and political challenges

Not bending down to the financial arm of warrantless global mass surveillance is a feature, not a bug.

> being tradeable on central exchanges

Central exchanges are banks in disguise. They should not exist.

by matheusmoreira

4/20/2026 at 11:39:51 PM

A key feature of cash is its ability to pass through and into the KYC/AML panopticon where (edit: to make it clear what the "KYC/AML panopticon" meant -- after being deposited in a bank) you can buy things like real estate and heavy capital equipment. If you can't prove chain of custody of source of funds and source of wealth, you're effectively shut off from a wide amount of transactions.

At least in the West. If you go to someplace like Dubai it is no problem.

by mothballed

4/21/2026 at 12:51:51 AM

I'm confused

your argument is that Monero fails at doing a thing that cash also fails at, which is making large purchases without chain of custody/source of funds?

by estearum

4/21/2026 at 1:33:48 AM

No my argument is Monero fails in practice relatively worse than similar 'weight class' crypto currency assets at actually spending 'digital cash' (presumably a desirable quality of 'cash') to make legal purchases from crypto accepting sellers. This is quite evident if you survey available offerings -- vendors are far more likely to accept even the lower cap litecoin than monero (even the 'cryptwerk' website advertised by getmonero shows 2x as many vedors accepting LTC).

I do postulate that the fact it is easier to show chain of custody to the point it satisfies banks and regulated entities as part of this (even if through chain-analysis mumbo jumbo), thus other crypto currencies have lent more towards accessing more purchases in a way cash idealizes to do.

At no point was my argument simply monero fails at the same thing a pile of cash dropped through the sky might fail at and that's the end of it. I think that's a pretty silly portrayal of what I've said, made in bad faith. Although in reality I've had my cex account frozen almost every single time I've tried depositing very low, 3 digit amounts of XMR (including frozen for years) whereas you can somewhat reliably put $200-$1000 in a bank in place like USA and then use that as part of purchase that goes through KYC/AML channels.

Now if you do want to compare, say, a pile of cash falling out of the sky, vs a pile of bitcoin, vs a pile of monero and you wanted to spend it on something big that went through KYC/AML compliance. In order of what would be easiest to spend, assuming the money actually came from a legal source. Bitcoin would be the easiest to spend because you have some chance at showing it came straight from a KYC'd source because of the plaintext blockchain, next would be cash (largely for historical reasons), the hardest to actually spend would be the monero. Now if we presume matheusmoreira point about banks was just a red herring, then your follow on is just one too, since the bit regarding KYC/AML compliance purchases/transactions was a response to that.

by mothballed

4/21/2026 at 12:20:26 PM

Right but isn't the point of Monero that once you have it, you don't have a public, immutable ledger of all subsequent transactions, just waiting there for when you become persona non grata to some entity with significant time or computational resources to fuck you?

The relevant similarity to (unbanked) cash is the post-facto privacy.

And yes, this feature does dramatically increase the KYC posture of institutions that need to be afraid of those same computation-rich entities, but obviously the point of the currency is you don't functionally need them the way you functionally need a bank to do anything similar with cash.

by estearum

4/21/2026 at 2:43:57 AM

You: "everybody is autistic but me!"

Also you: proceeds to rant about "heavy equipment," a beloved pastime of everyone, including the neurodivergent

I don't think what you are saying is that complicated honestly, but surely you see that, there can be many successful niches.

by doctorpangloss

4/20/2026 at 11:43:14 PM

> A key feature of cash is its ability to pass through and into the KYC/AML panopticon where you can buy things like real estate and heavy capital equipment.

My country is in the process of criminalizing the purchase of real estate with cash. Laws have been proposed to that end. Politicians have also proposed restricting the amount of "unexplained" physical cash the population is "allowed" to hold.

This is your future if you don't resist.

> If you can't prove chain of custody of source of funds and source of wealth

You shouldn't have to "prove" anything. What a bunch of nonsense.

by matheusmoreira

4/20/2026 at 11:16:43 PM

Cash would "fail horribly at meeting the regulatory and political challenges challenges today". And some countries are trying to make it harder to use.

by Cider9986

4/20/2026 at 11:22:27 PM

Yes but fortunately we have other points of comparison and I was making a relative analysis. Legal vendors who take crypto are more likely to accept even the lower market cap LTC in most cases than XMR. XMR is one of the weakest performers as spending cash on legal goods and service amongst crypto assets of similar financial "weight class."

The technical superiority and features on many points seem to be unable to overcome this.

by mothballed

4/21/2026 at 2:47:01 AM

That's because anonymity is the entire point of Monero. Of course legal vendors don't like anonymity, every government wants to be able to track every transaction anywhere.

Saying Monero hasn't been able "to overcome this" is like saying boats have been unable to overcome driving on roads. Technically true, but very much not the point.

by stavros

4/20/2026 at 10:53:36 PM

For business acceptance, I see how it would be hard if it is impossible to use on a CEX. I think that Haveno/RetoSwap will eventually become the preferred and more convenient Fiat-->Monero method instead of CEXs for the avg user.

Overall though I would even prefer to use a stable than a bank or fiat p2p app to send money.

>They've failed horribly at meeting the regulatory and political challenges of being tradeable on central exchanges and as a result has met weak acceptance from crypto-friendly legal vendors making it harder to use as actual digital cash.

Despite this, everywhere it is accepted, it becomes the largest marketshare crypto payment method, excluding whales.

by Cider9986

4/20/2026 at 11:05:26 PM

Pardon, the “autistic” point of view?

by loloquwowndueo

4/20/2026 at 11:30:11 PM

In this case, I mean a narrowed focus (in this case, on technical qualities) to the point it is maladaptive for the underlying stated goal ("digital cash").

A survey of cryptocurrencies showed monero has failed to achieve this goal of being a superior form of digital cash, relative to most other crypto currencies in similar 'weight class' of market cap and years available. This failure isn't technical, it's due to relative weaknesses in the realms of politics and soft social influence. Even the lower market cap LTC is more accepted as 'cash' by most legal vendors.

-----------

re: below muh sources

getmonero.org, OPs referenced website, advertises cryptwerk as a good directory.

Go to https://cryptwerk.com/pay-with/xmr/ and compare it to https://cryptwerk.com/pay-with/ltc/.

There are ~twice as many for LTC for example, and that's being charitable with something with a lower market cap rather than BTC which is like 3+ times as many.

by mothballed

4/21/2026 at 1:07:59 AM

Do you have a source to back up this claim? There are thousands[1] of legal businesses that accept Monero.

[1] https://monerica.com, https://kycnot.me

by Cider9986

4/20/2026 at 11:38:29 PM

I had not paid any attention to Monero amid the storm of cryptocurrencies and related scams, but thanks to your recommendation here, I will be checking it outmn

by GolfPopper

4/20/2026 at 11:09:34 PM

> of being tradeable on central exchanges

That's a good signal that the privacy guarantees are real, no? It's no secret that the main use-case for crypto is skirting the legal system; I'm not sure I understand this desire to make it anything bigger than that. For example, it's extremely hard to Be Your Own Bank because one mistake means you've just lost all your funds whether it's from a scam, malware, or losing your wallet seed phrase. Large amounts of people "being their own bank" by putting their life savings into crypto would be a disaster.

by hypeatei

4/20/2026 at 11:01:02 PM

What are they supposed to do? How can they make governments happy without sacrificing privacy?

by Acrobatic_Road

4/20/2026 at 11:04:13 PM

Regulatory capture would be the traditional way

by mothballed

4/20/2026 at 11:32:44 PM

> How can they make governments happy

That's the wrong question. Nobody cares how the elites in the government feel. They exist to serve us. That is the only reason they have any power at all.

The right question is: how can we make it mathematically impossible for the government to oppress us in any way, regardless of how much they seethe and rage about it? Their happiness does not matter. In fact their anger is probably a good sign that the technology is working as intended. The angrier they get, the freer you are.

by matheusmoreira

4/21/2026 at 6:26:03 AM

> The angrier they get, the freer you are.

The angrier they get, the higher is the chance that they make your technical solution illegal. What, you're using technology that might endanger children? All the concerned parents are suddenly your enemoies, democratically speaking. What? Your technology can be used to do money laundering? And you're using it still? You can now anonymously pay only darknet vendors and other shady bussinesses. Have your anonymity, but cut off from the rest of "good" society.

Given the original motivation to actually invent crypto, I am surprised it wasn't outlawed a long time ago. No goverment likes to be overthrown...

by lynx97

4/21/2026 at 6:33:07 AM

It's just the usual politico-technological arms race. Governments make laws, people make technology that works around the laws in such a way that the government can do nothing about it.

Governments must continuously increase their tyranny in order to maintain the exact same level of control they used to have before. There are two possible outcomes: a free and uncontrollable population emancipated by ubiquitous subversive technology, or a totalitarian government so oppressive that even your concerned parents feel the weight of its boot on their faces.

It's my sincere hope that we'll discover the true limits of the government's tyranny in the process. The harsh truth is people need to accept the existence of some amount of crime if they want to live with basic human dignity. It's just like how the banking industry accepts some degree of fraud as a business expense. They could stamp it out, but the security requirements would add so much friction to everyday transactions nobody would buy anything.

by matheusmoreira

4/21/2026 at 2:42:03 AM

[dead]

by s5300

4/21/2026 at 10:59:45 AM

Monero is what Bitcoin wanted to be

by grigio

4/21/2026 at 11:30:03 AM

Monero has fixed inflation baked in, so no.

by littlecranky67

4/21/2026 at 12:38:48 AM

Would someone please explain to me the pros and cons of this existing?

by consumer451

4/21/2026 at 6:08:16 AM

The US Federal Government specifically calls out Monero as one of the coins that it hates, which means that it must be quite effective at achieving its goals. So the pro is that you know it works. The cons are nothing specific to Monero, just general criticism of cryptocurrencies. Not being a deep crypto user myself, at least, I haven't heard anyone speak of any flaw specific to Monero that isn't shared by a significant portion of the remainder of all of these coins

by SOLAR_FIELDS

4/21/2026 at 12:28:04 PM

> The US Federal Government specifically calls out Monero as one of the coins that it hates, which means that it must be quite effective at achieving its goals. So the pro is that you know it works.

Official condemnation doesn't work like that. Facebook's cryptocurrency, Libra, was also condemned, and we know it didn't work because it never actually existed.

by thaumasiotes

4/21/2026 at 3:54:05 AM

Do you already know how a regular Cryptocurrency works and want to know about Monero specifically? Or do you not know anything about Crypto?

by Cider9986

4/21/2026 at 4:24:32 AM

I am very aware of cryptocurrency, some of the intricacies, and possibly most of the use cases.

I asked an honest question about the pros and cons. Every technology has pros and cons, right?

by consumer451

4/21/2026 at 4:46:28 AM

Monero is the most anonymous of the mainstream cryptocurrencies. That's also the reason why it is increasingly outlawed (at least in the EU).

by ofrzeta

4/21/2026 at 7:31:45 AM

Which is its biggest weakness. Lightning over Bitcoin is decently anonymous, too. Given that is just a layer-2 technology and can be developed further and evolutes outside of Bitcoin protocol changes, makes it more flexible and has shorter innovation cycles.

And outlawing bitcoin has become basically impossible after the large amount of ETF inflows. Monero is nice technology, but I think the ship has already sailed for Bitcoin (and L2 solutions like lightning).

by littlecranky67

4/21/2026 at 7:58:56 AM

Isn´t the experiment in El Salvador proof that Bitcoin does not work as a currency? If you think it isn't, then do you have any measurable pass/fail test for it?

by rglullis

4/21/2026 at 8:03:39 AM

El Salvador is the worst example, as they have been bribed by the IMF to get rid of bitcoin. I would also wan't to learn how the situation in El Salvador would be any different if they adopted Monero instead - I think it would be the same outcode.

I am not a bitcoin-as-currency evangelist. I see it more as digital gold, and gold is not a currency today. It will have its role as a store of value and fallback unit of trade that keeps government currencies in check - another pillar in financial checks-and-balances.

by littlecranky67

4/21/2026 at 8:37:59 AM

> El Salvador is the worst example, as they have been bribed by the IMF to get rid of bitcoin.

So the 'true cryptocurrency' hasn't been tried yet, eh? ;)

by neonstatic

4/21/2026 at 8:46:21 AM

That was not my argument at all. First I said, I don't see bitcoin as currency at all. Second, major nation states have always tryed to use their power to force other nations to use their currency (petrodollar, cough). This is nothing specific to crypto, but something also specific to traditional fiat currencies.

Any high-volatile asset such as bitcoin is IMHO not suited as currency. The good news is, with the bitcoin taproot upgrade and latest lightning standards, you can actually issue stablecoins over bitcoin's taproot asset protocol, and send it over the existing lightning network. My bet is on stablecoins-over-lightning as currency, and bitcoin as store of value. One blockchain to rule them all, other chains not need (for financial transactions at least).

by littlecranky67

4/21/2026 at 10:38:12 AM

Bitcoin takes to long to settle, and whilst its settling will need some sort of escrow service to take the risk out for small retailers and consumers.

Plus the global transaction rate would also stop it really being useful for day to day spending for a country.

by KaiserPro

4/21/2026 at 11:01:11 AM

You replied to me but did not address lightninng. Lightning settles instantly. And you DO transfer bitcoin.

by littlecranky67

4/21/2026 at 11:35:49 AM

> And you DO transfer bitcoin.

No, Layer-2 systems only transfer cryptographically signed IOUs between nodes.

Settlement only happens when these IOUs are cashed out, and to cash out you need a transaction in the blockchain layer, so the point about latency still stands.

by rglullis

4/21/2026 at 12:18:21 PM

It is splitting words. There is a settlement layer in lightning, which is presenting the preimage and unpeeling the onion HLTCs in reverse order. This happens at the latency of the network path, so usually less than a second. Bitcoin settling is usually tied to confirmation in the block, which lasts ~10minutes. Lightning might be IOUs, but ones that are fungible themselves and not tied to a specific debtor. Actual lightning-to-bitcoin cashout would probably not happen for everyday use, or at least not more often than you change bankaccounts in todays terms.

by littlecranky67

4/21/2026 at 12:15:31 PM

It is as much an IOU as the US Dollar was pre-1971. That is a pretty good image for Lightning/Bitcoins relationship. Lightning is the dollar with a guarantee that you can convert it to gold anytime you like by presenting it at the central bank. Very few people ever converted their USD to the underlying gold as a settlement transaction. The difference with lightning is, the government can't just rug-pull you and stop exchanging those paper bill IOUs - it is cryptograhpically secured that you can always convert to bitcoin. Since no one would consider exchaging dollars as settling in gold, lightning settlement is not tied to on-chain transactions.

by littlecranky67

4/21/2026 at 12:03:33 PM

THis is the issue, until its settled in the chain, then you are down to trusting the 2nd layer.

Anything offchain has a whole bunch of issues that are either naively or deliberately obscured by the fact that it _eventually_ writes to the blockchain. The exchanges that offer instant settlement are circumventing trust by doing the settlement for you. You get speed, but not security that they have done what they have said they have.

by KaiserPro

4/21/2026 at 12:19:10 PM

Well, to be fair to OP: small business and retailers are also not getting "real" money when they accept payment via credit cards from Visa/MasterCard.

To be honest I think the issue here is not due to speed of settlement, but layer-2 is not an acceptable substitute because it does not allow reversability. For the merchants it's good that they are getting the money right away, but most consumers will not dare to pay anything via layer-2 networks simply because they won't have any recourse in case they want to undo the transaction.

by rglullis

4/21/2026 at 8:41:17 AM

> they have been bribed by the IMF to get rid of bitcoin

And the US government is being bribed by Silicon Valley to adopt crypto...

> I am not a bitcoin-as-currency evangelist

Then why all the talk about Lighning and the dismissal of Monero?

by rglullis

4/21/2026 at 8:48:37 AM

Because lightning uses Bitcoin's blockchain, which is the most secured (as in energy) and the most common (as in market cap) and probably the most accepted as in regulation. Plus, you can use bitcoins taproot asset protocol to issue stablecoins and send them over lightning. No other blockchain needed - which in my opinion, renders monero obsolete or at least a very niche product.

by littlecranky67

4/21/2026 at 9:11:32 AM

- Lightning is not fully anonymous. It can still be traced by the participating nodes.

- Ethereum's blockchain consumes less energy, is more decentralized, it's a lot more resistent to any form of attack and it can also host fixed-supply coins.

- Market cap is a meaningless metric, it's at best circular logic and at worst it's just a "one billion flies can't be wrong" argumentum ad populum.

- It baffles me how the Bitcoin enthusiasts talk so much about ideology and freedom, but get completely silent about the fact that most mining operations are done in countries with oppressive regimes, financed or subsidized by dictators with access to cheap fossil fuels.

by rglullis

4/21/2026 at 9:36:36 AM

> Lightning is not fully anonymous. It can still be traced by the participating nodes.

"Fully anonymous" is a strong term. Even cash is not fully anonymous. I would give monero that it is more anonymous than lightning because it is a core design principal. There is a spectrum to anonymity, however. As public enemy number one, such as Snowden or BinLaden, your anonymity requirements are different than a citizen buying illegal erectile dysfunction medication online.

If you consider the new features added in lightning over the past 24 months such as trampoline payments, blinded paths etc. - you will find that lightning is anonymous enough. Plus, you can increase anonymity in the client implementation at the expense of higher transaction fees (longer paths, more trampolines). Lightning's BOLT12 standard, which is currently finalized, will increase anonymity even further.

> Ethereum's blockchain consumes less energy, is more decentralized, it's a lot more resistent to any form of attack and it can also host fixed-supply coins.

Thats is factually untrue. First, ethereum famously had a human-coordinated rollback with a controlled restart organized between devs and node runners over Discord. Second, Ethereum is not decentralzied at all, because that is a core property of proof-of-stake: There is no way at any given time that you can be sure that the majority stake is not already in a single entities (or colluding group) possesion - and would thus have absolute control. It is therefore never guaranteed at any given time, that the network is decentralized.

> Market cap is a meaningless metric, it's at best circular logic and at worst it's just a "one billion flies can't be wrong" argumentum ad populum.

Price is ultimately what determines the value of anything. It is absolutely far from meaningless, as the market cap is also a big factor if a crypto asset can be outlawed or banned. Given how many investors in the west already own bitcoin, there would be a massive outcry if it is suddenly outlawed. I say you could outlaw Monero tomorrow and the mainstream media wouldn't even cover it.

> It baffles me how the Bitcoin enthusiasts talk so much about ideology and freedom, but get completely silent about the fact that most mining operations are done in countries with oppressive regimes, financed or subsidized by dictators with access to cheap fossil fuels.

You mean, such as the United States? Because the US (especially Texas) is one of the biggest miners of bitcoin currently.

by littlecranky67

4/21/2026 at 10:18:55 AM

> There is a spectrum to anonymity, however.

But you can only make any claims about the properties of a system when looking at the extremes. If Bitcoin's blockchain does not make strong anonymity guarantees as Monero, then Bitcoin by definition can not be the "blockchain to rule them all" that you so desperately want.

>ethereum famously had a human-coordinated rollback with a controlled restart organized between devs and node runners over Discord.

That was achieved through social coordination. No backdoor was exploited, no one had their coins stolen on the original chain. The system worked as intended.

Can you say the same about Bitcoin? Do you think that all these banks and exchanges trading ETFs have secured access to the bitcoins they claim to have? When one of these institutions goes bust, who is going to bail them out?

You keep trying to argue that Bitcoin is more valuable because it is more likely to be supported by the powers-that-be, and that is the strongest indicator that all your evangelism is driven by "Greater Fool" dynamic. Satoshi's idea for crytocurrencies was to have an alternative system that worked despite adversarial governments, yet we keep getting time-and-again evidence that it can only work if it becomes of an instrument for the powerful institutions that caused the problems in the first place.

Bitcoin and its blockchain has no intrinsic value. Unlike Monero, it is not fully anonymous. Unlike Ethereum, it has no utility for decentralized applications. It can not be used as a currency. All Bitcoin has is first-mover advantage and a huge number of people with cognitive dissonance trying to keep the bubble inflated.

> Because the US (especially Texas) is one of the biggest miners of bitcoin currently.

Access to cheap fossil fuels? Check.

Facilitated by the government? Check!

Serving the interests of the elites and the aspirational 14% instead of the general populace? Check!

by rglullis

4/21/2026 at 4:57:10 AM

Maybe I did not state my orinignal question correctly.

What are the pros of Monero, and what are the cons?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pros_and_cons

by consumer451

4/21/2026 at 5:14:45 AM

Really up to you personally what is a pro and a con. For me this is a starting list. A lot of these are a result of the technical differences as well as I listed the technical differences.

Pros:

1% inflation

no fixed supply (makes it more of a currency than an asset)

privacy by default,

fungibility—every coin is the exact same, no coin history

prevents financial surveillance by corporations,

protects against government abuses,

useful tool for activists, journalists, minorities, useful for domestic abuse survivors,

useful for businesses sending money across borders,

protects against stalkers,

protects against advertisers profiling you,

reduces identity theft,

prevents databreaches of personal info,

pushes forward cryptography,

allows people to purchase drugs (you decide if this is good or bad),

prevents financial censorship,

allows anonymous donations,

low fees,

more decentralized than bitcoin due to RandomX CPU mining,

prevents crypto robbery,

allows you to buy your adult content without anyone knowing.

large developer community iirc 3rd after bitcoin, eth

less volatile than other cryptos

usually most used crypto for payments when accepted at merchants

Cons:

20 minutes to use funds again

hard to aquire

number go up slower

hard to convert back to fiat

hard to convert to fiat

used by "criminals"

lots of nazis like it

used for unethical purposes

by Cider9986

4/21/2026 at 7:34:34 AM

All of the pros - minus the inflation - also exist for Bitcoin-over-Lightning. Non of the cons exist for Lightning. Especially no waiting time. In lightning you can spend your received bitcoin after a split-second - no waiting whatsoever.

by littlecranky67

4/21/2026 at 10:42:31 AM

> no waiting time

apart from waiting for the confirmation, otherwise you're in double spend territory.

by KaiserPro

4/21/2026 at 11:02:03 AM

what you says applies to bitcoin onchain, but not lightning. Lightning settles instantly.

by littlecranky67

4/21/2026 at 2:23:45 AM

pro: if the world devolves into an authoritarean hellscape, people will still have a form of undetectable currency until they find a way to get rid of this

con: this improves the chances if the world to devolving into an authoritarean hellscape

by cowpig

4/21/2026 at 1:26:44 AM

Monero needs to step up for quantum safety, not by replacing the existing encryption, but by adding a quantum safety encryption layer on top. Google's recent paper on quantum risks to cryptocurrencies had identified Monero as being at risk. This is not tomorrow's problem; it requires initiating action today, so these efforts can bear fruit by the time the quantum hardware is ready, perhaps by 2029.

by OutOfHere

4/21/2026 at 7:32:52 AM

All coins are aware of quantum safety requirements, yet quantum computers are still far enough in the future that it makes sense to wait, and first see what those post-quantum mitigations should look like.

by littlecranky67

4/20/2026 at 11:54:34 PM

[flagged]

by cyberax

4/21/2026 at 12:05:08 AM

Privacy tools will be used in ethical and non-ethical ways. I get that it is annoying that crypto facilitates cybercrime, but that is the cost of privacy for everyone. Everyone gets those rights, because there is no other way. I will say that Monero is vastly used for ethical purposes[1].

I guess encryption shouldn't exist because cybercriminals use it to communicate privately. Privacy is a human right, and payments are essential to modern life.

Also, good luck on "crash and burn", Monero has been going steady, being the most freedom protecting crypto, for 12 years, celebrating its 12th birthday two days ago.

[1] My emotional reaction to your comment, https://xmrbazaar.com/, https://monerica.com/

by Cider9986

4/21/2026 at 6:51:13 AM

> I get that it is annoying that crypto facilitates cybercrime, but that is the cost of privacy for everyone.

Who decided this, was 'everyone' consulted on what they'd rather have? Because it seems to me like cyber-criminals and a handful of idealists got what they wanted, and everyone else can suck it...

by Nursie

4/21/2026 at 9:24:54 AM

Who decided you can post this? Was 'everyone' consulted on what they'd rather you post? Because it seems like you and a handful of politicians posted ideas you wanted and everyone else can suck it...

I hope you see the absurdity of your 'everyone' claim.

by junaru

4/21/2026 at 10:40:57 AM

I see the absurdity of claiming that something (in this case absolute financial privacy) is for the benefit of everyone and worth the costs without taking into account whether the tradeoff does actually benefit everyone, or if the price is something that most people, let alone everyone, would be willing to pay.

Because claiming cybercrime is a price that is worth it for everyone to have this privacy comes across a lot like Trump saying "Don't expect the US to fight your wars for you any more, you're welcome, ingrates" while waging an unnecessary war nobody else wanted.

by Nursie

4/21/2026 at 1:10:45 AM

> Privacy tools will be used in ethical and non-ethical ways.

Monero is not a privacy tool. It's a criminal money laundering tool.

So far, the *coin ecosystem has given us nothing _but_ negatives. It's kinda unique in that regard.

> I guess encryption shouldn't exist because cybercriminals use it to communicate privately. Privacy is a human right, and payments are essential to modern life.

Privacy is, money laundering isn't.

by cyberax

4/21/2026 at 1:28:10 AM

A tool should not be regulated based on what it can do. Regulating tools rather than the action or intention of a person or group is inherently backwards and wrong imo.

by oompydoompy74

4/21/2026 at 3:31:28 AM

> A tool should not be regulated based on what it can do.

They should be regulated on their primary purpose in practice and the damage that they cause. And Monero is unwilling or unable to police itself, even as it does damage that dwarfs pretty much any other computing technology.

And not just nebulous "missed sale" damage, but very real damage that often results in dead people and ruined lives.

> Regulating tools rather than the action or intention of a person or group is inherently backwards and wrong imo.

We absolutely regulate tools that can inflict a disproportionate amount of damage. For example, I can't just buy high explosives even if I just want to do a cool video of me launching a manhole cover into the air. Or nuclear materials. Or surface-to-air missiles. Or....

by cyberax

4/21/2026 at 1:30:24 AM

How is monero not a privacy tool?

by basilikum

4/20/2026 at 11:25:33 PM

[flagged]

by thatmf

4/21/2026 at 1:06:04 AM

Monero is the only real CRYPTO currency.

Please look into the benefits. Consider the upsides. I have considered the downsides. Try to understand the importance of Cash and private money and its role in a free society.

I get that you were swept up in that period when crypto got bashed left and right. I agree, there are a lot of problems with crypto and 99% of cryptos are scams, but Monero has a huge use case for internet money. Monero is creating whole new parallel economies[1] and protecting activists and everyday people that value privacy.

[1] https://xmrbazaar.com/, https://monerica.com/

by Cider9986

4/21/2026 at 1:44:36 AM

Visiting those linked websites, they feel sketchy. It seems they are offering gift cards and different pirated digital goods in exchange for Monero. Red flags all around.

by _-_-__-_-_-

4/21/2026 at 3:21:29 AM

Monero is a community project. There are no official websites, only community contributions and consensus. Sure, some sketchy sites are inevitably going to be listed on Monerica, but it lists which have been verified as working by the site owner, and they show reports of scams. Here[1] you can see a list of projects that accept Monero donations.

xmrbazaar allows only legal listings, it is by no means a DNM, but it is a free market. There are multi-sig wallets with mediators to prevent scamming by either party, and there is a reputation system.

Yeah, some of the boosted listings are for financial services; I see plenty of sketchy listings on FB marketplace.

Examples of normal listings: See these eggs[2], real estate[3], italian meat[4].

[1] https://monerica.com/non-profits

[2] https://xmrbazaar.com/listing/yWKK/

[3] https://xmrbazaar.com/listing/kAEU/

[4] https://xmrbazaar.com/listing/cdpN/

by Cider9986

4/21/2026 at 1:08:24 AM

I think it's philosophically closest to Satoshis dream

by the_real_cher

4/21/2026 at 1:17:55 AM

Monero is the only real "private" way to send money to another party. And there is demand for that, so yes still a thing.

by preisschild

4/21/2026 at 12:26:13 AM

[flagged]

by selectively

4/21/2026 at 1:55:28 AM

Right, because if we can trust centralized control, we can't trust anything. Bring on the social credit!

by eYrKEC2

4/21/2026 at 1:07:27 AM

Like they banned music and movie pirating?

by the_real_cher