If it’s OK to filter transactions with “too much” OP_RETURN data, wouldn’t it be also OK by the same logic to filter CoinJoin transactions with too many inputs and outputs?
After all, what useful purpose do they serve?
They are not transferring value.
Seems like we have now reached the “but it just feels better” stage of privacy tech.
For many communism also feels better than capitalism.
How did that work out so far?
Your threat model should include sophisticated technical attackers.
But don't forget to include the unsophisticated non-technical religious mob.
Having shielded transactions does not only make coins more fungible, it also makes transactions more censorship resistant.
You cannot censor selectively what you cannot differentiate.
Lesson in there.
Bitcoiners: The network is censorship resistant.
Somehow also Bitcoiners: Let’s figure out how we can best filter “undesirable transactions”.
I think there are usually no big reasons for short term price movements.
The Monero drama had a short term price impact and now that seems to be reverting. But generally it's more people are buying than selling that makes number go up and vice versa.
Both Monero and Zcash are down about 20% in USD term compared to one month ago while Bitcoin is mostly flat in that time frame.
And one month is still a rather short time frame.
The question that interest me much more than the infighting: Why are privacy coins in general underperforming at the moment?
Is it because we are still pretty early in the bull part of the cycle and privacy coins come later in the cycle?
Right now ETH is picking up, but SOL is still not really pumping. So from that perspective it might still be early "alt season".
Does the market simply not value privacy and we just have to accept it?
Or is it a communication problem that can be solved with better education and marketing?
Or is it something else entirely?
While Solana celebrated a new record of 92,628 tx/s the dominating "problem" in Bitcoin seems to be how to best filter "spam" transactions while the mempool sits mostly empty.
Sad.
"The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned."
— Frederick Phillips Brooks Jr, The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (1975)
The free market is a harsh mistress.
The threat model for my life is: It's complicated.
Less ego leads to more success.
It allows you to learn and adapt.
The real cost is not making a mistake, it's defending it.
“What if a plumber came and fixed your sink and you paid him $40? He went into the bank and he goes, ‘I’d like to cash this check. Mr. McAfee wrote it to me and I’d like my $40, and, while you’re there, would you please tell me what his balance is, and, from now on, forever, would you please inform me every time he has an incoming wire or deposit, and every check that he writes, and to whom?’”
“That’s what bitcoin is,” McAfee said. “Would you be happy if your bank did that?” He added, “Please, you know you wouldn’t. We know, if anybody has any sense, and if you understand human nature, then privacy coins will be the winner.”
Privacy coins, also sometimes referred to as anonymous coins, are cryptocurrencies such as monero (XMR) and zcash (ZEC) that tout capabilities to hide transactions and other activities.
(from a John McAfee interview with Forbes in 2019)
Buying one Bitcoin today is the equivalent of a boomer buying a house in the 1980s.
You buy it, do nothing, and you'll get rich.
And the world will go to shit and the next generation will hate you.
Or how are we going to separate money and state with a transparent ledger?
Some cryptocurrency tribes build bridges and trade with other tribes.
Others go to war and isolate themselves.
Which strategy is more likely to succeed in the long run?
I have this theory that a lot of social media is dominated by psychopaths, narcissists, and autists.
Psychopaths don't give a shit if people like them or not. Narcissists feed on any form of attention. And autists are so obsessed with a topic that they can ignore the hate.
If you want to have an impact there will be haters, it's just the law of the universe.
I just finished my first rewrite in Rust.
Does that complete my initiation?
