Which way will it be? Every transaction you make, an excuse to invade your privacy and ask intrusive questions? Or every transaction private by default, and not tied to your identity. One path leads further into tyranny. The other towards freedom. Tyranny, by definition, does not like its subjects to enjoy freedoms beyond the few they are willing to grant them, so it is a good bet that tyranny will fight uncensorable, unstoppable, anonymous and private transactions. #monero is here to stay - privacy not only is not a crime, it is our birthright.

Cypherpunk build privacy-preserving technology that respects individual rights and gives individual more options. A good upcoming example is #seraidex, where it will be possible to swap in and out of #monero and into or out of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more. Especially when it comes to trading in large amounts, it will be nearby frictionless, and no need to ask daddy's permission. (Although you can be sure any transparent coins you send or receive from such #dex software will be tainted accordingly, because that is what transparency enables) More options. Less friction. This is the way. Governments, though? Less options, and the more centralized the better - so they can put you under surveillance and make sure you're paying your dues, even though they had nothing to do with creating crypto, and if they could crush it, they would. No matter, they need their sats too eh? More friction, so they can hound you for their "fair share". So you stay transparent, easier to prey upon. Fuck that shit. #cypherpunk

#monero is now seen by the powers that be as the greatest threat to their hegemonic system of pervasive financial mass-surveillance. Financial privacy is a human right. Like other rights to essential to the maintaining of a free life, it is under attack. We who use and promote Monero stand against the tyranny of transparency, because we understand the negative consequences of being completely exposed involuntarily and coercively - to anyone, but in particular to powerful people who disagree with us. We use code and ideas, all on a voluntary basis. They weaponize the law and bully others into submission. This is an affront to the human spirit, and we will never give up.

Heard several reports of friends with KYC accounts at "crypto friendly" banks who are not unable to deposit any onchain bitcoin if the sender address is not registered in their system as KYC'd to the owner. You can bet those banks are sharing this information behind their customers' back, with the blessings of the #FATF. And this is why we #monero. Once again, the "conspiracy theorists" are proven right.

Imagine believing you can comply your way out of tyranny. #monero #freedom #cypherpunk #privacy

Could not find a better way at the moment to do this, so for anyone who wishes to send Monero my way: 84cjkjNRy8sDSW4bP5Z1LV6hGW9YgCUPVaeiDH4JrSM8YX2vjmwuqP6K4bguyLVeZuJKXCjMA7aUZH8ixBSQwsCZDAjwQHn I am adding this note to my public bookmarks.

Great interview with @ODELL as a guest on the Staying Free podcast. For awhile I was surprised that #monero was not coming up in the conversation (about financial surveillance...), but eventually the topic did come up. Where I believe the conversation went a bit south is when the assertion was made that Monero is competing with Bitcoin. This has not been my experience, and it is not how I think about it. And most Monero users I know think the same way. Sure, if you dig deep enough you will find the Bitcoin Maxi counterpart, the Monero Maxi. The only difference between them is that the Bitcoin Maxi has deeper pockets by now, but their dogmatic adherence to each project and the religious reasons behind that stance are essentially the same, even if for slightly different reasons. For everyone else (99%+) that is not how it goes, however. Monero is a tool. Bitcoin is a tool. That is all. Like every other tool, sometimes tool A is better than tool B for purpose X. Less abstractly, there can simply be no doubt that when it comes to preserving your privacy and anonymity, transacting with Monero comes with much stronger guarantees than with Bitcoin: onchain is a disaster, Liquid and Lightning it really depends on the situation (generally fine and private enough for small to medium transactions IF the user knows what he's doing AND chooses the right software wallet). Only a fool or a dogmatic true believer would think anything else. It is what it is. Maybe one day it will change, but today this is the situation. Likewise, if you want to hold on and quite possibly increase your stored value, Bitcoin is a better choice and has the track record to show that without any doubt. It is for that reason that I, like most Monero users I know, keep the stash in #bitcoin BUT spend in #monero or bitcoin lightning. We optimize for privacy and anonymity, because we understand that is the only way we won't find ourselves deeper in the mass-surveillance shithole that the collective actions of uncritical unthinking masses (who accepted or failed to acknowledge the mass surveillance) have led us to. (And I have to say, we tried to warn you all. For years. Well, here we are.) --- So it is not either-or, and it not a competition. I don't see any incongruence in believing in #bitcoin for storing my wealth, but prefering to spend it in #monero especially when tools like #bisq #seraidex #basicswapdex exist. I'm not a worse bitcoiner for using #monero - that nonsense has to stop. And it begins with you, dear reader. Use the tools. Give space to others to do the same. With some luck, if enough of us optimize for freedom instead of dogma, we will renormalize financial privacy in our lifetime.

Bitcoin maxis will rave on about #ecash which has nothing at all to do with Bitcoin per se - the mints that exist today just happen to issue Bitcoin IOUs, but just as easily it could be any other cryptocurrency - while at the same time accepting that the mint could rug them at any time. But they won't consider #monero Now don't get me wrong, I think ecash applied to cryptocurrency is a very interesting idea and we have not seen the end of its possibilities yet. But this discrepancy is troubling. It is not consistent. It is not the product of rational thought.

Mass-surveillance is often the prelude to the uniformization of opinion and the crushing of dissent. #privacy

Those who would coerce you into forced transparency don't have your best interests in mind. Those who would coerce others to coerce you into forced transparency don't have anyone's best interests in mind. #monero fixes this.

Pains me to say, but the global bureaucracy who fancy themselves the owners of our planet have figured something out that most here have not. They don't care what the tool is. Wasabi, Samourai (Bitcoin), Tornado Cash (Ethereum), Monero. All banned (Wasabi, Samourai, Tornado Cash) or shadowbanned (Monero). The why should be obvious. Those are tools to enhance privacy and anonymity, which tilts the balance of power in favor of the individual and away from the gigantic and out of control State bureaucracy. Do you understand? They don't waste time calling this or that a shitcoin. They just ORGANIZE and get rid of as much as they can, as effectively as they can, and put fear in the minds of others who would dare to defy them. The pretense of democracy quickly falls when their system of control is threatened. We should take a page from their playbook, and understand that a tool that gives more financial privacy is a tool that gives more financial privacy. Even if it's on a different chain, or indeed, *is* a different chain. We're not talking about football clubs here. These are just tools. Tools that help us be more free. Divided we're easy to conquer. United, we would make them think twice before stepping on our toes. Not all honeybadgers have the same style and the same preferences. But recognize there are other honeybadgers in other colonies that care about the same things you do. And then there are those who would like all the honeybadgers to be defenseless against their surveillance. #monero #bitcoin #cypherpunk #privacy

@ZEUS can the built-in node be run over Tor (via Orbot SOCKS5 proxy)?

We can think of Monero as the canary in the coal mine. It isn't Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana or Dogecoin the globalist statists are working to sever from the rest of the financial system, it is Monero. Why? Monero offers something that all the others do not. Complete financial privacy & anonymity. Against a backdrop of relentless surveillance, Monero provides a breath of fresh air. Problem is the authoritarians in power don't want freedom to breathe. For our Bitcoiner brothers and sisters, do you think once they are done segregating the legacy system and the broader, transparent, easy to surveil cryptoeconomy from tools like Monero, they will just stop there? Lightning offers decent privacy on Bitcoin. Do you think they will allow it to exist peacefully? All they know is regulation, control, and bullying. They will not stop until every single transaction has a real world identity attached to it. This is simply not possible on Monero - by design - and that is why the sights are set on it. Don't be short-sighted. Monero is like a shield. Because it's more complete in the protections it offers, it was always going to be the first target. If Monero stands this coordinated attack, Bitcoin will be fine too. If the statists succeed in making criminals of all of us who just want to be left alone and transact peacefully and privately - a paradigm-destroying threat to their system of mass control - then guess what, my friends. You're next. Divide and conquer. As old as civilization. #monero #cypherpunk #privacy

The #EU wants end to end encryption gone. The #EU wants anonymous and private crypto transactions gone. Everything we do, they want to see, process, filter, censor, categorize, tag. This is the way of the totalitarian.

Monero is to money as end-to-end-encryption is to instant messaging. You wouldn't donate your entire chat history to a company or a government, and yet you do this with your financial life? #monero