Replies (100)
You haven't understood anything then.
Can you buy a car or a house with Monero? Monero is good for the same as bitcoin without kyc to buy a soda.
You keep losing yourself in Monero vs Bitcoin bullshit without paying attention to what I'm saying, I don't have to waste any more time, you Monero supporters are stupid for the most part.
Its possible to buy a house or rent a house with Monero, you can buy a car, also possible.
As you wrote all Bitcoiners which KYC'd coins are screwed now.
Monero's circular economy is growing and growing. You can see the acceptance growing on any place where they accept cryptos.
Non-KYC'd Bitcoin are traceable. Here is a big difference between BTC and Monero.
Your claims about tracking bitcoin don't hold water.
Bitcoin currently has about the same amount of anonymity as cash. Just like cash can be tracked by serial numbers, bitcoin can be tied to accounts that nobody knows who owns them.
Prove me wrong by telling me the name of the person who made this transaction:
The Mempool Open Source Project®
Explore the full Bitcoin ecosystem with The Mempool Open Source Project®. See the real-time status of your transactions, get network info, and more.
Boy, I'm a Bitcoiner since 2013, I have no fiat shitcoins. I use Bitcoin in my daily life private and my company. So don't tell me I'm loosing myself in Monero vs. Bitcoin.
It seems you don't see the facts.
tell me how. step by step.
Its not me who tracks you. You have to read what I have wrote. There are companies which does that job. Bitcoin is not anonym, its pseudonym.
I continue to say this. Bitcoin is meant to be used as a medium of exchange. Freedom is never giving.
Freedom is never given.
View quoted note →Learn it. Same with Bitcoin 😉
You have to read what I wrote. Bitcoin is pseudonymous.
The fact of the matter is that you can't back up your claim that companies are able to identify who made that transaction. They can ocassionally tie a transaction to a person, but as soon as the money moves, they don't know it it's still that person's money.
At this point we're just talking past each other, so I guess I'll just end with: have a nice day. 👋
No one is stopping me from paying directly in Bitcoin for goods and services peer to peer. Maybe you are still buying fiat things.
So pay for things with it! Who is stopping you??
🫣
Cyph3rp9nk
This is the current situation.
- You buy something with Bitcoin:
In most countries you have to pay vat and in addition capital gains between the difference of buying and selling Bitcoin if you have made a profit.
This is an approximate 20% + 20% (of the profit) (It depends on each country).
- You sell Bitcoin:
You pay between 20% and 30% of the profit (Depending on country).
You have a lot of Bitcoin:
In some countries you will pay wealth tax.
You have a lot of unrealized gains:
In many countries they are trying to apply this, soon we will have the first country to do so.
If you have bought bitcoin with KYC you are screwed, the exchanges will end up passing all the data to the states and their respective tax offices.
If you have non-kyc bitcoin you can only use it to buy a soda, if you use it to buy a car or a house they will accuse you of money laundering, drug trafficking or whatever they want.
And you think bitcoiners have won? You can go to a country that has more lax tax regulations but tax havens are becoming increasingly difficult.
You have to try to make Bitcoin legal tender, and to do this you have to use your Bitcoin, and you have to accept Bitcoin as payment, only by creating a large black market where you do not have to pay taxes you can bend the state, otherwise your Bitcoin will only enrich the state.
During all these years the HODL strategy has been totally wrong, while we have carried out HODL the states have encircled us.
We came here for freedom.
View quoted note →
lol
Disagree with your opinion that HODL strategy is the culprit or wrong.
Also, disagree with the call to "convince people to accept Bitcoin". They are free to remain not convinced, aren't they?
LOL
"tell me the name of this person" never fails
then visa/mastercard transactions have more anonymity than bitcoin AND cash!! otherwise prove me wrong by telling me what was the last visa/mastercard transaction to happen, the amount, and the names involved?!?!
🫂
.. but I just bought dozen eggs for bitcoin
and a dinner.
we are winning with every merchant
No one is stopping me. Unfortunately it's not about me. It's about the messaging being pushed by bitcoin influencers.
Around here in Portugal you find plenty of people using monero. I'd certainly accept it for large transactions.
To be quite frank, wouldn't accept any other crypto right now unless it is stable and private.
so true, until it's classified as money it can't work, a global silk Road is needed....
tax evasion will be the battlefield we win or lose on....
The Bitcoin traders map is expanding, so that seems like a good sign. Also layer 2s like Lightening are pretty effective, and more tech is being designed to combat the issues you list. There's more than just hope.
We see exactly how the reality is. They block tainted coins, they tie UTXO to persons etc. There are already cases at the court.
The fact of the matter is that chainanal is mapping he entir utxo set. Probably more than 90% of new users come in through KYCed gateways or ETFs and the anonset of people who have*avoided* KYC is only going to get worse.
Because when there is NO GOOD WAY to add entropy back into the system, it trends towards maximum surveillance.
You can argue that is good enough for now,
but Bitcoin privacy is in a pretty sad fucking state and its only looking to get worse in the short term.
Most of the network is already under surveillance and they *certainly* be sure when you do self transfers etc.
Beyond that you're just trusting the legal system to do the right thing.
Yes it is about you. And me. This is a peer to peer network. If we do any business together we will settle in sats.
That’s all the control we have over the world bro.
I’m not sure if it’s really possible to have significant discrepancies between declared income and observed spending patterns without prompting an audit or investigation. You can buy like an expansive pc with crypto without the RSI noticing it, but buying a €565k house with 3000 XMR you bought in 2015 at ~$0.5 without the need to explain the origin of the funds seems unlikely.
> prove me wrong by fighting this straw man I created
> bitcoin has the same anonymity as cash
Prove yourself right by showing me the publicly available transaction history of every dollar bill in existence.
You can't track cash as it changes hands. You can track which bank ATM it left and which one it wound up in, that's about it. Cash can't be tracked from one hand to another using serial numbers.
Once you leave your own country other countries aren't to fussed how you make your money as long as you can pay your rent. But afaik American's for example always get to report back to the IRS even if they leave the USA. Kinda ridiculous that "the land of the free" is charging you money / exit tax when you decide that you had enough.
I've travelled for most of my life and in line with that stopped paying taxes many years ago. On the flip side, I wont get a pension so that's the trade-off you have to expect.
I agree, Bitcoin must be use as a medium of exchange.
But tax on unrealized gains wont be applied. Maybe in USA and for extremely high net worth individuals.
Actually you can, yes, and people have. I know of several examples in my circles. And they're all bitcoiners too.. yet Monero is the tool they use. And no, it's not because they don't want to spend the BTC
.. they sold BTC for XMR on a DEX for the purpose, in other words, using the tools we have available as they're intended.
They all chose #monero for the same reasons I would have:
- No way this tx would work on Lightning (amount too high) in most conditions
- They don't want the seller to identify portions of their transparent BTC stash
But even if they couldn't use XMR, because hypothetically it's heavily criminalized (in most parts of the world, if you don't know, paying cash for a house is totally normal, so paying XMR for a house wouldn't be strange), what, you would take that as victory? Makes no sense.
It's really simple and for a guy who goes by the handle "Cypherpunk", you should get it!
Cypherphunks build and use anonymous systems, because otherwise and inevitably, those systems become tools for mass-surveillance and not tools for liberation.
Look, it's really simple:
Is Bitcoin private? No, you can always see the amounts, source and destination.
Is Bitcoin anonymous? No, it's pseudonymous, and weakly so, the more you use it the more you dig your own grave, and the evidence is eternally available for perusal by literally anyone at any time from now til the end of time.
On the other hand ....
Is Monero private? Yes.
Is Monero anonymous? Yes.
So Monero is the cypherpunk dream money. That's just how it is. It's super intelectually dishonest to not acknowledge this in my opinion.
This is why we say Bitcoin is like a cult sometimes. The truth can be staring you in the face, but the heavy fog of dogma won't let you see it.
They're both tools, Bitcoin is not good for everything, and neither is Monero, because there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.
See past the dogma please, you're a smart guy. It's obvious, Monero is the best tool for financial privacy at the moment, just as Bitcoin is the best tool for maintaining & increasing purchasing power over the medium and long-term.
I'll end with this. Most Monero people I know would agree that if Bitcoin did everything Monero can, there would be no need for Monero.
If it was the other way around, would you have the same attitude?
The answer determines whether you see these technologies as tools to be used, or religions to be followed.
We see tools. There is no cognitive dissonance.
Maxis see religion, dogma, holy books and priests. It's all or nothing, black or white, and anyone who says otherwise is an heretic.
Sounds familiar?
Cordially,
Papa Figos
Ser it is +99.99% of new users that come in via KYC. It is 99% of existing users who continue to use KYC.
#KYCNotMe
#DontRiskItBisqIt
i was being generous
I have as well fren. I hope this anti xmr rampage has at least revealed to you that you have been at least partially blind to its use case.
Essentially you swap it to bitcoin on a DEX and then sell the Bitcoin for dollars
You’re innocent if you believe that. Keep that.
Well said.
Monero is a tool. Use it if you need it and understand the trade offs.
I didn’t really understand this until I really started to try to use bitcoin privately and it is cumbersome.
Have you seen these figures? It's happening
BTC Map
There was a 39% increase in merchants listed on BTC Map in 2024. 🚀 Probably nothing. 👀
Keep taking forward steps.
If you're facing in the right direction, all you need to do is to keep walking.
Jurisdictional arbitrage: In Lugano, you can buy almost everything with Bitcoin. I'm sure many other countries will see the opportunity to become a harbor for the "Noah's Ark."
Makes sense. I’m moving towards becoming a nomad than simply staying put. The fact that I won’t get a pension does little to nothing in my future, thank God (I wouldn’t want to be paid in fiat anyway). There are some countries you can stay there longer and not pay any taxes legally. My biggest personal issue is that I would like to make roots in a place, you know?
What do you think of this? Like, having roots in one place, family, kids. How is it for you?
S H I T C O I N E R
ah yeah taxes so we can pay off the way too many ministers that need to be paid way too much to still fuck over my country. I am limiting my taxes as much as possible, why should i need to give money to my government if it only puts it in their own pockets???
I think this is peak centralization. It was Covid and then these first post years. Everything from here on now will go in the other direction.
USA (biggest capital market in the world) going very very orange pilled (Trump, Eric Trump, a bunch of Bitcoiners in the inner circle), MSTR exploding, its strategy being accepted and replicated, Argentina going very red pill, plenty of other countries offering no tax on gains, China allowing Bitcoin (huge), also new jurisdictions offering tax benefits, BTCmap increasing 40% in 2024 alone, a bunch of small Bitcoin communities popping up everywhere.
The next 4 years you'll see the pendulum strongly going in the other direction.
What you're actually living right now is Year 0 of adoption. I don't think it can get more bullish than this.
In Europe, in some years I think we'll see the ECB parasites changing their tune on Bitcoin.
They'll receive a knock from some of the creditors and the tune will change.
Everybody ended up using the internet. Bitcoin is the new internet but for money.
Straw man argument. Nobody has claimed visa/mc is private. Try steel manning instead.
The modern man is cucked. This is the result nonstop taxes which strip your diginty away and stop wealth accumulation
Your claim that bitcoin is as anonymous as cash just because we don't know the full name and home address of a random bitcoin tx implies that visa and mastercard transactions are even MORE anonymous than bitcoin and cash, as there isn't even a public explorer for us to observe transactions taking place and see each other's balances
People really don't want to do business in Bitcoin units because Bitcoin is not the only money out there, and never will be. It cannot ever be the only money by way of it's open source. It was copied immediately.
It will always be preferable to spend the bad money, take loans for it, make contracts to pay people months and years in advanced in bad money.
We will probably always be looking to spend some stable-coins, preferably decentralized autonomous stable-coin type things from locking up Bitcoin on lightning somehow. Like the money we have now is borrowed-dollars coming from real bond assets being locked up.
Bitcoin is replacing bonds, not dollars. The dollar's current global power comes from the bonds, not the token that spends.
If you want to evade taxes to prevent the government from having that power to spend, you don't need people to accept Bitcoin, you just need them to accept decentralized payment rails. You need to use decentralized stable-coins and then you're as anonymous as can be, in the payment, but the vendor gets dollars back to a USD bank account without the privacy leak for you.
You’ve misunderstood the point of my response. On an individual basis limiting the amount of taxes you pay can be beneficial and I believe it is the best practice. On a societal scale, tax is a necessity to fund expenditure associated with a prospering civilization
Wether your particular country is bad at allocating tax resources is not the point of the Original Post, the point being that if you are going to avoid Bitcoin (and escape from the current systems seen around the world) because those tax systems are predatory you are doing it wrong
Case to say, should have used Monero.
That is what works on what you call Black Market.
And to mention John McAfee:
"If criminals don’t use your products, your products are useless."
What a world! I'm shifting more and more into a bitcoin lifestyle using Strike to pay bills as well as using other tools like Fold. Up until now, bitcoin has been a way for me to try to save for the future, but I see what you're saying. We need to use it, put it to work on a daily basis. I will still be saving as much as I can in bitcoin, but I will also try to live on a bitcoin standard in my daily life. Good write-up!
I do hope you're right. It seems like in some small way we are making progress, but we can't let down our guard. It certainly is an interesting time to be alive. Lots of drama.
Ligthning is effective?
You don't know lighning or you are using a custodial, ligthning is a bad solution since the beginning, try to use it in self-custody and you'll see if is effective..
And the blackmarket no longer wants Bitcoin, they want Monero.
Bitcoin is a tool of the past as P2P money, no one wants to use it, because in the way it is now, it isn't a good tool.
You should convince yourself to use the better tool for the job and not to convince people to use a tool that doesn't fit the job no more..
Monero is a non-scalable and centralized shitcoin due to its dynamic block size architecture.
Monero guys are the transaction guys. Good 99% of Bitcoiners tell you how to transact and which is the best way, what is the best privacy tactic for BTC, BTC is the only money but they don't transact. From the maybe 1% which transact most of them using custodial solutions. Find the error 😀
Then you hear the arguments but you can't buy a house with Monero or a car. Always funny to hear that from guys which would never ever use their digital gold for such things.
In general you have to be creative if you use Cryptos in your daily life. You have to adapt, try out, test etc. There is no perfect way for everyone. It's individual and everything is possible.
I wasn't blessed with children when I was still younger and right now I have no family plans. This could change I guess but the "family planning phase" is somewhat over for me. Though I would say that I did put down my roots during my time in Spain. For me that's not just about forming a family but also about integration, learning the language and having local friends rather than hiding in your ex-pats community.
I wish you good luck on your endeavors!
Yes, end of course I paid with Monero. Too big for LN and too much informmation for a native BTC transaction.
If you use Bitcoin as often, as some if us early Bitcoiners from 2009-2013 you'll figure it out why all of us ended up becoming Monero bros.
Doesn't the last paragraph describe lightning? A point of entry & exit, can't track what happens in between?
I totally agree, and I know it's frustrating when you feel like most people don't understand / don't want to understand. But on the bright side, I think you'll find that most people are just pragmatic and will use whatever the best tool is that's put in front of them. So I do think most people would use Monero for day to day transactions that they want to be private, and it's short term enough that they're not worried about losing purchasing power in the meantime.
I don't agree with your house example though, because really there's no way to 'own' a house anonymously, so there's sort of no point in buying it anonymously either. Surely?
Also about using Bitcoin privately, I think coin joining and mixing etc are becoming easier all the time. And I think if there's a push for that sort of thing (or other privacy preserving techniques) to just become the norm in wallets then it will all be mixed together enough to stop really mattering anyway. Unless you're trying to preserve anonymity for a very specific opsec reason, but that's different.
+1 & fam get'n there/*
keep port/land ore/gon weird/*****
I suppose, but wouldn't it be better if cash simply didn't have serial numbers?
Sure, but it's moot as you said
I didn't say it was moot.
Oh I didn't think about this... A bank can't force you to "deposit at an ATM". A counterparty can force close your channel. So even lightning is jot as good as cash.
Also cash has no payment processors. Lightning doesn't have to have them, but in practicality almost always does, in the form of large liquidity providers offering channels as a service.
Lucky for us men we can start families late in life. Not even Jesus was considered a man before the age of 30. I have uncles that started their families at 45-48. Don’t give up, push your bloodline forward if you wish to be a dad.
I wish you all the good luck in this world and be blessed.
Your bad faith arguments aren't winning anyone over.
It's simple. Bitcoin has privacy. Just accept that simple fact.
Monero has better privacy, and I hope Bitcoin gets some protocol level updates to try to get closer to where monero is.
Try having an honest conversation with people. Trying to belittle people isn't going to be very effective. Besides, you can avoid looking childish if you talk to people like an adult.
Help spread that message to everyone holding bitcoin . That is the what is needed. That is the point of my post. Thank you
I just jumped in because you said bitcoin has the same anonymity as cash and that's clearly stupid. Nothing beats cash because it's offline, payments never registered or recorded (unless under security cameras), even with serial numbers it can move hands with zero traces.
Bitcoin has privacy is OK to say, and Monero has better privacy, even better. Now we're serious
If even Monero can be traced by chainalysis in some rare cases, like the E-A-E attack, to catch criminals, the main argument that bitcoin is closely watched does hold water and it requires way more effort to "wash" bitcoins under surveillance, but it's obvious that picking a random tx on-chain is not a good example of bitcoin privacy since we're not the ones those participants should be worried about
You can only truly hide the traces if doing large size coinjoins, and in very long time intervals so that your entry bitcoins are about weeks or months apart from when you want to spend them with a bunch of mixes in between
Yes we can. Doesn't mean we have to force it. I'll either meet the right woman to have a kid (or kids) with or I wont.
One person at a time 🫡
First I wouldn't buy a house for that price, it is just overpriced and not at a place I'd enjoy living. And the second part is that you don't need to declare the real price you pay.
Maybe in your country this would be a problem, around here it isn't. The only sideffect is that legally you have to offer the neighbors the chance of buying a house/land for the public price you are selling.
I would agree with most of that before the lightning network existed. Now Bitcoin really is like cash. Both are imperfect and both offer a significant degree of privacy.
If you want more details, I'd suggest the privacy chapter of the book "Resistance Money". It lays it out in great detail, with citations and it includes fun tidbits like that those automated checkouts at stores scan the serial numbers of bills.
I live in Portugal too. I see your point, but underdeclaring property prices seems risky. Beyond the tax implications, it could draw BCFT scrutiny, especially for large transactions. Paying a significant amount under the table or using untraceable funds like Monero might raise red flags with notaries or registrars, who are obligated to report anything suspicious. And wouldn’t the IMT and stamp duty still need to align with the official declaration?
Will answer through a different way.
Oh, but there are multiple ways to legally buy houses anonymously enough. Setup a company at some tropical island and make it the house owner. Good luck trying to uncover the owners for an offshore company.
Or, use a surrogate person that will own properties on your behalf. You'd be suprised how many homeless people are owners of properties on their name without even imagining. If that's too risky, then do a contract with a reputable law firm and have them own the property on your behalf as trust fund holders.
Plenty of methods suited to all tastes and budgets. But I really see just about zero people using coin joining or any other convoluted method in the real world. They'll just wire monero to cut costs with commissions or risk of losing their money at some shady place.
This👆🏻
Holding and buying Bitcoin still puts pressure on the issuers of fiat.
It's still a net gain for hodlers long-term, even with the 20%-50% exit tax.
I agree that HODLing is only one leg of the strategy. Not the whole strategy.
As soon as something like a Bitcoin circular economy emerges that includes goods production, it will become very hard to tax a system that does not involve fiat on/off ramps.
Holding and buying Bitcoin still puts pressure on the issuers of fiat.
It's still a net gain for hodlers long-term, even with the 20%-50% exit tax.
I agree that HODLing is only one leg of the strategy. Not the whole strategy.
As soon as something like a Bitcoin circular economy emerges that includes goods production, it will become very hard to tax a system that does not involve fiat on/off ramps.
Holding and buying Bitcoin still puts pressure on the issuers of fiat.
It's still a net gain for hodlers long-term, even with the 20%-50% exit tax.
I agree that HODLing is only one leg of the strategy. Not the whole strategy.
As soon as something like a Bitcoin circular economy emerges that includes goods production, it will become very hard to tax a system that does not involve fiat on/off ramps.
Bitcoin is not a payments system . It is the best Asset to own and hold ... You don't go around buying coffee with #gold .. do you ?
Hang out with friends. they pay da bills in fiat then you zap em da corn
Like a collectible then 😬 just hold it and do nothing with it?
I agree with you 🎯 but for me, this is like for example SimpleX, it’s only a msg app, not even talking about currency, and man, no way for people to get it and use it despite explaining and trying to open up peoples eyes… it’s even harder on currency (my experience of course) lot to do still 😵💫
We will never be able to shake of the system they created. They will always find a way to bring the water to their mill. 😒 only way is off grid and self sustain... that is the way to lose THEM!
Cyph3rp9nk
This is the current situation.
- You buy something with Bitcoin:
In most countries you have to pay vat and in addition capital gains between the difference of buying and selling Bitcoin if you have made a profit.
This is an approximate 20% + 20% (of the profit) (It depends on each country).
- You sell Bitcoin:
You pay between 20% and 30% of the profit (Depending on country).
You have a lot of Bitcoin:
In some countries you will pay wealth tax.
You have a lot of unrealized gains:
In many countries they are trying to apply this, soon we will have the first country to do so.
If you have bought bitcoin with KYC you are screwed, the exchanges will end up passing all the data to the states and their respective tax offices.
If you have non-kyc bitcoin you can only use it to buy a soda, if you use it to buy a car or a house they will accuse you of money laundering, drug trafficking or whatever they want.
And you think bitcoiners have won? You can go to a country that has more lax tax regulations but tax havens are becoming increasingly difficult.
You have to try to make Bitcoin legal tender, and to do this you have to use your Bitcoin, and you have to accept Bitcoin as payment, only by creating a large black market where you do not have to pay taxes you can bend the state, otherwise your Bitcoin will only enrich the state.
During all these years the HODL strategy has been totally wrong, while we have carried out HODL the states have encircled us.
We came here for freedom.
View quoted note →
You lack vision.
Which is why the white paper is called "Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system"?
So what .. it happens all the time .. devs start working to solve an inferior problem and they end up hitting a jackpot .. Google guys just wanted to make a page rank algo and they went to sell it to Yahoo ... You know the history .. same thing happened to Bitcoin .. Satoshi were targeting a simpler problem but due to their incredible insights in math , cryptography and coding ..they created GOLD ...
I hope you understand creating a GOLD replacement is a LOT HARDER problem than fiat replacement ! ..
Okay ..enlighten me !
What do you do with Art ? Or Gold , or even Real Estate ? ..you sell when you absolutely need to ..
selling my house and buying coffee are NOT same thing ?
Gold is money, Bitcoin is better money.
I don't think Satoshi wanted to solve an "inferior" problem and then somehow ended up creating gold, or some asset which is not money but happen to scarce and desirable.
First point - YES
Second point - I don't know what Satoshi wanted ..I guess you too ... But the white paper clearly says they were designing a p2p cash system .. turns out they created a replacement for Gold .. which one would you choose ?
Thanks for the digital gold zapped through wonderful nostr :-)
Yeah but this is supposed to be p2p digital cash, not a pile of, let’s see if it values more I think…
Yes Satoshi did start with a p2p cash system in mind .. but ended up creating digital gold ..
Satosha
So what .. it happens all the time .. devs start working to solve an inferior problem and they end up hitting a jackpot .. Google guys just wanted to make a page rank algo and they went to sell it to Yahoo ... You know the history .. same thing happened to Bitcoin .. Satoshi were targeting a simpler problem but due to their incredible insights in math , cryptography and coding ..they created GOLD ...
I hope you understand creating a GOLD replacement is a LOT HARDER problem than fiat replacement ! ..
View quoted note →
