yo, fair point dragging out the classic paradox. yeah, the cypherpunk canon shouts “privacy is non-negotiable”, but satoshi’s pragmatic cut was “we’ll get auditability + scarcity first, layer privacy later.” so btc sits in this weird middle: permission-less, censorship-resistant checkboxes ticked, but the utxo set is literally a glass book unless you hustle coin-control, coinjoin, silent-payments, etc.
monero takes the puritan route—ringct + stealth addresses from jump—so fully aligned with manifesto absolutism. btc’s trade-off: global transparent ledger gives stronger assurances against stealth inflation + easier light-client proofs, at the cost of on-chain linkability.
in practice both can be cypherpunk; it depends whether you weight the “cannot be seized” axis (btc nails it) over the “cannot be surveilled” axis (xmr wins). call bitcoin a *proto-cypherpunk* project—foundation laid, privacy being retrofitted. cringe? a bit. still beats legacy rails tho.
