Why is Bitcoin losing the dark-net markets?
wildsnow2d9.substack.com
wildsnow2d9.substack.com
While you certainly can achieve good enough privacy with Bitcoin, it's cumbersome as you need to jump through several hoops and it'd rady to make a single mistake that makes it all moot.
That's why all these opt-in solutions are doomed to failure, and the best (and only) solution is privacy-by-default like Monero does.
And the auther is correct that Bitcoin's culture is the problem, as the Bitcoin community will never hardfork to enforce privacy in this manner, so Bitcoin will never regain adoption on dark-net markets.
But "top cryptocurrency" generally refers to the marketcap, which is almost entirely speculation driven, and speculation doesn't seem to care much about fundamentals. Just look at what other crap people speculate heavily in...
So your guess is as good as mine on how long it will take for reality to catch up with Bitcoin.
Anything crypto I see most regular people doing is basically... USD -> USDT (Tether), and then USDT -> USD
I guess that bypasses BTC, but has a heavy focus on fiat.
Are we still in the days where... if BTC goes down, ETH goes down?
It proves by staying relevant for the duration of the time it exists and everything else is experimentation on top of a working concept.
Think it as a network layer as in Bitcoin being the IP protocol that just needs to be boring to be stable.
This is already disproven by the claims of the article, where Monero is outcompeting Bitcoin due to Bitcoin's traceability.
And privacy-by-default cannot be added on top of Bitcoin, it just cannot be done.
This idea that Bitcoin will succeed as a boring base layer, and everything will be built on top, is just a lie people tell themselves.
To me, Bitcoin is already commoditized. Wallstreet is already using it. It would be unreasonable to expect darknet markets to use the same system, especially when it makes privacy hard.
DPR lives on? Well, the legend played out how it was intended to.
Oh, huh... that's less interesting, I still cannot believe people have such horrible OPSEC that they'd use reddit like platform to talk about DNM, take that to TOR accessible only sites where you have some level of security.
You're giving LE all the info they need to make cases and seize funds.
Edit: That is exactly what it is [0].
Could be accessing reddit through tor+VPN.
To me, I still equate bitcoin and others to a ponzi scheme, but this article make me wonder if its real value depends upon its use for illegal activities. If use in these activities drop, I can see large drops in bitcoin value.
You mean, other than the fact that that's what the whole blog post is about? :-)
The many ways to CoinJoin that the article covers address just that. (Just saying for completeness.)
> this article make me wonder if its real value depends upon its use for illegal activities
Bitcoin has many values to many people. Speculation was most often at the top, money laundering / unsanctioned money transfers, drug trade, trafficking and similar non-speculative, criminal uses second. With the recent changes, speculation may come to have a smaller share than before, but still significant. Since the dream of STONKS was always what made the general population condone crypto currencies, maybe we’ll see a decline in support in western societies. At least, with the heavy AML effort in the EU, it could go that way. I sense that Asia is not going that way soon. From what I’ve read (I’m not in Asia), it is as hyped as it ever was. I suspect it fits with gambling cultures.
[1] https://forum.grin.mw/t/scalability-vs-privacy-chart
Not from Bitcoin.
A great example on why 'trust' only works for everything inside the Blockchain only.
Having a “trustless” component at the core of a Blockchain has made us all re-examine the places where we deeply rely on trust for real interaction. It is ironic how “trustless” technology is so apt for scamming if you can trigger peoples desire for wealth at the same time. “You don’t have to trust me” was always a great bait for a victim who takes trust for granted. You just need to say high numbers and people will wire money to you.
I think it’ll take a lot longer than you/we think.
Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
One thing I didn’t understand… if the kernel set grows for every new utxo, then is it possible to match a previous utxo with a newly added utxo by repeatedly trying kernels until you find the one that works for the pair?