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Comment by danlugo92 | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin's traceability ruins its fungibility.

Fungibility and traceability are orthogonal. Equities markets transactions are highly traceable and also highly fungible.

Bitcoin's fungibility is limited by its incredibly slow transaction speed. (This is true of all cryptocurrencies AFAIK -- even the fastest ones that are only capable of 100K TPS at best.)

Equities markets don't have to deal with "tainted" transactions, because every transaction is like a government-approved deed or title transfer.

Bitcoin's transaction rate is artificially limited.

Correcting myself: I said "fungible" but meant "liquid." Bitcoin is reasonably fungible today, though not as easily as fiat currency. Traceability hasn't done much to reduce Bitcoin's fungibility AFAICT.

What makes you think Monero is untraceable?

- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2408.05332

- https://darkwebinformer.com/chainalysis-successful-deanonymi...

-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266628172...

The fact that it's delisted from most exchanges because of its privacy features; if it was as traceable as Bitcoin, then the feds would allow it. What I see from these links is that it's not fully "traceable" and more educated guessing via heuristics.

Lightning (A layer-2 network based on Bitcoin) is similarly untraceable as Monero, without being an actual cryptocurrency. Yet the fed doesn't seem to concerned, probably also because few people and institutions understand Lightning, and the fed is not one of them or doesn't want to go against Bitcoin.

It is nowhere near the privacy offered by Monero: https://raphtyosaze.medium.com/privacy-in-lightning-network-...

Old paper, old link. Most of it is not relevant anymore today. They also do not compare, as Lightning is NOT a cryptocurrency nor does it try to be. It is still Bitcoin.

Please kindly provide evidence for your claims and please be factual to point the current privacy concerns still open today and what has been addressed (if at all).

Lightning is a token representing bitcoin, same as USDT representing USD.

It is NOT bitcoin, never was.

> Lightning is a token representing bitcoin

No, it is NOT. It is not even blockchain based. Not providing anything, as you can easily google all of this yourself.

I will admit that as far as signal goes that appears to be a big one.

Your post seems like F.U.D.

#1: "between 2019 and 2023"

#2: the author wrote "This attack is not realistic. ... This is why everyone needs to run their own node"

#3: "digital forensic approach can still reveal sensitive information by examining off-chain artifacts such as memory and wallet files"

So...

#1 seems to have been mitigated.

#2 seems to not be an issue if you run your own node.

#3 seems to not be an issue if you don't let others do forensic analysis on your own computer (not the Blockchain).

It's good that people do this research to help make Monero better. I am not criticizing the people that published what OP linked to. But of course OP's post is like saying "What makes you think paint is safe? Here's a post about how paint used to include lead."

#1 and #2 are public results by market leading blockchain analytics companies that have an alphabet soup of agencies as their major clients.

Do you think they published their current state of the art?

This reply seems like textbook F.U.D.

Their current state of art leaks regularly, they inherently have to share it with their customers who are very leaky.

The fungibility of Bitcoin is achieved through layer-2 networks, such as Lightning. No, it is not another cryptocurrency, it is just another technological layer. You are still transfering bitcoins.

Trumps "Bitcoin payment" portrayed extensively by the media was done in the Lightning network.

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