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this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2025
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Privacy
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TFW your privacy setup is so good Anubis blocks you :(
Somebody please tell me what's up with Monero. I thought it was some kinda cryptocurrency? In what way does it avoid or mitigate any of the overwhelming number of problems those inherently have?
Yes it is a cryptocurrency just like bitcoin and eth but it is privacy focused. For example, on the bitcoin blockchain, your transactions and who sent btc to who and how much did you send is open to the public. With monero, there is still a blockchain but nothing is open to the public. They don't know who sent monero to who or how much you sent. All they know is a transaction was made and thats it. If i made any mistakes hopefully someone will correct me but I hope this gave you the basic understanding of how it works.
Here's a laundry list, since you didn't specify which concerns you have:
- unprofitable to mine in farms, so fewer environmental issues
- creates a ton of fake transactions to screw with the public ledger to protect your privacy
- variable sized blocks, which keeps fees low and reduces transaction time
- pretty stable, so pump isn't really a thing
- not as popular as bitcoin or Ethereum, so traditional scams to steal your coins aren't as successful (also attracts more sophisticated users)
- less of a target for speculation, so the currency is reasonably stable
There are some downsides of course:
- due to privacy features, it's attractive to criminals, so many countries block direct transactions with fiat (need to trade some other crypto for it)
- to maximize privacy, it's strongly recommended to use your own node (boy required though), which can raise the barrier to entry
- it's even harder to find vendors that accept it vs other cryptocurrencies
Monero does seem to be the best cash replacement though, since it preserves most of the privacy-relevant features of cash.
This is actually really helpful, thanks!!
My general impression for a while has been that there is a genuine need for what crypto claims (but fails) to do. It sounds like Monero is, while very imperfect, sort of like the closest thing we have?
I keep seeing a lot of orgs support it that I would've expected better from, on the crypto front, so I guess this explains why.
Ok, so searching for reliable info on this is (predictably) difficult because you get 80 pages of crypto shill websites. But i found this old article and the critique it lays out seems kinda damning.
That said, it doesn't mention in the critique whether they propose any other alternative. And we do seem to need one, right? Some of the stuff that people buy with whatever bullshitcoin on the darkweb, is actually very necessary and/or policed for bad reasons. Like meds unobtainable in the garbage U.S. medical system.
It seems to me like every other day, we're hearing that the major payment processors are banning some platform, or forcing some other platform to stop allowing adult content, etc etc. So ultimately I'm coming down on the side of "Monero is just more scammy nonsense", but it also kinda seems like the only option I'm aware of...
crypto claims
Well, that depends on what claims you're interested in.
Monero solves the problem of replacing cash while preserving all of the anonymity of cash. Transactions are reasonably fast, fees are low, etc.
Bitcoin is a terrible currency IMO, and isn't much better as a store of value because:
- transaction fees are high - due to finite block size and frequency
- it's a huge target for speculation as the largest cryptocurrency
- transactions are slow (see first bullet point)
The problem Bitcoin is trying to solve is transparency of transactions, putting huge emphasis on the public ledger. That's always going to be at odds with a currency, where most people don't want their transactions tracked.
I'm not a crypto expert, but from what I know it's one of the few currencies that have no kyc (know your customer) in order to use. The whole point of it is to have completely anonymous transactions and untracable/unmarked currecy. I used it once to buy a month of Mullvad vpn just to see how it works. I bought a giftcard with cash, traded the gift card for monero on a somewhat sketchy site, put the monero into an XMR wallet, and used the Monero to buy the vpn with wallet keys. It was a fun experiment but it was just too much time and effort to do it the right way to warrant using it 24/7
It's not about KYC. Monero would have KYC like any other cryptocurrency. Its that the transactions are encrypted.
Its my understanding that KYC is not inherent to crypto but only to exchanges such as kraken or coinbase. Tax regulations necessitate KYC, not the technical requirements of the underlying asset.
Essentially what the other person said, but KYC depends on the marketplace. See getmonero.com. XMR allows for merchants to skip KYC, which other cryptos don't do
It's essentially the only cryptocurrency that has privacy, so is good for paying for VPNs and such.
Others like Bitcoin are not private and your transactions are visible.
Monero is more about polluting and money laundering than privacy.
There is some privacy in it, but it's overshadowed by the other things.
Not disagreeing with you, but it's a double edged sword inherent to any privacy-focused system. Tor grants journalists and political dissidents access to the broader world anonymously, but is also used by darknet markets to sell CP and illicit drugs.
Privacy coins like monero allow people to spend money anonymously to purchase VPNs or prepaid phones without state actors knowing, but also enables money launderers to do what they do.
And of course there's the pollution problem you mention with any proof of work cryptocurrency, but at least Monero's is more efficient that Bitcoin.
Again not defending cryptocurrencies or discounting your thoughts just wanted to tack on to it.
I'm still skeptical about passkeys. Tying your auth to a specific physical device feels like a recipe for being locked out (as has happened to many people at work already...requiring me to remove their passkey so they can get back in to their account...)
Passkeys are a shortcut, not the main authentication, and you're supposed to back them up.
This is why you should always have a backup method of logging in. For hardware security keys they always recommend having a second key as backup.
Pretty spot on. Love the hipaa reference