You’re logically correct but people aren’t…at least not in a straight forward way. There are lots of thing that have zero value but are tremendously overvalued because they get value “in other ways” which are downplayed. Take fine art. Some “fine art” is used in influence peddling. For instance, it may be illegal to give a politician 1 billion dollars, but perfectly legal to buy the politician’s back of the envelop scribble as “art” for 1 billion. “Fine art” is also a common way money laundering happens and creating tax writeoffs out of nothing. As for BTC, it would not matter if there was no retail usage. As long as it can be a unit of account that can get shuffled once a month between megabanks, all legit transfers of value can happen on L2s. Banks have been at this for thousands of years. They know how to control, capture and keep the value of any commodity. What counts is trust and BTC, even after the megabank takeover will still be decentalized enough to preserve trust across banks, and if there is an issue, BTC could be swapped with something like wrapped BTC on Solana and the original BTC coins can be burned, leaving BTC as a burnt out relic. Thankfully Monero is currently free of “the system”, but if privacy is ever accepted as necessary by the mass portion of the population, we need to be vigilant.

One should never invest more than one is willing to loose. If he’s willing to lose it all, then there’s no problem. Let him be. In the long term, it’s uncertain whether Bitcoin will stay above the current price. As the ETF expands, Bitcoin usage will decline and it may eventually become a HODL-only asset that is very unprofitable to mine and mined only by the Blackrocks of the world to get their transactions approved. In the mid term, Bitcoin is now a “store of value” asset for the finance industry, meaning it can be fractionally reserved and effectually there will be far more than 21 million BTC once you include paper BTC, so the same sort of inflation tricks that’s done with any digital assets can be done on BTC. That being said, in this cycle, it’s not unreasonable to expect it to go to 100K based on past trends and current hype and the fact that large BTC purchases from slow moving funds like retirement funds have yet to approve BTC purchases. But if most purchases are done OTC, that might not affect the price and paper BTC might absorb BTC’s price increase. So your friend will have to accept that the current price might the the all time high of BTC forever, and it can only go down from here. But, IMO, it won’t go down too quickly or too much in the short term. So I don’t imagine that the downside risk is more than 30%. In sum, I think that in the short term, the upside and downside risk will be 30%, with a higher chance that the 30% upside will happen. Be prepared to intervene at the end of next year when it’s supposed to be the top since that will be the time your friend should collect his 30% gain or accept his 30% loss.

I don’t like CEXes and the whole transfer money in and transfer out process and Kraken appears to require an account. and I see a sign in. If ChangeNow or any other instant exchanges that don’t require 3D KYC/AML, I’ll use it. I haven’t purchase XMR in the last few months since I have enough for a major emergency and I can’t tie up more money, so I don’t know the current state of instant exchanges. But when I do need to buy again, if I can’t find an instant exchange with low KYC out there to buy XMR, I know that they still exist for the popular POW coins so I’d go the DEX route. But if those don’t exist, I will be more open to explore other options like Haveno or Kraken.

I’ve never understood the attraction to CEXes. IMO, they’re confusing, slow, require you to put funds into them and take funds out and wait for each to process, and have heavy KYC/AML. I gave up on then the first time I tried them. My first purchase of Monero was on the ChangeNow instant exchange. It was simple and at the time the KYC/AML was only a document. There’s no way I’d ever give a 3D video Selfie with the modern state of AI. Changing between cryptos on DEXes was even easier since there was no KYC/AML. I’ve never used LocalMonero but was willing to try it before it was shut down, but I’m looking forward to Serai. I’m not yet comfortable with Haveno but if I were to buy Monero now, I’d likely buy DAI or LTC or BCH on an instant exchange (depending on the exchange rate) and then swap with XMR immediately so it doesn’t cause a taxable event from the government’s perspective. Yes, it would be registered with the government that you had crypto, but unfortunately I love boating and things happen.

Sorry, I disagree. Yes inflation makes things worse, but for most of human existence for all of the world, except for the era of prosperity that started in the 1950s, the standard was closer to 60 hours a week of back breaking work, with Abrahamic religions giving people one day of rest. Also, for most of human existence in all the world, a tiny fraction of people were actually rich, except for modern times when there was a legitimate middle class. Inflation is just the way the ultra rich return us back to the historical norm. Getting rid of fiat and getting rid of inflationary banking systems are our only hope, but they won’t return us back before the modern norm. 40 hours is the best we can do for the foreseeable future even if we’re successful.

No surprise. There are three main markets, (1) the white market, (2) the grey market, and (3) the black market. Anything linked to the white market is regulated. Regulations have expanded several fold since the 1980s, but that’s the hand we’re dealt and I don’t think you can find a service like BitPay or Spritz Finance without this regulation. Grey markets find loopholes to let you do what you want with far fewer or no regulations (e.g. using cash, coin cards, p2p payments with local vendors, etc). Black markets have no regulations. So if you want total privacy, you need to focus on the later two types of markets.

I think it’s because finance in general is more a guy’s conversation area. Put two arbitrary guys from anywhere in the world together and they’ll talk about one of the following: sports/gaming, business/finance, technology, politics and family. XMR covers at least three of these. Women tend to have more social interests so finance (other than budgeting, where women dominate, even it hyper-traditional families) is a much smaller percentage of most women’s conversation. It’s not to say that privacy isn’t important to women, but if you want a privacy podcast for women, it has to be more social. If you want a pro-privacy podcast for women, get the following women to start a group podcast: Naomi Brockwell (privacy), Janice McAfee (privacy money activist), Vanessa Harris (practical altcoins with strong support for privacy in crypto), and some women in the “Women Leading Privacy” organisations around the world. If you want such a podcast, reach out directly to these women, encourage others to do so, and pledge to support the podcast, either by spreading the world, or helping organise it, or day to day, or even through a donation (in XMR of course).

It’s not even controversial to say that both simple minded Germ theory and terrain theory are false. For an example of the former, see meningitis and for the later the eradication of small pox and virtual eradication of polio. It’s fair to say both play a part. Case in point, in the before times, when it was flu season, a flu would start off in one end of the office, successively spread to surrounding cubicles over the next week (germ theory), jump over me (terrain theory), and continue on to the people after me until it made its rounds around the office (germ theory). I would rarely ever get colds even when surrounded with people with colds (terrain theory), but if my throat got extremely dry and my feet were cold or I was under a lot of stress, I would get sick if I didn’t “fix” it in time (terrain theory). My father was the same way. When I eventually did get sick, I got sicker than anyone else in the office…it was impossible to hide. But I went to work, no-one else would get sick. Why? I told people I was sick and told them to back off, and I wore a scarf, and tried not to touch anything everyone else did (germ theory). Both theories are very compatible and generally agreed upon as long as you don’t go off the deep end on either side.

There is no “we”. Like fiat, Monero is used by activists and persecuted people on all sides of any issue or normies in messed up countries where banks prevent you from getting your own money or normies who long for something better (either new or from the before times).

I’d be perfectly happy if the fiat system returned to the 1980s when you could get a bank account without ID, banks had to bribe you to share purchase history with “partners”, banks didn’t censor you because of your politics, you weren’t asked questions or restricted when you wanted to remove your money from the bank, MMT did not exist, and governments provided fewer services so they taxed you less. But that world isn’t coming back (at least not without a collapse). A 1960s world when fiat was still tied to gold would be better. But that’s even more unrealistic without a collapse. There are still a number of people who still remember the before times, and many have a similar vision and we can reach them. Bitcoin isn’t good enough…it’s too public…the information on it is too permanent. Showing the account balance and purchase history of an arbitrary Bitcoiner to a normie is the surest way to turn him off to crypto, especially when that normie learns that you can find out the purchases made during their younger years. People don’t want to be financial exhibitionists. So privacy coins like Monero are our only hope and our only hope to reach the normie.

People who do not remember the before times tend to either accept he current state or lean to a form of libertarianism or anarchism or agorism.

IMO, it’s a good thing there is no “we”. It means Monero is for everyone.

While I do admire the pledge and I hope it succeeds, IMO, it’s a bit too idealistic given how few people currently accept Monero. My suggestion is to have three tiers…platinum (the above)…gold (add “where possible” to each level) and bronze (add “or other crypto” but not fiat when not possible).

Agreed, but there is a difference between dividing people and making distinctions. The fact that different people exist is not political, especially if they want the same thing (like Monero). I was simply pointing out that if you have any sort of government, even tribal or libertarian, you have to distinguish the people under the government and those who are not, and you have to have some mutual self protection of property rights (i.e. a border protection) and a way for the in-group to benefit from shared expenses for the out-group not to leach off of it (since the out-group could easily outnumber the in-group and collapse the government). If you don’t believe in governments, the border issue and the shared service issue is makes no sense. As mentioned above, I’m not a libertarian but can support many libertarian ideals because it would bring us closer to a time that government was not so overreaching. Anarchocapialists are not libertarian, but they can also support such policies because it brings society closer to their ideals. There’s nothing antagonistic in what I’ve written and in fact re-enforces unity despite differences.

@prancing389 That man was more anarchocapialist than libertarian. Anarchocapialist don’t want governments so borders are irrelevant and if you’re overrun by tankies that turn your society totalitarian, you either run away or go underground. Libertarians believe in some government, just much more limited and more focused on property rights, core society services, and services that enforce the nonagression principle. Several of these require strong borders and legal immigration that buy into the laws and customs. I’m not libertarian (I believe in subsidiarity) but I do agree that government has gotten too big and is putting its nose in too many areas. I’d be satisfied if we go roll back governments to the 1980s when you could open a bank account with no ID and something like the lockdowns would be impossible (compare the SARS response to the COVID-19 response).

Note with this federated approach it would be possible for some instances to add plug-ins for haveno and basicswaodex and serai.

I agree in principle but in practise it would be a disaster without a plan. Localmonero.co works because it is THE P2P XMR place. If there are 100 versions, the liquidity on each would be so low that Noone would use it, especially for non USD trades. Having 100 localmoneros is good but you need a federated login like nostr and when you search for offers you would see offers for all instances of localmonero, or at least the most reputable ones. With this approach, the new localmonero would be unstoppable.

Here’s instruction on use: https://learn.robosats.com/read/en/

I think the key issue is the lightning network and the lack of user state so they user doesn’t know how many steps there are or where they are in process. Getting rid of lightning solves parts of the issue. The user state issue is a newbie UI mistake that most DEXes have solved by including something basic like providing the steps involved in the sidebar, highlighting where you are in the process and how to get to the next step. What I found intimidating on LocalMonero was the openness of it and the fact that may ads requested either KYC or to use Telegram (which I have no need of installing). The two extra layers on anonymity in robosats discourages KYC or use of 3rd parties to discuss the transaction. The discussions can take place on an ID-less chat like SimpleX which is integrated. I believe that SimpleX supports plugins to allow for automation, so crypto-to-crypto trades can be done without user intervention.

The point I’m trying to make is that in the absence of LocalMonero, it is possible to build a replacement using existing technologies (Tor,Robosats,SimpleX,Haveno,BasicSwap,Serai, etc), in a more private, anonymous, an easier and less intimidating to understand technologies.

Eventually Monero will ossify and be linked to the existing financial system just like cash and gold. But when it happens it has to be on Moneros terms. Unfortunately bitcoin ossified and got adopted before it became popular. Btc.maxis believe Btc is popular but that is only in comparison with other crypto. If you look at people like rebel capitals on YouTube try to live off crypto outside Europe or the US you see it no crypto is anywhere near usable except perhaps Usdt on tron. That’s to Btc, monero has a guide on what not to do.

While I agree, it’s not impossible. MimbleWimble has proven itself on Litecoin and it was implemented (I believe) using a soft fork. So just as Ordinals was forced on the maxis, MimbleWimble can be forced on the maxis as a payment channel if the demand is there. Note, MimbleWimble isn’t as private as Monero, and the fact that it’s possible to know when something goes into and out of MimbleWimble may make you targeted as a “money launderer” makes it risky. But at least its a step forward.

Actually it can’t because Bitcoin is a naked blockchain and you will be able to look at it in its whole glory. What mixers do is essentially allow you to occasionally hide your face. Sure, someone who doesn’t know about your mole on your left thigh might not recognise you, but the rest of you is still exposed. Even worse, because of the high fees involved in moving funds around, you’re paying a high fee for that face mask.

It doesn’t need to be on a device. You can create a “book” at the local binding store containing 200 samples of “Vogon poetry” ( http://spaceinvaders.epizy.com/vogon.html?i=1 ) . Your seed phrase can be scattered in a memorised pattern within the book. You can bring that book with you anywhere and have multiple copies in different locations.

An old school method is to write a note with every fifth word being a seed word. Keep that note among 20 others so you cannot know what is relevant.