Monero Moses / Monero Moses is on Nostr

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Last Notes

2024-05-27 12:43:59 UTC

Great interview with @npub1qny…95gx as a guest on the Staying Free podcast.
For awhile I was surprised that #monero was not coming up in the conversation (about financial surveillance...), but eventually the topic did come up.
Where I believe the conversation went a bit south is when the assertion was made that Monero is competing with Bitcoin.
This has not been my experience, and it is not how I think about it. And most Monero users I know think the same way.
Sure, if you dig deep enough you will find the Bitcoin Maxi counterpart, the Monero Maxi. The only difference between them is that the Bitcoin Maxi has deeper pockets by now, but their dogmatic adherence to each project and the religious reasons behind that stance are essentially the same, even if for slightly different reasons.
For everyone else (99%+) that is not how it goes, however.
Monero is a tool. Bitcoin is a tool. That is all.
Like every other tool, sometimes tool A is better than tool B for purpose X.
Less abstractly, there can simply be no doubt that when it comes to preserving your privacy and anonymity, transacting with Monero comes with much stronger guarantees than with Bitcoin: onchain is a disaster, Liquid and Lightning it really depends on the situation (generally fine and private enough for small to medium transactions IF the user knows what he's doing AND chooses the right software wallet).
Only a fool or a dogmatic true believer would think anything else.
It is what it is. Maybe one day it will change, but today this is the situation.
Likewise, if you want to hold on and quite possibly increase your stored value, Bitcoin is a better choice and has the track record to show that without any doubt.
It is for that reason that I, like most Monero users I know, keep the stash in #bitcoin BUT spend in #monero or bitcoin lightning.
We optimize for privacy and anonymity, because we understand that is the only way we won't find ourselves deeper in the mass-surveillance shithole that the collective actions of uncritical unthinking masses (who accepted or failed to acknowledge the mass surveillance) have led us to.
(And I have to say, we tried to warn you all. For years. Well, here we are.)
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So it is not either-or, and it not a competition. I don't see any incongruence in believing in #bitcoin for storing my wealth, but prefering to spend it in #monero especially when tools like #bisq #seraidex #basicswapdex exist.
I'm not a worse bitcoiner for using #monero - that nonsense has to stop. And it begins with you, dear reader.
Use the tools. Give space to others to do the same.
With some luck, if enough of us optimize for freedom instead of dogma, we will renormalize financial privacy in our lifetime.