Privacy, like encryption, really needs to be convenient to be effective at scale.
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.
would it be accurate to say due to design shortcomings both in security and transaction processing, bitcoin shouldn’t be the top cryptocurrency in the next 5-10 years?
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.
IMO, yes. Not necessarily because it has deficiencies, but because it is not trying to progress and move things forward and the community consensus mechanism is broken.
Maybe it sucks for Bitcoin, because it is becoming a little less relevant, but privacy coins are clearly the best fit for darknet markets.
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.
Is it? Haven't used Dark Net Markets in a while but I just logged onto the largest market according to Dread, and it looks like Bitcoin is not just widely accepted but the market default currency.
> Dread is a Reddit clone specifically for Dark Net Markets. It was created just before Reddit banned the DarkNetMarkets subreddit.
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.
I am surprised no one mentioned that it is possible to trace bitcoin. To me, that is the biggest reason for its use declining in the "dart-net" (tm).
(edit, just saw someone mentioned tracing already)
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.
> I am surprised no one mentioned that it is possible to trace bitcoin.
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.
MW hides amounts and addresses [1], but not the transaction graph. However, MW can be extended with a coinswap protocol [2] that obscures the tx graph as well, giving pretty good privacy, while improving scalability. Also see this comparison of 3 blockchains [3].
> 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.
Because Bitcoin is not 'anonymous' and it is traceable and it never guaranteed privacy features in its whitepaper unlike privacy coins like Monero, MobileCoin, Grin and Zcash?
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?
every transaction comes with one (or sometimes multiple) kernels.
it also comes with a scalar offset, that gets summed when merging transactions together, making it impossible invert the merging (unless you saw the original txs, e.g. in the mempool).
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.