Very well put together, thanks! This post shoulb be made mandatory for all bitcointalk users to read 
Gdocs for the moment, should be added to a future FAQ. For the moment, it is on the FAQ section of the OP.
Topic: [XMR] Monero - A secure, private, untraceable cryptocurrency - page 1672. (Read 4671953 times)
In the United States it is unconstitutional for congress to retroactively make something illegal, and you can't show someone's still using Monero if it ever were made illegal.
But the XMR price is very good. 
If you're still running 32-bit, you probably are a senior or something and shouldn't be messing with magic internet money.
+1 lol
The majority of internet-connected computers are 32-bit, no PAE.
It is a serious freaking problem.
And they're likely botnet zombies while their owners have no idea because all they use it for is email and Facebook.
We should avoid techno elitist attitudes.
The fact the current CN code demands a 64bit system because it handles data inefficiently and clumsily. This is embarrassing for Monero, and certainly it's biggest current flaw.
Insulting the end users does not help the problem, and might damage the reputation of the currency.
The 32 bit thing is embarrassing. Also never insult the end user.
This needs to be fixed. Are any of the Monero developers able to fix it?
I trust the developers are working on this now. It really just boils down to the database. When we migrate to a proper scalable database the Monero deamon will no longer need to load the whole thing into memory, but will just access the database from the storage medium. It will also most likely optimize the disc space requirement making the database smaller to store.
I wish I could help but I am a musician, and audio engineer not a programmer. If writing a song was useful, I'd be the guy.
If you're still running 32-bit, you probably are a senior or something and shouldn't be messing with magic internet money.
+1 lol
The majority of internet-connected computers are 32-bit, no PAE.
It is a serious freaking problem.
And they're likely botnet zombies while their owners have no idea because all they use it for is email and Facebook.
We should avoid techno elitist attitudes.
The fact the current CN code demands a 64bit system because it handles data inefficiently and clumsily. This is embarrassing for Monero, and certainly it's biggest current flaw.
Insulting the end users does not help the problem, and might damage the reputation of the currency.
The 32 bit thing is embarrassing. Also never insult the end user.
This needs to be fixed. Are any of the Monero developers able to fix it?
If you're still running 32-bit, you probably are a senior or something and shouldn't be messing with magic internet money.
+1 lol
The majority of internet-connected computers are 32-bit, no PAE.
It is a serious freaking problem.
And they're likely botnet zombies while their owners have no idea because all they use it for is email and Facebook.
We should avoid techno elitist attitudes.
The fact the current CN code demands a 64bit system because it handles data inefficiently and clumsily. This is embarrassing for Monero, and certainly it's biggest current flaw.
Insulting the end users does not help the problem, and might damage the reputation of the currency.
^Yes.
does mixin count 1 mean that there is one other participant in your ring signature? i.e. mixin count 1 means ring signature with 2 people and mixin count 2 means ring signature with 3 people ect...
In the United States it is unconstitutional for congress to retroactively make something illegal, and you can't show someone's still using Monero if it ever were made illegal.
You cant possibly still be under the illusion that governments are actually constrained by constitutions.
And looks like possibility to use monero as is on 64 bit windows with 4 GB RAM will be over very soon.
Can you elaborate on this point. Why would you require more than 4GB of ram in the future to run monero? (i'm pretty sure the computer im using has 4gb of ram)
because bitmonerod has to load the entire blockchain on the ram as of now, and its larger than the actual size on disk
If you're still running 32-bit, you probably are a senior or something and shouldn't be messing with magic internet money.
I'm running 64-bit and 4GB RAM. With Monero and nothing else running my RAM usage is at 80%
ETA: Windows 8.1 so not all of the 80% is Monero. Monero is ~ 2.3 GB
Well, it's a little more complicated than that.
You say Monero is 2.3GB and it has to be loaded into memory, however, that may not mean what you think it does. See, on a 64-bit Windows computer, you can run a process that requires 16GB of active memory on a machine that only has 4GB of physical RAM installed. It can do this by virtue of virtual memory. Virtual memory is a contiguous memory space available for running processes that sits atop multiple memory spaces. Indeed there is the physical memory, but the paging file is included and L-cache memory is included as well. Processes that exhaust the available physical memory, get paged out to the paging file which is part of the same contiguous allocated memory space. Paging space is order of magnitude slower than physical memory, but is very useful for a) efficient physical RAM utilization (seldom access memory or pre-cached memory can be paged out to the file, freeing up much faster RAM) and b) spikes in memory needs that exceed installed RAM. Heavy paging will induce disk thrashing which will slow the system down drastically, but that is secondary to this explanation.
Point to all this is that the blockchain can grow quite large (>4GB) and still be functional on a 64-bit Windows machine with 4GB of physical RAM assuming a sufficiently sized paging file is defined which is default on later Windows installs. Will it be a pleasant experience? No, but it will be functional.
32-bit OS are not included in the above scenario, however. 32-bit OS's only allow for a 4GB address space in total for any given process. Furthermore, that 4GB space is then divided into a 2GB application space and a 2GB OS space so a process needing more than 2GB of usable space cannot function. Now, you can enable PAE to shift this split to 3GB/1GB, but you're still going to ride up against that 3GB cap at some point. Applications can be written to use AWE memory, but, well, this is getting pointless. Instead of trying to fix this issue in code, change the operation so that the blockchain is kept in a DB with only a small part loaded in active memory at any given time and be done with it. Exactly what the developers are working on.
Thank you for trying to educate the Drooling Masses® and doing so in a clear manner. I had already decided to upgrade to 8GB RAM but haven't done so due to being caught in the finger trap of life.
In the United States it is unconstitutional for congress to retroactively make something illegal, and you can't show someone's still using Monero if it ever were made illegal.
If the state really wants to come down on our freedoms, it will, sorry.
Real life isnt a Hollywood movie with good cop ending. No it wont if you are clever enough.
That being said i am sure Bitcoin is enough for your needs.
Using Bitcoin wanting to protect your stash from prying is a real pain because you have to take extra precautions and use other services, while with Monero you can just have one address and use different levels of mixing when sending transactions to match the level of privacy you would like to ensure, this is what bitcoin had to be since day one, but they got most of the people saying its a plus for accountability, and it really is and thats why I think bitcoin and monero will co-exist.
good question lol, and in the scenario you get rich from XMR, it will for sure be accepted in lots of places so in the ideal world you trade services directly with xmr, otherwise you'll have to deal with xmr->btc or even xmr->btc->cash transactions.
This question and subsequent answer is one that has been rolling around my noodle for awhile now. While I think I agree with the answer in the immediate time frame, I don't think I do long term.
Many are looking at current global economics and coming to the conclusion that our debt based economies are so severely overspent that their inertia will undoubtedly carry us over a horrendous cliff. When seems to be the only question. With that as my base outlook on the future, I don't see the future use of XMR in the same light. This is a total work in progress for me, so please understand I may change my pov at a moments notice
If we are indeed heading for not just an economic crash, but economic devastation, I make a few assumptions
1) Government controls will be applied in a way that can only be described as draconian, controlling and martial. They will be defended as necessary for protection of the state and it's people
2) Property seizures in the interest of the state will occur. We in the US saw this with gold seizure under Roosevelt. 401k's, pensions, savings, gold holdings , possibly personal property and even BTC may be demanded. Just look at Cyrpess for recent seizures
3) Considering the known current technical capabilities of organizations such as the NSA, I have no reason to doubt that if they turned their attention to asset gathering, deep blockchain analysis, federal warrants on data from companies such as Coinbase, Mintpal, mixers and the like will turn up many, many BTC holders. Simple threats of imprisonment or even accusations of treason would undoubtedly result in the handover of many wallets and passwords
4) A fully anonymous blockchain such as XMR's would be as close to the Swiss Bank of old as one could possibly get. This is all obviously ignoring those in the world that can right now, today, desperately use a means to safeguard their assets from a corrupt government.
Now, if the above were true, then how one used XMR would not fall in line with the answer above. XMR transfers (or any other anonymous coin of any type) would categorically never be used to pay a business. You would never transfer XMR funds to an entity that already was deeply involved in government reporting (taxes) or would potentially have a address that could be associated with you (drop location? Sure there are no cameras around?). Fundamentally, XMR transfers would always be person to person with full anonymity in-place (anonymous contracts for instance) or complete trust of the recipient. In this scenario, since many or most transactions would be more public (buying groceries, paying for housing, everyday living), a suitable anonymous XMR->accepted fiat would need to be in place to usable on the small scale. If you think your local grocery could just accept XMR on the down-low, just look up and wave at the camera next time you're buying your tomatoes and milk. You would need a supply of daily money as well as a secure money store. It's the secure movement back and forth that has me pensive.
Your economic/government view is too US-centric, the US is not the center of the world, they can have surveillance capabilities in the entire world but no ways of enforcing their domestic laws in other countries like China and Russia, that being said XMR doesnt depend on the US economy and the USG is incapable of seizing XMR unless you revel you have them and hand over your private keys and passwords. I2P (future) and transactions using ring signatures (now) is the death kiss to your NSA, as for using XMR for buying groceries, again, your address is never revealed to the recipient, they can't know the exact sum of your assets in XMR, and thats what make it special. This is what XMR brings, it doesn't make you literally invisible when you are transferring XMRs, it makes your transactions virtually impossible of being traced back to you. It's really like a Swiss Bank account, but better, only you can access or view it if you take the right steps to secure your private key.
Even if the NSA was as weak as you describe, the USG can just beat the living shit out of you until you give them what they want... or they get bored and kill you.
Yes but any group of relatively strong guys can beat the shit out of anyone. The distinguishing characteristic is their organization. And the glue, if you will, that gives this particular group of strong guys cohesion is the USD. If something happens to that glue than they just become a bunch of strong guys who are acting towards individual ends and not a unified purpose. In such a situation they are not any more or less threatening than any other group of random strong guys. They are no more likely to beat the shit out of anyone than anyone else is. Without that glue they are no longer divinely ordained "the state", they are just dudes.
^ - after your economic apocalypses, US Gov deploying their World Police in every country, etc:
Backwards application in a way, but modified Monero paper wallets would make an excellent and easily deployable replacement for current physical fiat. QR coded view key covering the private key, so identity and contents of the wallet can be checked but accessing the funds destroys the "note".
Of course they would have to be issued by "trusted" institutions or individuals but the minimal cost of production means that could be virtually anyone could issue them, e.g. your local store or civic leader. Yes that trust would be limited, and there would be ways to abuse the system, but they would only be used for relatively low value transactions so there is little incentive to do so.
This physical exchange method assumes that you wouldnt be using the much easier and securer electronic transfer methods, like LocalBitcoin deals, but I can imagine a number of scenarios where this might be the case, e.g.:
Backwards application in a way, but modified Monero paper wallets would make an excellent and easily deployable replacement for current physical fiat. QR coded view key covering the private key, so identity and contents of the wallet can be checked but accessing the funds destroys the "note".
Of course they would have to be issued by "trusted" institutions or individuals but the minimal cost of production means that could be virtually anyone could issue them, e.g. your local store or civic leader. Yes that trust would be limited, and there would be ways to abuse the system, but they would only be used for relatively low value transactions so there is little incentive to do so.
This physical exchange method assumes that you wouldnt be using the much easier and securer electronic transfer methods, like LocalBitcoin deals, but I can imagine a number of scenarios where this might be the case, e.g.:
- Non IT literate users would adjust much quicker to this medium of exchange as just another type of cash, as opposed to trusting magic Internet money transfers
- Transactions can remain completely "off grid", so only you and the shopkeeper know what newspaper you favour
- The global comms network has failed in the wake of economic apocalypse, so Internet access is only via satellite link and heavily rationed/expensive
This question and subsequent answer is one that has been rolling around my noodle for awhile now. While I think I agree with the answer in the immediate time frame, I don't think I do long term.
Many are looking at current global economics and coming to the conclusion that our debt based economies are so severely overspent that their inertia will undoubtedly carry us over a horrendous cliff. When seems to be the only question. With that as my base outlook on the future, I don't see the future use of XMR in the same light. This is a total work in progress for me, so please understand I may change my pov at a moments notice
If we are indeed heading for not just an economic crash, but economic devastation, I make a few assumptions
1) Government controls will be applied in a way that can only be described as draconian, controlling and martial. They will be defended as necessary for protection of the state and it's people
2) Property seizures in the interest of the state will occur. We in the US saw this with gold seizure under Roosevelt. 401k's, pensions, savings, gold holdings , possibly personal property and even BTC may be demanded. Just look at Cyrpess for recent seizures
3) Considering the known current technical capabilities of organizations such as the NSA, I have no reason to doubt that if they turned their attention to asset gathering, deep blockchain analysis, federal warrants on data from companies such as Coinbase, Mintpal, mixers and the like will turn up many, many BTC holders. Simple threats of imprisonment or even accusations of treason would undoubtedly result in the handover of many wallets and passwords
4) A fully anonymous blockchain such as XMR's would be as close to the Swiss Bank of old as one could possibly get. This is all obviously ignoring those in the world that can right now, today, desperately use a means to safeguard their assets from a corrupt government.
Now, if the above were true, then how one used XMR would not fall in line with the answer above. XMR transfers (or any other anonymous coin of any type) would categorically never be used to pay a business. You would never transfer XMR funds to an entity that already was deeply involved in government reporting (taxes) or would potentially have a address that could be associated with you (drop location? Sure there are no cameras around?). Fundamentally, XMR transfers would always be person to person with full anonymity in-place (anonymous contracts for instance) or complete trust of the recipient. In this scenario, since many or most transactions would be more public (buying groceries, paying for housing, everyday living), a suitable anonymous XMR->accepted fiat would need to be in place to usable on the small scale. If you think your local grocery could just accept XMR on the down-low, just look up and wave at the camera next time you're buying your tomatoes and milk. You would need a supply of daily money as well as a secure money store. It's the secure movement back and forth that has me pensive.
Im not saying you are. But i think that you may be severely overestimating the power of a bankrupt government. There will certainly be a lot of bullying and lawlessness, but i see it as being more at the local level. sheriffs deputies shaking down travellers in an even more brazen fashion than the way they do it now. Extracting funds from people is expensive. If they are going after small fish than they will be lucky to net a profit. if they are going after large fish it will at best fund them for a month or two. Large
If the state really wants to come down on our freedoms, it will, sorry.
Real life isnt a Hollywood movie with good cop ending. No it wont if you are clever enough.
That being said i am sure Bitcoin is enough for your needs.
Using Bitcoin wanting to protect your stash from prying is a real pain because you have to take extra precautions and use other services, while with Monero you can just have one address and use different levels of mixing when sending transactions to match the level of privacy you would like to ensure, this is what bitcoin had to be since day one, but they got most of the people saying its a plus for accountability, and it really is and thats why I think bitcoin and monero will co-exist.
good question lol, and in the scenario you get rich from XMR, it will for sure be accepted in lots of places so in the ideal world you trade services directly with xmr, otherwise you'll have to deal with xmr->btc or even xmr->btc->cash transactions.
This question and subsequent answer is one that has been rolling around my noodle for awhile now. While I think I agree with the answer in the immediate time frame, I don't think I do long term.
Many are looking at current global economics and coming to the conclusion that our debt based economies are so severely overspent that their inertia will undoubtedly carry us over a horrendous cliff. When seems to be the only question. With that as my base outlook on the future, I don't see the future use of XMR in the same light. This is a total work in progress for me, so please understand I may change my pov at a moments notice
If we are indeed heading for not just an economic crash, but economic devastation, I make a few assumptions
1) Government controls will be applied in a way that can only be described as draconian, controlling and martial. They will be defended as necessary for protection of the state and it's people
2) Property seizures in the interest of the state will occur. We in the US saw this with gold seizure under Roosevelt. 401k's, pensions, savings, gold holdings , possibly personal property and even BTC may be demanded. Just look at Cyrpess for recent seizures
3) Considering the known current technical capabilities of organizations such as the NSA, I have no reason to doubt that if they turned their attention to asset gathering, deep blockchain analysis, federal warrants on data from companies such as Coinbase, Mintpal, mixers and the like will turn up many, many BTC holders. Simple threats of imprisonment or even accusations of treason would undoubtedly result in the handover of many wallets and passwords
4) A fully anonymous blockchain such as XMR's would be as close to the Swiss Bank of old as one could possibly get. This is all obviously ignoring those in the world that can right now, today, desperately use a means to safeguard their assets from a corrupt government.
Now, if the above were true, then how one used XMR would not fall in line with the answer above. XMR transfers (or any other anonymous coin of any type) would categorically never be used to pay a business. You would never transfer XMR funds to an entity that already was deeply involved in government reporting (taxes) or would potentially have a address that could be associated with you (drop location? Sure there are no cameras around?). Fundamentally, XMR transfers would always be person to person with full anonymity in-place (anonymous contracts for instance) or complete trust of the recipient. In this scenario, since many or most transactions would be more public (buying groceries, paying for housing, everyday living), a suitable anonymous XMR->accepted fiat would need to be in place to usable on the small scale. If you think your local grocery could just accept XMR on the down-low, just look up and wave at the camera next time you're buying your tomatoes and milk. You would need a supply of daily money as well as a secure money store. It's the secure movement back and forth that has me pensive.
And looks like possibility to use monero as is on 64 bit windows with 4 GB RAM will be over very soon.
Can you elaborate on this point. Why would you require more than 4GB of ram in the future to run monero? (i'm pretty sure the computer im using has 4gb of ram)
because bitmonerod has to load the entire blockchain on the ram as of now, and its larger than the actual size on disk
If you're still running 32-bit, you probably are a senior or something and shouldn't be messing with magic internet money.
I'm running 64-bit and 4GB RAM. With Monero and nothing else running my RAM usage is at 80%
ETA: Windows 8.1 so not all of the 80% is Monero. Monero is ~ 2.3 GB
Well, it's a little more complicated than that.
You say Monero is 2.3GB and it has to be loaded into memory, however, that may not mean what you think it does. See, on a 64-bit Windows computer, you can run a process that requires 16GB of active memory on a machine that only has 4GB of physical RAM installed. It can do this by virtue of virtual memory. Virtual memory is a contiguous memory space available for running processes that sits atop multiple memory spaces. Indeed there is the physical memory, but the paging file is included and L-cache memory is included as well. Processes that exhaust the available physical memory, get paged out to the paging file which is part of the same contiguous allocated memory space. Paging space is order of magnitude slower than physical memory, but is very useful for a) efficient physical RAM utilization (seldom access memory or pre-cached memory can be paged out to the file, freeing up much faster RAM) and b) spikes in memory needs that exceed installed RAM. Heavy paging will induce disk thrashing which will slow the system down drastically, but that is secondary to this explanation.
Point to all this is that the blockchain can grow quite large (>4GB) and still be functional on a 64-bit Windows machine with 4GB of physical RAM assuming a sufficiently sized paging file is defined which is default on later Windows installs. Will it be a pleasant experience? No, but it will be functional.
32-bit OS are not included in the above scenario, however. 32-bit OS's only allow for a 4GB address space in total for any given process. Furthermore, that 4GB space is then divided into a 2GB application space and a 2GB OS space so a process needing more than 2GB of usable space cannot function. Now, you can enable PAE to shift this split to 3GB/1GB, but you're still going to ride up against that 3GB cap at some point. Applications can be written to use AWE memory, but, well, this is getting pointless. Instead of trying to fix this issue in code, change the operation so that the blockchain is kept in a DB with only a small part loaded in active memory at any given time and be done with it. Exactly what the developers are working on.
If the state really wants to come down on our freedoms, it will, sorry.
Real life isnt a Hollywood movie with good cop ending. No it wont if you are clever enough.
That being said i am sure Bitcoin is enough for your needs.
Using Bitcoin wanting to protect your stash from prying is a real pain because you have to take extra precautions and use other services, while with Monero you can just have one address and use different levels of mixing when sending transactions to match the level of privacy you would like to ensure, this is what bitcoin had to be since day one, but they got most of the people saying its a plus for accountability, and it really is and thats why I think bitcoin and monero will co-exist.
good question lol, and in the scenario you get rich from XMR, it will for sure be accepted in lots of places so in the ideal world you trade services directly with xmr, otherwise you'll have to deal with xmr->btc or even xmr->btc->cash transactions.
absolutely, no one will ever know the size of your original xmr stash, only possible to know is what was converted to btc and/or cash.
This all depends (right now at least) what country you plan on cashing out on - for example, as a us citizen, i'd have to pay major capitol gains on taxes to explain how i got so rich and moved to mexico.
Right now, in this early stage, EVERY country has differnet btc rules/laws. you can't just say oh i can cash out my xmr tomorrow on whatever exchange and get rich anonymously. where is the brain behind that idea again? sorry, just being real, cuz this seems kinda out there to me, other than the protocol and design, but still it won't help you cash out btc in the uSA right now.. just sayin.... :\
EDIT / TL;DR - i understand the whitepaper, i'm a nerd. what I don't understand is people assuming they can cash it all out on btc anonymously. thx!
hahaha, nice! .. +1 brother!
If the state really wants to come down on our freedoms, it will, sorry.
Real life isnt a Hollywood movie with good cop ending. No it wont if you are clever enough.
That being said i am sure Bitcoin is enough for your needs.
Using Bitcoin wanting to protect your stash from prying is a real pain because you have to take extra precautions and use other services, while with Monero you can just have one address and use different levels of mixing when sending transactions to match the level of privacy you would like to ensure, this is what bitcoin had to be since day one, but they got most of the people saying its a plus for accountability, and it really is and thats why I think bitcoin and monero will co-exist.
good question lol, and in the scenario you get rich from XMR, it will for sure be accepted in lots of places so in the ideal world you trade services directly with xmr, otherwise you'll have to deal with xmr->btc or even xmr->btc->cash transactions.
absolutely, no one will ever know the size of your original xmr stash, only possible to know is what was converted to btc and/or cash.
people are crazy is all. xmr is so undervalued. i suppose it simply doesnt have a flashy advertisement campaign. i hope merit can overcome its lack of marketing.
me too, i was just thinking that after checking it out again.... This coin has real potential, and i'm no shill, just an early investor!
(and i'm not pumping shit. i'm holding as i've said all along in this thread, and not buying more either to be honest, only cuz i'm fiat-poor atm...
If the state really wants to come down on our freedoms, it will, sorry.
Real life isnt a Hollywood movie with good cop ending. No it wont if you are clever enough.
That being said i am sure Bitcoin is enough for your needs.
Using Bitcoin wanting to protect your stash from prying is a real pain because you have to take extra precautions and use other services, while with Monero you can just have one address and use different levels of mixing when sending transactions to match the level of privacy you would like to ensure, this is what bitcoin had to be since day one, but they got most of the people saying its a plus for accountability, and it really is and thats why I think bitcoin and monero will co-exist.
good question lol, and in the scenario you get rich from XMR, it will for sure be accepted in lots of places so in the ideal world you trade services directly with xmr, otherwise you'll have to deal with xmr->btc or even xmr->btc->cash transactions.
absolutely, no one will ever know the size of your original xmr stash, only possible to know is what was converted to btc and/or cash.
This all depends (right now at least) what country you plan on cashing out on - for example, as a us citizen, i'd have to pay major capitol gains on taxes to explain how i got so rich and moved to mexico.
Right now, in this early stage, EVERY country has differnet btc rules/laws. you can't just say oh i can cash out my xmr tomorrow on whatever exchange and get rich anonymously. where is the brain behind that idea again? sorry, just being real, cuz this seems kinda out there to me, other than the protocol and design, but still it won't help you cash out btc in the uSA right now.. just sayin.... :\
EDIT / TL;DR - i understand the whitepaper, i'm a nerd. what I don't understand is people assuming they can cash it all out on btc anonymously. thx!
If the state really wants to come down on our freedoms, it will, sorry.
Real life isnt a Hollywood movie with good cop ending. No it wont if you are clever enough.
That being said i am sure Bitcoin is enough for your needs.
Using Bitcoin wanting to protect your stash from prying is a real pain because you have to take extra precautions and use other services, while with Monero you can just have one address and use different levels of mixing when sending transactions to match the level of privacy you would like to ensure, this is what bitcoin had to be since day one, but they got most of the people saying its a plus for accountability, and it really is and thats why I think bitcoin and monero will co-exist.
good question lol, and in the scenario you get rich from XMR, it will for sure be accepted in lots of places so in the ideal world you trade services directly with xmr, otherwise you'll have to deal with xmr->btc or even xmr->btc->cash transactions.
absolutely, no one will ever know the size of your original xmr stash, only possible to know is what was converted to btc and/or cash.
people are crazy is all. xmr is so undervalued. i suppose it simply doesnt have a flashy advertisement campaign. i hope merit can overcome its lack of marketing.
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