Privacy is not a huge issue at the moment (at least not as big as most XMR supporters(I'm one of them) tend to make it). We don't see the dark market vendors being targeted via block-chain analysis, so that's obviously not the weakest link for that kind of user, and I think NSA level surveillance will be able to track XMR-users aswell using the same methods.
I made the mistake of thinking it was about privacy at first as well. It bears repeating that bitcoin is not true digital cash. It is a digital collectible because each bitcoin has a unique and traceable history. One bitcoin does not actually equal one bitcoin, a fact that will only become more prevalent over time. We saw the first tremor of this when the community 'banded together' to not accept coins stolen from an exchange. It sounded good in principle, but it has deep implications for bitcoin's ability to serve as "the world wide ledger". Even if Russia accepts bitcoin one day, it does no good if a politician can say, "Bitcoins mined in America are illegal and not to be trusted or used." Also, when you have a currency where if a larger holder (like Satoshi Nakamoto) decided to spend
any of his coins it would cause a spectacular market crash, that is not a fungible or viable world currency. (imagine if Warren Buffet buying a coffee with some of his money were capable of causing the dollar to crash?)
People like to defend bitcoin because it has a larger network, but if all other things were equal, and both bitcoins and moneros were each worth $100 each with one million users each, which would you choose as your preferred network? The answer is obvious. With optional view-keys, better cryptography, a better emissions curve (with a perpetual emission to replace lost and destroyed coins), and no hard coded block size, Monero is the superior choice in every respect (on top of any fundamental privacy or fungibility advances).
Even if we were to make Monero a side-chain (something that doesn't even exist yet - while Monero does), it's my understanding that public bitcoins would have to be moved into the side chain, correct? As we have seen with tor, even the movement from non-privacy to privacy is circumspect. The NSA has openly stated they have an interest in anyone who sees the need to run tor, and that's not ok. Privacy must be inherent into a protocol; it can't be a Sega CD optional add-on feature.
Otherwise the entire idea of a digital cash system falls apart... you may have something of value, and I do believe bitcoin will continue to carry value for a long time to come but I am skeptical that it won't eventually be overtaken by Monero. A larger network is very resilient vs. an upstart one - unless the upstart network operates so much better that not only are a large portion of users from the first network attracted, but
new users to the entire concept are more attracted to this new network as well. See the Facebook disruption of MySpace for an example. Most of Facebook's users never even had a MySpace account; Facebook successfully eroded enough MySpace users to generate its own momentum.
I believe Monero will do the same.
P.S. Great link, btw. The author shares a lot of my beliefs, though bitcoin being the only necessary ledger is not one of them. What causes a language to supplant another, or for a religion to supplant another (or for that matter a form of government)? Many of those same tenets are shared in the 'game' of crypto-adoption.
Alright! Some great points!
Regarding side-chains. Yes, they don't exist and we don't know if they ever will, but for the sake of argument lets pretend they will, and also will work as intended.
Yes, they would be pegged to bitcoin and you would have to transfer them there. But that is the same as with XMR. You still have an on-ramp to get XMR, you already do that with BTC exclusively, right? And now you even have to use an exchange instead of just BTC->SXMR(sidechain XMR).
And if the community would feel they needed more privacy they would just move all the BTC there and transfer the whole value of the BTC-network to the SXMR with no loss value. I don't see why that would be a real problem.
If Russia wanted to ban parts of the network, well, I guess they could try, but they could just as easily ban the whole XMR network? It's just as hard/easy?
a better emissions curve (with a perpetual emission to replace lost and destroyed coins)
Personally I prefer a deflationary curve. Again Paul Sztorc
http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/deflation-the-last-word/ People like to defend bitcoin because it has a larger network, but if all other things were equal, and both bitcoins and moneros were each worth $100 each with one million users each, which would you choose as your preferred network?
Sure, but if all things were equal, why wouldn't you pick Litecoin over BTC if all things were equal? It sure had some improvements over BTC (no satoshi-coins overhead, fixed some issues e.tc.). But that's the whole point. That the value of the value network is a function of itself. They are just not equal.
Maybe it comes down to whether or not BTC will have good enugh privacy so that it can be continued to be used as digital cash (IMO it can be done now. It's safe to use it on dark markets where as you can't use XMR for really anything yet (without tunneling it via BTC)), and adopt privacy features fast enough for it to be usable. I think it will but we'll see. I ofc will continue to support XMR as the tech is incredible but the hope to be a early investor in "the next BTC" might cloud my judgement regarding its future value.
