Thanks for sharing. We are generally on the same page here.
I am curious though, how do are your thoughts on Mimblewimble, the first implementations (most importantly GRIN) and the chance, that MW might get implemented on Bitcoin. <- Definitly high hurdles for that happening, but assuming it will happen, how do you see XMR - does it still have a usecase?
Thinking about filling my bags of XMR, too. Just curious on what a self-proclaimed XMR whale has to say to the "threat" of other real-privacy/fungibility cryptos emerging.
This is a long term perspective and irrelevant in short to medium term. My trades are usually medium term (e.g few months to a year). Admittedly I've not studied the Mimblewimble technology in great detail, but from what I have read it doesn't excite me all that much. Interactive payments (needing to be online) is pretty inconvenient, but the emission curve for GRIN is ridiculous and gets insta ignore from me for probably a few years. Similar to zcash, which I also put on automatic ignore for many years. It simply means there is no urgency for me to look into it.
I think the zcash technology (especially considering the new possibilities of removing trusted setup) is far more exciting and a more serious competitor. Not sure about zcash itself (dev rewards, not fair etc), but fluffy mentioned the possibility of monero adapting the technology in the future which goes to show that it's promising.
As for bitcoin implementing it? I have doubt it will happen on the base layer. More likely it can happen on a sidechain. But this is probably still years (?) away. They still haven't made sidechains trust-less. Liquid is federated, people don't want that (or shouldn't want that). So that needs to happen first and that will require a fork. It's just not happening anytime soon.
But let's imagine that it does happen and we get sidechain on bitcoin with whatever the very best privacy tech is? Is this game over for monero? Well, there's still an argument that can be made that having ALL transactions fungible is worth something. Moving funds into a black hole sidechain on bitcoin and back in itself can cause suspicion and/or become illegal, considered a form of money laundering etc. It's preferable to have the fungibility built in on the base layer. What COULD happen is that the sidechain becomes "the bitcoin" (what everyone uses) and practically nobody will use the original bitcoin chain anymore. That's far more interesting and could be some real competition.
Realistically though, Monero will have many years left before this becomes an actual concern, and the first mover advantage will keep improving in the meantime. To be honest I am rooting for bitcoin to accomplish privacy, but I'm not holding my breath.
I'm a speculator. I prefer to not get emotionally attached to my investments. So if I see the writing on the wall, I will act on it. I recognize that I am no future teller and can be wrong. It's likely I'll always keep at minimum a small hedge in monero, as I have had since the start. What I am talking about here though, is a nice entry, when everybody wants monero again, I'm getting the hell out.