- Lightning is not fully anonymous. It can still be traced by the participating nodes.

- Ethereum's blockchain consumes less energy, is more decentralized, it's a lot more resistent to any form of attack and it can also host fixed-supply coins.

- Market cap is a meaningless metric, it's at best circular logic and at worst it's just a "one billion flies can't be wrong" argumentum ad populum.

- It baffles me how the Bitcoin enthusiasts talk so much about ideology and freedom, but get completely silent about the fact that most mining operations are done in countries with oppressive regimes, financed or subsidized by dictators with access to cheap fossil fuels.

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littlecranky67 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Lightning is not fully anonymous. It can still be traced by the participating nodes.

"Fully anonymous" is a strong term. Even cash is not fully anonymous. I would give monero that it is more anonymous than lightning because it is a core design principal. There is a spectrum to anonymity, however. As public enemy number one, such as Snowden or BinLaden, your anonymity requirements are different than a citizen buying illegal erectile dysfunction medication online.

If you consider the new features added in lightning over the past 24 months such as trampoline payments, blinded paths etc. - you will find that lightning is anonymous enough. Plus, you can increase anonymity in the client implementation at the expense of higher transaction fees (longer paths, more trampolines). Lightning's BOLT12 standard, which is currently finalized, will increase anonymity even further.

> Ethereum's blockchain consumes less energy, is more decentralized, it's a lot more resistent to any form of attack and it can also host fixed-supply coins.

Thats is factually untrue. First, ethereum famously had a human-coordinated rollback with a controlled restart organized between devs and node runners over Discord. Second, Ethereum is not decentralzied at all, because that is a core property of proof-of-stake: There is no way at any given time that you can be sure that the majority stake is not already in a single entities (or colluding group) possesion - and would thus have absolute control. It is therefore never guaranteed at any given time, that the network is decentralized.

> Market cap is a meaningless metric, it's at best circular logic and at worst it's just a "one billion flies can't be wrong" argumentum ad populum.

Price is ultimately what determines the value of anything. It is absolutely far from meaningless, as the market cap is also a big factor if a crypto asset can be outlawed or banned. Given how many investors in the west already own bitcoin, there would be a massive outcry if it is suddenly outlawed. I say you could outlaw Monero tomorrow and the mainstream media wouldn't even cover it.

> It baffles me how the Bitcoin enthusiasts talk so much about ideology and freedom, but get completely silent about the fact that most mining operations are done in countries with oppressive regimes, financed or subsidized by dictators with access to cheap fossil fuels.

You mean, such as the United States? Because the US (especially Texas) is one of the biggest miners of bitcoin currently.

	▲	rglullis 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> There is a spectrum to anonymity, however. But you can only make any claims about the properties of a system when looking at the extremes. If Bitcoin's blockchain does not make strong anonymity guarantees as Monero, then Bitcoin by definition can not be the "blockchain to rule them all" that you so desperately want. >ethereum famously had a human-coordinated rollback with a controlled restart organized between devs and node runners over Discord. That was achieved through social coordination. No backdoor was exploited, no one had their coins stolen on the original chain. The system worked as intended. Can you say the same about Bitcoin? Do you think that all these banks and exchanges trading ETFs have secured access to the bitcoins they claim to have? When one of these institutions goes bust, who is going to bail them out? You keep trying to argue that Bitcoin is more valuable because it is more likely to be supported by the powers-that-be, and that is the strongest indicator that all your evangelism is driven by "Greater Fool" dynamic. Satoshi's idea for crytocurrencies was to have an alternative system that worked despite adversarial governments, yet we keep getting time-and-again evidence that it can only work if it becomes of an instrument for the powerful institutions that caused the problems in the first place. Bitcoin and its blockchain has no intrinsic value. Unlike Monero, it is not fully anonymous. Unlike Ethereum, it has no utility for decentralized applications. It can not be used as a currency. All Bitcoin has is first-mover advantage and a huge number of people with cognitive dissonance trying to keep the bubble inflated. > Because the US (especially Texas) is one of the biggest miners of bitcoin currently. Access to cheap fossil fuels? Check. Facilitated by the government? Check! Serving the interests of the elites and the aspirational 14% instead of the general populace? Check!