Something I don't understand. What's the point of obfuscation if ultimately you can be caught when you try to convert it to fiat?
If I have Btc and I convert it to monero to prevent tracking, how do I get it back to money in my bank account without being traceable?
The idea is to not convert it into fiat. Create a parallel economy where monero is the actual currency, not some intermediary currency. Price things in monero.
Where would the trust come from? I mean the trust that people really do what they say they're going to do in the real world - like ship you the goods, do the work you paid for, don't immediately kick you out of the servers you paid to access etc. A shadow economy doesn't run itself, who's going to stick their neck out to even try to make it work?
The point is being like a submarine: nobody really knows where you are moving (transactions) and where you will surface (which other crypto or fiat).
On the example you give, large majority of people just pay and accept payments using monero natively. When you are talking about large amount of money, then it is worth a visit to places like El Salvador where you have a bank account with BTC. The conversion tends to take place in exchanges outside 1st world supervision and from El Salvador you can convert BTC to other currencies according to the exchange values or just use it with a credit card.
If you want to convert smaller amounts in Europe without tracing, mostly a matter of settling the transactions with small providers albeit you should be prepared to pay a fee between 20% to 30% as commission for the service.
Well, what you're asking about is basically a business. Most folks make bank just by setting up that kind of circle. I'd suggest reading up on front businesses like luxury restaurants that sit empty most of the time. it's such a classic play, everyone knows it. If you've got BTC and want to get it back into your bank account, hit me up anytime.
Let me give you a realistic answer. There are soft and hard criminals. For example: soft criminals buy drugs, hard criminals sell drugs. The soft criminals convert from traditional to digital money (plus maybe a little obfuscation), order and hope for the best. The hard criminals have to solve the difficult problem of reversing that conversion. They'll just have some homeless person open a bank account and then use that for the conversion. If the homeless person gets busted, it better keep its mouth shut - or else.
Fungibility and traceability are orthogonal. Equities markets transactions are highly traceable and also highly fungible.
Bitcoin's fungibility is limited by its incredibly slow transaction speed. (This is true of all cryptocurrencies AFAIK -- even the fastest ones that are only capable of 100K TPS at best.)
The fungibility of Bitcoin is achieved through layer-2 networks, such as Lightning. No, it is not another cryptocurrency, it is just another technological layer. You are still transfering bitcoins.
Trumps "Bitcoin payment" portrayed extensively by the media was done in the Lightning network.
This article left me more confused than enlightened. I recommend reading https://risencrypto.github.io/Monero/ instead as it actually explains how the cryptography fits into Monero.
The current implementation of monero's tech is less advanced than zcash, but stealth addresses are as secure as ECC gets. The idea comes from ECDH.
The weakness in monero's cryptography is dependence on ring signatures, which will be improved with the FCMP++ upgrade. In other words, it is an issue of sender privacy. Stealth addresses protect recipient privacy.
Alice and Bob may have a surprise in store --- the trust issues, the cost issues and the hoops they'll need to jump through in order to buy Monero, store it in a custodial wallet and then convert it back into fiat if needed.
I didn't find a major trust or cost issue. I just use kraken. Or you can use any other fiat-to-crypto exchange and then take it to a crypto-to-crypto exchange.
I think the bigger obstacle to most people is just the idea that cryptocurrency is difficult, and the idea that buisnesses are trustworthy by default.
Re: S=sG-the article says that s is private and S and G are public. Wouldn’t then be very simple to find private s=S/G? s will then be very easy to derive.
The root of the word "crypto" goes all the way in history as "to hide".
Monero has since many years been the only option worthy of truly being called a cryptocurrency. Doesn't even make sense to use anything where anyone can see all the value in your private wallet and where you are spending them.
The rest should really be designated as "virtual coins" or just call them "casino coins" because that is their use case.
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On the example you give, large majority of people just pay and accept payments using monero natively. When you are talking about large amount of money, then it is worth a visit to places like El Salvador where you have a bank account with BTC. The conversion tends to take place in exchanges outside 1st world supervision and from El Salvador you can convert BTC to other currencies according to the exchange values or just use it with a credit card.
If you want to convert smaller amounts in Europe without tracing, mostly a matter of settling the transactions with small providers albeit you should be prepared to pay a fee between 20% to 30% as commission for the service.
That's exactly how people get caught.
Bitcoin's fungibility is limited by its incredibly slow transaction speed. (This is true of all cryptocurrencies AFAIK -- even the fastest ones that are only capable of 100K TPS at best.)
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2408.05332
- https://darkwebinformer.com/chainalysis-successful-deanonymi...
-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266628172...
Trumps "Bitcoin payment" portrayed extensively by the media was done in the Lightning network.
The "coin" you mention is not private by default, therefore "weaker".
The weakness in monero's cryptography is dependence on ring signatures, which will be improved with the FCMP++ upgrade. In other words, it is an issue of sender privacy. Stealth addresses protect recipient privacy.
I think the bigger obstacle to most people is just the idea that cryptocurrency is difficult, and the idea that buisnesses are trustworthy by default.
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Monero has since many years been the only option worthy of truly being called a cryptocurrency. Doesn't even make sense to use anything where anyone can see all the value in your private wallet and where you are spending them.
The rest should really be designated as "virtual coins" or just call them "casino coins" because that is their use case.