How will Monero compromise? it still has a tx graph, it’s by no means the most private chain, it’s just the leading privacy coin because of it’s perception.
Grin is supposed to be experimental, like a rebellious sibling. You will never see Bitcoin with confidential transactions either. Even if you could theoretically go back in time and add them from the beginning, most would still oppose.
But anyway, I doubt CoinSwap is ever shipped as the default in Grin core.
This is a mute point imo. Grin is already perceived as a privacy coin and will be a red flag for regulators looking to restrict the use of privacy coins. CoinSwap isn’t going to change it’s legality when CT are baked into the protocol and when we’re marketed as having “no addresses” with txs being routed via Tor.
We’re basically saying come at us Mfers
I guess I’m not on the side of Grin being experimental or pushing. I’d rather see it solidify as it is.
I do think regulators might look at any optional privacy enhancements differently than base layer privacy. Bitcoin contains a lot of base layer privacy preserving functionality, but with enough public demand the regulators eventually accept those as “just the way it works”, and it’s the mixers or ehancements that draw their attention. I think there is a particular hazard in enticing or encouraging naive users to take part in enhancement functions.
Not that any of these represent any big conceptual disagreement. We’re pretty much all on the same page here aside from differences in stance.
It is, but i believe that should be fixed. I would say grin has a good balance of privacy, just so that whales can’t get wrench attacked, which is a must imo - i’m surprised people don’t talk about potential issues that leaked amounts bring. No addresses just means different design, other coins just generate new address every time (or will in the future), Tor doesn’t matter since that’s a wallet issue of how they handle communication. I really don’t think of grin as something rebellious, just a more secure design for people to use.
I think this is one of the best descriptions of Grin vs Bitcoin:
“I do think Bitcoin is a great store of value and see Grin as additive to Bitcoin’s strength, rather than a replacement. Perhaps think of Grin as Bitcoin’s younger, more nimble brother” - Igno
One of the first short comings of Bitcoin is the poor privacy and one of Grin’s key characteristics was always “Privacy by default”.
If you look back over Igno’s postings, he was arguably more on the experimental side than any of us. One of the main attractions to Grin vs Bitcoin was it’s experiential nature in being able to do things Bitcoin couldn’t and I think the spirit of that should be maintained to some extent.
Then does CoinSwap not matter either since it’s a wallet issue aswell?
I really don’t think of privacy as something rebellious. It’s a human right. This is the narrative we should be pushing imo.
wallet issue was not the best choice of words by me, one is a way to exchange messages between two parties creating the transaction, another one is to increase privacy. I’m still unsure whether perfect privacy is desirable, it’s hard to know whether it would bring more good or bad things. I understand the “everyone should have it” argument, but that’s in theory, in practice some people might just abuse what privacy gives you and create chaos which would in turn make the world a worse place to live in, even if you get better privacy. That’s why i say that grin has just good enough privacy. And i believe with time people will understand that you need blinded amounts
Is using Tor to route txs still not a privacy enhancement? There is no such thing as perfect privacy, especially when you have a tx graph, so Grin is never going to achieve that.
Some people abuse using fiat currency now, so I don’t see how creating a digital version of it is going to create more chaos in the world. Nor do I think what people use a currency for should be our concern.
The most damaging things to society are alcohol and cigarettes. Which anyone of age in most countries are already free to purchase.
The way tor is used now is to increase privacy, but of an off-chain action - i doubt anyone will ever say that’s a bad thing. Perfect privacy means that nobody can trace anything and is possible in theory imo. There is no guarantee grin will forever have tx graph. It’s probably a lot harder to do bad stuff with cash than with crypto that has perfect privacy (not impossible though). If people are killing other people easily with a currency then i believe that should be our concern. I agree that alcohol and cigarettes are awful, but they only harm the consumers - so you’re safe as long as you decide not to use them.
It would still be optional, even if enabled by default.
I think you might be right. I’m pretty sure (75%) I saw some analysis regarding Monero during the eth tornado mixer fiasco. It said the reason why Monero was different is because tornado was a service rather than integral.
an optional mixer on grin would be a lot better than an optional mixer on ethereum though, right?
also, one argument from bitcoin that i am partial to is that Privacy is really hard to get right. so in some way, it makes sense to not bake it into the protocol and let people “compete” to let the best solution rise to the top. And so that solutions can change over time more easily
No if it improves privacy it should be default at protocol layer and it should be mandatory.
We cannot let naive user make mistake and let others on-chain to compromise their privacy.
If anyone don’t want more privacy let them use some other Surveillance Coin.
If privacy would be our only objective it should indeed be mandatory since the more people use it, the more the transaction graph gets obfuscated.
However, we do not want to force it on people. Using CoinSwap might give problems with exchanges and regulators. Making it mandatory might hurt the project and its adoption since we/I want Grin to be sound money for everyone, not only a privacy coin.
Some might see Grin mainly as a privacy preserving coin. Other might see it as the most fair crypto project due to its linear supply. Yet others see it as the best digital store of value due to its good long term security.Yet others might see it as the best form of layer 1 digital cash due to its combination of properties such as a minimal blockchain size, good scalability, privacy-preserving-properties and as such great fungibility, and relative price stability due to not having halvings.
In the end they are all right, because grin has all these great properties.
I think what makes grin the most interesting project is that grin does not try to be best in anything specifically but tries to be best overall. Personally I like to see Grin as the best form of digital sound money because of the combination of all its properties. In any case, it strength lies in embracing its interactive nature, its minimalism, its scalability and its privacy preserving properties and not falling for the pitfall of trying to maximize any of these properties by adding complexity or at the cost of any of these other properties.
I think the original description of what grin generally aims to accomplish is valid still and will be valid for the decades to come. There is no need to change the recipe or try to fix something thar is not broken. We can conservatively extend and polish what is already great.
Electronic transactions for all.
Without censorship or restrictions.
Designed for the decades to come, not just for tomorrow. To be used by anyone, anywhere.
https://grin.mw/ [No preview]
If/When something better than coinswap comes along, it will be much easier to move to it because it’s not tightly coupled to the base protocol itself.
Or am I missing something here?
It should be up to the wallet to determine how to guide the user experience, not the protocol.
One wallet can indeed make coinswap into a default / mandatory setting. This would be a very opinionated user experience, which can be a very good thing for most users.
Another wallet might make coinswap just optional because it wants to offer more options.
A different wallet might have something totally different from coinswap that they believe is superior.
The base Grin protocol still doesn’t have addresses or amounts on-chain. So even without coinswap, it’s pretty good for privacy.
“If privacy would be our only objective it should indeed be mandatory since the more people use it, the more the transaction graph gets obfuscated.”
And to make sure transaction graph get obfuscated either full chain membership proofs or CoinSwaps along with BP++ need to be implemented mandatory at base layer.
“However, we do not want to force it on people. Using CoinSwap might give problems with exchanges and regulators.”
Both the Regulators and (current) Exchanges don’t like you anyway and neither will they stop to delist Grin until its a Surveillance coin.
interesting idea only problem is when something better than coinswap comes along that should be implemented at base layer just like various (range proofs)bulletproofs and their versions(BP+)(BP++) and even full chain membership proofs(trust-less zk-snark and zk-stark)(utreexo)
just adapt like Monero.
The downside of this (which Bitcoiners have pointed out many times) is that these adaptations are a centralizing force. Because this means that there is one ivory tower developer group that is creating the new tech that must be imposed on the whole network.
Bitcoin node operators / miners are meanwhile encouraged to run software that is at least a couple versions older iirc.
We should seek to minimize the reasons for which the whole network needs to hardfork, no?
Privacy, because it is an always moving target, will require constant hardforks. Better to keep it a separate technology so the monetary layer (core protocol) can remain as sound and minimal as possible. Remember that minimal = maintainable = anti-fragile.
@tromp thoughts on this?
Grin is not a privacy-first-scalability-be-damned coin like Monero [1].
Grin’s focus is on simplicity and fairness instead.