Thread by @johnfoss69

How #Monero is Eating #Bitcoin's Lunch – And Ten Other Things You Didn’t Know About Monero.

A Tweet Thread for the Monero curious 🧵👇

#Monero transactions are higher than ever. In particular, Monero’s total number of transactions compared to Bitcoin (ratio) are rising. This means more people are choosing to transact with #XMR instead of #BTC.

(src: moneroj.net/percentage/)

Are other privacy coins being used today? No, unfortunately not. #Monero vastly makes up for the total number of private crypto transactions, with over 98% of volume.

(src: @JEhrenhofer)

This leads us to the fact that #Monero is the top privacy coin by market cap, with #Zcash having a market cap less than half of Monero’s.

(src: cryptoslate.com/cryptos/privac…)

#Monero is the fifth most popular Proof of Work (POW) cryptocurrency behind, $BTC, $ETH, $DOGE and $LTC, despite not being listed on major cryptocurrency exchanges.

$XMR is one of few coins that is still at the top end on coinmarket cap today. I’m guessing thousands of crypto coins/assets have come/gone from the top 50 on CMC, so to remain there after 6yrs+ is evidence of #Monero's fundamental value.

After getting outpaced by a lot of the #DeFi hype during last year's bullrun, #Monero has begun to move back up the overall coinmarketcap rankings which is somewhat impressive given the bear market, indicating people fundamentally value #XMR.

@CoinCards, a service since 2014 that allows you to spend crypto on giftcards, provides a monthly overview of crypto's being used (by % $ volume). #Monero was again the most used in the USA in June 2022 with 51% of volume, and the second most used worldwide with 28% XMR!

Monero also appears to be taking over the Darknet Markets. The major DNMs do not accept #BTC, and now only accept #XMR only for transactions. For example, the re-launched Alphabay website is #Monero only according to the Darknet One website.

On the major #DNM forum (similar which is to Reddit) called Dread, the #Monero page is one of the most popular with 7699 subscribers compared to Bitcoin’s 78 subscribers. This DNM growth is reminiscent of the beginnings of #Bitcoin on The Silk Road website in 2011.

Why is privacy valued by both Coincards users, and DNM users? Is it because they may be looking for an alternative as the world moves cashless regulations increase?

The EU is implementing a new ‘travel rule’ to help them track #crypto transactions.

(src: decrypt.co/104110/eu-cryp…)

@Coinbase want to know the name, address, and the reason you want to withdraw crypto, whether it's to yourself or another recipient.

https://twitter.com/ZR1Trader/status/1541055555900477440?s=20&t=MnQw2ZSdQq8vwAKrgQ0kjw

@Cryptocom also want to know more about your transactions in order to comply with regulators.

https://twitter.com/afungibleX/status/1542799032266940417?s=20&t=MnQw2ZSdQq8vwAKrgQ0kjw

While #Monero is not perfect, it is private and decentralized and used enough that after almost 3 years of an IRS/DoJ bounty, no commercial entity or government organization has come out with evidence they are capable of deterministically tracing Monero transactions.

Is there a chance that #Monero can be traced with certainty by chain analysis companies but they aren't telling the public? I doubt it.

https://twitter.com/hyc_symas/status/1541038283156774915?s=20&t=MnQw2ZSdQq8vwAKrgQ0kjw

#Bitcoiner’s are slow waking up to the importance of #Monero, and beginning to come out of the closet publicly supporting Monero. The 'bitcoin only' @WhatBitcoinDid podcast recently hosted @sethforprivacy on the show to discuss Bitcoin, Monero and Privacy

https://twitter.com/WhatBitcoinDid/status/1542137631055777794?s=20&t=MnQw2ZSdQq8vwAKrgQ0kjw

@WhatBitcoinDid is now sponsored by @cakewallet, a crypto wallet that was first developed as $XMR only. In the ad read, on the podcast, Peter mentions hodling $BTC, and paying privately with #Monero, something that demands #Bitcoiner privacy advocates to take notice.

You can listen to the @Cakewallet ad read on the @WhatBitcoinDid podcast here.

https://twitter.com/cakewallet/status/1532067017309638656?s=20&t=MnQw2ZSdQq8vwAKrgQ0kjw

Another interesting thing is that the first ever issue of @BitcoinMagazine back in mid 2012 aligns more closely to the ethos of the #Monero community today, as opposed to the mainstream institutionalization of #Bitcoin that we have in 2022.

For comparison, here is a recent image from the @MoneroKon 2022 conference last two weeks ago.

(src: @afungibleX)

I hope you have enjoyed this thread. Please like, retweet, and share it with friends if you support @Monero and what it means to you. I have previously written two other tweet threads about Monero. Both threads are linked below if you want to have a read.

https://twitter.com/johnfoss69/status/1500782383758737409?s=20&t=CAlmsrLq4_i2mUwjLolknw

https://twitter.com/johnfoss69/status/1505728977025245186?s=20&t=pezfb3phplCaUaVatnt5rg

I also write a free weekly newsletter all about #Monero. It includes full coverage of tech developments, news, events, speculation, memes, and more. It is called The Monero Moon and you can subscribe for free here – themoneromoon.com

Also thank you to everyone who helped brainstorm some of these talking points last week!