Introduction:
I'm a football fan (Hand-egg for my Non-American readers). Every year, a series of posts called "Why Your Team Sucks" is released that widely and hilariously criticizes each team and its fanbase. It is one of my favorite annual reads and does a great job at making fun of everybody in a mean-spirited way.
The crypto community is in desperate need of some of self-reflection. Tribalism runs too deep, and its time we remove the veil and laugh at the furious mouth breathers angrily typing on their keyboards to fight off legitimate criticisms aimed towards their favorite cryptocurrencies.
The Why Your Coin Sucks series is not intended as FUD. It's actually intended to be a bit a satire, with a sprinkle of truth, combined with a mean-spirited assessment of each project and its surrounding communities. Think of it as a "Change My View" post written by an asshole.
Next on the chopping block...Monero
Hey guys! Did you know that Monero is Private AND Fungible!?
You did?!
Really?!
Well no fucking shit you did, since the Monero community shills their coin harder than a washed-up used car salesman with three alimonies and four child-support payments. You always know a community is full of the most upstanding citizens when 80% of them are shilling Monero because you can buy illegal shit with it.
It shines a fantastic light on the already ostracized crypto community as a whole.
Reader's Digest Version of Monero's History
Monero's origins begin with Bytecoin. Bytecoin was launched in 2012 and written with a technology called CryptoNote that can be thought of as the foundation of most privacy based coins. It groups public keys together and by doing so ensures it is impossible to tell who sent a transaction. Seven developers decided to fork Bytecoin into BitMonero, which was eventually shortened to just Monero. There's more complex tech behind it than just that, but I'm far too lazy to delve into all that.
Five of the seven developers have not revealed their identities. The other two are Riccardo Spagni and David Latapie. Riccardo Spagni (An adult male that goes by flufflypony) is considered to be the face of the Monero Development team.
Monero is mineable (Similar to Bitcoin) with the caveat that you don't need to own a god damn warehouse with 10,000 ASIC GPUs to turn a profit. At the time of writing, Monero has lived up to its promise of being untraceable; however, it is important to note that the IRS claims to have two firms capable of developing tools to trace Monero transactions. Whether or not this proves to be true remains to be seen.
Why does Monero Suck?
So if Bitcoin is the middle-aged, chubby corporate sell-out who used to be cool, Monero is the Fedora wearing, middle-aged, chubby, psuedo-anarchist who angrily fights with people on r/atheism when they roll out of bed around noon.
If you decide to angrily comment on this post, just know this is what we will all be picturing.
Sure, Monero can absolutely be used for privacy in places where governments have far over-stepped boundaries; however, let's not kid ourselves. The majority of Monero transactions are done for shady shit (Ransomware, money laundering, illegal dark-web transactions, etc). And hey, you might be ok with this if you fall into the mind-set that "morality is the responsibility of the individual"; but, one should also be able to understand if the average upstanding citizen might be uncomfortable with the notion that your crypto could potentially be used to hide transactions for people paying for kiddie porn.
Sorry...had to say it.
Next, technology is always evolving. I live by the mind-set that nothing is impossible with enough time, money, and dedication. An organization like the IRS wants their sweet sweet tax money, so it likely will be a matter of time before someone figures out how to crack Monero, and when that happens (it may already have), the use case for this coin goes right down the toilet.
Also, even if they fail to track Monero, regulatory bodies can certainly make it difficult on the layman to flip the currency into something that can buy groceries. The de-listings have already begun, likely due to pressure on exchanges to cooperate, and certainly a tech savvy user can find a work-around with a decentralized exchange, but let's not kid ourselves into believing the average person is going to dedicate the time and effort to figure out this process.
And we've collectively gotten dumber since this special aired
I will give Monero credit for doing the job it advertises (so far). Unlike Bitcoin, we haven't had to move the goal post yet, so kudos to the development team on that one.
Now, let's get into the real reason I hate your fucking coin:
Why does the Monero Community Suck?
When we first set-up the r/altstreetbets sub, we should have known our earliest shills were going to fall into two categories: pro-Monero shills and anti-Monero shills. I shit you not when I tell you half the Monero shills were openly proud of the fact that you can buy drugs on the dark web with it...
Neat...I guess?
I can buy weed from the 17 year old kid down the street from me with a crunch wrap supreme and a Baja blast from Taco Bell, but you don't see me all over the internet shilling Taco bell products as the next big currency.
You just wait until 1 crunch wrap supreme is worth $1000.
r/altstreetbets also got caught in the middle of a weird war going on between privacy coins that we did not want to be a part of. Just to be 100% clear, no one gives a flying fuck who Fireice is and what the Monero community's beef with this dude is. We just want to be left the fuck out of it. I can't tell you how many anti-monero posts we had to remove solely because the comment section morphed into a massive pissing contest about who's privacy shitcoin was the superior privacy shitcoin. These comment sections triggered more eye rolls from the mod team than you would get from a teenage girl being lectured by her parents about sneaking out of the house.
A visual representation of us every time Monero is mentioned
At least Bitcoin Maxis tend to stick to their shitty echo chambers (r/bitcoin anyone?). I can't get on any crypto related forum without someone shilling Monero to me.
So, Monero, that's why your coin, and more importantly, your community sucks. Want to leave an angry comment?
Just remember, this is how I'll picture you:
As a side note, I was initially going to do XRP for the second Why Your Coin Sucks post but my Altstreet mod companion drafted up a far more lethal article than I would have done, and I think the poor XRP holders have been through enough already, so I decided not to pile on this week. At some point insulting XRP holders is like fishing with dynamite. Sure, it's fun and easy to do, but after a while it really starts to feel like overkill.
That being said, don't worry XRP holders, I haven't forgotten about you.
Your time will come.
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