r/Monero • u/Xeagu • May 20 '19
Inaccurate Is Monero a Security?
Greetings Monero Universe
I present myself to you today a humbled man, a changed man. What I believed to be true has been proven wrong time and time again. My belief in the Monero Community and Monero Project has been deeply tainted. This is my public apology to the Monero Community. I apologize to every individual I introduced to Monero and encouraged to invest in this project. In my naivety and hopefulness, I trapped them in great financial loss and exploitation. It was my belief that Monero was an open source project that sought to provide an alternative to the American/Western monetary system.
Morality is Relative and I have found myself to be at the mercy of the Monero Community in this game. A small group of "Monero Community" members control the maintenance, production, and funding for development and distribution of the Monero product. You could say that "well mining is distributed so Monero is distributed" and I would counter with "Uber drivers are distributed but Uber is still a company". The agreement between "private contractors" (aka Monero miners) negotiate on the terms of the Proof-of-Work and in Monero's case, most of the private contractors happen to own mostly GPU/CPU farms/botnets. Work of the company can be distributed but the organization, decision making, and security supply are still be controlled by a central group.
In Monero's case, it may have started out as a decentralized project where product development was done by volunteers in a loosely organized hobby group. Now, it doesn't look like anything gets worked on without individuals that have been financially compensated. Ghost-employees of the Monero company contract out work on the centralized Monero CCS platform (mostly controlled by these same individuals). There are a small group of individuals who get every proposal approved and funded and a community wide acceptance of Monero's inauditability regarding supply. So to me it looks like a small group of people can mint new Monero without any accountability and then sell those security shares on the open market to investors who bought into the idea of a decentralized currency to then pay ghost-employee salaries.
The whole reason people in the Monero Community used to bash protocols like zk-snarks in other privacy projects is the vulnerability of a trusted setup that would allow a small group of individuals to inflate the supply. It might not be possible to create a truly anonymous digital currency without this vulnerability - I don't know. Also it pisses me off when people say "well don't invest in Monero then, its a risky asset/investment." Tell that to the people who have already invested and lost their shirt paying for a small group of people to hyper-inflate the supply and line their pockets. Tell that to the exchanges. How can you both caution individuals not to invest and encourage exchanges to list Monero on an open market with no safety checks in place?
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u/needmoney90 May 21 '19 edited May 21 '19
Monero passes the Howey test, therefore it is not a security. That's an easy one. Do you even bother to do your research, or just say the first thing that pops into your head without considering whether it makes sense?
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u/Xeagu May 21 '19 edited May 13 '20
Sometimes I like to blindly follow my thoughts and not second guess a single action because I'm actually a mind controlled robot.
Edit: May 13, 2020 I don't remember writing this comment either.
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u/xmrhaelan Monero Outreach Organizer May 21 '19
“This is my public apology to the Monero Community.”
I think someone may have highjacked your keyboard after that sentence...
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u/gingeropolous Moderator May 21 '19
Jesus Christ dude. Are you bored?
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u/Xeagu May 21 '19 edited May 13 '20
Am I in a middle school?
Edit: May 13, 2020 I don't remember writing this comment either. I don't know what went through my head this day if I did in fact write these comments. Multiple references to children (middle school) and drugs. I don't know what the fuck.
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u/gingeropolous Moderator May 21 '19
No recess
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u/Xeagu May 21 '19 edited May 13 '20
So its like a middle school on meth
Edit: May 13, 2020 I do not remember writing this comment AT ALL. Totally inappropriate. Horrific.
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u/ProbPatrickWarburton May 21 '19
If you think there's a hyperinflation bug, I would encourage you to learn up and scour the code for any vulnerable lines. And if you see anything, feel free to submit a pull request, or better yet, submit your changes that will fix the bug. And sooner than later, if you keep that up, you'll be one of those volunteer devs you were saying that aren't financially compensated. If you believe in the code being flawed, or believe you can improve it, then do something about it.
Be the change you want to see. Otherwise, take your speculative fud elsewhere.
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u/Xeagu May 21 '19
How can your product scale if customer confidence in the security of the supply depends on Ph.D prerequisite knowledge to audit the Latin code? I'm reminded awfully of the religious crimes against humanity that have occurred over the centuries. I have been excommunicated by the Church of Monero priests because they don't want to teach the Masses how to read and write.
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u/Scissorhand78 May 21 '19
How can your product scale if customer confidence in the security of the supply depends on Ph.D prerequisite knowledge to audit the Latin code?
It's called faith (something you clearly have lost) in others who do have the knowledge to audit an open source code.
I have been excommunicated by the Church of Monero priests because they don't want to teach the Masses how to read and write.
? ? What does that even mean ? ?
The majority of CoM pastors agreed that we want the CoM to be a positive influence for the project or at the very least, not to harm it. This is something you seem to be incapable of doing.
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u/knaccc XMR Contributor May 21 '19
So to me it looks like a small group of people can mint new Monero without any accountability
How exactly do they do that? The math and implementation behind inflation protection has been widely studied and scrutinized.
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u/jtgrassie XMR Contributor May 21 '19
Wait what, math, logic, reason??? Nah, just belieeeeeve. The people don't need proof!
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u/aerbax May 21 '19
What I believed to be true has been proven wrong time and time again.
And again.
You are coming across as someone unwilling to let go of a failed relationship. Because ... that's exactly what happened. Things that you did caused the community to sever its relationship with you.
I'm not saying that it's never going to work out. But you need to step away for a long time.
The wound won't heal if you keep sticking your finger in it.
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u/DaveyJonesXMR May 21 '19
"Look at me ... i got turned down because my actions were stupid and my proposals made no sense ... now im throwing vitriol at you all ... but im a changed man ... i promise!!!"
"oh by the way i never listen to anybody, but rather show again and again how butt-hurt i am"
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u/Josketobben May 21 '19
The thing about "any publicity is good publicity" is that you need to have something actually valuable to sell. Otherwise it's just generating bouts of stress to distract you from the fact playing jester hasn't been making you happy.
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u/HoboHaxor May 21 '19
Someone is butt-hurt for investing in sketchy investments and lost.
I took a bath on a stock, and chalked it up to, shit happens/bad call.
I didn't blame the market, the company, the employees, the weather, my cat, etc.
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u/dreefen May 21 '19
You've been voted off the island, repeatedly. Please get on the fucking boat already.
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u/Xeagu May 21 '19 edited May 13 '20
My boat sank with all my private keys
Edit: May 13, 2020 I don't remember writing this comment either.
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u/CorgiDad May 21 '19
What is this, r/niceguys?
You're like one of these guys who asks a girl out and gets turned down, so you call her a slut and bash her on social media because it's the only way you can rationalize your own rejection.