Valve to no longer offer physical gift cards due to scammers

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: tuubiI view people who get very passionate about crypto the same way I view enthusiastic small-time stock traders. They keep talking my ear off about how they make (or save) money with it and everyone should do it, and I indulge them to a point because I'm nice and patient like that (in real life more than online), but I just don't find any of it interesting. Money is a necessity and I've never been wealthy enough to ignore it. It's just not something I could ever get passionate about.

Im sorry, but point to me where I did this here, where did I talk about making or saving money, market price, hype and all that wall street crap ?

I know, you come from a different angle. My example was mostly about the traders. But both groups (and I'm not talking about you, specifically) want to talk to me about money/currency, or how I'm using it wrong, or maybe how I should use this or that tech to get around the system.

Sorry that I kinda grouped you in with the cryptobros. In my defence, you compared me to Windows and WhatsApp users, which is way worse in my opinion. 😁

Quoting: Pyrate

Monero would protect my financial activity from heavily regulated banks and my government, which I'm a lot less concerned about. Some communities have excellent reasons to hide this activity, but most of us do not.

Only if you choose to. You can disclose your transactions for taxes or any other reason. I could explain how it works but I'm getting fed up with still being talked to like a crypto bro, I'll just share that optional transparency is a built-in function into a Monero wallet for auditing and taxes etc.

Yes, but this is a solution looking for a problem, or rather a solution to someone else's problem, as far as I can tell. And this isn't a disagreement you can fix by explaining. It's not intellectual laziness or lack of understanding on my part, and even less about giving up privacy for convenience. I wouldn't have been using Linux for ~25 years if that was the case, and I'd probably have owned an Android or Apple mobile device at some point. Or caved in and got on WhatsApp or LinkedIn or whatever social media I've been cajoled to join over the years. As I said, I like my privacy, but not everything privacy-related is equal in importance.

I don't mind that Monero exists, but if it's ever accepted as a mainstream currency, its use needs to be regulated and monitored, losing many of its apparent benefits.

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechiealso relevant to this discussion.
Valve will never accept monero, because it's anonymous and decentralized.
The scammers for which they sacrificed their own gift cards would exploit exactly this decentralization and anonymity to hide their activity.

Even though I can't imagine how that could happen, (just like how I cant believe peoole sfill fall for gift card scams), you're probably right. I wonder when this stops being about a problem with gift cards and currencies, and more about people not thinking clearly when falling for these scams.

People will always fall for scams. That's not a problem that'll ever go away. Which is why we need governments, laws and regulations to protect the vulnerable. Of course governments do that with varying success and enthusiasm, but that's a political and social problem that doesn't have a technical solution.

On the anonymity thing
Anonymity from the bank is still achieved.
Only the regulator gets access to this information this way.

Also anonymity is valuable for everybody, because its a big part of our shield against oppression. In transactions and in communications. It's all the same.
Nothing to hide is a myth(kinda).
In this case for example you wouldn't be comfortable sharing your transaction details with me(don't do it please) proving there's at one person you want to hide this data from.
You don't know [who ](https://unbanx.substack.com/p/banks-are-selling-your-data-heres)your bank is sharing it with(maybe I'm it) or [what](https://artoftruth.org/data-broker-stalking-spokeo-harassment/) they're using it for.
Also anonymity is a herd immunity thing. Only when we're anonymous together are we truly anonymous(simplest case, when I know Monero has only one payer and one payed all transactions can easily be traced).

On the regulation thing.
I disagree that finance needs to be regulated on the current level.
It needs to be limited on the current level.
If crypto wants to succeed it must find a way to implement the currently centralized controls in a decentralized manner.
So not by sacrificing transaction anonymity, so the centralized police and banks can take care of it.
No by, building those controls in the system itself.
First start by copying the features of a good banking app.
MFA, double naming, transaction tagging, daily limits, blacklists, geoblocking, etc.
From that moment it can at least call itself a real decentralized alternative to banks.
If it wants to become an alternative to financial regulators.
It needs to obtain dedicated Big Fish controls, trusted judgement, sanctions, white listing, public minting, etc.

So contrary to you I believe Monero like crypto has great potential. Contrary to Pyrate I think it's not there yet.

I simply no longer take "I have nothing to hide" people seriously. Maybe in time they'll realise how naive a statement that is.

Yeah you seem to have a low view of the naive.
I think naivety is a great good.
It's trust the glue of our society.
People assume that it will be alright and don't look in that direction, because someone they trust handles the issue.
They believe they've nothing to hide, because they believe the things they want hidden are already hidden.
I'm simply a security engineer. It's my passion to patch the distance between trust and trustworthiness with cold hard logic, so society can get used to an even more trustworthy world.

Edit:
In a way the naive are just like the hardasses they show us how our society should be.

Last edited by LoudTechie on 12 Jun 2026 at 1:06 pm UTC

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: tuubiI view people who get very passionate about crypto the same way I view enthusiastic small-time stock traders. They keep talking my ear off about how they make (or save) money with it and everyone should do it, and I indulge them to a point because I'm nice and patient like that (in real life more than online), but I just don't find any of it interesting. Money is a necessity and I've never been wealthy enough to ignore it. It's just not something I could ever get passionate about.

Im sorry, but point to me where I did this here, where did I talk about making or saving money, market price, hype and all that wall street crap ?

Monero would protect my financial activity from heavily regulated banks and my government, which I'm a lot less concerned about. Some communities have excellent reasons to hide this activity, but most of us do not.

Only if you choose to. You can disclose your transactions for taxes or any other reason. I could explain how it works but I'm getting fed up with still being talked to like a crypto bro, I'll just share that optional transparency is a built-in function into a Monero wallet for auditing and taxes etc.

I'm not paranoid and this isn't about paranoia. Speaking for myself for example, I recognise what is a real and what is a more theoretical danger when I'm constructing my threat model, but most of the time, I use privacy tools out of principle more than out of immediate need. This is something I feel is lost for many people recently, at least that's what I'm getting online. Recently I keep recalling that one Luke Smith youtube video about in projects like Linux, how users are slowly abandoning the freedom hard lines started with Free Software and GNU etc. I think we need more hardasses, the Stallman type, so we don't drift away in convenience and complacency.

On the hyped up cryptobro part.
You're not being treated like a cryptobro. You're experiencing something even more frustrating:
"I've nothing to hide."
A cryptobro would get fundamental disbelief in the promises they make, not in their value.
"crypto is decentralized": except for all the exit scams.
"crypto is the future": except for all the exit scams.
"crypto can do anything": you don't know what you're talking about.
"crypto ...": I'm done hearing about these scams.

As to why this is frustrating,
a. because it devalues other people's needs.
b. because it undercounts one's reliance on fundamental rights.
To say it with a quote I got from schneiers website, but attributed to someone else.
Saying you don't need privacy, because you've nothing to hide is like saying you don't need free speech, because you have nothing to say.

About the complacency part.
I disagree kinda.
Users are going to the centralized semi-free options, because they come from fully proprietary systems and are used to thinking that way and have become to love the strengths of the existing systems.
In general it's going in the right direction.
Just not in the jumps hardliners and early adopters believe in.

Also even a little extra freedom helps a lot.
If Redhat sufficiently fucks up systemD we can fork it with a patch. Would this be a lot of work, yes. Would this be less work than the entire Wine project(which tackles the Windows equivalent) easily, because we have the source code.
Do proprietary kernel modules render your system less free and give root to dangerous parties, absolutely. Still I can patch the interface to limit their power and repair their mistakes For Windows and Mac that requires a jailbreak.
Do locked bootloaders illegally, but unrepentant limit consumer choice. Undeniably, but they still can't sue you under the DMCA for a jailbreak.
Or an example from this forum. If our proprietary electron program botches their testing we can still patch electron without any license problems.

Hardasses are important they remind us how we can improve the world, but they're too blinded by their rage to see the the individual value of the incremental improvements.

I think it's an issue of balance. Taking the SystemD example, when is it that the community draws the line ? Personally, the comically-fast and instant compliance with age verification fiasco a month or two ago was it for ne. I'm sort of coerced to continue to use SystemD currently, even though that was the final straw for me and I'd rather use something else now.

So it's like a continuous battle to balance out the hardass-ness with the complacency. I tend to lean more on the former (even though I don't at all feel like I'm doing a lot of work in doing so, it just seems to me everyone else is so lazy and quick to sideline what they claim to believe in). But as long as the right people don't go all the way and they don't lose the plot, you're right in that fighting back is possible.

Also, about regulations being a necessity etc etc, I get it. But I really won't play along if any countermeasure gets implemented ends up chipping away at one of the rights that were once given, that's in brief my angle on all that 'the system is important, actually'.

The community doesn't draw lines or circles.
Everybody makes their own choices, which is why we need these hardasses and early adopters. We need these people to test the waters and show how the world could look like.
Other less hardass people use that information to judge their own stance.

On the "it costs me little effort" thing. As a technical person you're probably familiar with the phrase, "but it works on my system". With the retard: "we're not shipping your system".
Remember that people are different in many ways. Things that are easy for you can be hard for others.
A good sobering measure could be measuring how often you either open the terminal or are configuring a translation layer.

On the rights thing.
What are those rights according to you?
Anonymity, clear.
Decentralization, clear.
The ability to easily spend and hold large amount of assets? Unclear.
Speedy transactions. Unclear.
etc.

One big thing I personally have an issue with is being able to spend X amount of money however I like. Sometimes sending funds to a family member or even my own self through another bank account in my name and the transaction gets picked up by the bank's shitty and probably AI based AML system and now my funds, depending on the bank, could be frozen for up to 24 hours. So the freedom to transact however the hell I want and to whomever I want (without Visa dictating if theyre cool or not with the product you're buying). The banking system in this regard is atrocious. So that's in UK banks. Locally, I also have an issue with banks being unreliable in general in online shopping (would rather not share which country) but recently the Central Bank itself got hacked and terabytes worth of database were put up for sale, so I guess that's another thing to add.

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: tuubiI view people who get very passionate about crypto the same way I view enthusiastic small-time stock traders. They keep talking my ear off about how they make (or save) money with it and everyone should do it, and I indulge them to a point because I'm nice and patient like that (in real life more than online), but I just don't find any of it interesting. Money is a necessity and I've never been wealthy enough to ignore it. It's just not something I could ever get passionate about.

Im sorry, but point to me where I did this here, where did I talk about making or saving money, market price, hype and all that wall street crap ?

Monero would protect my financial activity from heavily regulated banks and my government, which I'm a lot less concerned about. Some communities have excellent reasons to hide this activity, but most of us do not.

Only if you choose to. You can disclose your transactions for taxes or any other reason. I could explain how it works but I'm getting fed up with still being talked to like a crypto bro, I'll just share that optional transparency is a built-in function into a Monero wallet for auditing and taxes etc.

I'm not paranoid and this isn't about paranoia. Speaking for myself for example, I recognise what is a real and what is a more theoretical danger when I'm constructing my threat model, but most of the time, I use privacy tools out of principle more than out of immediate need. This is something I feel is lost for many people recently, at least that's what I'm getting online. Recently I keep recalling that one Luke Smith youtube video about in projects like Linux, how users are slowly abandoning the freedom hard lines started with Free Software and GNU etc. I think we need more hardasses, the Stallman type, so we don't drift away in convenience and complacency.

On the hyped up cryptobro part.
You're not being treated like a cryptobro. You're experiencing something even more frustrating:
"I've nothing to hide."
A cryptobro would get fundamental disbelief in the promises they make, not in their value.
"crypto is decentralized": except for all the exit scams.
"crypto is the future": except for all the exit scams.
"crypto can do anything": you don't know what you're talking about.
"crypto ...": I'm done hearing about these scams.

As to why this is frustrating,
a. because it devalues other people's needs.
b. because it undercounts one's reliance on fundamental rights.
To say it with a quote I got from schneiers website, but attributed to someone else.
Saying you don't need privacy, because you've nothing to hide is like saying you don't need free speech, because you have nothing to say.

About the complacency part.
I disagree kinda.
Users are going to the centralized semi-free options, because they come from fully proprietary systems and are used to thinking that way and have become to love the strengths of the existing systems.
In general it's going in the right direction.
Just not in the jumps hardliners and early adopters believe in.

Also even a little extra freedom helps a lot.
If Redhat sufficiently fucks up systemD we can fork it with a patch. Would this be a lot of work, yes. Would this be less work than the entire Wine project(which tackles the Windows equivalent) easily, because we have the source code.
Do proprietary kernel modules render your system less free and give root to dangerous parties, absolutely. Still I can patch the interface to limit their power and repair their mistakes For Windows and Mac that requires a jailbreak.
Do locked bootloaders illegally, but unrepentant limit consumer choice. Undeniably, but they still can't sue you under the DMCA for a jailbreak.
Or an example from this forum. If our proprietary electron program botches their testing we can still patch electron without any license problems.

Hardasses are important they remind us how we can improve the world, but they're too blinded by their rage to see the the individual value of the incremental improvements.

I think it's an issue of balance. Taking the SystemD example, when is it that the community draws the line ? Personally, the comically-fast and instant compliance with age verification fiasco a month or two ago was it for ne. I'm sort of coerced to continue to use SystemD currently, even though that was the final straw for me and I'd rather use something else now.

So it's like a continuous battle to balance out the hardass-ness with the complacency. I tend to lean more on the former (even though I don't at all feel like I'm doing a lot of work in doing so, it just seems to me everyone else is so lazy and quick to sideline what they claim to believe in). But as long as the right people don't go all the way and they don't lose the plot, you're right in that fighting back is possible.

Also, about regulations being a necessity etc etc, I get it. But I really won't play along if any countermeasure gets implemented ends up chipping away at one of the rights that were once given, that's in brief my angle on all that 'the system is important, actually'.

The community doesn't draw lines or circles.
Everybody makes their own choices, which is why we need these hardasses and early adopters. We need these people to test the waters and show how the world could look like.
Other less hardass people use that information to judge their own stance.

On the "it costs me little effort" thing. As a technical person you're probably familiar with the phrase, "but it works on my system". With the retard: "we're not shipping your system".
Remember that people are different in many ways. Things that are easy for you can be hard for others.
A good sobering measure could be measuring how often you either open the terminal or are configuring a translation layer.

On the rights thing.
What are those rights according to you?
Anonymity, clear.
Decentralization, clear.
The ability to easily spend and hold large amount of assets? Unclear.
Speedy transactions. Unclear.
etc.

One big thing I personally have an issue with is being able to spend X amount of money however I like. Sometimes sending funds to a family member or even my own self through another bank account in my name and the transaction gets picked up by the bank's shitty and probably AI based AML system and now my funds, depending on the bank, could be frozen for up to 24 hours. So the freedom to transact however the hell I want and to whomever I want (without Visa dictating if they're cool or not with the product you're buying). The banking system in this regard is atrocious. So that's in UK banks. Locally, I also have an issue with banks being unreliable in general in online shopping (would rather not share which country) but recently the Central Bank itself got hacked and terabytes worth of database were put up for sale, so I guess that's another thing to add.

What about speedy transactions.
Z=X^2+C spending, where X is the amount of money spend in the latest Y blocks, C is a constant and Z is the amount of money you can spend this block.

Edit:
On the hackability of confidential info.
You're going to be so dissapointed if you follow my scumbag links.
Someone found a way to publicly trace individual transactions, while they're still in an incomplete block.
Building a non-hackable system is a great ambition and cryptography is the strongest tool we possess for that, but I think you're putting a little too much faith in it.

Last edited by LoudTechie on 12 Jun 2026 at 1:43 pm UTC

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: tuubiI view people who get very passionate about crypto the same way I view enthusiastic small-time stock traders. They keep talking my ear off about how they make (or save) money with it and everyone should do it, and I indulge them to a point because I'm nice and patient like that (in real life more than online), but I just don't find any of it interesting. Money is a necessity and I've never been wealthy enough to ignore it. It's just not something I could ever get passionate about.

Im sorry, but point to me where I did this here, where did I talk about making or saving money, market price, hype and all that wall street crap ?

Monero would protect my financial activity from heavily regulated banks and my government, which I'm a lot less concerned about. Some communities have excellent reasons to hide this activity, but most of us do not.

Only if you choose to. You can disclose your transactions for taxes or any other reason. I could explain how it works but I'm getting fed up with still being talked to like a crypto bro, I'll just share that optional transparency is a built-in function into a Monero wallet for auditing and taxes etc.

I'm not paranoid and this isn't about paranoia. Speaking for myself for example, I recognise what is a real and what is a more theoretical danger when I'm constructing my threat model, but most of the time, I use privacy tools out of principle more than out of immediate need. This is something I feel is lost for many people recently, at least that's what I'm getting online. Recently I keep recalling that one Luke Smith youtube video about in projects like Linux, how users are slowly abandoning the freedom hard lines started with Free Software and GNU etc. I think we need more hardasses, the Stallman type, so we don't drift away in convenience and complacency.

On the hyped up cryptobro part.
You're not being treated like a cryptobro. You're experiencing something even more frustrating:
"I've nothing to hide."
A cryptobro would get fundamental disbelief in the promises they make, not in their value.
"crypto is decentralized": except for all the exit scams.
"crypto is the future": except for all the exit scams.
"crypto can do anything": you don't know what you're talking about.
"crypto ...": I'm done hearing about these scams.

As to why this is frustrating,
a. because it devalues other people's needs.
b. because it undercounts one's reliance on fundamental rights.
To say it with a quote I got from schneiers website, but attributed to someone else.
Saying you don't need privacy, because you've nothing to hide is like saying you don't need free speech, because you have nothing to say.

About the complacency part.
I disagree kinda.
Users are going to the centralized semi-free options, because they come from fully proprietary systems and are used to thinking that way and have become to love the strengths of the existing systems.
In general it's going in the right direction.
Just not in the jumps hardliners and early adopters believe in.

Also even a little extra freedom helps a lot.
If Redhat sufficiently fucks up systemD we can fork it with a patch. Would this be a lot of work, yes. Would this be less work than the entire Wine project(which tackles the Windows equivalent) easily, because we have the source code.
Do proprietary kernel modules render your system less free and give root to dangerous parties, absolutely. Still I can patch the interface to limit their power and repair their mistakes For Windows and Mac that requires a jailbreak.
Do locked bootloaders illegally, but unrepentant limit consumer choice. Undeniably, but they still can't sue you under the DMCA for a jailbreak.
Or an example from this forum. If our proprietary electron program botches their testing we can still patch electron without any license problems.

Hardasses are important they remind us how we can improve the world, but they're too blinded by their rage to see the the individual value of the incremental improvements.

I think it's an issue of balance. Taking the SystemD example, when is it that the community draws the line ? Personally, the comically-fast and instant compliance with age verification fiasco a month or two ago was it for ne. I'm sort of coerced to continue to use SystemD currently, even though that was the final straw for me and I'd rather use something else now.

So it's like a continuous battle to balance out the hardass-ness with the complacency. I tend to lean more on the former (even though I don't at all feel like I'm doing a lot of work in doing so, it just seems to me everyone else is so lazy and quick to sideline what they claim to believe in). But as long as the right people don't go all the way and they don't lose the plot, you're right in that fighting back is possible.

Also, about regulations being a necessity etc etc, I get it. But I really won't play along if any countermeasure gets implemented ends up chipping away at one of the rights that were once given, that's in brief my angle on all that 'the system is important, actually'.

The community doesn't draw lines or circles.
Everybody makes their own choices, which is why we need these hardasses and early adopters. We need these people to test the waters and show how the world could look like.
Other less hardass people use that information to judge their own stance.

On the "it costs me little effort" thing. As a technical person you're probably familiar with the phrase, "but it works on my system". With the retard: "we're not shipping your system".
Remember that people are different in many ways. Things that are easy for you can be hard for others.
A good sobering measure could be measuring how often you either open the terminal or are configuring a translation layer.

On the rights thing.
What are those rights according to you?
Anonymity, clear.
Decentralization, clear.
The ability to easily spend and hold large amount of assets? Unclear.
Speedy transactions. Unclear.
etc.

One big thing I personally have an issue with is being able to spend X amount of money however I like. Sometimes sending funds to a family member or even my own self through another bank account in my name and the transaction gets picked up by the bank's shitty and probably AI based AML system and now my funds, depending on the bank, could be frozen for up to 24 hours. So the freedom to transact however the hell I want and to whomever I want (without Visa dictating if they're cool or not with the product you're buying). The banking system in this regard is atrocious. So that's in UK banks. Locally, I also have an issue with banks being unreliable in general in online shopping (would rather not share which country) but recently the Central Bank itself got hacked and terabytes worth of database were put up for sale, so I guess that's another thing to add.

What about speedy transactions.
X=X^2+C spending, where X is the amount of money spend in the current Y blocks and C is a constant.

Edit:
On the hackability of confidential info.
You're going to be so dissapointed if you follow my scumbag links.
Someone found a way to publicly trace individual transactions, while they're still in an incomplete block.
Building a non-hackable system is a great ambition and cryptography is the strongest tool we possess for that, but I think you're putting a little too much faith in it.

Fast transactions are of course nice. Admittedly this is something I'd like Monero to improve in, currently it's 10 blocks or about 20 minutes until any received funds can be spendable, they show up on your wallet instantly but you can only use them after the aforementioned block confirmations. Apparently academics found it's possible in the future to develop 0conf, so funds are useable instantly, but it sounds like that's something more far ahead for now.

Someone found a way to publicly trace individual transactions, while they're still in an incomplete block.

Can you be more specific here ? Haven't heard about this.

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: tuubiI view people who get very passionate about crypto the same way I view enthusiastic small-time stock traders. They keep talking my ear off about how they make (or save) money with it and everyone should do it, and I indulge them to a point because I'm nice and patient like that (in real life more than online), but I just don't find any of it interesting. Money is a necessity and I've never been wealthy enough to ignore it. It's just not something I could ever get passionate about.

Im sorry, but point to me where I did this here, where did I talk about making or saving money, market price, hype and all that wall street crap ?

Monero would protect my financial activity from heavily regulated banks and my government, which I'm a lot less concerned about. Some communities have excellent reasons to hide this activity, but most of us do not.

Only if you choose to. You can disclose your transactions for taxes or any other reason. I could explain how it works but I'm getting fed up with still being talked to like a crypto bro, I'll just share that optional transparency is a built-in function into a Monero wallet for auditing and taxes etc.

I'm not paranoid and this isn't about paranoia. Speaking for myself for example, I recognise what is a real and what is a more theoretical danger when I'm constructing my threat model, but most of the time, I use privacy tools out of principle more than out of immediate need. This is something I feel is lost for many people recently, at least that's what I'm getting online. Recently I keep recalling that one Luke Smith youtube video about in projects like Linux, how users are slowly abandoning the freedom hard lines started with Free Software and GNU etc. I think we need more hardasses, the Stallman type, so we don't drift away in convenience and complacency.

On the hyped up cryptobro part.
You're not being treated like a cryptobro. You're experiencing something even more frustrating:
"I've nothing to hide."
A cryptobro would get fundamental disbelief in the promises they make, not in their value.
"crypto is decentralized": except for all the exit scams.
"crypto is the future": except for all the exit scams.
"crypto can do anything": you don't know what you're talking about.
"crypto ...": I'm done hearing about these scams.

As to why this is frustrating,
a. because it devalues other people's needs.
b. because it undercounts one's reliance on fundamental rights.
To say it with a quote I got from schneiers website, but attributed to someone else.
Saying you don't need privacy, because you've nothing to hide is like saying you don't need free speech, because you have nothing to say.

About the complacency part.
I disagree kinda.
Users are going to the centralized semi-free options, because they come from fully proprietary systems and are used to thinking that way and have become to love the strengths of the existing systems.
In general it's going in the right direction.
Just not in the jumps hardliners and early adopters believe in.

Also even a little extra freedom helps a lot.
If Redhat sufficiently fucks up systemD we can fork it with a patch. Would this be a lot of work, yes. Would this be less work than the entire Wine project(which tackles the Windows equivalent) easily, because we have the source code.
Do proprietary kernel modules render your system less free and give root to dangerous parties, absolutely. Still I can patch the interface to limit their power and repair their mistakes For Windows and Mac that requires a jailbreak.
Do locked bootloaders illegally, but unrepentant limit consumer choice. Undeniably, but they still can't sue you under the DMCA for a jailbreak.
Or an example from this forum. If our proprietary electron program botches their testing we can still patch electron without any license problems.

Hardasses are important they remind us how we can improve the world, but they're too blinded by their rage to see the the individual value of the incremental improvements.

I think it's an issue of balance. Taking the SystemD example, when is it that the community draws the line ? Personally, the comically-fast and instant compliance with age verification fiasco a month or two ago was it for ne. I'm sort of coerced to continue to use SystemD currently, even though that was the final straw for me and I'd rather use something else now.

So it's like a continuous battle to balance out the hardass-ness with the complacency. I tend to lean more on the former (even though I don't at all feel like I'm doing a lot of work in doing so, it just seems to me everyone else is so lazy and quick to sideline what they claim to believe in). But as long as the right people don't go all the way and they don't lose the plot, you're right in that fighting back is possible.

Also, about regulations being a necessity etc etc, I get it. But I really won't play along if any countermeasure gets implemented ends up chipping away at one of the rights that were once given, that's in brief my angle on all that 'the system is important, actually'.

The community doesn't draw lines or circles.
Everybody makes their own choices, which is why we need these hardasses and early adopters. We need these people to test the waters and show how the world could look like.
Other less hardass people use that information to judge their own stance.

On the "it costs me little effort" thing. As a technical person you're probably familiar with the phrase, "but it works on my system". With the retard: "we're not shipping your system".
Remember that people are different in many ways. Things that are easy for you can be hard for others.
A good sobering measure could be measuring how often you either open the terminal or are configuring a translation layer.

On the rights thing.
What are those rights according to you?
Anonymity, clear.
Decentralization, clear.
The ability to easily spend and hold large amount of assets? Unclear.
Speedy transactions. Unclear.
etc.

One big thing I personally have an issue with is being able to spend X amount of money however I like. Sometimes sending funds to a family member or even my own self through another bank account in my name and the transaction gets picked up by the bank's shitty and probably AI based AML system and now my funds, depending on the bank, could be frozen for up to 24 hours. So the freedom to transact however the hell I want and to whomever I want (without Visa dictating if they're cool or not with the product you're buying). The banking system in this regard is atrocious. So that's in UK banks. Locally, I also have an issue with banks being unreliable in general in online shopping (would rather not share which country) but recently the Central Bank itself got hacked and terabytes worth of database were put up for sale, so I guess that's another thing to add.

What about speedy transactions.
X=X^2+C spending, where X is the amount of money spend in the current Y blocks and C is a constant.

Edit:
On the hackability of confidential info.
You're going to be so dissapointed if you follow my scumbag links.
Someone found a way to publicly trace individual transactions, while they're still in an incomplete block.
Building a non-hackable system is a great ambition and cryptography is the strongest tool we possess for that, but I think you're putting a little too much faith in it.

Fast transactions are of course nice. Admittedly this is something I'd like Monero to improve in, currently it's 10 blocks or about 20 minutes until any received funds can be spendable, they show up on your wallet instantly but you can only use them after the aforementioned block confirmations. Apparently academics found it's possible in the future to develop 0conf, so funds are useable instantly, but it sounds like that's something more far ahead for now.

Someone found a way to publicly trace individual transactions, while they're still in an incomplete block.

Can you be more specific here ? Haven't heard about this.

I can be a lot more specific(sorry for the crappy [link](https://monero.observer/antidarknet-collective-claims-responsibility-suspected-monero-spam-attack/))

and in my specificity I'm realizing this is more scaremongering than real(sorry).

In the past there've been several deanomyzation attacks among, which this one.

It's an old saturation attack.
It worked by making a lot of transaction to fill up blocks, so one could break the ring signatures by exclusion and poisoned data.
Fixed by switching to chain anonymization instead of block anonymization.
It was very visible[, because it showed in the amount of transactions.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1bak3to/monero_spam_recap/)
Resulting in me noticing, but not doing enough research.

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: tuubiI view people who get very passionate about crypto the same way I view enthusiastic small-time stock traders. They keep talking my ear off about how they make (or save) money with it and everyone should do it, and I indulge them to a point because I'm nice and patient like that (in real life more than online), but I just don't find any of it interesting. Money is a necessity and I've never been wealthy enough to ignore it. It's just not something I could ever get passionate about.

Im sorry, but point to me where I did this here, where did I talk about making or saving money, market price, hype and all that wall street crap ?

Monero would protect my financial activity from heavily regulated banks and my government, which I'm a lot less concerned about. Some communities have excellent reasons to hide this activity, but most of us do not.

Only if you choose to. You can disclose your transactions for taxes or any other reason. I could explain how it works but I'm getting fed up with still being talked to like a crypto bro, I'll just share that optional transparency is a built-in function into a Monero wallet for auditing and taxes etc.

I'm not paranoid and this isn't about paranoia. Speaking for myself for example, I recognise what is a real and what is a more theoretical danger when I'm constructing my threat model, but most of the time, I use privacy tools out of principle more than out of immediate need. This is something I feel is lost for many people recently, at least that's what I'm getting online. Recently I keep recalling that one Luke Smith youtube video about in projects like Linux, how users are slowly abandoning the freedom hard lines started with Free Software and GNU etc. I think we need more hardasses, the Stallman type, so we don't drift away in convenience and complacency.

On the hyped up cryptobro part.
You're not being treated like a cryptobro. You're experiencing something even more frustrating:
"I've nothing to hide."
A cryptobro would get fundamental disbelief in the promises they make, not in their value.
"crypto is decentralized": except for all the exit scams.
"crypto is the future": except for all the exit scams.
"crypto can do anything": you don't know what you're talking about.
"crypto ...": I'm done hearing about these scams.

As to why this is frustrating,
a. because it devalues other people's needs.
b. because it undercounts one's reliance on fundamental rights.
To say it with a quote I got from schneiers website, but attributed to someone else.
Saying you don't need privacy, because you've nothing to hide is like saying you don't need free speech, because you have nothing to say.

About the complacency part.
I disagree kinda.
Users are going to the centralized semi-free options, because they come from fully proprietary systems and are used to thinking that way and have become to love the strengths of the existing systems.
In general it's going in the right direction.
Just not in the jumps hardliners and early adopters believe in.

Also even a little extra freedom helps a lot.
If Redhat sufficiently fucks up systemD we can fork it with a patch. Would this be a lot of work, yes. Would this be less work than the entire Wine project(which tackles the Windows equivalent) easily, because we have the source code.
Do proprietary kernel modules render your system less free and give root to dangerous parties, absolutely. Still I can patch the interface to limit their power and repair their mistakes For Windows and Mac that requires a jailbreak.
Do locked bootloaders illegally, but unrepentant limit consumer choice. Undeniably, but they still can't sue you under the DMCA for a jailbreak.
Or an example from this forum. If our proprietary electron program botches their testing we can still patch electron without any license problems.

Hardasses are important they remind us how we can improve the world, but they're too blinded by their rage to see the the individual value of the incremental improvements.

I think it's an issue of balance. Taking the SystemD example, when is it that the community draws the line ? Personally, the comically-fast and instant compliance with age verification fiasco a month or two ago was it for ne. I'm sort of coerced to continue to use SystemD currently, even though that was the final straw for me and I'd rather use something else now.

So it's like a continuous battle to balance out the hardass-ness with the complacency. I tend to lean more on the former (even though I don't at all feel like I'm doing a lot of work in doing so, it just seems to me everyone else is so lazy and quick to sideline what they claim to believe in). But as long as the right people don't go all the way and they don't lose the plot, you're right in that fighting back is possible.

Also, about regulations being a necessity etc etc, I get it. But I really won't play along if any countermeasure gets implemented ends up chipping away at one of the rights that were once given, that's in brief my angle on all that 'the system is important, actually'.

On the age gating fiasco.
That was a reaction to a passed law.
Yes, it's problematic, but the reason they can get away with it is that the government is backing them.
Anyone who wants to make that fork has to fight the law and [we know the law often wins.](https://genius.com/The-clash-i-fought-the-law-lyrics)
Most distros also include an Api for handling USA crypto export controls.

Quoting: PyrateYou continue to talk about Bitcoin and bitcoin-like crytpo in particular, like everything I've mentioned about Monero is irrelevant. With all due respect, after this message, if I feel like what I type isn't being engaged with, I think I'm better off spending my time doing something else rather than write a few paragraphs that'll get avoided.

Is this really how you guys find my messages, like PR ? I only answered what I got asked. How can I prove to you that I'm actually debating in good faith and out of passion ? I don't understand how my messages get read like intense ads, like, did I ever do the thing and talked about price, or said "you should buy it now, it'll go to the moon !!" or anything like that ? Genuinely curious here.

Somebody who is.... overly enthusiastic about anything and who appears dismissive to people's concerns is going to trip that flag for people.

A lot of your replies are lengthy, defensive, and boil down to "but Monero" and that's going to trip that flag for a lot of people, especially on a subject like crypto where excessive enthusiasm for a crypto product has almost invariably ended in "oops it's another scam" for more than a decade.

If you really want to make progress with this, start from the position that people have really legitimate reasons for being doubtful, rather than "I feel insulted when people who don't know me don't inherently trust me when I start hyping a product from a market niche with a known history of failed hype cycles and fraudulent behaviour."

I'll also point out that what Monero is most known for among the general public is its prevalence in malware and popularity with the criminal element including Darknet retailers and CSAM traders. Saying it has a bit of a reputation problem would be significantly understating the situation.

Last edited by Carolly on 12 Jun 2026 at 3:00 pm UTC

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: tuubiI view people who get very passionate about crypto the same way I view enthusiastic small-time stock traders. They keep talking my ear off about how they make (or save) money with it and everyone should do it, and I indulge them to a point because I'm nice and patient like that (in real life more than online), but I just don't find any of it interesting. Money is a necessity and I've never been wealthy enough to ignore it. It's just not something I could ever get passionate about.

Im sorry, but point to me where I did this here, where did I talk about making or saving money, market price, hype and all that wall street crap ?

Monero would protect my financial activity from heavily regulated banks and my government, which I'm a lot less concerned about. Some communities have excellent reasons to hide this activity, but most of us do not.

Only if you choose to. You can disclose your transactions for taxes or any other reason. I could explain how it works but I'm getting fed up with still being talked to like a crypto bro, I'll just share that optional transparency is a built-in function into a Monero wallet for auditing and taxes etc.

I'm not paranoid and this isn't about paranoia. Speaking for myself for example, I recognise what is a real and what is a more theoretical danger when I'm constructing my threat model, but most of the time, I use privacy tools out of principle more than out of immediate need. This is something I feel is lost for many people recently, at least that's what I'm getting online. Recently I keep recalling that one Luke Smith youtube video about in projects like Linux, how users are slowly abandoning the freedom hard lines started with Free Software and GNU etc. I think we need more hardasses, the Stallman type, so we don't drift away in convenience and complacency.

On the hyped up cryptobro part.
You're not being treated like a cryptobro. You're experiencing something even more frustrating:
"I've nothing to hide."
A cryptobro would get fundamental disbelief in the promises they make, not in their value.
"crypto is decentralized": except for all the exit scams.
"crypto is the future": except for all the exit scams.
"crypto can do anything": you don't know what you're talking about.
"crypto ...": I'm done hearing about these scams.

As to why this is frustrating,
a. because it devalues other people's needs.
b. because it undercounts one's reliance on fundamental rights.
To say it with a quote I got from schneiers website, but attributed to someone else.
Saying you don't need privacy, because you've nothing to hide is like saying you don't need free speech, because you have nothing to say.

About the complacency part.
I disagree kinda.
Users are going to the centralized semi-free options, because they come from fully proprietary systems and are used to thinking that way and have become to love the strengths of the existing systems.
In general it's going in the right direction.
Just not in the jumps hardliners and early adopters believe in.

Also even a little extra freedom helps a lot.
If Redhat sufficiently fucks up systemD we can fork it with a patch. Would this be a lot of work, yes. Would this be less work than the entire Wine project(which tackles the Windows equivalent) easily, because we have the source code.
Do proprietary kernel modules render your system less free and give root to dangerous parties, absolutely. Still I can patch the interface to limit their power and repair their mistakes For Windows and Mac that requires a jailbreak.
Do locked bootloaders illegally, but unrepentant limit consumer choice. Undeniably, but they still can't sue you under the DMCA for a jailbreak.
Or an example from this forum. If our proprietary electron program botches their testing we can still patch electron without any license problems.

Hardasses are important they remind us how we can improve the world, but they're too blinded by their rage to see the the individual value of the incremental improvements.

I think it's an issue of balance. Taking the SystemD example, when is it that the community draws the line ? Personally, the comically-fast and instant compliance with age verification fiasco a month or two ago was it for ne. I'm sort of coerced to continue to use SystemD currently, even though that was the final straw for me and I'd rather use something else now.

So it's like a continuous battle to balance out the hardass-ness with the complacency. I tend to lean more on the former (even though I don't at all feel like I'm doing a lot of work in doing so, it just seems to me everyone else is so lazy and quick to sideline what they claim to believe in). But as long as the right people don't go all the way and they don't lose the plot, you're right in that fighting back is possible.

Also, about regulations being a necessity etc etc, I get it. But I really won't play along if any countermeasure gets implemented ends up chipping away at one of the rights that were once given, that's in brief my angle on all that 'the system is important, actually'.

On the age gating fiasco.
That was a reaction to a passed law.
Yes, it's problematic, but the reason they can get away with it is that the government is backing them.
Anyone who wants to make that fork has to fight the law and [we know the law often wins.](https://genius.com/The-clash-i-fought-the-law-lyrics)
Most distros also include an Api for handling USA crypto export controls.

It was more about how fast they jumped on that. I remember within the same newsfeed that day, I read how System76 CEO advising open source devs to hold on for a bit because he was exploring exclusion for FOSS OS's, and shortly after SystemD implements the thing.

And sure, they would've eventually had to by law, it still counts as a redflag for me.

Quoting: CarollySomebody who is.... overly enthusiastic about anything and who appears dismissive to people's concerns is going to trip that flag for people.

A lot of your replies are lengthy, defensive, and boil down to "but Monero" and that's going to trip that flag for a lot of people, especially on a subject like crypto where excessive enthusiasm for a crypto poduct has almost invariably ended in "oops it's another scam" for more than a decade.

But that's the problem. I say a few things unrelated to Bitcoin, and other users turn the other direction and write monologues going "the problem with Bitcoin is..." when my message was talking about something else. I'm dismissive about all the Bitcoin paragraphs because they don't apply to what I was saying.

Also I never said people should tust me like you claim here, on the contrary, you should actually go do your own research and verify all of this yourself. Maybe you'll learn something new.

I'm well aware of the crypto baggage, it sucks hard, and its so bad it actually influences how I write, like I keep thinking "how do I answer this question without it unintentionally sounding like some web3 bullshit to the uninitiated". It's extra daunting when all that effort gets thrown out and people either don't read or selectively choose what they want to respond to in my messages, and this specifically continues to the next part here:

I'll also point out that what Monero is most known for among the general public is its prevalence in malware and popularity with the criminal element including Darknet retailers and CSAM traders. Saying it has a bit of a reputation problem would be significantly understating the situation.

Let this be the last time I answer these type of questions, since it is clear that when I do, they don't always get read.

I've already addressed the use in crime. You can't dismiss a technology just because criminals make use of it, I'll say the same example again: what other type of money gets used for illicit acts, a lot more than Monero does, even ? Physical cash. Guess we're gonna start to ban that ?

Criminals are among the first to adopt new technologies, whether it is to gain an edge, or to protect themselves from getting caught, this is a well established phenomenon; printing (to print counterfeit currency), the telegraph and the phone (to coordinate scams and crimes), railway and cars for quick escape, the internet and so on. It's nothing new.

If you want to be consistent, you should be like those EU officials who want to ban encryption for citizens. Ban the Tor network, VPNs, virtual machines and encrypted messengers because criminals can and do use them.

If anything, with the idea it is used in criminal activities, and those criminals are getting away because of it, the fact of the matter here is this all means the technology works. Not how I would prefer for it to be demonstrated, but facts are facts.

Prevalence in malware ? Come on, man. Do you know how that sounds ? This is like when a game publisher denies Linux players access to their online game because of "the prevalence of hacking and cheating on Linux". Linux is most known among the general public for hacking, does that mean this is all what it's about ?

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: tuubiI view people who get very passionate about crypto the same way I view enthusiastic small-time stock traders. They keep talking my ear off about how they make (or save) money with it and everyone should do it, and I indulge them to a point because I'm nice and patient like that (in real life more than online), but I just don't find any of it interesting. Money is a necessity and I've never been wealthy enough to ignore it. It's just not something I could ever get passionate about.

Im sorry, but point to me where I did this here, where did I talk about making or saving money, market price, hype and all that wall street crap ?

I know, you come from a different angle. My example was mostly about the traders. But both groups (and I'm not talking about you, specifically) want to talk to me about money/currency, or how I'm using it wrong, or maybe how I should use this or that tech to get around the system.

Sorry that I kinda grouped you in with the cryptobros. In my defence, you compared me to Windows and WhatsApp users, which is way worse in my opinion. 😁

Quoting: Pyrate

Monero would protect my financial activity from heavily regulated banks and my government, which I'm a lot less concerned about. Some communities have excellent reasons to hide this activity, but most of us do not.

Only if you choose to. You can disclose your transactions for taxes or any other reason. I could explain how it works but I'm getting fed up with still being talked to like a crypto bro, I'll just share that optional transparency is a built-in function into a Monero wallet for auditing and taxes etc.

Yes, but this is a solution looking for a problem, or rather a solution to someone else's problem, as far as I can tell. And this isn't a disagreement you can fix by explaining. It's not intellectual laziness or lack of understanding on my part, and even less about giving up privacy for convenience. I wouldn't have been using Linux for ~25 years if that was the case, and I'd probably have owned an Android or Apple mobile device at some point. Or caved in and got on WhatsApp or LinkedIn or whatever social media I've been cajoled to join over the years. As I said, I like my privacy, but not everything privacy-related is equal in importance.

I don't mind that Monero exists, but if it's ever accepted as a mainstream currency, its use needs to be regulated and monitored, losing many of its apparent benefits.

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechiealso relevant to this discussion.
Valve will never accept monero, because it's anonymous and decentralized.
The scammers for which they sacrificed their own gift cards would exploit exactly this decentralization and anonymity to hide their activity.

Even though I can't imagine how that could happen, (just like how I cant believe peoole sfill fall for gift card scams), you're probably right. I wonder when this stops being about a problem with gift cards and currencies, and more about people not thinking clearly when falling for these scams.

People will always fall for scams. That's not a problem that'll ever go away. Which is why we need governments, laws and regulations to protect the vulnerable. Of course governments do that with varying success and enthusiasm, but that's a political and social problem that doesn't have a technical solution.

On the anonymity thing
Anonymity from the bank is still achieved.
Only the regulator gets access to this information this way.

Also anonymity is valuable for everybody, because its a big part of our shield against oppression. In transactions and in communications. It's all the same.
Nothing to hide is a myth(kinda).
In this case for example you wouldn't be comfortable sharing your transaction details with me(don't do it please) proving there's at one person you want to hide this data from.
You don't know [who ](https://unbanx.substack.com/p/banks-are-selling-your-data-heres)your bank is sharing it with(maybe I'm it) or [what](https://artoftruth.org/data-broker-stalking-spokeo-harassment/) they're using it for.
Also anonymity is a herd immunity thing. Only when we're anonymous together are we truly anonymous(simplest case, when I know Monero has only one payer and one payed all transactions can easily be traced).

On the regulation thing.
I disagree that finance needs to be regulated on the current level.
It needs to be limited on the current level.
If crypto wants to succeed it must find a way to implement the currently centralized controls in a decentralized manner.
So not by sacrificing transaction anonymity, so the centralized police and banks can take care of it.
No by, building those controls in the system itself.
First start by copying the features of a good banking app.
MFA, double naming, transaction tagging, daily limits, blacklists, geoblocking, etc.
From that moment it can at least call itself a real decentralized alternative to banks.
If it wants to become an alternative to financial regulators.
It needs to obtain dedicated Big Fish controls, trusted judgement, sanctions, white listing, public minting, etc.

So contrary to you I believe Monero like crypto has great potential. Contrary to Pyrate I think it's not there yet.

I simply no longer take "I have nothing to hide" people seriously. Maybe in time they'll realise how naive a statement that is.

Yeah you seem to have a low view of the naive.
I think naivety is a great good.
It's trust the glue of our society.
People assume that it will be alright and don't look in that direction, because someone they trust handles the issue.
They believe they've nothing to hide, because they believe the things they want hidden are already hidden.
I'm simply a security engineer. It's my passion to patch the distance between trust and trustworthiness with cold hard logic, so society can get used to an even more trustworthy world.

Edit:
In a way the naive are just like the hardasses they show us how our society should be.

Forgot to reply to this, sorry. I like your perspective, I find it interesting. I do feel like going deeper into this though is well beyond the topic here and this is not the place.

This is how I would ideally like the equation to be: the people should always be critical, hard-ass, and pick on the smallest things when it comes to their governments. Meanwhile governments should stop what I can only describe as "everyone gets punished and treated as a criminal" with the increasing regulations, and instead return to this naive and trust-based outlook on society.

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: CarollySomebody who is.... overly enthusiastic about anything and who appears dismissive to people's concerns is going to trip that flag for people.

A lot of your replies are lengthy, defensive, and boil down to "but Monero" and that's going to trip that flag for a lot of people, especially on a subject like crypto where excessive enthusiasm for a crypto poduct has almost invariably ended in "oops it's another scam" for more than a decade.

But that's the problem. I say a few things unrelated to Bitcoin, and other users turn the other direction and write monologues going "the problem with Bitcoin is..." when my message was talking about something else. I'm dismissive about all the Bitcoin paragraphs because they don't apply to what I was saying.

Also I never said people should tust me like you claim here, on the contrary, you should actually go do your own research and verify all of this yourself. Maybe you'll learn something new.

I'm well aware of the crypto baggage, it sucks hard, and its so bad it actually influences how I write, like I keep thinking "how do I answer this question without it unintentionally sounding like some web3 bullshit to the uninitiated". It's extra daunting when all that effort gets thrown out and people either don't read or selectively choose what they want to respond to in my messages, and this specifically continues to the next part here:

I'll also point out that what Monero is most known for among the general public is its prevalence in malware and popularity with the criminal element including Darknet retailers and CSAM traders. Saying it has a bit of a reputation problem would be significantly understating the situation.

Let this be the last time I answer these type of questions, since it is clear that when I do, they don't always get read.

I've already addressed the use in crime. You can't dismiss a technology just because criminals make use of it, I'll say the same example again: what other type of money gets used for illicit acts, a lot more than Monero does, even ? Physical cash. Guess we're gonna start to ban that ?

Criminals are among the first to adopt new technologies, whether it is to gain an edge, or to protect themselves from getting caught, this is a well established phenomenon; printing (to print counterfeit currency), the telegraph and the phone (to coordinate scams and crimes), railway and cars for quick escape, the internet and so on. It's nothing new.

If you want to be consistent, you should be like those EU officials who want to ban encryption for citizens. Ban the Tor network, VPNs, virtual machines and encrypted messengers because criminals can and do use them.

If anything, with the idea it is used in criminal activities, and those criminals are getting away because of it, the fact of the matter here is this all means the technology works. Not how I would prefer for it to be demonstrated, but facts are facts.

Prevalence in malware ? Come on, man. Do you know how that sounds ? This is like when a game publisher denies Linux players access to their online game because of "the prevalence of hacking and cheating on Linux". Linux is most known among the general public for hacking, does that mean this is all what it's about ?

More defensiveness. More dismissiveness. More "my thing is different, you clearly haven't done your research."

I'm done at this point but I'll just reiterate that you clearly have no idea how you're coming off and that's what's hurting your credibility.

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechiealso relevant to this discussion.
Valve will never accept monero, because it's anonymous and decentralized.
The scammers for which they sacrificed their own gift cards would exploit exactly this decentralization and anonymity to hide their activity.

Even though I can't imagine how that could happen, (just like how I cant believe peoole sfill fall for gift card scams), you're probably right. I wonder when this stops being about a problem with gift cards and currencies, and more about people not thinking clearly when falling for these scams.

People will always fall for scams. That's not a problem that'll ever go away. Which is why we need governments, laws and regulations to protect the vulnerable. Of course governments do that with varying success and enthusiasm, but that's a political and social problem that doesn't have a technical solution.

In my opinion, the reason scams work so well is because they are exploiting the individual's innate greed and, in some cases, the appeal of getting something for nothing (i.e., minimal effort or work). So, greed exploits greed, in the end, and, ironically, we look to government regulation to protect us from ourselves. I think the old phrase "and if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you", says it all. Better to operate under the idiom that "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechiealso relevant to this discussion.
Valve will never accept monero, because it's anonymous and decentralized.
The scammers for which they sacrificed their own gift cards would exploit exactly this decentralization and anonymity to hide their activity.

Even though I can't imagine how that could happen, (just like how I cant believe peoole sfill fall for gift card scams), you're probably right. I wonder when this stops being about a problem with gift cards and currencies, and more about people not thinking clearly when falling for these scams.

People will always fall for scams. That's not a problem that'll ever go away. Which is why we need governments, laws and regulations to protect the vulnerable. Of course governments do that with varying success and enthusiasm, but that's a political and social problem that doesn't have a technical solution.

In my opinion, the reason scams work so well is because they are exploiting the individual's innate greed and, in some cases, the appeal of getting something for nothing (i.e., minimal effort or work). So, greed exploits greed, in the end, and, ironically, we look to government regulation to protect us from ourselves. I think the old phrase "and if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you", says it all. Better to operate under the idiom that "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

I wouldn't go all in on victim blaming, unless you only count the "investment opportunity" scams and the "Nigerian princes". And sure, I want governments to protect their citizens from exploitation by criminals (or greedy corporations) even if they're too greedy or gullible for their own good.

Quoting: SlaxerOther than volatility, why do you suppose businesses choose not to take it as payment? Not debating here, just picking your brain.

The biggest thing may be an artifact of how some of the most popular crypto works, I'm not sure about that: Bitcoin in particular, and I believe the blockchain in general to a significant degree, is really slow at doing transactions. The more transactions you want to do, the more this starts to bite. Probably not a big thing for small businesses, but maybe significant for some of the financial services those small businesses have to deal with. For big businesses on the other hand it could become a complete blocker.

I think another thing may be that the main place to keep crypto is these exchanges, and they're insecure as fuck. My understanding is they avoid the blockchain slow transaction problem by just . . . not using it, just kind of pretending to transfer the crypto around, and their pretenses are foolishly flimsy. It's like "What if banks just didn't bother to do security?" where there are really serious chances someone will just hack in and steal your stuff. Or maybe it'll go under and your stuff will just disappear, and it's not publicly insured like a bank deposit. It may be that businesses aren't attracted by that kind of risk. Or, to avoid the risk, they'd have to buy insurance and maybe it costs too much.

Quoting: SlaxerIt's funny you mention that. Canada's in debt $1.3ish Trillion (capital T), so the money sitting in your bank account is increasingly becoming more and more worthless by the day - and that's on top of the fact that you're also being taxed more on it than they did in the past. So you're losing money on two fronts, inflation, and taxes - which is something that can be entirely blamed on one group of people. Take a guess who? In theory, Bitcoin could fix half of that problem.

And btw, I would be considered "wealthy" by the government's standards... which is why HALF of my sweat blood and tears goes to the government - only to be squandered and spent in ways that only benefit themselves, and not the country. Trust me, people like me aren't the ones stealing from you. But anyway... let's bring it back to those gift cards eh? lol

Yes, yes, what have the Romans government ever done for us?

This country was better off before the anti-government turn around 1980 and the, basically, corporate takeover of government, back when government did more and taxes were higher. If we still had Connaught labs we would have been making our own Covid vaccine and our insulin would still be at cost. If we still had social housing programs, we wouldn't have a homelessness problem and people would be able to afford the rent.

(I don't think the government actually wants any of your blood, sweat or tears; sounds kind of unsanitary. I just pay my taxes in $Cad)

As to the government debt . . . go learn some Modern Monetary Theory. It's a very limited theory which only says anything about, well, money, which is not nearly as broad an issue as MMT proponents seem to think. But, it's not batshit insane, which makes it better than right wing pseudo-populist claims about money. Bottom line, private economic surplus is created by government debt--that's not so much a theory as an accounting identity. If the government ran surpluses your blood, sweat and tears would, on average, stop making money and start taking losses. Platitudes about government spending that treat it like a household (specifically, one that doesn't buy cars or homes or take out student loans) are deeply misguided and end up turning the real world on its head, because governments do not resemble households in any relevant way.

Quoting: CarollyI'll also point out that what Monero is most known for among the general public is its prevalence in malware and popularity with the criminal element including Darknet retailers and CSAM traders. Saying it has a bit of a reputation problem would be significantly understating the situation.

Quoting: PyrateYou can't dismiss a technology just because criminals make use of it

As Linux users, I can't help but wonder how this kind of justification works on some of us. We're getting close to the day when you start seeing headlines on your local Pravda news source saying, "Prime Minister Dipshit has proposed a ban on Linux because drug lords have been known for using Linux distros such as Whonix to sell illegal and untaxable drugs".

Quoting: PyrateSo the freedom to transact however the hell I want and to whomever I want (without Visa dictating if theyre cool or not with the product you're buying). The banking system in this regard is atrocious. So that's in UK banks. Locally, I also have an issue with banks being unreliable in general in online shopping (would rather not share which country) but recently the Central Bank itself got hacked and terabytes worth of database were put up for sale, so I guess that's another thing to add.

Isn't this a current problem on Steam? Valve has to yield to the credit card companies regarding what games they can or can't sell on their platform. I really hope they find a way to fix that... or they could just go back to accepting Bitcoin, I dunno. lol

Quoting: Purple Library Guyright wing pseudo-populist claims about money.

Sigh... What does that even mean? Whatever man.

Last edited by Slaxer on 12 Jun 2026 at 9:54 pm UTC

Quoting: SlaxerAs Linux users, I can't help but wonder how this kind of justification works on some of us. We're getting close to the day when you start seeing headlines on your local Pravda news source saying, "Prime Minister Dipshit has proposed a ban on Linux because drug lords have been known for using Linux distros such as Whonix to sell illegal and untaxable drugs".

The only thing I can think of here is how sad it's going to be when this happens, and before the biased media or paid shills come to their rescue, you'd probably first find fellow citizens, Linux users even, immediately conceding and gladly taking it up the ass.

Quoting: SlaxerIsn't this a current problem on Steam?

Yep. Case in point.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyBitcoin in particular, and I believe the blockchain in general to a significant degree, is really slow at doing transactions.

It can be, that's true.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyI think another thing may be that the main place to keep crypto is these exchanges, and they're insecure as fuck.

You're not supposed to keep your Bitcoins at the exchanges, you're supposed to transfer them to your wallet.

Last edited by Slaxer on 12 Jun 2026 at 10:40 pm UTC