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Monero Is For...

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Follow @cryptoizzy (If you want to skip my intro, just scroll down to sections: Monero is for Porn , Monero is for Pot and Monero is for Guns ) Monero is the Esperanto word for money, and I’ve reached the conclusion that money is precisely what Monero is. In previous articles, I’ve referred to money as being either sound or unsound, but I now believe that was the wrong approach. ‘Sound or unsound’ isn’t the question. The question is – “ is it or is it not money?” Right now, there is nothing else on earth I am aware of that is also money [1] , with the exception of precious metals (though they have very different medium of exchange profiles, and thus, usefulness). Of course this may change over time, and new forms of money may present themselves (for instance, with zk-starks), but for now, this is it . Current fiat currency systems, which our world uses now, are not money . True money doesn’t allow a group to create money at whim, and direct it to whom they like. This vio
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Monero Valuation – Update and Refocus

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Monero Valuation – Update and Refocus Follow @cryptoizzy It only took about 2 days after I shared some thoughts on Monero valuation that I regretted doing so. Various other responsibilities have kept me getting around to sharing my updated thoughts, but I’m glad to finally be doing so now, with this note. My regret hasn’t been so much around making an embarrassing technical omission (which I pointed out in it). Even with that, the directional and order-of-magnitude conclusions were still largely intact, it was an interesting idea to explore for me, and I’ve had some fun follow up email exchanges concerning modifications and refinements. My regret was publicly focusing at all on an association between Monero and DarkNet/Criminal activities. At the same time as I’m first and foremost interested in the truth, I believe that there are responsible ways to share it as well as reckless and ill-conceived ways to do so. I don't think my article did a very good job on t
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Monero Valuation Musings

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EDIT: I neglected a critical aspect of this analysis by not paying proper attention to the concept of stock-vs-flow. I am especially grateful to the r/monero subscriber who very kindly and extremely quickly corrected me on these points.  The net result, as it turns out, is still not too dissimilar from the results below... especially when variability of assumptions is high. I recommend you check out his response on the sub.  I'll try leaving this article here (as a monument/remind to me of my error) but wrap it with the conclusion of, as he put it- 'broad acceptance in the global black market = moon for monero/privacy coins no matter how calculated.'  note to self: entitling something 'musings' doesn't mean you can't scrub it better than you did here. ------------------------------------ ------------------------------------- ------------------------------------- -  In the course of responding to a comment posted on my blog yesterday (response in t
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Valuing Cryptocurrencies - An Approach

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Valuing Cryptocurrencies - An Approach   Follow @cryptoizzy There are well over 1,000 cryptocurrencies floating around right now, and it’s my sincere belief that many, if not most of them, will fail. This becomes especially evident when a little bit of thoughtful research is done, and one sees that many of them either have no realistic plans for success (beyond a pump-and-dump of the coin), and/or offer no meaningful value that is not already well represented in the crypto-space.  So how to tell them apart? Well, I’ll share my personal approach, which I hope you find interesting and maybe useful. I suspect that applying this methodology might lead one to ‘miss out’ on some rip-roaring rally on a coin that might otherwise have been speculated in, but hopefully it will also keep one from waking up one morning to discover the coin thought to be a sure thing for a quick in-and-out trade has dropped precipitously in value. Different people need different things to sleep at night. Dif
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The Bitcoin Futures Trap

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Follow @cryptoizzy Perhaps I am all-wrong about this. I actually hope that I am. In any case, it won’t be long before I (and we) find out. Given the significance of the subject matter though, I felt it important to share my perspective for those interested. If I look the fool then so be it. On Monday, Bitcoin futures will begin trading and many Bitcoin enthusiasts are optimistic about the impact this will have on its price. As things stand right now, I think they will be sorely disappointed. Rather than the launch of a Bitcoin futures contract being indicative of mainstream financial markets’ acceptance, I believe that instead it represents a new method of control and price suppression. I offer a few options which Bitcoin investors may consider at the end of the article (titled, Conclusions and Options ). While this article is a bit longer and more technical than I wanted it to be, I nonetheless encourage you to not 'drop out' before reading that short concluding sec
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Bob & Izzy: Monero, Dash and Protecting Your Car

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Rather than call it 'Reader Q&A', I've decided to use my 'Bob & Izzy' convention to share some thoughts spurred on via email exchanges with readers. I hope you enjoy. --------------------------------- Bob: Hey Izzy - I hope you’re right about Monero, but what about Dash? I know that Dash’s privacy features aren’t as good as Monero’s, but the it seems to be growing still.  I watched some videos too and they make it look like they are the ultimate privacy goal. Finally, some guy on youtube says that big investors don't want to get involved in monero because of it's reputation of being involved with criminal activities. What do you think? Izzy:   Hi Bob, As you know, Dash was the first major privacy focused coin to gain traction. However, just like Bitcoin has proven itself vulnerable on the privacy front, Dash has similarly shown itself to fall short of providing privacy security/fungiblity. It’s for this reason that it has largely been aban
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'Goodbye to Ripple' - Postscript

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So now, something more of an actual blog. When I finished my ‘ Goodbye to Ripple ’ article, I posted it in three places. First twitter, then on reddit and finally xrpchat.com. The latter two were where I posted my initial ripple valuation article in what feels to me now like ages ago. Even though I knew I wouldn’t be making many friends for saying so, I felt an obligation to share my reversal forthrightly in all those places. When I didn’t get any emails notifying me of a forum response from xrpchat, I assumed no one really cared – but I was happy to stumble across the thread today. (I had thought my email notification was turned on). On the whole, there was a really nice discourse (with a few ad hominems thrown in for spice) that I’m bummed I missed. If anyone’s interested though,I have a couple of thoughts. i'll post this link as a response to that thread forum. I have no animosity towards ripple. I think it’s actually very cool, and clearly hugely valuable.
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