What do you guys think of alt privacy coins like Zcash, Pirate Chain, Zano, Wownero?

goal is P2P digital cash
which imo, DNM adoption is the bellwether on that

The concept of a "privacy coin" is a marketing gimmick. It is important to study the sum of all the parts.
Cryptoanarchist culture, asic resistance, dynamic blocksize, decentralization, organic adoption, and a fair distribution are just as important as privacy.
Zcash - corporate compliance project. they are relevant because of privacy research. pro asic mining, pro state.
pirate chain - berwick pump and dump that is a ghost chain now.
zano - premine, aaron day/roger ver & co pump and dump. beware algorithmic stable coins too.
wownero - honestly it is a chill shitcoin. doesnt take itself seriously and posts funny memes.

If i needed to transact crypto privately and I didnt have Monero Id use Bitcoin with ashigaru. And actually that is what the majority of actual p2p cryptocurrency privacy usage is without including xmr obviously.

@maxel2 do any do something xmr doesn't? And do any do what xmr does but better? If not, they serve no purpose

Pirate chain is cool in theory, but I heard it is a premine.

Since we agree the purpose of Monero is to be used as a currency, it's best to stay focused on one project. Doesn't hurt it's the best project as well.

Zcash is cool in theory, but non-optional privacy and the dev tax is extremely cringe. Ya got to have mandatory privacy or shit breaks down.

I tried lightning and it wasn't easy to use and had high fees.

@nemesis
hey, welcome to the forum! loving that pic lol :3

"do any do something xmr doesn't? And do any do what xmr does but better? If not, they serve no purpose"

not really tbh, well for "zcash" then is like by default "transparent" (like bitcoin, everything public), and idk, it just adds complexity to use or even just to understand, like why do they have 2 options on that and then most exchanges only accepting the transparent ones i think? idk that's just weird and complex for no reason there lol

then the next 2 are "premined" i believe, so like, just some random dude that made some random coin and printed a massive amount for himself there, doesnt give much trust in a project when the dev of it just want to get rich by dumping his own coins unto people rather than giving everyone the same chances, which, if being an early adopter then they dont even need to premine tbh... that's just pure greed and that's gross

then wownero chill for the memes lol, is a monero fork and could be considered like a "testnet" for like, implementing things earlier than on monero and whatnot

@nemesis Piratechain uses the same encryption as Zcash, which some argue is better than Monero, but unlike Zcash, the privacy features are mandatory. It would be an alright project if not for the fact that there was a suspected premine by the devs.

@kalmar
indeed, at the moment monero fell behind with too many research being done on protocols that have been abandoned and never implemented
but... that's where FCMP++ comes in, it's still in the work but that's what would be able to get monero caught up on that
which instead of having ring signatures of like anonymity set of 16, then it would literally be millions because that would be with the whole chain instead of just a set of 16

@kalmar but do they actually have usefulness? Something can have all the built in privacy possible, but if you can't use it for anything, what's the point of even holding it. And I'm not saying they don't have use that xmr and btc do not, I just don't see it personally.

@cipherchan I'm an 'to each their own' type of person, so if someone wants to have 'fill in the blank' coin, have at it. I aint telling anyone what to do or not do. But for me, my metric is does it have actual use cases beyond playing the so-called 'crypto casino'? If you can't spend it, like really what's the point?

@nemesis
sowry late reply, been busy for past half hour or so lol
and sowry for the very very low tip... actually broke, you deserve a bigger tip than what i sent

but do they actually have usefulness

that's the thing, they just dont... like when comparing businesses that accepting all of those different ones, then these are just not used at all on all that, it's just all marketing and whatnot
like, we be doing a lot of larp around here lol, but for "zcash" for example, they literally larping as "cypherpunks" while they just not
lowkey tho, you could probably have better answers from other people, am actually legit brainded at this time, i cant even on even the basic things lol, and regarding those other coins then i dont even have the necessary knowledge to answer properly anyways T_T
but yea, what i do know is that, they're just not used and indeed they're only use is to be traded on centralized exchanges and that's literally it, nothing more

Something can have all the built in privacy possible, but if you can't use it for anything, what's the point of even holding it.

truth

my metric is does it have actual use cases beyond playing the so-called 'crypto casino'? If you can't spend it, like really what's the point?

yeah... it's literally all crypto casino out here, very sad...
at least even wownero had use there... literally people making memes and being tipped on the memes, cant find the link again right now but even a memecoin had more use than all those other ones combined... that's sad