Someone sent a PM to the monero account. What was intended to be a simple PM reply grew up so large I decided to make it a public post, as an advocacy material that you are free to reuse and remix.

> Hello! I became interested in your coin as the long-term investor. I like the concept of the project. What plans of further development you put before yourself? What prospects you see? As far as you are sure of the future of a coin?

Good day,

The takeaway is this:

Monero has ambitious development goals, set for many years and for more than money - design goals.

Monero addresses several fundamental needs with large demand and zero offer - What's so special about Monero.

Monero stood the test of time and is held in high regard among reputable people - Partial list.

Monero is probably largely undervalued.

Monero's main weakness is lack of donation - we offer specific incentives for large investors, contact [email protected] if interested.

The following text will simply expand upon this and why we are confident on its future, so you can stop here if you are not interested in details. You can also check the presentation Monero, the next step.

Caveat emptor: the very idea of cryptocurrency, even Bitcoin, is an experiment which could fail. As usual, don't invest more than you can afford to lose.

Some of the needs Monero addresses are:

bank secrecy, your way (an address like an IBAN, but simpler; secrecy like in bank, but stronger)

net neutrality (opaque blockchains prevent miners to become censors)

regulatory compliance (viewkey)

capable team (stood the test of time, high reputation)

hard to replicate (forks have to overcome the fact they are forks, you can't clone core team)

more than money

Bank secrecy, your way

True electronic cash

Monero is untraceable and unlinkable, exactly like cash (even a bit more if you consider that banknotes have serial numbers) - but contrary to cash, if cannot be falsified so you will never receive a "fake monero". And of course you have all the advantages of being electronic: takes no space, can be protected much better than physical items, transactions at the speed of light to anywhere in the world - no question asked.

Coupled with the OpenAlias technology, you can even get a very simple address, like [email protected], or [email protected] IBAN, just better - and swifter than SWIFT.

In contrast, Bitcoin technology is getting easier and easier to track - #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6. As for other privacy-focused cryptos, please read my comment on "Darkcoin, Anoncoin, Shadowcash, Monero".

Net neutrality

Opaque blockchains prevent miners to become censors

Net neutrality is mostly known in the context of content filtering, like a network operator willing to discriminate large bandwidth users, like video. Net neutrality is fundamental for freedom, because without it, one may decide that today video, tomorrow something else, may be treated differently. Basically, network operators would become censors.

With transparent blockchains (that is, any non-CryptoNote-based blockcains), net neutrality is impossible to guarantee, since miners know where the transaction goes. The "miners oligarchy", consequence of a concentration of mining power that is already well underway, means that cartels could decide to significantly hamper transactions (they could not prevent them, but they could considerably slow most of them down).

Example 1: ideological blockade. Slowing down donations to a cause (Wikileaks, Reporters without Borders, your local church...) or transactions which do not comply to certain "standards" (no SafeTag-approved, etc...)

Example 2: economic blockade, a.k.a "blockade-for-hire". A competitor decides to sabotage your payment processing by hiring a mining cartel. This is free market, this will happen. Mining pools already have incentives to attack each others (and they do) and they are for-profit structures for the most part.

With opaque blockchains like Monero, none of this may happen. All transactions are created equal and miners mine, period.

Regulatory compliance

Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across

Much like there are plenty of completely legitimate reasons to be private, there are also plenty of completely legitimate reasons to be transparent, be it to anyone or just selected parties. Monero achieves all of this with a mechanism called the view key.

If this doesn't suffice, know that it is completely in a State's reach to kill a crypto (even Bitcoin) if it really wants to. Right now. So, there are two options: hoping no State will ever care, or make sure it is not in their best interest to kill a crypto. We chose the latter.

Capable team

Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone

Monero is nine months old. It managed to successfully repel one of the worst attack in the history of any cryptocurrency. It is also considered as worthy of note by many cryptocurrency authorities, including Bitcoin Core developers. The core team is located on three continents, several time zones and several languages, making it sure there is always someone to reply on mail, forum, IRC, social media, you name it. Some Core Team members are public and some are private, which makes supporters of both privacy (underground scene) and publicity (regulators) happy.

Hard to replicate

You can't clone Core Team

Monero is based on the CryptoNote protocol implemented first in Bytecoin. Today, we have diverged so far (and continue diverging) that cloning Bytecoin or stock CryptoNote code would not suffice anymore to be a competitor of Monero. To attempt to do so, one would have to clone Monero itself. So far, I only heard of two clones which outgrew their parents: Litecoin (out of Tenebrix) and Monero (out of Bytecoin). In both cases, the parent happened to be premined. Since Monero is not premined, is reduces even more the chances of a Monero clone to succeed.

So not only competition would have to gather a capable enough team of developers, but it would also have to overcome the barrier of "just a clone".

More than money

We have a vision, and this vision doesn't stop at tokens of money.

Since Namecoin, several cryptocurrencies aim to address non monetary concerns, be it notarial services, storage, messaging... The point behind what is called the power of blockchain is that money is a transaction and non-monetary transactions are still transactions.

Monero is a financial transaction system at its core. Even if it doesn't currently plan to be more than this, it plans to be more than just a token. Value-added services will be developed for Monero, be it chat payment, decentralised commerce or purpose-built infrastructures for large companies.

Consequently and to answer your question, we are confident that all of this ensures a bright future for Monero.

Update: a nice answer from Aminorex

> If you are a sociopathic greedy or selfish person, you should not invest in this coin. If you are too wealthy to be a good steward of the earth's resources, you should not invest in this coin. Short-term speculators should look elsewhere, because a PoW/PoS coin like XC will offer better gains when PoW ends. XMR isn't a good vehicle for pump and dump. Moreover there are now several people who seek to build XMR by market-making, which means volatility is low, reducing short-term speculation gains.

> If you are respectful of the freedom of others, careful to use wealth constructively, rather than in hedonistic consumption (except for a relatively small proportion appropriate to the enjoyment of prosperity) then I would encourage you to invest heavily, if you wish to transact privately and/or protect wealth and your life and family from extortion of any kind. It is currently the best coin for that purpose: The underlying protocol is the best extant (in my opinion the only one worth trusting today), and among the coins using that protocol it has the best chance of long-term success, due to responsible active development, and dispersion factors.

> Regarding dispersion factors, I am convinced that the aggressive emission schedule will be beneficial to dispersion, and thus accelerate the development of a viable XMR economy, relative to the history of bitcoin. Miners who want to flip would prefer early prices to be higher, but that's illusory: Half the coins at twice the price means no benefit. Only the competitiveness of mining and the efficiency of your hardware will impact mining profits.