Winklevoss twins say they each donated $1M in bitcoin to Trump(thehill.com)

posted 5 months ago

Rapidcreek@lemmy.world

politics@lemmy.world

61 commentshide report

Sort:

Hot Top Controversial New Old

You are viewing a single thread.

View all comments View context

[ - ]

dhork@lemmy.world

4 points

5 months ago

The Winklevii sent BTC because they have a buttload of it, bought at a very low price. Their actual cost for that donation is basically the long-term capital gains tax (and maybe not even that if their accountants are creative).

And yes, Trump (or his campaign) have to convert that to fiat at an exchange. (Probably Gemini, owned by the Winklevii.) But the key thing is that with Crypto, they have no way of knowing where the donations are actually coming from. Someone in Saudi Arabia or Russia could be filling out donations forms through a VPN, and list their location as Branson, MO, and there would be no way for anyone to prove it wasn’t really from Branson. (Maybe if they were careless and reused BTC addresses. Some Monero shill will probably reply and make sure everyone knows how Monero is even better at money laundering…)

permalink

report

parent

[ - ]

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone

2 points

5 months ago

I mean just because you say some pithy thing at the end doesn’t make it wrong. Nobody should still think, in 2024, that Bitcoin is in any way anonymous. If you want privacy you don’t use Bitcoin.

I guess that makes me a shill for Monero 🙄

permalink

report

parent

[ - ]

dhork@lemmy.world

1 point

5 months ago

Bitcoin is pseudonomynous. If you are careful it can be anonymous but that is not a guarantee.

Monero is anonymous, as anyone who uses it will remind you about, repeatly. Monero users are the vegans of crypto.

permalink

report

parent

[ - ]

Victoria Antoinette @lemmy.world

2 points

5 months ago

i thought monero’s mixer was show to be susceptible to poisoning.

permalink

report

parent

[ - ]

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone

1 point

5 months ago

I’m not sure I understand the question… Monero doesn’t need a “mixer,” that’s kind of the entire point. You swap your BTC (or literally anything, shoutout to godex.io) for XMR and poof, it’s gone.

Unless someone gets physical access to your wallet keys, there is no way for anyone to know where that money went, where it came from, or where it will go in the future. For all intents and purposes, it’s invisible.

permalink

report

parent

[ - ]

Victoria Antoinette @lemmy.world

2 points

5 months ago

I seem to recall that the anonymity of car is based on obscuring transactions through bundling, but that method was deanonymized by poisoning wallrts somehow. this was like 10 years ago so my memory is fuzzy.

permalink

report

parent

[ - ]

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone

1 point

5 months ago

I seem to recall that the anonymity of car is based on obscuring transactions through bundling

Car? Autocorrect maybe?

I’m not XMR fanboy or expert, and it is some beautiful mathematics, but wayyyyyy over my head. That said, you might be referring to “ring signatures” that I guess you could say “bundles” the transactions together but that would be far too reductive, it’s way cooler and more complicated than that.

If I recall, there was talk of possible attack vectors, so they made it even more private. I’ll let wiki explain:

The transaction outputs, or notes, of users sending Monero are obfuscated through ring signatures, which groups a sender’s outputs with other decoy outputs.[14] Encryption of transaction amounts began in 2017 with the implementation of ring confidential transactions (RingCTs).[8][15] Developers also implemented a zero-knowledge proof method, “Bulletproofs”, which guarantee a transaction occurred without revealing its value.[16] Monero recipients are protected through “stealth addresses”, addresses generated by users to receive funds, but untraceable to an owner by a network observer.[8] These privacy features are enforced on the network by default.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monero#Privacy

So it looks like it was 2017 when they changed things. I know there was some discussion of switching from RingCTs to zk-SNARK (a form of “zero-knowledge proof”) which, in and of itself, is an amazing cryptographic concept. I implore you to check out the wiki on it if you have any interest in cryptography or mathematics I think it’s brilliant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof

So yeah, according to wiki, it seems as though they adopted zero-knowledge proofs… So not only ring signatures, but RingCTs (encrypted), plus ZKP, makes Monero pretty impenetrable. Which I think is cool af. As an engineer, I like seeing a typically abstract field/form of math be used in practical, real-world examples, as it doesn’t happen often.

permalink

report

parent

Show more comments

politics

!politics@lemmy.world

Create post

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to “Mom! He’s bugging me!” and “I’m not touching you!” Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That’s all the rules!

Civic Links

• Register To Vote

• Citizenship Resource Center

• Congressional Awards Program

• Federal Government Agencies

• Library of Congress Legislative Resources

• The White House

• U.S. House of Representatives

• U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

• News