FaceDeer

Anything of value is capable of losing its value under some circumstances, since value is assigned by humans. Obviously you pick and choose based on your use cases.

Some, maybe. And some fiat currencies are more stable than others too. There are stabletokens that are run using smart contracts where you can see the backing assets on-chain, those ones couldn't scam you if they tried.

Bitcoin's protocol has not meaningfully changed in 15 years.

Well, yes, exactly. That's the problem. There have been innumerable innovations and improvements in the field over those 15 years, but Bitcoin ossified early and so it's got none of them.

Ethereum is centralized AF. The majority of the supply was sold during the pre-mine, and now that "proof of ownership" runs the network, the risk of a 51% attack is significant.

You've got a very inaccurate and skewed view of this. Most significantly, it's not "proof of ownership," it's "proof of stake." Proof of ownership and proof of stake are distinct technologies that operate in different manners. Ethereum is not proof of ownership.

You're clearly not very familiar with how Ethereum's proof of stake system operates because "51% attack" is not meaningful. There's nothing magical about the 51% threshold in Ethereum's system of staking. There is a magical threshold at 66%, if you've got more than that you can prevent "finality" from happening which will in turn cause some disruption to the chain. But most significantly, it doesn't prevent blocks from continuing to be processed and doesn't allow stakers to forge blocks. It's a highly theoretical attack since no stakers or staking pools are anywhere remotely close to that sort of dominance, and even if they did do that there'd still be mechanisms by which they could be slashed.

Now that Bitcoin lightning is out and mature, transaction speed and chain capacity is no longer the limiting factor.

Lightning has been an entirely predictable disappointment. The problem is that Bitcoin was not designed to support something like Lightning, and that very feature you touted above - Bitcoin's complete ossification of protocol upgrades 15 years ago - means it can't be made to support it. Lightning's total capacity is $300 million. Ironically there's thirty times more Bitcoin being transacted on the Ethereum network in the form of WBTC than there is Bitcoin being transacted in Lightning.

If you're interested in layer-2 solutions then Ethereum's recent updates have been all about providing better support for that kind of thing, using many cryptographic advances that came along in those 15 years. Some of them incorporate Monero-like privacy systems, even, such as Arbitrum.

Some stablecoins are centralized, but it's not a fundamental requirement of how they operate. Stabletokens such as DAI or Liquity are run without a central company. They cannot "rug" you because they're based on smart contracts.

They are often poorly regulated or unregulated entirely

Isn't that kind of the point?

so you have no reason to trust their claims

Smart contract code can be audited by anyone and trusted to run exactly as it's written.

They are, at best, pegging their value to a currency which is designed to lose 2-3% of its value per year due to inflation

Stablecoins aren't required to peg to any specific measure of value (I assume you're referring to US dollars?). There are stabletokens pegged to gold, for example, if you really want something like that.

Since US dollars work just fine for commerce, though, using a stabletoken that's pegged to US dollars works fine for commerce too.

I frankly wouldn't recommend Bitcoin either for stability or privacy, IMO it's fallen by the wayside in terms of the technological development of cryptocurrency. Chains like Monero or Ethereum have privacy-enforcing cryptography built right into them.

There's an entire category of cryptocurrency designed specifically for the use case you're asking for, the stablecoins. They are pegged to reference values using a variety of techniques. US Dollars are a common denomination, since it's already frequently seen as a global reserve currency, but if you really want there are stablecoins pegged to other things as well.

If you want a more specific example, I typically use DAI as a go-to example since it doesn't depend on third party trust like some of the more commonly-used ones (such as Tether).

Which jurisdiction are you referring to? GNU Taler isn't specific to any particular country or currency.

Only the correct kinds of privacy are allowed here, after all.

But then someone might misuse the privacy it would provide, potentially doing something that some people would consider wrong!

Taler uses flat currency so you don't need to worry about it losing value overnight.

There are a number of stabletokens that you also wouldn't need to worry about losing value overnight.

Ah yes, must keep that war on drugs going, it's totally worth sacrificing everyones' privacy to make sure the Devil's Cabbage is kept off the streets. Reefer Madness is epidemic.

And human trafficking, yes, we can't have people sending remittances to their families in destitute foreign countries so that they might be able to afford to immigrate too. So many poor foreigners trying to get in!

Or maybe this is actually too complicated an issue to dismiss with a simple "if people have done nothing wrong they have nothing to hide?"

Funny how we're big into privacy here, and then money comes up and lots of people are "wait no, not that kind of privacy."