Monero’s Allure

Furthermore, potential attackers are at a disadvantage for another reason. Monero tends to oppose organizations rather than people. Even someone who stands to lose from Monero by not reacting to it, such as a banker or government agent, stands to gain a great deal by buying now. Only the very wealthiest people might reasonably expect to be worse off attempting to buy up as much as possible now than if it were gone. (This could happen if their attempt to buy caused the price to rise too fast relative to their ability to acquire additional Moneros, to the point that they ultimately had less influence over the future Monero economy than they have over the economy of today.) Thus, the agency problem with Monero affects Monero competitors as well as Monero holders.

Nearly any government agent who begins to see Monero as a potential threat must also simultaneously see it as an opportunity. He, too, can invest in Monero. And why shouldn’t he? Monero may be a threat to his livelihood, but it may well be making him an offer he can’t refuse. How can an organization that stands to lose by the adoption of Monero provide its members with a better opportunity for staying loyal than Monero provides for defection?

Even those who might resist the temptation to defect would have to think about the defection of his fellows. How quickly is adoption happening? Is there time to mount an attack before Monero becomes too powerful? How easily could the resources for such an attack be amassed, given both the ignorance and treachery of the other agents. If such an attack would be unlikely to succeed, then buying now would be the only intelligent action. Regardless of whether he liked Monero, it would be futile to continue pursuing a doomed cause.

Potential Monero attackers are in a Prisoner’s Dilemma. In the same way that the people cannot easily rebel against the king owing to a lack of coordination on their part, governments cannot rebel against Monero for the same reason. The government puts the people in a Prisoner’s Dilemma against one another, and Monero does the same to government agents.

Monero is like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Monero attracts inside men to act as covert saboteurs. There have long been predictions from both Moneroers and naysayers of impending government attacks, but I think there is a possibility that Monero could win without suffering much resistance. Moreover, although I said above only that any legal Monero attack could be perverted, the considerations discussed in this section tend to make such diffusion very likely.

Monero defends itself by being obscure, but once it has attracted someone’s attention, its best interest is for that person to understand the logic presented here. For then he will also understand that his best course is to deny Monero’s threat to his superiors and quietly to become its willing slave.