Quote from: apogio on Today at 11:28:45 AM

I downloaded monero (not the full blockchain), out of curiousity. I used it through coin exchange in order to get rid of some UTXOs. My question remains: why is monero not very widespread? I would argue, according to all the comments and posts I have seen, that monero is a "good" coin.

I don't use CEX, so I don't know what the situation is with the most famous ones when it comes to that coin, but what I do know is that a few years ago in the EU there was increased pressure on the so-called "privacy coins" and that all local crypto exchanges in my country over night removed that coin (and some others) from their trading pairs. Given that people in most cases buy cryptocurrencies because they want to profit from them, privacy is not something that is valued, especially if it is also marked by the authorities as something bad.

I read the entire article from OP and I can only say that I am not at all surprised that all this is happening, because any decentralization that goes in the direction of finance is literally a thorn in the side of every government that wants to have absolute control over every individual and his life. Although there is quite clear evidence that cryptocurrencies are to a very small extent responsible for financing terrorism or money laundering (according to what Chainalysis claims) and that there should be much more focus on the classic methods used by terrorists/criminals. Unable to admit that their (FIAT) system is as full of holes as Swiss cheese, some governments look for the culprit on the completely wrong side, and it's even easier if that someone might not even defend himself.