makeasnek on Nostr: Bitcoin has a larger hashrate, a larger network effect/larger adoption, a larger ...
Bitcoin has a larger hashrate, a larger network effect/larger adoption, a larger developer pool, and a functioning L2. Market cap doesn't matter, except that it also means more investment into infrastructure, more buy-in into the system, etc. These effects are multiplicative. And remember that Bitcoin can "absorb" innovations made in other chains, as it did with zero-knowledge proofs and other tech. The functional L2 is very very important as a P2P money protocol. You cannot scale L1 to contain all global transactions unless you make it hella centralized (blocksize debate) or build L2s and L3s. Monero has plans for an L2, but it's debatable if they actually have the development resources to pull it off. Lightning took years to get to where it is now.
"Pros" cited by monero proponents:
Variable Block Size
This is another way to say "big blocks, when we need them". If monero actually becomes the global P2P currency, this will be "big blocks, all the time". It's antithetical to decentralization. The higher the block size, the greater hardware resources to run a node. You can run a full Bitcoin node on a laptop from 10 years ago. The majority of Eth nodes are in corporate datacenters because it's not realistic to run it on home hardware/connection. Big blocks are not a real scaling solution for any decentralized system.
Privacy
Monero beats Bitcoin in this, there is no doubt. However, lightning and other L2s make significant gains in privacy for Bitcoin. Bitcoin can always upgrade to a more private protocol if it wants to, and many key people in the Bitcoin world are calling for it. Perhaps this will happen during the transition to post-quantum encryption. Things like coinjoin etc, if common, may also solve this problem. Monero's reputation as a privacy coin has caused some major legislative/political/adoption hurdles that Bitcoin hasn't had to face.
"Pros" cited by monero proponents:
Variable Block Size
This is another way to say "big blocks, when we need them". If monero actually becomes the global P2P currency, this will be "big blocks, all the time". It's antithetical to decentralization. The higher the block size, the greater hardware resources to run a node. You can run a full Bitcoin node on a laptop from 10 years ago. The majority of Eth nodes are in corporate datacenters because it's not realistic to run it on home hardware/connection. Big blocks are not a real scaling solution for any decentralized system.
Privacy
Monero beats Bitcoin in this, there is no doubt. However, lightning and other L2s make significant gains in privacy for Bitcoin. Bitcoin can always upgrade to a more private protocol if it wants to, and many key people in the Bitcoin world are calling for it. Perhaps this will happen during the transition to post-quantum encryption. Things like coinjoin etc, if common, may also solve this problem. Monero's reputation as a privacy coin has caused some major legislative/political/adoption hurdles that Bitcoin hasn't had to face.