The true Flippening – something different than expected

There is a coin that, while unremarkable in price, does not only catch up to Bitcoin in central metrics of adoption – but surpasses it!

Let’s start with a little riddle:

Exchanges delist me,
Regulators hinder me wherever they can,
my wallets are so cumbersome,
my technology dreadfully complicated
And yet — I become ever more popular
And even measure up to Bitcoin itself.
Who am I?

The answer is obvious to many: Monero (XMR), the leading privacy coin, the currency that takes anonymity and resistance against ASICs and centralization more seriously than any other, the coin that carries forward the ideals that were once attributed to Bitcoin.

Monero’s price is unremarkable. In the ranking of cryptocurrencies, it stands at 29th place with a market capitalization of just under three billion dollars. Nothing at first glance suggests that it is not just another shitcoin – let alone that here we have a coin that not only measures up to Bitcoin in some areas but has long surpassed it.

King of the Darknet

In the darknet, where privacy and anonymity are not just a „nice to have“ but essential to stay free, Monero has long been on the rise.

By now, Monero has likely already overtaken Bitcoin there. Most markets accept two cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin and Monero. However, operators generally recommend Monero, and some markets, such as DrugHub or DarkMatter, only allow Monero.

The reason is simple: law enforcement cannot track Monero transactions. In some forums, people are already asking which markets still accept Bitcoin, with the canonical answer being that Bitcoin should not be used because transactions are too transparent. For the police, Monero’s advancement is a troubling development.

The darknet was the area where Bitcoin grew big starting in 2011 with the legendary Silk Road. One does not have to approve of the illegal trade in drugs and other goods to acknowledge that it played an important role in Bitcoin’s history – and, one should be honest: still plays today.

However, the darknet could be dismissed as a „special interest“ area, a shady section that Bitcoin would gladly leave to the privacy coin. But even outside of it, one increasingly finds statistics pointing to Monero.

But also increasingly popular on the clearnet

For example, there’s Silent.Link, a shop for anonymous eSIMs. According to their own statistics, Monero is now used in half of all payments, with the rest being Bitcoin, on-chain and Lightning.

Similarly, OrangeFren is a site where one can search for KYC-free exchange options. With 31 percent, Monero is the most requested coin there, followed by Bitcoin at 21 percent.

It’s not much different at Mynymbox. At the anonymous hosting provider, Monero now accounts for 60 percent of all payments.

The numbers are even more extreme at ShopinBit, a trading platform where one can generally order all kinds of goods with Bitcoin. Recently, customers use Monero in 75 percent of all orders, as the operator somewhat baffledly noted.

Such ratios have been emerging for months. However, they have become more extreme individually and are now so widespread that one can rightfully speak of a flippening.

The unintended consequences of regulation

What most of the sites where Monero now dominates have in common is privacy and anonymity: Silent.Link, OrangeFren, and Mynymbox allow you to access services that usually involve identifying the person. It stands to reason that users who want to protect their privacy would also want to protect it when paying.

Even more remarkable, however, is Monero’s success at ShopinBit. Here, one can buy normal goods with cryptocurrencies, which are usually delivered to a postal address. That Monero is most commonly used here can be explained with two hypotheses:

First, those who trade Monero or earn it from not entirely legal sources use the platform to „cash out“ without revealing their identity to a financial institution. The online shop would thus be an extension of the darknet, the bridge between it and the white net. Second, and not too dissimilar, one can hardly trade Monero on exchanges; thus, many shop instead of selling.

The second hypothesis sheds light on an interesting possible unintended consequence of regulatory pressure: If exchanges delist Monero, this strengthens its circulation as a means of payment.