Monero Con-Arguments

Hello Monero community,

I’ve recently come around to understand why default privacy is so important for a currency. In doing some research (as a non-technical / non-expert), Monero appears to be the king of privacy with a large developer community and proven security after years of analysis. However, as with any other project in the cryptocurrency universe, there are still pros and cons commonly cited. So, in this regard, can you explain if the “Con-Arguments” for Monero cited on r/CryptoWikis (last updated July 2019) are still relevant? Or if any of these have been mitigated/improved? Here’s what it says:

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Weaknesses

-Dominated by 2-3 mining pools which account for nearly 50% of the hashing power.

-Overwhelming majority (~70%) of code contributions since 2017 have come from one individual: moneromoo-moo.

-The threat that a larger, more popular blockchain adopts full privacy-preserving technology making its existence (essentially) superfluous.

-Increased regulatory scrutiny due to private transactions and anonymity.

-More difficult user experience and fewer wallet options due to the privacy technology associated with transaction.

Vulnerabilities

Monero is an open-source community-driven project and although the core team is the primary contributor to the platform's development, community members can actively participate in donating, mining, and developing Monero. Unlike Monero, many cryptocurrency communities are subject to the decisions made by centralized development teams and early-stage on-chain governance mechanisms that still have many issues that need to be worked out in order to function properly.

Monero guards against 51% attacks through its emphasis on decentralization using the CryptoNight Proof-of-Work mining and a focus on maintaining ASIC resistance. Estimates to 51% attack the network as of March 2019 suggest it would cost the would-be attacker ~$6,300 per hour plus the upfront cost of mining hardware. For reference, Bitcoin’s 51% attack cost is estimated to be ~$434,000 per hour while Ethereum Classic, who was recently successfully attacked, is estimated at ~$5,000 per hour.

Although focusing on ASIC resistance, Monero's mining is dominated by two mining pools which account for nearly 50% of the hashing power. This top heavy hashing power hierarchy brings into question Monero’s true decentralization. Furthermore, a messy forking event over an AISC debate appears to have been for naught as a large majority (85%) of Monero’s hashing power is still under ASIC control.

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Thanks! 🙏