The Monero Moon (Issue 13)
The Monero Moon is a curated newsletter regarding all things Monero. The Monero Moon has returned for a short period. Enjoy.
April 7th 2021
Development, Releases, and Technology
The Farcaster Group working on XMR-BTC Atomic Swaps provided a detailed community update. They’ve completed the first milestone of their CCS proposal. More information can be found here. Feel free to chat with them at #monero-swap on IRC.
u/mWo12 provided an example Triptych transaction with 128 decoys! Information regarding the example transaction can be found here. Triptych allows the number of decoys to increase without increasing blockchain size or CPU use in validation. More information about Triptych can be found here.
ECC released a video demonstrating a Monero/Litecoin trusted swap that is claimed to be instant, free, private, and non-custodial with no KYC. More information and discussion can be found here.
Gingeropolous shared a script to counter recent DDOS attacks on public remote rpc node network (p2r2n). Recently, nodes on node.moneroworld.com were getting slammed with 10k+ rpc connections. Find the script here on GitHub or check out this post for more information.
Cake Wallet just crossed 100,000 installs on iOS and Android (combined). More information on how to get Cake Wallet or how reach out to the Cake team can be found here.
Official Monero website GetMonero.org is now available in the Norwegian language! You can find the Norwegian website here. Special thanks to ChrisAvis who worked for months on this and ErCiccione who coordinates language translations. If you would like to help translate Monero material you can reach out to u/ErCiccione on Reddit.
t-900-a developed a bot that acts as a fortune teller machine similar to Zoltar. If configured correctly, the bot can provide a user with a fortune after a transaction of any size is sent to the bot’s Monero address. More information can be found here on GitHub.
Monero Outreach published an article discussing how New Evidence Suggests Bitcoin Founder Satoshi Also Created Monero. Read it here.
General News
Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino recently stated that he thinks “Monero is a really well-engineered blockchain” during a recent episode of the crypto focused UpOnly podcast/live stream.
Actor, director, producer, and co-founder of Rooster Teeth Productions Joel Heyman publicly tweeted to his 193k followers: “Going to be funny when Monero actually takes over everything.”
u/McBurger shared a reddit post addressing concerns regarding XMR-BTC Atomic Swaps, theorising possible incentives which would allow XMR-BTC Atomic Swaps to thrive.
Major U.S.-based mining firm Marathon Digital Holdings has announced it will only mining ‘fully compliant’ Bitcoin transactions. Merrick Okamoto, Marathon’s chairman and CEO stated: “While institutional interest in Bitcoin is accelerating, many large funds and corporations have expressed concerns over purchasing Bitcoin that may have been tainted by nefarious actors.” More information can be found here.
While on the topic of Bitcoin taint, Juraj Bednar’s article from last year titled How could regulators successfully introduce Bitcoin censorship and other dystopias has been doing the rounds and is worth a read.
Finally, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) just hired Chainalysis’ former chief technical officer as its new acting director, a hire that reflects the federal government’s increased interest in the growing cryptocurrency sector. Read more on CoinDesk.
Monero’s 7th “Moneroversary” is coming up this Sunday April 18th! The Monero Space group want to hear your thoughts. Check out this Reddit post for more information or reach out to them by joining Matrix in order to chat on IRC.
The Monero Outreach made a post listing the different tools and resources useful to newcomers into Monero ecosystem. Monero Outreach can help you understand how to buy/invest in Monero, setup wallets/nodes, accept Monero as payment, mine Monero, etc. Check out this post for more information or visit monerooutreach.org
Watch the recent Monero Meet episode here for a monthly discussion on Monero news, developments, and other community conversation topics.
Monero Talk has recently released two episodes. The first is with Richard Stallman, an American free software movement activist, programmer and digital privacy activist best know for launching the GNU Project and founding the Free Software Foundation. The second is with Bitcoin core developer and applied cryptographic consultant Peter Todd discussing the comparisons of Bitcoin and Monero’s security risks.
The Why Monero podcast released a new episode with Monero contributor Howard Chu discussing Monero’s decentralised mining algorithm Random X. Listen to it here.
Spanish speaking YouTube channel El Monero released a new episode titled 14 Mesa Redonda III. Watch it on the El Monero YouTube channel here.
TLRSTN created a short animation comparing Monero to Bitcoin. Watch it here.
Seth Simmons built a one-stop-shop to self-host a core set of privacy-preserving services via Docker Compose, including Nextcloud, Nitter, Teddit, Wallabag, and Monero! The repository contains everything you need to start self-hosting a core set of privacy-preserving services. Find it Github here.
CNBC released a video of Kevin O’Leary saying he will buy ‘clean Bitcoin’ and not Bitcoin from China. This highlights the issue of tainted Bitcoin and the need for a truly fungible cryptocurrency such as Monero.
In case you missed it, Riccardo ‘Fluffypony’ Spagni, former Monero Lead Maintainer, featured on Realvision to discuss privacy, Monero, and some of its unique design decisions compared to Bitcoin. It’s free to sign-up and watch here.
u/indonesian_activist shared a highly detailed post to the r/cryptocurrency subreddit theorising how someone is spending tens of millions of dollars to suppress Monero. Check it out here.
Exchanges and Merchants
A contributor to decentralised exchange Bisq proposed the notion of being able to use Bisq to buy Monero directly with fiat. More information and discussion of the idea can be found here.
Bitrequest have created an open source crypto Point of Sale / request app which includes Monero. Visit the website bitrequest.io or GitHub for more information.
Privacy Girl shared a YouTube video outlining 3 Shapeshift like websites that allow you to easily exchange BTC to XMR with no sign-up or KYC. Remember there is risk involved using these somewhat anonymous exchange services so take caution.
Forum Funding and Proposals
The Add Monero to TxStreet proposal has been funded. TxStreet is a transaction & mempool visualizer. The funding proposal can be found here.
Performance, Trading, Speculation
Febos shared an updated chart of XMR average daily transactions by quarter. You can see Q1 2021 averaged 20,000 transactions per day.
In a recent Market Watch article, GPT-3, a language prediction model created by artificial intelligence research lab OpenAI, recommended Monero as a good cryptocurrency to invest in.
My personal Monero price prediction of $4000 USD has been tracking accurately since August 2020. See the below tweet for reference.
Forecast City shared a trade setup for the XMR/BTC pair here on TradingView.
Total Monero in Circulation — 17,880,960 XMR
Monero Total Marketcap — $4,996,072,635 USD
Monero Coinmarketcap Ranking — #27
XMR/USD Price — $279 USD
XMR/BTC Price — 0.00479 BTC
LocalMonero.co Street Price — $321 USD 👀
Average Transaction Fee — 0.000035 XMR ($0.0097 USD)
Hashrate — 2.182 Ghash/s
Monero Mining Pools Hashrate Distribution —
Memes
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Support Monero
Want to help contribute to the Monero Project? Developers, marketers, event coordinators, translators, instagram personalities, meme creators, public speakers — whatever your skills may be, it is extremely likely there is something you can do to assist. I urge you to reach out to the Monero community on Reddit, IRC, GitHub, Twitter, or Telegram.
Past Issues
Past issues can be found here: Issue 12 / Issue 11 / Issue 10 / Issue 9 / Issue 8 / Issue 7 / Issue 6 / Issue 5 / Issue 4 / Issue 3 / Issue 2 / Issue 1
If you have any suggestions, corrections, or feedback, please contact me on Twitter @johnfoss69 or on Reddit u/johnfoss68.
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DISCLAIMER: This publication contains opinion for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Information may contain errors and omissions. Use solely at your own risk. The author of this publication and/or the authors of articles linked to from this site may have financial investments that may bias their opinions, including ownership of Monero currency. Always do your own research, form your own opinions, and never take risks with money or trust third parties with out verifying their credibility.
