The Monero Moon (Issue 17)
The Monero Moon is a curated weekly newsletter regarding all things Monero.
May 10th 2021
Development, Releases, and Technology
Feather, a free Monero desktop wallet similar to Electrum, recently released Beta-6. This release includes Ledger hardware wallet support, along with an updater, LocalMonero.co integration, Tor configuration, and bug fixes. Check out this post for more information, and download Feather wallet here.
Monero developer rbrunner7 released Techwallet. TechWallet is a new web wallet where beginners can learn about Monero wallets and transactions in a fully relaxed way because all funds managed there are completely worthless — it doesn’t use mainnet XMR. Techwallet is a learner’s playground and tries to show you, in more detail than existing wallets, how Monero transactions work on a fundamental level. Check out Techwallet here, and watch a demo of it in action on YouTube.
Cake Wallet shared figures for new installs for the 30-day period April 5th to May 4th. Compared to previous 30-day period, iOS installs are up 40%, and Android installs are up 23%, however this is likely to be more since they offer direct APK download from their website and have no idea on those downloads.
If you’re on the latest version of the My Monero wallet you can now donate to the Monero Project simply by using the Monero Yat. See the tweet below for more details.
asymptotically508 has created a simple Monero Pool List as an alternative to MiningPoolStats.stream. The Monero Pool List can be found at https://pools.xmr.wiki/ and the onion address is http://monero7cefasycyt52imkjs254fuga4pnv5jxwid2mhycmgnwsnviuad.onion
Even though it may be inefficient, Johnkmus showed off that he is running a Monero node on a Raspberry Pi. A guide on how to do this can be found here.
lloydand_annoyed shared an image showing numerous old desktop computers now supporting the Monero network.
RagnaroekX recently completed the RandomX implementation in Rust. RagnaroekX would be grateful if you mine a little with it and report any wrong hash computations on the Github page. as he’s still weeding out some computation bugs.
XMRig has been added to the Phoronix OpenBenchmarking suite. Check out this page for further details.
Crypt0-Bear, everyone’s favourite Monero hip-hop rapper (check out his YouTube channel here), is looking to make a mining game to help incentivize more decentralization of Monero mining, with the point not to focus on the profit side of monero mining, but to help the network become stronger and more decentralized. In Crypt0-Bear’s words, “I want to make a frontend GUI for xmrig. The whole idea is making it into a casual RPG game. The GUI should have a nice GUI and has a monero theme with monero chan and maybe some memes. I want to make it have rpg elements and I am not a huge gamer so I could use some help coming up with ideas on what some of the gamification could be.” If this is something you could contribute to please reach out to Crypt0-Bear and check out his initial Reddit post here.
Elibroftw has created a Monero RPC Programming Tutorial video for any developers interested in using RPC. Check the video description for more information.
sech1 pointed out how Monero’s dynamic block size came into affect over the past week.
bits-of-change shared a possible solution to the issue of one of the most frequently mentioned pain points for users of Monero — the inability to spend change that isn’t 10 blocks deep (i.e., being forced to wait ~20 minutes between outgoing transactions or before spending new XMR). The solution proposed is to have colour-coded visibility of how your remaining outputs are split, and their spendable status. Check out possible solution here.
Unsure whether you should run a full node and help support the Monero network? Check out t00mietum’s inspirational post on Reddit then get busy spinning up your own node at home!
Cake Wallet is hiring and are looking for mid-level Flutter developers with 2+ years of experience. This is a full time position and the work can be done remotely. Send your résume to hr@cakewallet.com.
Monero meme coin Wownero recently demonstrated a transaction with a ring size of 512 on their testnet! Check out the tweet below for more information.
General News
There is a Farcaster protocol (Atomic swaps between Monero and Bitcoin) meet up happening on May 20 @ Bitcoin Meetup Switzerland. Check out this link for more information on what will be discussed and how to attend.
At the beginning of 2017, outerspacerace announced the Monero Moon Prize. The challenge is to be the first team or individual to operate a 3D printer on the moon, and the reward is 10,000 XMR! The winning team must meet these objectives on or before December 19, 2022; or 50 years since man last stepped foot on the Moon, however outerspacerace mentioned the deadline may be extended. Check out outerspacerace’s original proposal or the Monero Moon Prize webpage for detailed information and guidelines if you are serious about this endeavor.
Mexican MMA fighter Yessica Ortega Gentner shared images of herself in Monero attire. She revealed that she is ‘sponsored by Monero’. Give her a follow on Instagram! Additionally, Yessica was also interviewed by the Monero Talk team. Watch the video here.
Cake Wallet has sponsored Nigeria’s biggest Twitter space show The Moon Republic. A member of the Moon Republic team individually has 400k+ followers on Twitter, so it is highly likely a large amount of listeners will be made aware of Monero.
The Open Economy Initiative recently held a live stream the Monerujo development team. Monerujo is a community trusted and popular Android Monero wallet. It was the first Monero mobile wallet available, and is free to download from the Google Play store, GitHub, or F-Droid from their website. Monerujo also supports Ledger hardware wallets.
Monero Talk recently interviewed Juraj Bednar, an entrepreneur, hacker, and explorer with a passion for increasing liberty in his and others lives — most famously through his cofounding of Paralelna Polis. Doug and Juraj talk about many bitcoin and monero related topics but focus mainly on his blog titled “How could regulators, successfully introduce bitcoin censorship and other dystopias”. Check out the video below.
Edward Snowden recently commented on privacy and cryptocurrency during the Ethereal Virtual Summit. In the video Snowden openly admitted the flaws in different cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Zcash and Monero. In a follow up tweet, Snowden outlined that, “privacy coins are great, but they’re too small and too easy to smother via regulatory actions like de-listing from exchanges,” and also stated that “The central property of cash is fungibility — meaning a dollar spent by a plumber is honored equally to one spent by a sex worker: they are indiscriminable. Adversarial chain analysis of Bitcoin’s public ledger reduces its fungibility over time. Only privacy guarantees fungibility.” Check out this tweet for more information or watch the entire video below.
It was recently reported the Iranian Central Bank announced that the trading of digital currencies extracted(mined) abroad is prohibited and only currencies extracted inside the country can be traded.
Marathon Digital Holdings, one of the largest enterprise Bitcoin self-mining companies in North America, has mined a Bitcoin block deemed fully compliant with U.S. regulations, effectively censoring transactions in the process. However, there were reports of darknet market transactions being included in the block. “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,” stated Merrick Okamoto, Marathon’s chairman and CEO back in March 2021.
Take the time to have a read over Seth Simmons’ Bitcoin’s Fungibility Graveyard — Compliant Mining and “Virgin” Bitcoin blog. It provides a running record of events affecting Bitcoin mining compliance. Seth also provided further reading regarding this issue. Links can be found in the tweet below.
Monero contributor XMR-Agorist-Action aka Coding Jesus shared a YouTube video titled 5 times Bitcoin users (accidentally) discovered it sucks. The video look over 5 real life examples of bitcoin’s lack of fungibility and the consequences of this. He shares a poignant quote in regards to tainted Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchanges: “When you use Bitcoin you are guilty until proven innocent”.
Seeing as we are highlighting Bitcoins privacy flaws more than usual this week, it was pointed out that Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song acknowledged that Bitcoin’s privacy could be improved, however it isn’t necessary. Watch the video below. Discussion is at 1:23:06.
Monero TV shared an old video from 2016 of Bitcoin developer Adam Back stating, “The reality is that […] fungibility in Bitcoin is actually worse than Paypal”. See the video below.
Exchanges and Merchants
If you’re in Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam you can now buy Monero with fiat currency (SGD, VNDT, USD) on CoinHako.com! However, due to a need to comply with regulatory measures, Coinhako do not allow users to withdraw XMR, so you must trust them to custody your Monero.
Want to buy some Monero merchandise? MoneroMerch.com sell a whole range of Monero swag, from t-shirts to laptop covers to baby clothes, and they donate 30% of sales directly to the Monero Project’s (Community Crowdfunding System).
Looking to privately spend your XMR at hundreds of merchants? Coincards accepts XMR for all of their gift cards. Check them out here.
Grapefruit now accepts Monero on its online CBD Store. Check out their website for more information.
Academy of Ideas, a YouTube channel with over 1 million subscribers, now accept Monero as payment for subscription to their membership program.
ChangeNow.io have donated sent 6 XMR to the Monero Project since the beginning of April. They offer an Instant Monero Exchange where you can exchange 200+ supported coins from and to XMR without creating any accounts, KYC-free, and part of the fee proceeds are donated to the Monero Project. This may be particular for newbies needing an easy solution when buying small amounts of XMR, however be aware instant exchanges can charge higher fees than traditional exchanges.
u/bored_logi brought to light that since our beloved xmr.to has ceased operations, there has been someone trying to capitalize on that by creating a website with the same user interface and phish users out of their XMR. It is very slick and looks like xmr.to did, so please AVOID xmrto.org!
cbster shared Monero graphics on Reddit which can be viewed here. cbster commented that they will gladly share the source files and PSD if anyone is interested in custom colour combinations.
Community Crowdfunding System
Thank you to all the contributors who supported the Monero Moon CCS! It is very much appreciated.
There are a number of other Community Crowdfunding System proposals awaiting feedback and discussion. This includes proposals for GUI wallet development, a marketplace, and wallet translations, The proposals can be viewed here and feedback is encouraged.
Trading & Speculation
It has been an amazing week for Monero. Over the past week XMR broke its previous all time high and rocketed up to ~$515 USD.
Monero’s Stock-to-Flow Model appears to be on track rising upwards with the price of XMR in USD being just below the predicted price. Check out CryptoMorpheus’ fantastic Monero website moneroj.net for other cool metrics such as price divided by hashrate.
CoinsKid, a YouTuber with over 100k subscribers shared an XMR focused price prediction video. Watch it below.
Performance
Total Monero in Circulation — 17,906,256 XMR
Monero Total Marketcap — $8,540,352,514 USD
Monero Coinmarketcap Ranking — #24
XMR/USD Price — $477 USD
XMR/BTC Price — 0.00819 BTC
LocalMonero.co Street Price — $570 USD 👀
Average Transaction Fee — 0.000019 XMR ($0.0089 USD)
Hashrate — 2.705 Ghash/s
Monero Mining Pools Hashrate Distribution —
Entertainment
Ottolei informed the r/xmrtrader community he would get an XMR tattoo if XMR hit $420 on 4/20. It turns out Ottolei is a man of his word! Check out this post for more information.
Finally, jonas_h, the author of Why Cryptocurrencies, a book that aims to show how cryptocurrencies are uniquely positioned to revolutionize the way we use money today, recently shared a variety of crypto-themed background images available for download for desktop and mobile. Check them out here.
Donate
If you like the newsletter and want more of this content, then shout me a round of beers by donating some spare Monero you didn’t lose during your boating accident.
88u3PpQH3zNDTWnrYgLVyiYihLL7aFT2GLRXCACezG3Q2jcoiEzW7UqZWV5Uov9iBc6DqdbjVuLxfgptdPGbm3wJTGvq8mT
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 16 / Issue 15 / Issue 14 / Issue 13 / 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.
Subscribe
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.
