The Monero Moon (The Return of The Moon — Issue 12)
The Monero Moon is a curated weekly newsletter regarding all things Monero. After a long hiatus The Monero Moon has returned for a short period. Enjoy.
March 29th 2021
Development, Releases, and Technology
Monero developer Moneromooo is currently working on integrating Triptych. You can find more details regarding Moneromooo’s work here on GitLab. This is great because with Triptych, and its extension Arcturus, Monero has the potential to reduce the size of ring signature data from growing linearly (with the number of decoys used to hide the sender) to growing logarithmically. If adopted, it could allow the number of decoys to increase without increasing blockchain size or CPU use in validation. Learn about Triptych here.
An excellent, detailed first report from mj-xmr, a Community Crowdfunded (CCS) dev working on Monero was recently published!
JP Aumasson, a leading security professional, completed the second audit of Monero’s Bulletproofs+ implementation and found no significant issues. The audit report and more information can be found here.
Comit Network continue to work on XMR<>BTC atomic swaps. Atomic swaps allow users to trustlessly swap between two different cryptocurrencies without third party intermediaries. If you would like to support the development of atomic swaps you are welcome to reach out and lend a hand. More information can be found here.
The Farcaster workgroup are also developing XMR<>BTC atomic swaps and provided an update of their progress a few weeks back. Information can be found here.
Kraken are on a mission to celebrate the unsung heroes of the crypto space (Blockchain Developers) and are considering grant opportunities for the Monero protocol. See this tweet for more information and you can apply here.
The number of miners on the Monero network recently passed 80,000 which is a new all time high. Monero uses a Proof Of Work algorithm called RandomX optimized for CPUs based on execution of random code and other memory-heavy techniques. The goal is to discourage the use of specialized hardware (like ASICs) for mining Monero. RandomX was created with the intent of keeping mining decentralized and to create a more egalitarian distribution of the block rewards. Learn more about RandomX here, and learn about how to join in mining Monero here.
Electrum style XMR wallet Feather Wallet Beta-5 has been released featuring lots of improvements and fixes. Find more information and download links to the wallet here.
Android Monero wallet Monerujo have released an update. The update is Monerujo v1.18.1 “ChAdOx1” with subaddresses as first-class citizens (and making them fun). More information and download links can be found here. Monerujo is also hardware wallet compatible.
Popular Monero mobile wallet Cake Wallet are now offering to reimburse up to $25 of your BTC network fee when you complete a BTC to XMR trade within Cake Wallet. Cake wallet have also cut their fees by 30% and now offer the ability to purchase BTC through the app which you can then trade directly for XMR.
The Secret Monero Bridge team at HackAtomRU have been working to connect Monero to Secret Network and Secret DeFi. Their proof of concept enables value transfer between the Monero blockchain and Secret Network.
General News
Popular crypto YouTube channel Coin Bureau released Monero: Why XMR Has So MUCH POTENTIAL!! 🤫 This an informative video and has received almost 70k views in 24 hours. You can watch it here or below.
Monero Policy Working Group put out a response to European Commission consultation on the Market in Crypto Assets (MiCA) Regulation. More information can be found here.
Computer giant Acer was hit by $50 million ransomware attack from The REvil group, also known as Sodinokibi. The group runs a ransomware-as-a-service operation, in which developers sell malware to affiliates who use it to lock up an organization’s data and devices. In this case the group responsible are demanding $50 million dollars paid in Monero.
The Monero Flag man is back! The flag was waving high in a recent protest in London. You can see it in this video, hear more about the flag waver’s story in this Monero Talk episode.
u/vectodesigns experienced malware that attempted to steal Monero. Be sure to always check any address you copy/paste when making transactions. More information about the possible malware can be found here.
Additionally, u/IntelM8 posted on Reddit about fake MyMonero Google ads that attempt to steal your XMR. Always ensure you check the websites you visit if using a web wallet, however it is strongly encouraged that you use a hardware wallet in conjunction with the official Monero Wallet software running your own node to support the network. Download links to official or recommended wallets can be found at getmonero.org/downloads/
Monero OG dEBRUYNE_1 shared an interesting post on reddit discussing The rationale of Monero’s privacy by default — an analysis of human behavior. Check it out here.
Sovereign Street Art published a Monero focused YouTube video comparing it to Bitcoin. Watch it below.
FATF have released a new draft guidance for cryptocurrency regulation.
Ex-lead maintainer of Monero Riccardo “Fluffypony” Spagni recently came out on Twitter refuting Monero’s supply auditability concerns.
Seth Simmons created a new site to catalogue and present the real-world cases of users being harmed by a lack of fungibility in Bitcoin. It’s called Bitcoin’s Fungibility Graveyard.
Monero advocate and Core Team member Francisco “ArticMine” Cabañas has featured on the Spanish speaking Monero podcast El Monero. The podcast can be found on YouTube.
The Open Economy Initiative released a weekend Monero round up. Catch it over on YouTube.
Exchanges and Merchants
Major crypto hedge fund Grayscale confirmed that it is considering launching a new product based on XMR.
ChangeNOW now offers a service called Monero Instant Exchange for users that want to trade XMR quickly and easily. Part of the proceeds from this exchange service will be donated to the Monero Project.
Cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin has now added an XMR/USDT trading pair.
Polarity DEX now offer XMR trading. Quick reminder for users to heed caution when using new trading services.
Start9 Labs to build on its self-sovereign, private internet solutions with $1.2M in Funding and will feature Monero.
Want to book a private jet? Private Jet Instant Booking Platform now accepts Monero as a payment form.
With Travala.com you can now book +2.2M Hotels and Homes in 230 countries using XMR. Travel to 90,000 destinations worldwide and pay with Monero.
ShopinBit.com announced that you can now order 200k Products directly from their Site, without a customer account and directly with Monero thanks to BTCPayserver integration.
Techlore “Go Incognito” Premium privacy course now accepts Monero at a discounted cost!
Buy Mullvad VPN voucher codes with Monero from digitalgoods.proxysto.re. See this Reddit post for more info.
Forum Funding and Proposals
There are no Monero projects currently requiring community crowdfunding, however go check out potential project ideas on the Community Crowdfunding System. If you want to contribute to Monero, feel free to create your own proposal. If the community find your proposal beneficial to the Monero project people will fund it.
Performance
@CryptoMorpheus has made a new website about Monero’s Stock-to-flow model, Golden Ratio Multiplier, and many other types of data, such as a price model based on Metcalfe’s Law, which is calculated based on daily transaction count. You can check it out at moneroj.net by clicking the Charts tab or via this link.
u/Febos shared a chart showing the zoomed out growth of Monero Transactions with average daily transactions by the quarter.
u/btcMike highlighted that the ratio of Monero’s monthly transaction count compared to Bitcoin is increasing.
@michae2xl pointed out that in March, the $XMR annual inflation rate flippled the Bitcoin inflation rate for the first time ever.
Monero featured on the BitBoy YouTube channel (the most popular crypto YouTube channel with 719k subscribers). Watch the video below, or head over to YouTube. The Monero discussion starts at 7:25.
Top Coin released a YouTube video predicting a Monero marketcap of $30 billion and an XMR price of $1700.
Total Monero in Circulation — 17,874,081 XMR
Monero Total Marketcap — $4,238,014,076 USD
Monero Coinmarketcap Ranking — #26
XMR/USD Price — $237 USD
XMR/BTC Price — 0.0041 BTC
LocalMonero.co Street Price — $301 USD 👀
Average Transaction Fee —0.00017 XMR ($0.04 USD)
Hashrate —2.088 Ghash/s
Monero Mining Pools Hashrate Distribution —
Memes
Watch the highly entertaining Monero Matrix video here or click the link below! It’s guaranteed to bring a few laughs and excitement out in all the Monero enthusiasts. Thank you u/throwaway120146.
Past Issues
Past issues from 2018 can be found here: 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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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.
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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.
