The Monero Moon (Issue 57)
The Monero Moon is a curated weekly newsletter covering all the latest news within Monero (XMR).
Table of Contents:
Please note, The Monero Moon will be taking a break throughout the month of September, and will hopefully return on October 6th 2022. For a fix of Monero content in the meantime, check out:
Additionally, a CCS proposal to fund the next 18 issues of The Monero Moon newsletter is currently open. It would be greatly appreciated if you could comment on it here. Depending on the outcome of the CCS, it may be time to retire the Monero Moon newsletter. Regardless of the outcome, it has been an absolute pleasure to contribute to the Monero community and I hope you can enjoy your Barolo in the devs’ honor!
Development, Releases, and Technology
ACK-J provided an update to their work on assessing the attack surface of ring signatures regarding machine and deep learning attacks. Their security audit of Monero's ring signature resilience to AI attacks proposed three different models, the best of which achieved 13.3% accuracy in predicting the true spend of mainnet transactions, only 4.3% greater than random guessing. Read more about Ack-J’s work here. You can read the final white paper report here.
Monero-Bash v1.8.3 has now been released. Monero-bash is a Linux bash wrapper/manager for monerod, monero-wallet-cli, XMRig and P2Pool. As seen in this video, you can use monero-bash to download, setup, and mine on P2Pool in under two minutes. Please be aware that monero-bash v2.0.0 is in progress, so soon v1.x.x versions will not be compatible.
MMGen, an online/offline Monero wallet for command line users, released v13.2.0. According to their GitHub page, “MMGen is a wallet and cold storage solution for Bitcoin (and selected altcoins) implemented as a suite of lightweight Python scripts. The scripts work in tandem with a reference Bitcoin or altcoin daemon running on both online and offline computers to provide a robust solution for securely storing, tracking, sending and receiving your crypto assets.” Check out the MMGen GitHub or GitLab for more information.
After experiencing issues updating their software following the recent Monero network upgrade, MyMonero wallet services are now fully operational across all of their platforms.
Edge wallet v2.20.2 is out now and provides full Monero support after the network upgrade.
Whonix founder Patrick Schleizer has upgraded the Monero GUI and CLI wallets package to version 0.18.1.0 to ensure ongoing compatibility after Monero’s network upgrade last month.
SChernykh has released P2Pool v2.3. Version 2.3 provides a range of different updates such as optimized startup syncing and other bug fixes. Check out this post to upgrade or learn more.
P2Pool celebrated its first birthday on August 29th! The first Monero block found by P2Pool was 2437679 on August 29th, 2021. sech1 provided an update on first-year P2Pool stats, stating P2Pool found 12118 blocks and paid out over 8365 XMR to miners in 943595 individual payouts. P2Pool is currently the 4th largest mining pool.
Hathzed provided a brief guide on how to quickly setup a Monero node and P2Pool! Check out the guide here.
It is highly recommended you run a node to help secure the Monero network. You can also solo mine via the official Monero GUI wallet which can be found here or partake in the decentralized and permission-less P2Pool. The official Monero website getmonero.org or sethforprivacy.com are fantastic places to find help to get started running a node or mining.
After the MineXMR mining pool recently shut down, Monero’s hashrate is now the most decentralized it has been in a long time. P2Pool’s hashrate continues to grow, rising from 164.30 Mh/s last week to 178.28 Mh/s at the time of writing.
duggavo released MoneroBlock. MoneroBlock is a trustless block explorer for the Monero payment network. Block explorers can be used as a tool to de-anonymize transactions so it’s wise to be mindful of the explorer you use. A list of Monero block explorers, both onion and clearnet, can be found here.
Monero Observer has put out a comprehensive Monero Dev Activity Report to provide a big picture view of Monero development activity throughout the past week. If you’re interested in the nitty gritty, check it out here.
General News
Seth For Privacy recently participated in a Twitter Spaces hosted by CoinDesk titled “Life After Tornado Cash: Protecting Your Financial Privacy”. Seth comes on around the 16:10 mark and is well worth the listen.
Monero Talk interviewed Peter Van Valkenburgh, the Director of Research at CoinCenter. Doug and Peter discuss the history of legal issues around crypto, OFAC and the current state of AML regulations, the implications of the Tornado Cash case for the Monero ecosystem, Monero vs. Zcash and Bitcoin from a regulatory point of view, and many other things! Check out the interview here.
Monero Talk published Monerotopia Episode #80. This episode includes discussion about their NYC Monero Privacy Protest meetup, a Monero Price Report with aFungible, and a chat with Thorchain Core Dev Chad Barraford. Check it out here.
According to research by Check Point Software Technologies, a Turkish-based crypto miner malware campaign dubbed ‘Nitrokod’ which infected machines across 11 countries, has been secretly mining XMR on users’ PCs. You can learn more about the malware here on the Check Point website. A news article about the malware can be found here.
Revuo Monero Issue #134 has been published. Check it out for a weekly dose of Monero news.
The Defiant reported this week that Hetzner, the second largest hosting provider for Ethereum, clarified that crypto miners may not use its server farms to support the blockchain network, or any other crypto venture.
Events
There will be a Monero Meetup in Cape Town, South Africa, tonight at 6:30pm at La Prada. Head down to say hello and join the discussion about Monero’s recent network upgrade. More information can be found here.
A Monero Research Lab (MRL) meeting will take place on Wednesday September 7th at 1700 UTC. You can find links to more information regarding the meeting here, thanks to the Monero Observer. The MRL meeting will take place in the #monero-research-lab channel on IRC if you want to lurk in real-time.
There will be a privacy protest at Washington Square Park in New York City on Halloween, October 31st at 6pm organized by the Monero Talk team. They are giving out free masks for the event! Check out the Monerotopia website for more details.
Exchanges and Merchants
AllArk now supports Airbnb Gift Cards in Europe, the UK, and Australia. AllArk is KYC-free and also sells other prepaid Visa cards and gift cards for XMR, somewhat similar to the new Cake Pay service. Check out their website here.
The Monero.com website has been updated with a new blue color theme and block explorer improvements. The website now appears to differentiate itself from the official GetMonero.org website with the new color scheme and ad banner to avoid confusion. You can read more about the update here.
Cake Labs have released a YouTube video showing you how to use Cake Pay to pay online or in-store using gift cards in Cake Wallet or Monero.com wallet. Please note Cake Pay is still only available for those in the USA. Check out the video here.
Cryptwerk provides a directory of over 1200 merchants around the world that accept XMR as payment. Check out their website if you want to pay for goods or services with XMR.
Bitcoinist published an interview with Mike from ChangeNow, an instant exchange for XMR. The article can be found here.
Community Crowdfunding
Several crowdfunding proposals are awaiting community feedback before they can start accepting funds through the Community Crowdfunding System (CCS). For now they are just proposals, but if they receive some positive feedback from the community they will be moved to a “Funding Required” stage so that they can accept Monero donations through the CCS.
CCS Projects requiring funding or have been recently funded:
The MAGIC Monero Fund is raising funds for noot to continue development on ETH-XMR atomic swaps. View the GoFundMe page here. You can also donate directly with crypto or credit/debit card here.
Trading & Speculation
Untraceable revisited a possible fractal pattern for the XMR/BTC pair.
Despite the broader markets appearing bearish, the XMR/BTC pair is testing its 200 week simple moving average for the first time since April 2019.
Tradingview’s technical analysis summary of the XMR/BTC pair are looking favourable for bulls.
Green in a sea of red.
Monero’s Stock-to-Flow model appears to be quite low and has greatly deviated from the S2F price.
Performance
Total Monero in Circulation — 18,168,467 XMR
Monero Total Marketcap — $2,774,663,183
Coinmarketcap Ranking — #27 (last week #27)
XMR/USD Price — $152 USD
XMR/BTC Price — 0.007599 BTC
LocalMonero.co Peer to Peer Street Price — $160 USD
Average Transaction Fee — 0.00031 XMR ($0.047)
Monero Network Hashrate —2.517 Ghash/s
Monero Mining Pools Hashrate Distribution —
Entertainment
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.
49koJtBLRCjcfqVD93fosJGKLYFPZuBUz1iRvqJdMz9yBXV93UgKdSyDSbwUkdsytdSRvwKZhRTPp3de4fXzcioQGAFzWUU
Support Monero
Want to help contribute to the Monero Project? Developers, marketers, event coordinators, translators, Instagram personalities, meme creators, or public speakers — whatdo to assist. Reach out to the Monero community on Reddit, IRC, GitHub, Twitter, or Telegram. The official Monero website is GetMonero.org.
Past Issues
Issue 56 / Issue 55 / Issue 54 / Issue 53 / Issue 52 / Issue 51 / Issue 50 / Issue 49 / Issue 48 / Issue 47 / Issue 46 / Issue 45 / Issue 44 / Issue 43 / Issue 42 / Issue 41 / Issue 40 / Issue 39 / Issue 38 / Issue 37 / Issue 36 / Issue 35 / Issue 34 / Issue 33 / Issue 32 / Issue 31 / Issue 30 / Issue 29 / Issue 28 / Issue 27 / Issue 26 / Issue 25 / Issue 24 / Issue 23 / Issue 22 / Issue 21 / Issue 20 / Issue 19 / Issue 18 / Issue 17 / 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
Socials
If you have any suggestions, corrections, or feedback, please contact me on Twitter @johnfoss69 or on Reddit u/johnfoss68.
DISCLAIMER: This publication contains opinions for informational and entertainment 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 or 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 without verifying their credibility.
Hello, will you still be updating Monero moon?