The Monero Moon (Issue 36)
The Monero Moon is a curated weekly newsletter regarding all things Monero.
Development, Releases, and Technology
There is a Monero Dev Meeting taking place Saturday April the 2nd 2022 @ 17:00 UTC to discuss the v15 network upgrade. It will take place in the #monero-dev on IRC/Libera/Matrix. More information regarding the meeting can be found here.
RINO wallet, a non-custodial multisig wallet for Monero, is offering a $10,000 bounty to the Monero project when a solid multisig implementation is released in the upcoming hard-fork. The RINO team explained the importance of multisig, explaining that “a working multisig implementation is also critical to projects relying on escrow mechanisms such as Haveno, as well as entities requiring solid custody of funds: large companies, investment funds, financial institutions and even shared community wallets”. Independently of the bounty, RINO will support developers who decide to be funded via the CCS-system.
Dangerous Freedom has posted a CCS proposal to create python tools and educational material for checking inflation in Monero. This could potentially result in some great educational materials to help others understand how Monero works.
CryptoGrampy is looking for any android users willing to test out PocketNode, an application that allows you to run a full or pruned node on an android device. Reach out to Grampy here.
SChernykh has released P2Pool v1.9. Make sure to update to this version as it fixes a critical bug. The bug is a fixed block template generation bug, meaning a node could mine a share that didn't pass validation on other nodes resulting in all other nodes banning it. Nodes with high hashrate are the most affected because they mine a lot of shares.
mj proposed to create a new project called SolOptXMR - Solar Optimal mining of XMR, with the goal to create open-source software that aids people mining Monero with excess solar power in the most profitable way.
Mj also provided a dev report for the month of March, while also touching on the difficulties they faced in seeking community funding for their work.
ACK-J’s project that looks to assess the attack surface of ring signatures regarding machine and deep learning attacks has been successfully funded by the Multidisciplinary Academic Grants in Cryptocurrencies (MAGIC) Monero Fund. This is the first ever project funded by MAGIC, a public charity that provides undergraduate scholarships for students interested in cryptocurrencies and supports various critical cryptocurrency public payment infrastructure. More information about MAGIC can be found here. Reach out to them if you’d like to get involved.
Cake Wallet and their Monero.com wallet now support all 10 Unstoppable Domains TLDs, including both Ethereum and Polygon domains. This means that you can easily send and receive many types of crypto with the one domain. Watch Cake Wallet’s advertisement for it here.
XMR2020 shared a chart displaying the size of an unpruned Monero node compared to a popular video game. This chart refutes those who claim the Monero blockchain to be too big or bloated, when in reality Monero is one of the few coins where you can easily setup and run a node at home.
pcre also shared a graph showing Monero’s transaction count since 2019. You can see that while 2022 started with a dip before turning back up, it is clear the uptrend is still on track with higher lows.
pcre also shared a graph showing Monero’s median transactions per week in 2021. Interestingly, slightly more transactions take place at the start of the working week.
anthemscore shared their experience in adding a Monero checkout to their website without any third party integrations. If this is something you are interested in doing, check out their ‘guide’ on how to do it.
The Monero Observer put out a new dev report aims to provide a big picture view of Monero development activity. You can view it here.
General News
Bitcoin evangelist Andreas Antonopolous shared a YouTube video titled ‘Should You Use Monero for Privacy’. He makes the point that if large amounts of liquidity (in terms of dollars) is not needed, and absolute privacy is required, then you should use Monero.
Reuters published an article titled Cryptoverse: Remember when bitcoin was 'anonymous'? The article mentions how privacy coins like Monero are beginning gain upwards traction in price again, how Bitcoin is not truly private, and how privacy coins are likely to continue growing in the future.
A new bill has been introduced called the "Electronic Currency And Secure Hardware Act" (ECASH Act), with the aim to direct the Treasury Secretary to develop and issue an electronic version of the U.S. dollar, with an eye to preserving privacy and anonymity in transactions. More information can be found here.
Monero Talk put out a new interview with Michael Ruiz, a Bitcoin enthusiast and proponent of digital e-cash. “Michael shares why he is concerned about the issues of Bitcoins privacy, fungibility and centralization aspects. In his opinion, a digital e-cash makes life better for everyone in a way we have never seen before”.
Monero advocate Seth For Privacy recently featured on the Stephan Livera Bitcoin podcast to discuss Bitcoin’s lack of fungibility.
BluWorm shared an infographic that goes beyond language barriers to demonstrate Monero’s fungibility. Check out their cool new website for Monero graphics here.
schlyza also shared an infographic demonstrating Monero’s ease of use for privacy when compared to Bitcoin.
Kivojo published The Monero Standard #6! You can check it out here for a fix of Monero news.
Events
The Monerotopia event is taking place in Miami on April 7th, and they have an amazing lineup of speakers and even Crytp0 Bear is putting on a concert. For those unable to attend in person, Doug from Monero Talk also announced they have teamed up with The Crypto Vigilante group to offer virtual tickets, allowing you to access a live stream of the conference. If you want a free ticket you can also volunteer and receive one in exch
ange for helping out. Head over to the Monerotopia website and grab a ticket to one of the hottest Monero conferences around!
Guns N’ Bitcoin’s Freedom Tech Trade Show and Conference is taking place in Miami from the 9th-10th of April. This year they’re adding the topic of Monero, and the conference will feature talks from members of the Monero community. More information can be found here.
The next MoneroKon 2022 Planning Meeting is scheduled to take place on Sunday, April 3rd 2022 at 17:00 UTC in the #monero-events IRC channel. Additionally, check out the MoneroKon 2022 website for more information on the upcoming Monerokon conference to be held 18-19th of June at Arroz Studios in Lisbon, Portugal. Monerokon are also accepting presentation and workshop proposals if you want to get involved. MoneroKon is going to be a celebration of all things Monero, privacy, and financial technology, and is aiming to be THE annual meeting of privacy advocates, cypherpunks, scientists, and philosophers.
Exchanges and Merchants
Last week, Coincards did almost as much volume in Monero as they did in Bitcoin. Coincards is a service that allows you to purchase gift cards, mobile top-ups, and prepaid vouchers for hundreds of retailers using cryptocurrency.
Instant crypto exchange ChangeNOW have announced that NOW Wallet, a non-custodial wallet that doesn’t collect any personal data, supports Monero.
The guys behind Cake Wallet are launching a new startup called BlockBuy. Blockbuy is aiming to allow people to buy Monero with credit and debit cards by May 2022. Blockbuy is an independent company from Cake and Monero.com. More information can be found in the tweet below.
Wondering where to spend some XMR? The official Monero website GetMonero.org provide links to Cryptwerk.com and AcceptedHere.io which are directories of merchants that accept XMR.
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.
The Monero Moon have put forward another CCS proposal for funding the next 18 issues. If you enjoy reading the Monero Moon please show us some support and comment whether you support our proposal. Our previous CCS proposal from last year can be found here. Further information can be found here.
willk has put forward their CCS titled Let more people use XMR, telegram push, small transactions done in seconds, docker private deployment, provide free API service.
mj proposed to create a new project called SolOptXMR - Solar Optimal mining of XMR.
As mentioned above, Dangerous Freedom has posted a CCS proposal to create python tools and educational material for checking inflation in Monero.
Hinto Janaiyo has put forward a proposal for monero-bash, a wrapper for monero written in bash, for Linux. Check it out here.
Haveno has put forward a proposal to fund their front-end development. You can read more about it and their CCS proposal here.
CryptoGrampy proposed a bounty for an Android GUI Monero node. You can read more about it here.
Winston has put forward a CCS proposal seeking funding to create a FOSS Android app called Whatnero that will encompass all of the available information regarding Monero in a user-friendly manner so that newcomers or experts can easily access all of the information to learn about Monero. Check out the proposal here.
Donald A. Iljazi has made a proposal to translate Monero applications, websites, and content into Greek. Check out the proposal here.
Lovera published a CCS update report for the month of February, primarily demonstrating their work producing Spanish speaking Monero content. Read the report here.
Trading & Speculation
Monero looks stupendously strong, and primed for four figures. Zoomed in on the monthly XMR/USD chart you can see a clear breakout from an almost year long downtrend.
And then zooming out a little on the monthly chart, you can see a cup and handle pattern forming with an initial target of around ~$2500usd, before consolidating and pushing higher again.
Performance
Total Monero in Circulation — 18,100,556 XMR
Monero Total Marketcap —$3,987,123,925
XMR/USD Price — $219 USD
XMR/BTC Price — 0.00467 BTC
LocalMonero.co Street Price — $242 USD
Average Transaction Fee — 0.00013 XMR ($0.025)
Hashrate — 2.701 Ghash/s
Monero Mining Pools Hashrate Distribution —
Entertainment
Donate
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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. The official Monero website is GetMonero.org.
Past Issues
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
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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.