The Monero Moon (Issue 43)
The Monero Moon is a curated weekly newsletter covering all the latest news within Monero (XMR).
Development, Releases, and Technology
Monero is scheduled to undergo a network upgrade (hard-fork) on the 16th of July 2022, at block 2,668,888. This is a consensual upgrade agreed upon by the Monero community in order to improve Monero’s privacy and performance, and will require all users to update their software. The new software is v0.18 "Fluorine Fermi", and will be released one month before the network upgrade around the 16th of June. The network upgrade will include a variety of new features such as:
Ring-size increase from 11 to 16 to increase privacy
Viewtags to reduce wallet-sync times by up to 40%
Bulletproofs+ to reduce transaction sizes by ~7%, and improve verification performance by ~7%.
A complete list of upgrades and improvements will soon be released along with the new software. If you want to learn more about Monero’s upcoming network upgrade, please check out this post on the official Monero website. You can even read chat logs from the Monero Dev Meeting on April 16th discussing the upcoming network upgrade.
If you can help with Monero’s upgrade, be it simply notifying wallet or exchange providers, please check out this ‘upgrade checklist’ to ensure all parties appropriately update their software and make the necessary changes.
Additionally, help test the upcoming major Monero release for bugs on the Monero Testnet. Testnet funds (tXMR) available for anyone willing to help out! Check out this post from garth_xmr for more information on how to get started and why you should help.
P2Pool has continued to show tremendous growth and recently hit 1500 active miners. Monero dev sech1 updated the community saying that thanks to the recent Monero GUI release which added P2Pool support, P2Pool-mini has over 1000 active miners now (up from less than 300 miners 2 weeks ago). Everybody is encouraged to support the Monero network and run your own node!
SChernykh setup a testnet P2Pool to check that everything works correctly during the upcoming network upgrade. Testing was completed without any issues.
DragonSided-D provided an easy to follow guide to how to setup a Monero node. Check it out here.
mWo12 shared a preview of what Monero blockchain explorers will look like after the network upgrade in July.
The Cake Wallet team at Monero.com have added many cool Monero charts to their website, including charts showing the monthly Monero transactions compared to other privacy coins/tech, and Monero’s stock to flow. It’s similar to Moneroj.net.
Monero’s network upgrade will include a feature called View tags, which will reduce wallet-sync times by up to 40%. Wondering what view-tags are? Check out this post from LocalMonero, or if you want a simple explanation, enjoy this entertaining cartoon from Gingeropolous explaining view tags.
The Monero Observer put out a new Dev 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.
Monerujo have released a new minor beta version on the f-droid alpha and github with an upgrade to Monero Core v0.17.3.2, along with support for Ledger Nano S plus!
Shruum Wallet, a Monerujo fork with added security by adding and removing certain features, have released v1.1.1. Check out the update here!
Cake Wallet are hiring and are looking for developers to join their team! Check out this post for more information.
The Haveno DEX team provided an update to their progress. Check it out here!
ForgotSudo, who is developing a decentralized Monero marketplace, provided an update on their developments. Check out the update here.
Koe put forward a CCS for continued work on Seraphis. Check out his proposal here.
jeffro256 is also looking to work on Monero and along with other things, improve the Monero node selection in the GUI wallet to help people avoid paying high fees from malicious nodes.
It appears Google supports Monero in its Assured Open Source Software service.
Monero Talk published a recording from Monerotopia all about Monero and quantum computing. It features Adam Corbo, a physicist and cryptography and quantum qomputing enthusiast, giving an overview of the Monero labs’ post-quantum audit and the future of blockchain technology in the post-quantum paradigm.
General News
Exodus Wallet posted an article all about Monero titled Monero XMR update 2022. The article is quite comprehensive and well worth the read.
Stoic HODLer published a blog titled CBDC’s are coming… Why Privacy is NOT NEGOTIABLE in money. Check it out here.
The Monero Talk team released their video from the Monerotopia conference of Philip Zimmermann, the inventor of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy encryption program) speaking about preserving democracy with cryptography.
If you’re a Spanish speaking Monero enthusiast, check out this video below.
The Monero Observer, an excellent Monero news source, informed the community that they are 100% open source.
A Firo developer provided insight into the benefits of a tail emission to ensure future network security.
While not directly related to Monero, there has been a recent meeting in El Salvador to discuss cryptocurrency, and financial inclusion within digital economies.
Events
Monero’s tail-emission is not far off, and will begin at block 2641623 on approximately the 8th of June. Wondering what the tail-emission is, and why it’s important for Monero’s future success? Check out the screenshot below, and read these posts here and here.
A Monero Tail Emission Day Global (Meet Up) celebration is taking place in NYC, Colorado, Las Vegas, Chicago, and more places on June 8th. You can celebrate the end of Monero’s nominal supply and the beginning of tail emission with your local XMR community! You can even start your own meetup in your city! More information can be found here.
The next Monerokon 2022 Planning Meeting is scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 21st 2022 at 18:00 UTC in the #monero-events IRC channel.
The Monerokon Conference is now SOLD OUT!
The Monerokon Conference is being helding on the 18-19th of June at Arroz Studios in Lisbon, Portugal. 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
Binance has added XMR as a collateral asset on the Binance Loans platform. Binance have been accused of running an XMR fractional reserve so Monero commmunity members expressed strong opinions regarding this announcement.
In case you missed it, here’s a video of Rolf van Wegberg speaking at Monerotopia about Darknet Markets and Monero.
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:
Additionally, there is a 5 XMR bounty for whoever can fix the Monero Bounties crowdfunding website. Check out this post for more information.
Trading & Speculation
XMR/USD recently bounced up from its 200 day moving average (orange line) but has failed to gain bullish momentum over the past four weeks.
CryptoBullet is suggesting their may be more downside before XMR moves up.
Performance
Total Monero in Circulation — 18,123,027 XMR
Monero Total Marketcap — $2,826,717,789
Coinmarketcap Ranking — #30
XMR/USD Price — ~$156 USD
XMR/BTC Price — 0.00535 BTC
LocalMonero.co Street Price — $174 USD
Average Transaction Fee — 0.00011 XMR ($0.017)
Hashrate — 2.948 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.
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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 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
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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.