The Monero Moon (Issue 49)
The Monero Moon is a curated weekly newsletter covering all the latest news within Monero (XMR).
Table of Contents:
Development, Releases, and Technology
Developers have decided to delay Monero’s network upgrade (hard-fork) by approximately two weeks, and it will now take place on the 13th of August 2022. The network upgrade will take place at block 2688888 instead of 2668888, twenty thousand blocks later (this was increased from the previously suggested block 2678888).
Monero’s scheduled network upgrade (hard-fork) 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 software you need to implement to ensure compatibility with the network upgrade will be released on the 13th of July (v0.18 Flourine Fermi). This gives everyone a couple of weeks to make the switch. If you use a mobile wallet or other third party software make sure your apps are up to date. Please reach out to members of the Monero community on r/Monero or other social platforms if you have any questions.
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.
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.
selsta provided an update to their work as a ‘part-time’ Monero developer. selsta has been contributing to Monero since 2018 with over 525 merged commits. Check out selsta’s latest June 2022 development update here.
DangerousFreedom1984 provided an update on their work regarding a Monero Inflation Checker. No bug that could cause inflation has been found. You can read the full update regarding DangerousFreedom1984’s progress here.
ACK-J provided an update on their work assessing the attack surface of ring signatures regarding machine and deep learning attacks. Check out the full report, which includes a tldr version, here.
Exodus, a self-custodial crypto wallet, has now added support for Monero on the Trezor hardware wallet after the Exodus CEO personally promised it would happen. More information can be found here.
SChernykh has released P2Pool v2.2. This version is required for the coming Monero v15 network upgrade and older p2pool releases will be incompatible after that. Version 2.2 provides a bunch of different updates and bug fixes. Check out this post to upgrade or learn more.
At the time of writing, minexmr.com currently has ~43% of known hashrate. While MineXMR are not known to be malicious participants of the Monero network, miners are urged to stop mining to minexmr.com in order to ensure and build a decentralized global network. A list of alternate mining pools can be found at miningpoolstats.stream/monero.
How much value is transacted on the Monero network daily? Untraceable provides estimates in the tweet thread below.
bashkyc has released the Boating Accident Support Hotline aka BASH -KYC. The Boating Accident Support Hotline is a collection of non-KYC wallets, exchanges, and privacy tools for cryptocurrencies such as Monero. The official site is only accessible via Tor. Clearnet and Tor links to the website can be found here.
matejcik informed the Monero community that Trezor users will experience four days of service disruption after the August 13th network upgrade. Check out this post for more information.
Monero Observer has provided a directory of up-to-date suspicious ecosystem projects that Monero users should avoid, with links to supporting evidence. Check it out here. If you think a service should not be on the list, reach out to escapethe3RA.
Monero Observer have 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.
General News
anarkio has released a webpage provided links and information all about Monero. It provides helpful information regarding how to buy Monero, where to spend it, how to accept it as a business, community links, and many other things. Check it out here.
The Monero Observer have published Monero Observer Blitz #11 - June 2022. It provides a a comprehensive recap to what happened in the Monero community throughout the month of June. Check it out here.
Monero Talk recently interviewed OG Bitcoiner Bruce Fenton and Starr O’Hara at Porcfest 2022. Check out the interview below.
Monero Talk have also released Monerotopia episode #72. The Monero Talk team chat about their recent trip to Porcfest 2022, include a price report, and feature special guest Mirage Sale who have created an eBay-like platform with Monero payments!
Crypto Vigilante published a video with Luke Smith discussing how Monero is the Crypto to Avoid Dystopia. Watch it below.
DarkFi developer Rachel-Rose O’Leary was recently on Justin Murphy’s Other Life. When asked why Monero is better than Zcash, she explained it was because Monero has a genuine grassroots commmunity and more transactions per day when compared to Zcash’s silicon valley corporate approach which is barely used and includes a dev tax. Listen to it below or here.
John Foss (yes, that me) published a tweet thread titled How Monero is Eating Bitcoin’s Lunch - And Ten Other Things You Didn’t Know About Monero. The thread covers a variety of different metrics (tx vol, Coincards usage, DNMs, etc) that show how Monero has been showing increased growth and dominance when compared to Bitcoin. Check it out here.
Seth For Privacy held a live stream Q&A on his on his privacy focused Opt Out podcast. You can watch a recording of it here or below.
The Monero Standard #18 has been published. Check it out on the LocalMonero.co website here!
Revuo Monero Issue #127 has been published. Check it out here for a fix of Monero news.
Monero featured in Coin Gecko’s video Most Popular Coins In 2017: Where Are They Now? Discussion regarding Monero begins at 6:48 and is timestamped in the video below.
Lovera TV published NOTICIAS sobre MONERO 27/05/2022 al 04/07/2022 for all the Spanish speaking Monero users. Check it out here or below.
Events
Justin Ehrenhofer is taking part in an AMA today at 3:00pm UTC on the Crypto Miners Telegram channel. Check out the tweet below for more information and get involved.
A Monero Research Lab (MRL) meeting will take place on Wednesday July 13th. It is planned to include discussion regarding such as decoy algorithms and analysis of transaction volume anomalies. You can find links to and more information regarding the meeting here thanks to the Monero Observer. The MRL meeting will take place at 1700 UTC in the #monero-research-lab channel on IRC if you want to lurk in real time.
There is a Monero meetup taking place in NYC on July 14th 2022. Check out this post for more information.
Another video from Monerokon 2022 has been released (it appears to be a re-recording). The video features Konrad Baechler & Marco Purtschert presenting their talk Trying to De-Anonymize I2P Network Participants. Check it out here.
Exchanges and Merchants
Decentralized exchange Bisq 1.9.3 pre-release is out and adds support for XMR subaddresses! Check out the tweet below for more information.
Coincards, a service that allows you to spend crypto on giftcards, provided a monthly overview of crypto's being used (by % $ volume). Monero was again the most used in the USA in June 2022 with 51% of volume, and the second most used worldwide with 28% XMR! These numbers for XMR have been trending up over the last few months showing increased usage.
Additionally, Coincards now allow you to buy Steam giftcards with XMR!
Alanzoni provided an update on cryptocurrency merchant acceptance since November 2019 based on data from Accepted Here, a regularly updated database of online and offline businesses accepting cryptocurrency from all over the world. XMR acceptance has increased 314% from 86 to 294 merchants, more than any other cryptocurrency. XMR is now the 5th most accepted crypto according to Accepted Here data.
Cake Labs held a promo offering 10% extra XMR when you traded any coin to XMR from July 6th to July 7th. If you made a trade within Cake Wallet or the Monero.com wallet, you are eligible to claim the extra 10%. Check out this post for more details!
MoneroSupplies.com now have metallic stickers for sale! Check them out here.
There has been two rare 2014 Cryptonic physical Monero coins up for auction. You can check out the coins, along with links to the auctions BitcoinTalk.org 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:
Trading & Speculation
You can see on the XMR/BTC weekly chart that in 2016 when the 20 week SMA (purple line) crossed above the 50 week SMA (green line) it signalled the start of a 22 month bull run against BTC. Since late 2020 the 20 week SMA failed to hold above to 50 week on two occasions. At the start of June 2022 the 20 week SMA crossed above the 50 week SMA. Could this be third time lucky?
Moneroj.net owner Morpheus believes that XMR is at a very important resistance level against BTC.
Cake Wallet founder Vik Sharma provided insight into XMR perform throughout the recent bear market.
Monero is the top privacy coin by market cap, with Zcash having a market cap less than half of Monero’s.
Monero is the fifth most popular Proof of Work (POW) cryptocurrency behind BTC, ETH, DOGE, and LTC, despite not being listed on major cryptocurrency exchanges.
Performance
Total Monero in Circulation — 18,144,780 XMR
Monero Total Marketcap — $2,361,429,904
Coinmarketcap Ranking — #27
XMR/USD Price — ~$130 USD
XMR/BTC Price — 0.00598 BTC
LocalMonero.co Street Price — $141 USD
Average Transaction Fee — 0.00012 XMR ($0.016)
Hashrate —2.518 Ghash/s
Monero Mining Pools Hashrate Distribution —
Entertainment
You can listen to XMR.Radio 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.
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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 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
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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.
