The Monero Moon (Issue 56)
The Monero Moon is a curated weekly newsletter covering all the latest news within Monero (XMR).
Table of Contents:
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Development, Releases, and Technology
koe is continuing their work on Seraphis, a ‘next generation’ protocol that may be adopted by Monero in the future due to its privacy benefits. You can learn more about koe’s work here, and read about Seraphis here.
The Monero Community Workgroup published a video of koe’s presentation from MoneroKon 2022 titled “Seraphis Balance Recovery”. Check it out here.
noot aka elizabethereum, the lead developer of the ETH-XMR atomic swap project, recently held an AMA on the r/cryptocurrency_tech subreddit to discuss their work. In regards to the development of Ethereum-Monero atomic swaps, according to noot, “an MVP/alpha release is complete and deployed on stagenet and we're currently working on improving the UX and privacy of the swap”. Check out the AMA here.
Monero Observer provided an excellent summary of a Monero Research Lab meeting that took place on August 10th. Check out the summary here. You can also find a link to unedited chat logs of the meeting.
Haveno, a non-custodial and decentralized exchange built on Tor and Monero, announced the launch of their testnet! As stated in Haveno’s blog post, “It’s now possible to run Haveno and test XMR/crypto and XMR/fiat trades with other users in the network by using Monero’s stagenet and the legacy user interface”. Check out this post for more information and help them test their platform.
LocalMonero/Agoradesk, the biggest and longest running KYC-free Monero P2P trading platform, has released mobile apps for their services! So far these are ‘open beta’, so they are encouraging users to join their tester groups in order to help find any bugs and report issues. The app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store, Google Play, or via direct download. Download links and more information can be found here.
Monero-Bash v1.8.2 has now been released. This release improves efficiency and runs smoother on slower computers. 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.
There were calls to remove the MyMonero wallet service from the official Monero website and Monero Reddit page after it did not update its wallet in time for the recent network upgrade, and as a result, left users unable to send their XMR for almost two weeks. According to MyMonero, a fix is coming and users will be able to use the spend key function by the weekend. You can read more about the issues here and here.
Exodus wallet has updated its desktop wallet to enable users the ability to transact with Monero following issues arising from the recent Monero network upgrade. More information can be found here.
flamestamed shared a cool image of a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B mining Monero. It is very cute to see such a tiny Monero miner! If you want to get started mining Monero on a Raspberry Pi, you can follow the same tutorial as flamestamed below!
PiNodeXMR shared a cool piece of hardware for all the mining enthusiasts.
Check out this video about the benefits of mining with the Monero Ocean pool. Monero Ocean offers automatic algorithm switching to mine the most profitable coin for your CPU while payouts remain in XMR. While this isn’t necessarily beneficial for the Monero network, it may be useful to some users.
Cake Wallet now has two open source uptime monitors for popular Monero nodes and all Cake wallet nodes. According to Cake, the service pings the nodes every 10 minutes to confirm they are still up. More information can be found here.
MineXMR, previously the largest Monero mining pool, finally shut down last week. MineXMR recommends users switch to a decentralized mining pool P2Pool. More information can be found here. Since MineXMR closed up shop, the Monero network appears to now be more decentralized, with the largest pool supportxmr at ~33%.
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.
Monero Observer has put out a new 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.
Do you want to get started as a Monero developer? Check out this cool video from spirobel showing you how to set up the Monero testnet in under 5 minutes. Links to documentation can be found in the video description to help get you started!
General News
Monero P2P exchange LocalMonero.co turned 5 years old this week! Five years is a lifetime in the crypto space, so to reach such a milestone is highly commendable! Read all about LocalMonero’s achievements here or in the image below.
Monero Talk published Monerotopia episode #79. It features a price report from aFungible and a news report with Tony. Check it out here!
Collectif Sortie De Banque shared an infographic outlining how users can be their own bank using Monero.
A recent initiative between Unstoppable Domains and Cake Wallet resulted in a donation of approximately $7500 to the Monero General Fund!
Monerochan.news is a brand new website offering guides, opinion pieces, interviews, and other news articles, all focused on Monero! Check it out here!
Revuo Monero Issue #133 was published last week. Check out Revuo Monero for a weekly dose of Monero news!
Following up from the past two weeks of The Monero Moon’s coverage of the Tornado Cash sanction story, Coin Center has published an article outlining how Tornado Cash works, while at the same time pushing back at authorities in support of code and free speech.
Events
A Monero Research Lab (MRL) meeting will take place on Wednesday August 31st 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.
Monero Talk shared a video from the recent NYC Monero meetup. The video features a talk from kayabaNerve aka Luke Parker about Serai DEX, a decentralized exchange he is currently building. Check it out here.
Exchanges and Merchants
Looking to spend your Monero in-store or online, but are unsure how? AllArk.io sell prepaid Visa cards and gift cards for XMR, somewhat similar to the new Cake Pay service. AllArk claims to be KYC-free, and said they’d close shop before implementing KYC on users. AllArk is relatively new, so as with any newer crypto service it is best to exercise caution if using it. Check out the AllArk website here, and read more about the service they provide here.
MoneroMerch.com are giving away 10-packs of Monero stickers to the top 3 highest-rated comments on a recent Reddit post! Entries close August 27th. Check out the competition here. MoneroMerch now have Monero-themed shoes for sale on their website!
ProxyStore announced their new printing service is available, and they accept XMR as payment. They also offer both clearnet and onion websites. Check out this post for more information, and thank you to Monero Observer for bringing this to attention.
ForgotSudo is designing, prototyping, and producing an assortment of electronics such as USB flash drives that you can buy with Monero. More information about this can be found here. ForgotSudo is also looking into developing a P2P Monero marketplace called Onionr which you can learn more about here.
There have been rumors that instant exchange service Majestic Bank is ‘exit scamming’ customers after deleting their account on an online forum, along with all posts discussing Majestic Bank. Some Monero community members on IRC were surprised given that Majestic Bank has financially supported Monero in the past by sponsoring MoneroKon and donating to the Monero General Fund. Majestic Bank responded to these claims on the ‘Monero-Community’ IRC channel claiming all customer orders had been fulfilled and will continue their operations as usual. Pluja, a Monero community member and owner of KYCnot.me, tested the Majestic Bank exchange service with no issues and received their funds.
Thanks to ChangeNOW, Cake Wallet have lowered its fees for all XMR trades made this week within Cake Wallet and the Monero.com wallet.
A Reddit user informed the Monero community that OKX exchange is still experiencing withdrawal issues since the Monero network upgrade on August 13th. According to the user’s screenshot of their attempted OKX withdrawal, withdrawals should be re-enabled by August 26th.
StealthEX, an instant exchange for cryptocurrencies, informed the community that XMR swaps are now fully operational after the network upgrade. As with any newer exchange service, use it with caution
Be wary of those direct messaging you pretending to be Monero or crypto exchange support. Never share your personal details or private keys with anyone online. Additionally, if you have a transaction and it doesn’t go through, do not engage with transaction validation websites. Check out this post from monerobull for more details.
Finally, be very careful when choosing which Monero wallets to use. It is highly recommended you use a wallet listed on the official Monero website’s downloads page.
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
On the XMR/BTC monthly chart, Monero is setting up for its highest weekly close in ~15 months and is up ~91% against #Bitcoin since the start of the year, regaining price levels not seen since the peak of last year's bull run.
The 20 week EMA (yellow line) is about to cross the 100 week EMA (green line) for the first time since mid 2016.
The 20 week SMA (purple) already crossed the 100 week SMA (blue) a few weeks ago.
Performance
Total Monero in Circulation — 18,165,916 XMR
Monero Total Marketcap — $2,761,034,443
Coinmarketcap Ranking — #27 (last week #27)
XMR/USD Price — $151 USD
XMR/BTC Price — 0.007093 BTC
LocalMonero.co Peer to Peer Street Price — $160 USD
Average Transaction Fee — 0.00019 XMR ($0.02)
Monero Network Hashrate —2.474 Ghash/s
Monero Mining Pools Hashrate Distribution —
Entertainment
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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. Reach out to the Monero community on Reddit, IRC, GitHub, Twitter, or Telegram. The official Monero website is GetMonero.org.
Past Issues
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
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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.
