The Monero Moon is a new curated weekly newsletter regarding all things Monero.

October 9th 2018 - October 15th 2018

Development, Releases, and Technology

Make sure you have read dEBRUYNE’s preliminary information thread to ensure you are adequately prepared for the protocol upgrade occurring on October 18th. The protocol upgrade will result in an approximate 80% reduction in fees and transaction size, a Proof of Work tweak to curb the threat of ASICs, and an increase to a fixed ring size of 11 to further increase privacy.

The Command Line Interface (CLI) wallet v0.13.0.2 Beryllium Bullet has been released. Every user, service, merchant, pool operator, or exchange should run it to be sufficiently prepared for the scheduled protocol upgrade. You can find more information along with the download links here.

In case you are unaware, Gingeropolous noted that build paths are now different. For more information on possible solutions, read this post. Additionally, deathd0tcom published Monero Beryllium Bullet v0.13.0.2 Update Guide for Windows! (Command Line Interface). If you run Windows and use the CLI wallet but are unsure how make sure you are prepared for the upcoming protocol upgrade, make sure you read the article.

The official Monero Graphical User Interface (GUI) wallet has recently been tagged ‘0.13.0.2’ and binaries will be available within the next few days. In the meantime testers are encouraged to compile the archive and try it out.

The latest MyMonero desktop wallet v1.1.0 Spinal Tap has been released. The MyMonero desktop is an alternative and somewhat easier to use wallet when compared to the official GUI wallet. It is perfect for those new to cryptocurrency and hasn’t received much publicity yet so give it a try. It works on Mac, Windows, and Linux. The wallet can be found here for download.

Monerujo v1.8.4 Bullets And Octane-Pirates has been released. This update comes in anticipation for the upcoming protocol upgrade. Please be aware that it will not work with v7 nodes, so you are required to upgrade your node or use one which is already upgraded. Check out Monerujo developer m2049r’s post for more information.

Cake Wallet v3.0.9 has been released. This is a mandatory update so make sure you are running the new version once the protocol upgrade takes place on October 18th. Download the new version here, or read u/pinkphloid’s post for further information.

X-Wallet for iOS released v1.8 You’re not the product for download from the App Store. Developer Justin Smith explained in a Reddit post that after more than ten months of X-Wallet being available to the public at no cost, the wallet will now be a paid app. This is due to feedback from auditors and users, the desire to deliver a premier wallet, on-going operating costs, and because they don’t want their users to become the ‘product’. You can download the new version of the X-Wallet here.

Exantech have invited everybody to participate in the beta testing of the new Exa Wallet for Android and iOS. Testing will take place on Monero’s stagenet network. To become a tester, all you have to do is complete an application form, and wait for them to get back to you. More information can be found here.

Xmr-stak 2.5.0 has now been released with support for the upcoming protocol upgrade. More information can be found here, and you can also find the latest release on Github.

There are two new repositories in the Monero Ecosystem Project: python-monerorpc and monero-wallet-java. Python-moneropc is an improved version of python-jsonrpc for Monero, and monero-wallet-java is a Java interface for managing the Monero wallet. If you have a project you are working on and would like to make it more visible to the community, or you would like to attract contributors, then you may find the Monero Ecosystem Project to be beneficial. Check out this post for more information.

A Monero developers meeting took place on October 14th. Head over to Monerobase to read a short summary or full logs of the meeting.

u/parasew provided a short Monero related recap of the recent Hackers Congress Paralelní Polis 2018 (HCPP18). Parasew’s recap of the event highlights the presentation from Silur (a former member of the Ethereum Foundation who is now a Monero Research Lab contributor) in which he discusses the possibility of a new, asymptotically more efficient construction of Ring-CT.

Howard Chu, the creator of the Lightning Memory-Mapped Database (LMDB) used by Monero, gave a talk about changes to Monero’s Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm at a somewhat recent Los Angeles Monero meetup. Chu also discusses what future changes could be made to Monero’s PoW algorithm in order to maintain ASIC resistance and allow for mining on commodity hardware to remain feasible.

Howard Chu at the Monero LA meetup discussing Monero’s PoW algorithm

General News

Peter Kwang of Keysheet.io published a highly informative and thorough article titled The Best Privacy Coins for Anonymous Payments. The article discusses Monero, Bitcoin, and other privacy coins in an objective manner, detailing and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of each cryptocurrency.

Another comparison piece was also published last week, albeit exclusively comparing Monero and Zcash. The author dicusses many issues such as decentralization as a result of ASIC miners and the different degrees of transaction privacy. He concludes the article stating that: “I would be more likely to trust the privacy and security of Monero than I would of ZCash”. Read the full article here on Hacked.com.

Crypto News Reporter published an article titled How Monero Are Improving Human Rights With XMR. The article includes a short audio clip and provides a brief overview of Monero, as well as discussing it in relation to human rights.

Monero Outreach recently published an article titled Preserving the Fundamental Right to Privacy For All. The article discusses privacy from a historical perspective, explaining that in recent years authorities have infringed upon peoples’ right to privacy, with Monero being a tool that can help those resist surveillance due to it’s fungible nature. Go read the entire article now. A Spanish translation can also be found here.

Well respected Monero contributor Justin Ehrenhofer participated in an interview with Darren Brazer of Blokt. The interview was published in transcript form and titled Privacy Is a Basic Human Right, touching on the topics of regulation, the importance of privacy, and the negative press Monero receives. Read it in full here.

Monero Talk are going from strength to strength, continuing to attract high profile guests and in the process doing a stellar job at picking up from where the Monero Monitor left off. Monero Talk’s most recent guest was Michael J. Casey, the chairman of CoinDesk’s advisory board and a senior advisor for blockchain research at MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative. Check out the episode here or watch it below.

Monero Talk discussing the importance of privacy in crypto with Michael Casey

Tari Labs, the builders of a new open source and decentralized protocol that will be a merge-mined sidechain of Monero, have unveiled a free online university for budding blockchain developers. Tari Labs University aims to be the premier destination for balanced and accessible learning material for blockchain, digital currency and digital assets learning material. If you would like to join, head over to the Tari Labs Github, or read this news article for more information.

Last week Rehrar introduced the Monero Games which incentivizes users to respond to support posts on r/MoneroSupport and donate to the Forum Funding System (FFS). Justin Ehrenhofer then followed this up with a post stating that a certification test has been created for you to take in order to get a Reddit flair next to your name showing that you are a Monero expert. You can find a link to the test here. Information regarding the Monero Games can be found here.

Cake Wallet and Morphtoken will be presenting at the upcoming Monero Los Angeles Meetup on Wednesday October 17th. Vik Sharma and MorphToken will be discussing the developments of Cake Wallet. Register your attendance here.

The next NYC Monero meetup is taking place on Tuesday the 30th of October. Presentations will include an overview of the latest protocol upgrade, a demonstration of a permissionless GoFundMe Monero project, and information regarding algorithmic trading for cryptocurrencies. Seats are limited so make sure you register as soon as possible.

The latest episode of Magical Crypto Friends features Riccardo “Fluffypony” Spagni briefly discussing Monero’s approach to dealing with bugs in an ethical manner. Skip to the 23:20 mark or watch the pre-loaded video below.

Riccardo “Fluffypony” Spagni discussing Monero’s approach to dealing with bugs.

The Church of Monero is still active and holds a weekly mass on Sundays at 18:00UTC. If you would like to participate, join the Telegram group @churchofmonero or contact Xeagu.

If you’re into gaming then you can now play PUBG custom games on Sundays and win Monero. To participate contact u/xmr_daren for more information, or join their discord channel.

A podcast largely about Monero and nefarious malware miners featured on the CyberWire Podcast. According to the CyberWire website, “researchers at Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 have been tracking the rise of cryptocurrency mining operations run by criminal groups around the world”. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript over on the CyberWire website.

Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, recently expressed his interest in Monero during an interview with SFOX. In reference to Monero, Lee stated: “I think a bit of privacy and fungibility is something that’s missing from Bitcoin and Litecoin, and it’s very much needed”.

Coin Center director of research Peter Van Valkenburgh recently testified about cryptocurrencies before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Van Valkenburgh demonstrated himself to be a measured and articulate advocate for cryptocurrencies, and in his statement declared that “if criminals aren’t using your technology, your technology isn’t worth using”.

Exchanges and Merchants

Alagoria, a new service which competes with Purse.io, allowing you to instantly buy products from Amazon has begun to gain traction. The benefits of using Alagoria over Purse’s are that Alagoria accepts Monero, and they instantly fill your order themselves providing a discount of 10% compared to Purse’s 5%. Next time you shop on Amazon try out Alagoria, pay with Monero, and receive your item at a discounted price.

Forum Funding and Proposals

There are a number of proposals to improve the Monero ecosystem that require funding. These include: the Monero Ecosystem translation to Brazilian Portuguese and French, ErCiccione: Coordinator of the localization workgroup (translation), Monerujo wallet development, and The rehrar tour! (which midipoet is now helping with). If you have any spare Monero sitting in a mobile wallet, chip in and donate a few XMR to a good cause.

Performance

Throughout the week there have been reports of large increases of trading volume in Korea, with Monero having the 3rd highest trading volume in a 24 hour period.

Total Monero in Circulation — 16,490,532 XMR (last week: 16,471,701 XMR)

Monero Total Marketcap — $1,769,404,904 USD (last week: $1,893,868,342 USD)

Monero Coinmarketcap Ranking — 10 (last week: 10)

USD Price — $106 USD (last week: $114 USD)

BTC Price — 0.0159 BTC (last week: 0.0173 BTC)

LocalMonero.co Street Price — $123 USD (last week: $147 USD)

Average Transaction Fee — $0.22 USD (last week: $0.22 USD)

Hashrate — 572.9Mh/s (last week: 589.9Mh/s)

Monero Mining Pools Hashrate Distribution —

Memes