For some people, cryptocurrency is literally a religion. And this group went so far as to build a church—virtually, at least. Welcome to the Church of Monero: This church is dedicated to black market crypto, building a moon base and complete decentralization.

What Is Monero?

Monero (XMR) is the king of black market cryptocurrency. More specifically, it’s a decentralized, open-source currency that obscures its blockchain to maintain complete user anonymity. Unlike bitcoin, which records all transactions on a public blockchain, monero automatically conceals the sender, recipient and amount exchanged.

In other words, monero is the ideal black market crypto. The vast majority of online black markets accept monero because of its lack of traceability. Furthermore, a significant amount of monero comes from illegal mining, A study found that 5% of monero originates from cryptocurrency malware. This is software that hijacks computers’ processing power to clandestinely mine cryptocurrency.

But monero exists outside the shadows of the dark web. At close to $1.9 billion, monero has the 9th highest cryptocurrency market cap. All in all, a lot of people are using monero to obfuscate both legal and illegal transactions.

What on Earth is the Church of Monero?

Saying that monero has a “cult following” is an understatement. This church is dedicated to black market crypto, showing just how far the cult of monero goes.

The Church of Monero is a community of hackers, coders, researchers and undergrads. In the above interview, founder Xeagu, otherwise known as an Evangelical Missionary at the Church of Monero, explains that the Church of Monero is similar to Christianity. The tenets of their religion? The financial privacy offered by monero.

In other words, this church is dedicated to black market crypto. It’s a community, both tongue-and-cheek and real that wants to challenge decreasing financial privacy and redefine today’s economic system. In keeping with their crypto-Christianity theme, the Church of Monero has e-sermons, which, of course, they release on Reddit.

An e-sermon from April 30, 2018, describes the Church of Monero as an “art project.” But it goes on to list some very real reasons to combine monero and Christianity. For one, both are open-source. Like cryptocurrency itself, Christianity has morphed countless times over the course of history.

Though religion and cryptocurrency are similar in this way, the Church of Monero stipulates that people have a hard time understanding the latter. For this reason, the Church of Monero wants you to think of monero in religious terms. But instead of a deity at the center, this church is dedicated to black market crypto’s Source, meaning monero’s source code. The “god” in this case is the belief that monero is a superior cryptocurrency because of its lack of traceability.

This Crypto Church Wants to Build a Moon Base

Like most religions, there is a hereafter in this black market crypto church. In this case, “heaven” is a moon base.

According to Xeagu, the Church of Monero is only half of his monero community’s goal. They also want to build a moon base. This will start with a “monero satellite” which will have a full node of monero. A full node is a computer that keeps a record of all transactions on a blockchain.

They also launched the “Monero Moon Prize.” Xeagu told Blocklr, “There is a community funded prize called the Monero Moon Mission where the first team to send a 3D printer to the Moon and print mechanical parts with lunar regolith will win 10,000 Monero.”

This is worth a little over $1 million USD today. The deadline is December 19, 2022, which is exactly half a century since a person last set foot on the moon. And not only do you have to send a 3D printer to the moon and have it still work when it gets there, but it has to function without supplies from Earth. In essence, the printer has to use the soil as power.

Why Go to the Moon?

The Church of Monero is part of a larger movement to explore space. This church is dedicated to black market crypto and, more fundamentally, a type of futurism.

The desire to build a moon base comes from Isaac Arthur, a well-known science and futurism Youtuber. In his video “Industrializing the Moon,” Arthur explains the benefits of building a Moon base.

According to Arthur, it makes sense to use the nearest astronomical body as technological innovations and Earth’s population expands. You can still communicate in real time with people on Earth, you can get there in less than 4 hours and shipping to and from the moon is relatively simple.

He goes on to describe the Moon as a “giant orbiting warehouse already prepositioned to fuel our expansion out from Earth.” With less gravity and no weather on the Moon, you can build more easily and cheaply. Additionally, it’s far enough from Earth that controversial scientific experiments would not pose a threat. And the moon’s craters can house whole cities.

It’s also a jumping off point for further space exploration. Comparatively, it’s much easier to ship supplies to deeper areas of space from the Moon than from Earth, and it’s a convenient place to experiment before launching into deep space.

Most importantly, however, the Moon has resources that Earth could eventually need. Arthur speculates that the Moon has aluminum, magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, titanium and water reserves. The argument is that as Earth’s demands expand, so should the area we occupy.

Where Does Crypto Come in?

Blocklr reached out to Xeagu to get some clarification on how monero enters the picture. Here’s what he told us:

Monero is a community of people on the cutting edge of technology and strong sci-fi cultural influence. Space exploration is a natural desire for many within the Monero community. — Xeagu (@realXeagu) September 13, 2018

The Church of Monero doesn’t explain exactly why they want to build a Moon base with cryptocurrency. However, this church is dedicated to black market crypto because monero offers the most privacy and the independence from financial institutions. In this way, one could argue that monero is the most decentralized of high market cap cryptocurrencies.

As it stands, cryptocurrency is not fully decentralized because energy sources and the power structures on Earth are not. But a monero satellite and a 3D printer that functions independently of terrestrial resources would be. Hypothetically, going to the moon would mean creating a community that exists completely outside centralized power.

This Church is Dedicated to Black Market Crypto

Is the Church of Monero real? To date, they haven’t yet built a satellite with a monero node or shipped a 3D printer to the moon. However, this church is dedicated to black market cryptocurrency for real. In other words, it’s a community of people who believe in the privacy of monero and some aspects of futurism.

What we do know is that a lot of people believe that one of the advantages of cryptocurrency is financial transactions secret. Just look at monero’s market cap. While the Church of Monero feels like science fiction, it’s deeply-rooted in cryptocurrency’s distrust of financial institutions. If this sounds like you, check out if you are a monero coin based on your astrological sign.