Monero Observer Blitz #19 - February 2023

Here’s a recap of what happened this February in the Monero community:

Breaking

• HashVault.pro was in control of >40% of the total Monero network hashrate twice (1,2)
• LocalMonero confirmed Russia was removed from the platform on February 1st (3)

R&D

• There were 4 Monero Research Lab meetings in January (4,5,6,7)
• The Seraphis Wallet Workgroup held 4 meetings (8,9,10,11)
• rbrunner7’s ‘Developer Opportunities at the Monero Project’ post was deployed to Getmonero.org blog (12)
• Monero v0.18.2.0 ‘Fluorine Fermi’ was tagged (13)
• SyntheticBird45 started working on ‘Cuprate’, an experimental Monero node written in Rust (14)
• tobtoht released Feather Wallet version 2.4.0 with I2P support and v2.4.1 with several fixes and improvements (15,16)
• XMRig v6.19.0 was released (17)
• Cake Wallet/Monero.com v4.5.7/v1.2.6 & v4.5.8/v1.2.7 were released with several error reporting fixes and improvements (18,19)
• hinto-janaiyo released Gupax v1.1.2 (20)
• LocalMonero/AgoraDesk mobile apps versions 1.0.61-1.0.65 were released (21,22,23)
• selsta posted a Monero dev report for January 2023 (24)
• DangerousFreedom1984 posted a progress report for their Seraphis CLI wallet and audit framework CCS proposal (25)
• rehrar released Stack Wallet v1.5.38 with MajesticBank support and v1.5.44 with several fixes and improvements (26,27)
• pluja created Nerostr, a ‘Nostr pay-to-relay Monero-based platform’ (28)
• Justin Berman posted a second CCS progress report after ~382 hours of Monero dev work (29)
• Cake Labs announced the release of Cake Wallet beta version for desktop (30)
• SChernykh released P2Pool v3.1 (31)

Funding

• Isthmus submitted a CCS proposal to do ‘computational work for OSPEAD parameterization’ (32)
• busyboredom submitted a CCS proposal to create a ‘AcceptXMR-based payment gateway’ with WordPress support (33)
• defeatoverseer proposed a bounty for ‘Overseer Attack’ countermeasures research (34)
• DangerousFreedom1984 submitted a new Seraphis wallet development CCS proposal (35)
• selsta’s part-time Monero dev work CCS proposal was fully funded (36,37)
• Lovera’s third CCS proposal to produce Monero educational content in Spanish was fully funded (38,39)
• tobtoht submitted a CCS proposal to continue full time Feather Wallet development for next 3 months, which was fully funded (40,41)
• ‘The Monero ATM Project’ was fully funded (42)
• George Nicholas’s ‘Mark of distinction’ CCS proposal was fully funded (43,44)

Culture

• Community Workgroup Meetings took place on the 11th and 25th (45,46)
• There were 4 MoneroKon 2023 Planning Meetings in February (47,48,49,50)
• Monero Konferenco 2023 tickets went on sale (51)
• Monero Magazine interviewed RandomX developer Howard Chu (52)
• Monero Talk interviewed Alexander K. J. Schmidt, Eric Voskuil, Sergei Chernykh, and Justin Bons (53,54,55,56)
• Trocador announced a new partnership with LocalMonero and started offering insurance on all trades via ‘Trocador Guarantee’ (57,58)
• rottenwheel published 4 new Revuo Monero issues (#157-#160) (59,60,61,62)
• ARIS announced a new ‘Monero-first’ exchange (63)
• recanman published 4 new issues of The Monero Standard (#39-42) on LocalMonero (64,65,66,67)
• MoneroTopia 2023 VIP tickets were sold out (68)

Community Messages (10/39)

• [ANN] EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems (by wilderko) (69)
• [ANN] Announcing MoneroMemes.com! Get tipped to make Monero memes! (by moneromemesd) (70)
• [ANN] Finished the first draft of ‘Kuno Fundraisers’: A Monero-friendly KYC-free alternative to Gofundme/Kickstarter (by AnarkioCrypto) (71)
• [ANN] I want to make it easy for Monero users to buy physical silver bullion. (by monerosilver) (72)
• [LTH] Working monastery seeks ranch-hand/assistant (by Flashy-Hospital-3662) (73)
• [LTH] C/C++ Dev for rewriting tx verification for GPU (by abdullahkhan) (74)
• [LTH] Developers for privacy-focused cloud computing startup (by spectrehosting) (75)
• [LTT] $5 worth of epic cash for $5 in XMR (by notmtth) (76)
• [WTB] 1 OZ Silver Britannia from 1998 and/or from 2003 (Shipping to Germany) (by derbehr98) (77)
• [WTS] [$130] Mitchell D120SB Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar (by BabyYoda90210) (78)

My personal contributions

• Daily
  • published 76 Monero Observer Reports (79) (consult the Archive page for a complete list (80))
  • updated Changelog (81) and XMR Stats (82)
• As needed/On demand
  • updated reports, listed 39 Community Messages and 14 Calendar events (83,84) & added 8 new Resources (85)
  • uploaded 14 meeting logs (MRL 2023-02-01, MRL 2023-02-08, MRL 2023-02-15, MRL 2023-02-22, Community 2023-02-11, Community 2023-02-25, MoneroKon23 2023-02-04, Monerokon23 2023-02-11, Monerokon23 2023-02-18, Monerokon23 2023-02-25, Seraphis 2023-02-06, Seraphis 2023-02-13, Seraphis 2023-02-20, Seraphis 2023-02-27) (86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99)
  • new meta post, updated contact-signed.txt (100)
• Weekly
  • (SUN) published 4 Monero Dev Activity Reports (Weeks: 5-8, 2023) (101,102,103,104)
  • (MON) published CT-013: Moneranoj: Unite or ‘curb your cypherpunk’ (105)
  • (SAT) published 4 MO Artistic Saturday Top 5 reports (Weeks: 5-8, 2023) (106,107,108,109)
• Monthly
  • published MO Blitz Report: #18 (January 2023) (110)

Credits/special thanks to:

• everyone that reported broken links, suggested edits, sent anonymous news tips and shared my reports
• the cypherpunks for their encrypted emails and XMPP (OMEMO) messages
• gnuteardrops from Monero.Graphics for the amazing art
• all anon MO loyal readers and generous CCS contributors
• hard working people that keep building and maintaining cool stuff for the Monero community

That’s it for the 19th edition of Monero Observer Blitz.

Previous editions can be found on the /tag/blitz page.

Let me know if this was helpful, thanks for reading!

-escapethe3RA

PS: unfortunately I was unable to post more CT’s and meeting summaries this month due to some ongoing health issues; thanks for the continued support!