check out this episode of monerotalk

https://www.monerotalk.live/monerotalk-304

Roman Sterlingov arrested and charged - without sufficient evidence - for using / operating a bitcoin mixer.

Based purely on SPECULATIVE chainalysis, heuristics cannot guarantee that he was the user. However, as chainalysis is in bed with intelligence services it is their gold standard. Now there is legal precedent to admit SPURIOUS chainalysis evidence in court. As noob judges/juries don’t in2 tech they are strong armed by the state into accepting it.

Therefore anyone who holds a tainted bitcoin (or any public ledger crypto) can be tainted by that coin IN LAW and charged for any crime that utxo ever got near.

The lawyers give a great rundown of the case here demonstrating how badly justice has failed.

-He KYC’d BTC in 2011 on Mt Gox -His utxo’s bounced around a few wallets and ended up being used to buy the bitcoinfog domain [he is accused of buying the domain w/o proof] -He later pulled some BTC out of Bitcoinfog into KYC’d exchanges to off-ramp [he is accused of being paid by bitcoinfog for services w/o proof]

The fact that the ghouls are harvesting data from early days (eg/ 2011) that anyone who ever KYC’d anywhere can be linked by chainalysis with a crime. Hence a cooling effect on crypto writ large.

Hey, this is a great idea.

I’ve been brainstorming how to create a political betting site using Monero - would Sigmanero ecosystem be easily adaptable to politcal events (eg/ elections) as well as sporting bets?

For me the main point of influence is the ‘oracle’ - who decides that the event is over and what the result is. If the lakers win 20-5 then it’s easy but if there’s extra time or the game is abandoned then the oracle becomes arbiter. Likewise in an election if the result is unclear or disputed then it is hard to definitively say who won within a given time frame.

At no point in time will Sigmanero have controls of funds

If Sigmanero is the oracle in this scenario - the could falsely declare that the Celtics won and could thereby designate funds (along with the losing bet-signer who wouldn’t mind winning some xmr). Therefore there is still a corruptible element.

Whilst I agree that for small amounts there isn’t a temptation to cheat - that argument doesn’t scale. Many betting facilities in crypto gain traction due to their ease of use - and in XMR it could get big too as it’s private. Then we can envision a superbowl-tier event where there are big bets going down and the temptation and facility to rugpull is there. I’m not doubting you / Sigmanero’s character just the game theory. As I say I’m keen to see your project work.

Sidenote: Does Sigmanero take donations? Or is it voluntarily hosted? The funding question helps users understand the motives behind the project. I would donate but be suspicious of a ‘free’ betting website.

PoS

Piece of Shit

This one was super interesting.

Have been looking at Monero based voting systems for a while as I think it’s a distinctly lacking application of cryptographic technologies.

do check out the website : cryptopoll.org

[It’s not “Monero based” but it copy and pastes the ring signature part of the code as the basis for a voting mechanism - each participant’s PGP signature joins a total ring and creates a validating but obfuscating voting mechanism]

those are all tax havens, coincidence?

also could be vpn locations

super lame, but interesting!

does someone who is capable of a massive attack on XMR actually believe that lightning is the answer? skeptical.

it also reminds me of the suspicious mempool flood in BTC in 2015 - https://bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/july-2015-flood-attack

Looking through various sources I have a short list of causes for high tx count:

Unlikely:

1. BTC ATH sellers off ramping to a much better cryptocurrency that preserves privacy

2. XMR trending as a massive gainer (after a drop) attracts traders

More Likely:

3. Chain analysis firm floods the tx pool so that their heuristic analysis can pinpoint some XMR transactions

4. Binance has released the secret store of XMR they had stacked up before delisting for unknown reasons

5. A Monero Whale is churning a large amount of XMR

5.b) ‘Incognito Market’ [darknet market] is reportedly exit scamming - escrows estimated in the millions of USD of XMR

Nobody has put forward a clear case yet, and most Monero folks are nonplussed. However, XMR’s dynamic block size is making much better work of the flood than other cryptos and tx fees remain fairly level throughout so at least it’s a good stress test.

I want to be a part of it too so I’m gonna throw a few more transactions into the pool right now :)

o7

can confirm Doug is still the host :D

More info: Blockstream’s Bitcoin Satellite node

https://blockstream.com/satellite/

deleted by creator

nice one!

Hey Terry, I didn’t snap any pics myself. However see pic related of Vincent de Stefano - founder of Assange Defense - wearing one up on the stage at the protest. (1:26 https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=7hrtcOfHhms)

Reflections on the protest: It was a good day, with lots of high energy. It felt like the amount of people turning out (the highest for any Assange court case so far) combined with a large turnout of media (at least 25 separate camera,mic,presenter setups) will have lead to widespread awareness. In this case I think that awareness is key - as the prosecution is political, Assange’s freedom will rely on political pressure. Needless to say that his lawyers put forward great arguments on the day. We

I actually got inside the Royal Courts of Justice (and put a secret sticker inside) however, as reported by Kristinn Hrafnsson (Wikileaks editor in chief), the court chose the smallest courtroom (5) for the hearing, meaning only about 20-25 people in the courtroom, with an overflow room for journalists with a dodgy video connection. This meant there were no spaces for public access to the kangaroo court. Julian wasn’t in attendance as he broke a rib coughing, having fallen ill in solitary confinement in prison. So I dipped from the courtshouse. I must add the staff were really friendly - even the one that confiscated my fork (from my packed lunch) - the uk fork license meme is too real.

Outside the spirits were generally good. I met a wicked mix of people, and giving out stickers is a great way to chat to a lot of people. I noticed that the crowd was hugely international, not just European. Iraqi guys had a banner, big bunch of Italians and a battalion of French. A representation from South Africa plus Aussies too. Most people were really engaged with the issues and seemed intellectual, compared to other protest i’ve been to. I also met 3 open bitcoiners (one with a genesis block tee, one with a luminous orange hoodie and balaclava). Didn’t meet any overt monero-ers but at least one was in attendance (@alphonse :) ).

Obviously as monero and the fundraiser are anonymous I don’t know who donated but wanted to once again express thanks for them helping it happen. Plenty of people put high-qual glossy ‘Free Assange’ stickers on their phones, lapels and all over London thanks to you guys, I hope each one can prompt at least one conversation in the real world. Lastly;

FREE ASSANGE

But can it do Atomic Swaps?

UPDATE:

Thanks so much to our 4 donors over at Kuno (https://kuno.anne.media/fundraiser/i3gx/). You anonymous few are true legends.

We raised 0.502 XMR !!!

That’s enough to print over 100 high quality stickers. I have now had them printed and delivered. They will be travelling with me tomorrow to the Royal Courts of Justice in London where they will be handed out to protestors and speakers at the protest.

In all, using Kuno was great - I had communication with staff there and they were supportive and helpful. We had an interesting debate too about anonymous fundraising - which I will put into another thread. I’d recommend using Kuno for random small-scale fundraisers, particularly those which relate to Monero.

Any UK based people here, feel free to DM me an address and I’ll send you a sticker.

You can still donate towards stickers and any extra Monero will be donated to the Assange Extradition Fund and Wikileaks. I will close it at the end of the month, or if it reaches its goal.

@tusker

allark.io looking EXTREMELY sus…

see pic related

allark feb '23 - selling 100 different products

heavily shilling on r/monero and even on here

allark dec '23 - suddenly a USD > crypto exchange

offering usd trades, plus interest bearing instruments [illegal] doesn’t mention what stablecoin is used no further information or contact us information

this from the same guy who refused to answer customers who didn’t receive prepaid cards ignores any questions on his spam posts.

we don’t want scams like this on monero.town

doesn’t deal in monero likely doesn’t deal legit at all…

Even if Monero daily transaction volume seems low compared to cryptocoin X , Y or Z. That’s not a problem

can any other coin (other than bitcoin) point to numerous different marketplaces using monero as standard?

can any other coin offer what monero offers to market participants?

and lastly; numerous sources have researched wash trading - including US Gov, big banks like JPM and each find that at least 70% of transaction volume is wash trading.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4649565

as such you can look at daily volume and diminish it by at least 70%, then compare.

eg / solana, #5 on coingecko at $2,633,235,375 24h volume ($2.6billion) minus 70% for wash trading = $789,970,612 ($789 million) monero @ #45 = $85 million

[not saying there isn’t fuckery with xmr price, especially until binance drops it] [also noting that the question is still valid about how data is collected on transaction volume for xmr in private]

imo, most ‘above board’ businesses won’t accept monero payments.

they have to bend over backwards to the state - commercial law, tax law, aml procedures with commercial banks. If they lose their business bank account they’re done so they are cautious actors. think how slow shops are to adopt new payments technology compared to say internet based payments.

those shops are to an extent part of the state apparatus as they are ‘permitted’.

as monero is, to an extent, money, you can use it to transact in as far as you can convince the other party to accept it - barter. barter works a lot better with individuals, and within communities than it does with formal business. however, monero is not physically limited, like gold, butter or bullets, monero is infinitely transactable around the globe at high speed. So it is furthermore suited to the aforementioned internet based payments services. its anonymity is not a problem when you have the tech on hand, wallets, escrow services etc. so that’s where it is best suited to help.

the perspective of wanting more ‘real-world applications’ is, in my opinion, a diversion. those shops stuck in the fiat system are passé and monero is a new technology. it’s not up to monero to try and fit into a bank card, although that can be useful (and possible with iterations of cakepay) but it’s up to monero to blaze a new trail for the cypherpunk ideology. to be anonymous digital money that is fungible. if you have that, it is a unique and novel value proposition that new economies can be built on.

tl;dr monero doesn’t need commercial adoption.

tradeogre.com

tortoise, meet hare