Monero Observer Blitz #18 - January 2023

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

Breaking

• P2Pool announced plans to hardfork to new consensus rules on March 18th at 21:00 UTC (1)
• Getmonero.org was temporarily down for maintenance (2)

R&D

• There were 4 Monero Research Lab meetings in January (3,4,5,6)
• The Seraphis Wallet Workgroup held 5 meetings (7,8,9,10,11)
• CypherStack started conducting Serai DEX cryptography audits (12)
• Rucknium was calling out centralized mining pools for unnecessarily delaying XMR transaction confirmations by 60 seconds (13)
• SChernykh released P2Pool v2.7/3.0 (14,15)
• selsta posted a Monero dev report for December 2022 (16)
• Feather Wallet introduced bootstrappable builds and support for Raspberry Pi, Linux ARM64 with v2.2.2 (17)
• Justin Berman posted a CCS progress report after ~200 hours of Monero dev work (18)
• The Farcaster Project released Farcaster Node versions 0.8.3/0.8.4 (19,20)
• hinto-janaiyo released monero-bash v1.9.7 and Gupax v1.1.0/1.1.1 (21,22,23)
• binarybaron released UnstoppableSwap GUI versions 0.4.0-0.4.6 (24,25,26,27)
• m2049r released Monerujo v3.1.0 ‘Fluorine Fermi’ (28)
• Cake Wallet v4.5.6/Monero.com v1.2.5 were released with support for Haven 3.0.0 ‘Athena’ (29)
• rehrar released Stack Wallet v1.5.28 (30)
• COMIT xmr-btc-swap v0.12.1 was released (31)
• LocalMonero/AgoraDesk mobile apps versions 1.0.46-1.0.51 were released (32,33,34)
• EliteTechnologies announced Elite Wallet, a new multi-currency mobile wallet that supports XMR (35)
• tobtoht released Feather Wallet versions 2.2.2/2.2.3/2.3.0 (36,37,38)
• Trocador.app implemented ‘Monero Tunnels’ for swaps between transparent blockchains (39)
• Ora_pro_vivis was looking for feedback on ‘semi transparent and auditable’ XMR wallet app Lumo (40)

Funding

• plowsof posted a bounty for running the BLAKE2b test vector suite on Seraphis library implementation (41)
• UkoeHB’s ‘long-term’ Seraphis library CCS proposal was moved to the next stage and funded in one week (42,43)
• selsta submitted a CCS proposal for 3 more months of part-time Monero dev work until the end of April 2023 (44)
• woodser opened 3 new Haveno bounties worth $700 (45)
• George Nicholas submitted a CCS proposal to release ‘Mark of distinction’, an independent film featuring Monero (46)
• uzern4m submitted a CCS proposal to create report ‘exploring the possibility’ of developing a Monero node in Rust (47)
• Cake Wallet opened 11 new language bounties worth $150 each (48)
• plowsof posted his second CCS coordinator progress report (49)
• anhdres posted the first Monero Garden CCS progress report (50)
• binarybaron completed the fourth milestone for the XMR-BTC atomic swap desktop GUI CCS proposal (51)
• v1docq47 posted a CCS progress report for December 2022-January 2023 (52)
• CypherPunk Radio canceled the project’s CCS proposal (53)

Culture

• Community Workgroup Meetings took place on the 7th, 14th, and 28th (54,55,56)
• There were 3 MoneroKon 2023 Planning Meetings in January (57,58,59)
• Monero Magazine interviewed anhdres, Douglas Tuman, Rafael LaVerde, and Luke Smith (60,61,62,63,64)
• Monero Talk interviewed DoingFedTime, Juraj Bednar, Tor Ekeland and Mike Hassard (65,66,67)
• CryptoMorpheus_ published a new Moneroj.net article analyzing XMR metrics from 2022 (68)
• rottenwheel published 4 new Revuo Monero issues (#153-#156) (69,70,71,72)
• The Monero ATM Project team announced plans to complete work ‘until’ MoneroKon23 (73)
• AnarkioCrypto was seeking feedback on the new Bitejo marketplace design (74)
• John Foss published 2 new The Monero Moon newsletter issues (#60 & #61) (75,76)
• NotMtth launched CypherPunk Radio (77)
• A Monero Meet livestream took place on January 25 (78)
• recanman published 4 new issues of The Monero Standard (#35-38) on LocalMonero (79,80,81,82)
• monerobull, MajesticBank, and artlimber won the MAGIC Monero Fund 2023 election (83)
• VentiSwap listed XMR/USDT and XMR/ETH swap pairs (84)

Community Messages (10/59)

• [AFH] ShopinBit Concierge Service (by ShopinBit) (85)
• [AFH] Anonymous Deliveries Via Amazon Lockers (by dgoon21) (86)
• [ANN] Call for developers (TypeScript/JavaScript) (by An0-Nym) (87)
• [ANN] Monero Dance: a new site for the community. News aggregator and portal to all things Monero (by themonerodance) (88)
• [ANN] Prestium: Privacy-focused, i2p based live OS. Comes with official Monero wallet! (by Opicaak) (89)
• [LTH] C Programmer Needed (by SynthLordVR) (90)
• [LTT] [H] $85 monero [W] $85 btc or $90 cash app (by TheMayorOfMemes) (91)
• [WTB] XMR with cash in greater Toronto area (by AlbertJohnson2) (92)
• [WTS] Private equity investment in UK startup, Escape The City (by vs0x7) (93)
• [WTS] [$1.9] TF2 keys (XMR -> Steam Balance ~1:1) (by thisguy) (94)

My personal contributions

• Daily
  • published 89 Monero Observer Reports (95) (consult the Archive page for a complete list (96))
  • updated Changelog (97) and XMR Stats (98)
• As needed/On demand
  • updated reports, listed 59 Community Messages and 15 Calendar events (99,100) & added 7 new Resources (101)
  • published 3 Meeting summaries: Seraphis 2 & 16 January 2023, MRL 18 January 2023 (102,103,104) and uploaded 15 meeting logs (MRL 2023-01-04, MRL 2023-01-11, MRL 2023-01-18, MRL 2023-01-25, Community 2023-01-07, Community 2023-01-14, Community 2023-01-28, MoneroKon23 2023-01-14, Monerokon23 2023-01-21, Monerokon23 2023-01-28, Seraphis 2023-01-02, Seraphis 2023-01-09, Seraphis 2023-01-16, Seraphis 2023-01-23, Seraphis 2023-01-30) (105,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119)
• Weekly
  • (SUN) published 4 Monero Dev Activity Reports (Weeks: 1-4, 2023) (120,121,122,123)
  • (MON) published 2 Cypherpunk Transmission Reports (CT-011: Decoy wallets with seed offset passphrase in Monero CLI, CT-012: Plausible deniability with VeraCrypt hidden volumes in Tails) (124,125))
  • (SAT) published 4 MO Artistic Saturday Top 5 reports (Weeks: 1-4, 2023) (126,127,128,129)
• Monthly
  • published MO Blitz Report: #17 (December 2022) (130)

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 18th 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