Monero Observer Blitz #22 - May 2023

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

Breaking

• tevador released a security advisory for a ‘medium severity’ vulnerability in Monero wallets that can be exploited by malicious remote nodes (1)
• jeffro256 posted a vulnerability disclosure highlighting a ‘high severity’ bug that was patched in Monero v0.18.2.2 (2)
• KuCoin temporarily suspended XMR deposits and withdrawals due to ‘node maintenance’ (3)
• Binance was getting ready to delist XMR in France, Italy, Poland and Spain due to ‘local regulatory requirements’ (4)

R&D

• There were 5 Monero Research Lab meetings in May (5,6,7,8,9)
• The Seraphis Wallet Workgroup held 3 meetings (10,11,12)
• The ETH-XMR atomic swap beta release v0.2.1 was deployed on mainnet (13)
• The Nym team announced a new mixnet integration with the Monero network (14)
• selsta posted a Monero dev report for April 2023, finalizing their CCS proposal (15)
• SChernykh released P2Pool v3.4 with several bug fixes and improvements (16)
• m2049r released Monerujo v3.1.3 ‘Fluorine Fermi’ & v3.2.0 ‘Decoy Selection’ (17,18)
• LocalMonero/AgoraDesk mobile apps versions 1.1.1-1.1.4 were released with several bug fixes and improvements (19,20,21)
• Cake Labs announced the first Cake Wallet beta release for Linux and ‘Cake 2FA’, a new security feature (22,23)
• Haveno versions 0.0.5 & 0.0.6 were released with binary installers for live test network and support for gold and silver (24,25)
• hinto-janai released Gupax v1.2.2 with fixes, UI improvements and remote node changes (26)
• rehrar released Stack Wallet versions 1.7.7-1.7.11 with support for Trocador.app and various fixes and updates (27,28,29,30)
• lukeprofits released ‘Monero Subscriptions Wallet’, as promised (31,32)
• keef1337 released noderowallet v1.1.0-1.1.2 (33)
• pokkst released Mysu Wallet v0.4.3 with ‘high priority’ fixes (34)
• tobtoht released Feather Wallet v2.4.9 with security fixes (35)
• ANON v0.4.1 updated to Monero 0.18.2.2 (36)

Funding

• selsta submitted a new CCS proposal for 3 more months of part-time Monero dev work, which was fully funded (37,38)
• valldrac submitted a CCS proposal to develop a Monero Wallet SDK for Android (39)
• jeffro256 submitted a CCS proposal for 4 months of full-time Monero dev work (40)
• VostoEmisio submitted a CCS proposal to create an animated video explaining Monero’s Tail Emission (41)
• john_r365 proposed a bounty for the review of a Trezor PR to the core Monero codebase (42)
• plowsof will continue working as CCS coordinator for 3 months after their proposal was fully funded (43)
• Justin Berman completed his latest Monero dev work CCS proposal (44)
• CryptoGrampy completed his HotShop CCS proposal (45)
• Lovera posted a CCS progress report for April 2023 (46)
• moneromooo-monero was planning to work on Townforge after completing 520 hours of Monero dev work (47)

Culture

• There were 4 MoneroKon 2023 Planning Meetings in May (48,49,50,51)
• A Community Workgroup Meeting took place on the 27th (52)
• Monero Magazine interviewed ‘Katie The Russian’, Juraj Bednar, Nam Sardar and ‘Mano Crypto’ (53,54,55,56)
• Monero Talk interviewed crypto-anarchist Pavol Luptak (57)
• rbrunner7 published a new Monero-themed fictional short story titled ‘RingCT’ (58)
• rottenwheel published Revuo Monero issues #169-172 (59,60,61,62)
• LocalMonero published The Monero Standard issues #52-55 (63,64,65,66)
• Ledger came under fire for its controversial ‘Ledger Recover’ firmware update (67)

Community Messages (10/51)

• [AFH] Foreign Language Teacher: Spanish and Portuguese (by pedrosfreitas) (68)
• [ANN] Rucknium Monerotopia 2023 Presentation (by Rucknium) (69)
• [ANN] Results after 4 months of mining (Jan - Apr 2023) (by SeaFailure) (70)
• [ANN] Os Moneristas - Brazilian community project (by OsMoneristas) (71)
• [ANN] The next nautilus update will remove support for monero (by fossephate) (72)
• [LTH] C++ developer to enchant a project (by Nico) (73)
• [WTB] [~45 XMR] NLJD (Non-linear Junction Detector) & [1-2.25 XMR] IR Thermal Camera (by freQniK) (74)
• [WTB] [US] 1/10oz Gold Coin with crypto (BTC/XMR) (by ValleyEliminator) (75)
• [WTS] [~180€ XMR/BTC] OLED PS Vita with Minecraft (by derBehr98) (76)
• [WTS] [35 USD] Schmidt Hammer (by burntbooks) (77)

My personal contributions

• Daily
  • published 75 Monero Observer Reports (78) (consult the Archive page for a complete list (79))
  • updated Changelog (80) and XMR Stats (81)
• As needed/On demand
  • updated reports, listed 51 Community Messages and 14 Calendar events (82,83) & added 5 new Resources (84)
  • published Meeting summary: Monero Research Lab, 3 May 2023 (85) and uploaded 13 meeting logs (MRL 2023-05-03, MRL 2023-05-10, MRL 2023-05-17, MRL 2023-05-24, MRL 2023-05-31, Community 2023-05-27, MoneroKon23 2023-05-06, Monerokon23 2023-05-13, Monerokon23 2023-05-20, Monerokon23 2023-05-27, Seraphis 2023-05-15, Seraphis 2023-05-22, Seraphis 2023-05-29) (86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98)
• Weekly
  • published 4 Monero Dev Activity Reports (Weeks: 18-21, 2023) (99,100,101,102)
  • published 4 MO Artistic Saturday Top 5 reports (Weeks: 18-21, 2023) (102,103,104,105)
• Monthly
  • published MO Blitz Report: #21 (April 2023) (106)

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 and plowsof for the consistent pings
• 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 22nd 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