Monero Observer Blitz #2 - September 2021

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

• COMIT released v0.8.2 & v0.8.3 of their XMR-BTC atomic swap tool (1,2)
• Haveno devs have finalized the trade protocol and launched a Bounty Program (3)
• Monero devs released Oxygen Orion Point Release 2.3 which addressed the decoy selection bug (4)
• pluja deployed a new version of KYCNOT.ME with an improved interface and intelligent features (5)
• Douglas Tuman discussed Monero with Nomad Capitalist’s founder Andrew Henderson on Monero Talk (6)
• OpenBazaar devs were looking to potentially integrate Monero in upcoming v3.0 (7)
• AnonCoj XMR classified ads marketplace opened up (8)
• jonjonbonbonbonbon shared a short Monero poem with the crypto community (9)
• Monero contributor mjxmr submitted his August 2021 dev report (10)
• xmrSale CCS proposal to develop a payment processor has been fully funded (11)
• Kevin Wad started a new video channel dedicated to Monero (12)
• Monerujo Vertant (v2.1.0 & v2.1.1) update was released (13,14)
• Seth published a p2pool decentralized Monero mining guide (15)
• XMR.Radio started broadcasting Monero’s block height every hour (16)
• Coincards reported XMR was #3 most used crypto on their platform in August 2021 (17)
• Monerujo deployed their own transparent Funding Site (18)
• XMR-Bets Monero lottery was looking for community feedback (19)
• MargotilianArt was selling custom graphite portraits for XMR (20)
• Monerado XMR mining pool stats app v1.0.0 was released (21)
• Monero Talk interviewed p2pool dev Sergei Chernykh aka sech1 (22)
• Douglas Tuman’s CCS proposal was fully funded (23)
• The Monero Community Workgroup held a meeting on 18 September 2021 (24)
• rottenwheel won XMR.Radio’s CTF hunt (25)
• garrylachman released the alpha of XMRig Made Easy (26)
• An internal audit uncovered a critical encryption vulnerability in multiple Matrix clients (27)
• There were 3 Monero Research Lab meetings this month (28,29,30)
• Odysee proposed BTC tipping but users demanded Monero instead (31)
• Anonymous onion site started selling Posteo email vouchers for XMR (32)
• Cake Wallet released v4.2.7 (33)
• Monero reached the frontpage of Hacker News with Benjamin Kaiser’s Why Monero blog post (34)
• Bitfinex listed XMR-PERP Monero futures contract (35)
• Monero community Triptych vs Seraphis/Lelantus Spark discussions heated up (36)
• Justin Berman published 2 CCS progress reports (37,38)
• Monero Talk interviewed humans rights advocate Chris Sky (39)
• LocalMonero’s co-founder Alex was interviewed by Seth on his Opt Out Podcast (40)
• Hammermann09 proposed a Getmonero.org website redesign concept (41)
• p2pool decentralized Monero mining pool v1.0 was released on mainnet (42)
• Crypt0-bear released Monero Party music video and published an updated Awesome Monero resource list (43,44)
• fluffypony was released from US custody (45)
• Feather Wallet devs released Beta-9 (46)
• Molly.im lead dev submitted a CCS proposal to integrate XMR payments (47)
• w1ck3dAF has challenged the Monero community to a small stakes poker game on XMR.poker (48)
• Eercury was looking to sell his silver and copper coins for XMR (49)
• Bl5ckj5ck submitted a CCS proposal to translate Mastering Monero to Italian (50)
• Justin Ehrenhofer hosted a Monero Meet livestream on the Monero Space video channel (51)
• Monero Talk discussed crypto regulations and Monero in an interview with Wesley Thysse (52)
• knifetobutter was looking to pay an artist in XMR to create a K-POP song (53)
• Monero Observer CCS proposal was fully funded (54)
• Monero researchers published a forensic statistical analysis report of the recent Monero transaction volume anomaly (55)
• Sparrow Messenger PoC was met with skepticism by the Monero community (56)
• Club Monero has added brand new Monero apparel to their shop (57)
• JEhrenhofer shared a XMR acceptance request template for contacting BTC merchants (58)
• New Monero Bounties project was launched in order to complement the existing CCS funding system (59)
• Nick Bax demonstrated how XMR transactions related to WannaCry 2.0 were traced (60)
• Rucknium submitted a sensitive CCS proposal aiming to fortify Monero against statistical attacks (61)
• aliraheem created a Monero acrylic painting (62)
• janostrowka was looking to sell a Mellow Board Surfer for XMR (63)
• Crypto ATM producer Lamassu confirmed upcoming XMR support with Forsaken Fiat v7.6 update (64)
• The Monero Community Workgroup video channel was bridged to Odysee (65)
• Douglas Tuman interviewed cryptographers Aram Jivanyan and Sarang Noether about Lelantus Spark paper (66)

My contributions:

• started publishing weekly Monero Observer XMR TA reports: Week 36/37/38 (67)
• created a few guides on GPG encryption and RSS feeds (68,69,70)
• added a Changelog page where you can find other changes (71)

That’s it for the 2nd Monero Observer Blitz.

In this edition I have included reference links/sources for each item, after getting some feedback.

Let me know if this was helpful to you and thanks for reading!

-escapethe3RA

PS: I still <3 all feedback @ /about