17 Nov 2021 [editorials] [events]

Slate spreads FUD about Monero

Slate1 magazine is spreading FUD about Monero and its community with Jake Dean2’s latest article:

The Bitcoin Competitor Beloved by the Alt-Right and Criminals3

The freelance journalist does his best to paint Monero as a coin that’s exclusively used by extremists, criminals and racists.

His skillful use of sensitive keywords, crafted to trigger people, seems to align perfectly with Slate’s slogan: Sticky, Provocative, Generative.

Perhaphs this is how the Graham Holdings Company4-owned site has earned the National Magazine Award for General Excellence Online .. a decade ago, in 20115.

There’s no doubt that FUD sells, but it doesn’t even come close to any reasonable definition of journalism that I could find.

It is worth mentioning that Jake’s previous reporting for Slate includes articles about Lady Gaga & Justin Bieber6, rainbow lights at a soccer tournament7 and VTubers8.

A rather big grain of salt comes to mind. As long as this type of stuff doesn’t divide us as a community, Monero will survive.

Not shifting the focus from research and development looks like a solid plan:

Unfortunately, the task of tracing will be made harder by the recent announcement of atomic swaps between Monero and Bitcoin [..]

Fortunately, all of this can be interpreted as free advertising.


  1. https://slate.com/about 

  2. https://slate.com/author/jake-dean 

  3. https://slate.com/technology/2021/11/monero-privacy-coin-racists-cybercriminals.html 

  4. https://www.ghco.com/company-profile 

  5. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/03/slate-wins-for-general-excellence-at-the-national-magazine-awards-for-digital-media.html 

  6. https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/friends-reunion-china-censorship-hollywood.html 

  7. https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/uefa-euro-2020-tournament-rainbow-lights-lgbtq.html 

  8. https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/kiryu-coco-graduating-vtube-hololive.html