Saki

I think they will be the first to have both digital ID and CBDC.

Or possibly Israel will be? Or China. Paying/Having cash may become illegal eventually.

The popularity of privacy increases as there is more and more surveillance, control and censorship by states. Privacy is also being talked about and worked towards in communities of other large networks, e.g. ADA and BCH.

Interestingly, even Zcash (a less used privacy coin) is like +60%/mo (whereas +70%/mo for Monero) against USD. A coincidence? Or a general trend?

Ah, AI-generated "cheap" text. That'd explain a lot!

In addition to what you've pointed out (which perhaps many Monero users agree with) such as the paper Monero issue, I'd say that fundamentally CEXes have this conflict of interest: they're supposed to help investors or whatever, help them become rich (as if that's the point). But reality is, often customers' losses are their profits - that's their (casino-like) business. In short, they essentially want you to lose your money. And in the first place, this investment aspect is not even the point of cryptocurrencies.

EU bans in 2027? - that's old news. Already in 2022: there were anonymous accounts ban in Lithuania for example (and the remarks by US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury about "unhosted wallets" too). Basically central entities have always wanted to regulate things centrally, but that's not how cryptos are supposed to work. I think XMR is one of the only few coins, still having this fundamental (admittedly, a bit idealistic) philosophy. Either way XMR is only a few "true" cryptos, actually being used (as opposed to just being traded as investment aka gambling). Because of that, some people, including myself, may tend to feel that Monero is essentially valuable and that the recent price movements are something that could have always happened (though, this unconscious assumption could be misleading too). So maybe... even though what's happening now might have been triggered by some criminals, that may have been just catalysts; the cause of these price actions may be intrinsic - because Monero is valuable, it's being valued. Perhpas a bit too optimistic view, but perhaps not entirely untrue either?

Cryptographically it'd be absurd to share your sec key with CEX ("hosted" wallet). Like 30-year-old PGP/GPG key-escrow debates yet again; or worse, not even escrow, CEX users don't even have their keys. Which feels so absurd. I've never once used CEXes, except I tried no-KYC web swaps a few times (but they too are CEXes, having the same fundamental problems). Obviously pure P2P DEX solutions feel much better and safer, where Alice and Bob are mathematically / trustlessly safe as in atomic swaps or via multisigs. DEXes (e.g. Bisq, Haveno) may be for-profict business too (no free lunch), but that's beside the point. Nevertheless, it's important to realize that everything, including "no-KYC" or "DEX" solutions, may become "sneaky" if not scammy.

Yeah, most probably. It's crazy, though: they're now saying that: privacy-by-default = bad, no-privacy = good. That's the EU for you?

That's possible. I happened to see these weird/questionable theories elsewhere, not really convincing:

"There are also rumors that major exchanges are thinking about relisting XMR, which, when combined with Monero's lower liquidity and more concentrated holdings, can lead to major price movements"

"Researchers say part of that growth is due to a shift in the U.S. regulatory tone. The FIT21 crypto bill is picking up steam, and the SEC is taking a step back from labeling privacy coins as securities. This seems to be helping the market out a bit. It looks like the easing of pressure has led to more money flowing back into assets like Monero"

"There is also a lot of excitement about Monero's upcoming FCMP++ upgrade, which is expected later this year."

https://u.today/xmr-explodes-past-350-is-monero-finally-back

"Perhaps ironically, the surge is being fueled by this regulatory purge."

[This may be right.]

"Monero's rise is reactive rather than entirely organic. Fearing censorship, there is a rush toward decentralization."

https://u.today/monero-xmr-surges-with-3900-volume-skyrocketing

I HATE Reddit with a passion (censorship, bots, using our posts to train their AI and sell it to Google and now CQS which punishes you even for connecting in a non-AML/KYC way ) and wish the entire community would just migrate here or somewhere else.

Yeah, when Monero.town was born, I had hoped and kind of expected that more people were coming here ! Freedom is the core value of Monero ; no surveillance ; no censorship ; no arbitrary freezing or blocking ! It was not entirely Monero.town's fault that that didn’t happen, that more people were not joining, except its Tor blocking was obviously preposterous, a show-stopper.

You can at least try a privacy-front end such as https://redlib.zaggy.nl/r/monero/ :) Looks like Reto isn't working very well now...

Try not to take things too personally. Tails devs explicitly said they were making it for regular people (activists, journalists, domestic violence victims, etc.) and mainly not for advanced users. So by design it's a normie-friendly OS (a user is not even expected to know how to use pgp); as such, one might generally assume its users may not be "geeks". Nothing personal there.

While asking questions and exchanging ideas are wonderful, one can also enjoy the freedom to study (one of the four essential freedoms), guessing, narrowing down a problem by trial and error. An attempt at solving the problem on one's own is often of great value, a great way to learn, even if it's unsuccessful; after that, one might be able to ask an even better question, which could be helpful for more people too. Either way, I think that most Monero users can happily agree with each other that we want a better version of bisq :) (Sorry if this comment is uncalled for.)

Maybe this is why no one ever posts here.

Imho (quite) a few users ditched monero.town when they had started blocking Tor.

A form of “DDoS protection” where every possibly suspicious connection is blocked permanently/indiscriminately is considered harmful both for the website itself and online freedom. I stopped using monero.town when it started blocking everyone on Tor after DDoSed via some stupid Tor abusers in 2024. In general we need DDoS protection, but it was unexpected and ironic to see that all-too-familiar “you are blocked because you’re a privacy-oriented user” screen from Cloud-something here on a monero-related website.

Today I happened to notice that they have unblocked Tor (don’t know since when) and the website still exists though perhaps being less active than it used to be.

"Sorry, you have been blocked You are unable to access monero.town"

For those who are still on Win 7: Firefox (and so Tor Browser) will stop supporting Win 7 soon. Seriously, you better plan to migrate to Linux. Not-so-good privacy issues aside, everyone knows Windows is not very secure/safe/convenient anyway.

Generally, votes are overrated. Especially if you’re not mainstream, by definition most people won’t support you, won’t agree with you, won’t understand you.

Some things may be downvoted because they’re too stupid. But occasionally, you might be downvoted simply because you’re a bit too early. Like, if you’d said “being gay is not crime” or something 50 years ago, you might have got downvoted… Just a thought.

Maybe what you’re thinking is like an XMR version of Bisq's “Get your first BTC” room?

https://bisq.wiki/Getting_your_first_BTC This dilemma is real and understandable, while it’s not clear what would be the best solution:

For new users, Bisq requires between 0.002 and 0.007 BTC for traders to make their first trade: [...] It can be difficult for new bitcoiners to acquire their first coins, so this requirement is often a barrier for new Bisq users. The Get your first BTC room offers one possible way to get this initial bitcoin without signing up for a centralized exchange.

Basically the same thing for Haveno, I guess.

There is another post saying they lost money trying to get Mastarcard: https://monero.town/post/872283 Sometimes something bad just happens…