Monero Ninja Launch:The original Announcement thread was started in the wrong place so the dev team could benefit before most even knew it had been launched. Monero's history is scattered and obscured, the current Monero ANN thread is not the original ANN thread which is a immediate red flag for any crypto project. Some say the original name (Bitmonero/BMR/MRO) was changed (monero/xmr) to cover up the launch issues and association with the original monero scam developer named "thankful_for_today". He was an anonymous dev and was "supposedly" kicked out, but he could have just changed his name to something like "groove" or "puffypony" and continued.
How many threads does this coin need?
One in the right place, apparently
Monero Cripplemine:At least 6-7% of the total coin supply affected (Possibly 10-15%)
1.37 million plus monero mined with optimized miners while scam dev team led by thankful_for_today pushed a crippled miner on everyone else.
Months 2-3 total coins mined was 1.37 million.
Minting Money with Monero ... and CPU vector intrinsics
August 28, 2014
"The original developers deliberately crippled the miner."
https://da-data.blogspot.de/2014/08/minting-money-with-monero-and-cpu.htmlMonero Fastmine:The monero cripplemine was bad but the fastmine is where the most unfair distribution took place.
Monero has a highly inflationary emission curve where around half the coins were mined in the first year and will have "Roughly 86% mined in 4 years".
By comparison, Bitcoin is almost 7 years old and only has 75% mined. It will take them another 4+ years to get to monero's 86%.
So it will take BTC & LTC 11+ years to get to ~86% mined and monero only 4 years. It will take DASH another 20 years to get to 86%.
What does all this mean? It means all the OG fat cats and fluffy ponies already own most all of the monero, centralizing future distribution.
They knew it was a problem but did nothing......[BMR] BitMonero emission curve change (proposal)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=585480.0[ANN][MRO] Monero - an anonymous coin based on CryptoNote technology"It was said that this coin had a mining reward schedule similar to bitcoin. In fact it is twice as fast as intended, even even a bit more than twice as fast as bitcoin.
If you acquired your coins on the basis of the advertised reward schedule, you would be disappointed, and rightfully so, as more coins come to into existence more quickly than you were led to believe." Smooth, Lead monero Dev
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=582080.0monero had ~750,000 coins mined the first 4 weeks (btc ~210,000) which is way faster than normal
i think a cripplemined fastmine best describes monero.
Incentivised by the massive amount of fastmined coins spilling out, the coin was heavily Botnet mined....https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583449.msg7771469#msg7771469See also: Monero Stealth miner issue
The fastmine experiment has caused other serious issues that are all starting to add up....Monero [XMR] block reward plummets below 3 XMR per blockMarch 28, 2019
“Indeed sustained low block rewards will be a challenge.. AFAIK no cryptocurrency has entered this new « state » It seems Monero might be the first one. My anxiety level will be high in 2021:)"
https://ambcrypto.com/monero-xmr-block-reward-plummets-below-3-xmr-per-block/"Until May 2022, Monero's "main curve" will produce a large number of new coins. After that, a "tail curve" will reduce Monero's inflation to less than 1% per year." All your monero are belong to us. Monero has been seriously centralized by the fastmine and hoovered up by the early fat cats and fluffy ponies of the world. monero for me - none left for thee.
https://www.bitrates.com/news/p/up-up-and-away-how-cryptocurrencies-are-dealing-with-inflationMining centralization issues:Not only is monero's physical mining centralized and susceptible to 51% attacks but due to its lack of decentralized governance capabilities its mining algorithm itself is centralized and subject to change on a whim every 6 months or so with decisions being made by a small centralized cabal of unknown devs. The later would seem to violate the entire spirit and principles of cryptocurrency, especially for a coin like monero which claims to be based around such hardcore anarchist beliefs.
DOES MONERO HAVE A SERIOUS CENTRALIZED MINING PROBLEM?
RICARDO MARTINEZ | FEB 10, 2020
https://bitcoinist.com/does-monero-have-a-serious-centralized-mining-problem/Major issue, Undetectable Inflation:Warnings from monero's own website...
Posted by: Sarang Noether, Ph.D.; Justin Ehrenhofer
January 17, 2020
"If your personal use case requires an absolute, 100%, no-holds-barred guarantee of supply, and you understand the risks inherent with this, then you need a transparent asset." Dash not mentioned.
"the use of an opaque asset introduces the risk of implementation flaws that may or may not be detectable because of the underlying mathematics of commitments and more complex proving systems. The use of mitigating approaches like transparent migrations can assert eventual available supply consistency, but this comes with the risk of losing honest funds too."
"implementation flaws leading to undetectable inflation. Such flaws could arise in many ways, but are limited to opaque assets (like Monero or shielded Zcash) where it is not possible to simply count the currently-available supply. Such a flaw affected Zcash. In this case, it is worth noting that the use of transparent fund migration means that an attempt to move enough exploited funds through the transparent Zcash pool could be detected and would result in any remaining funds (including those of honest users) being permanently frozen. It could be possible to modify the Monero protocol to produce similar supply detection, but this introduces additional risks, reduces privacy and fungibility, and would still require a decision relating to fund freezing; there are no plans to do this."
https://web.getmonero.org/2020/01/17/auditability.htmlPress reports on monero (Bytecoin/Cryptonote) privacy issues and other dangerous bugs:"the Bytecoin/Cryptonote codebase is atrociously bad"
Peter Todd
May 29, 2023There was a Privacy Bug in Monero for the last 3 years 😨
How Bad was the bug?
How does this bug affect users of Monero?
This thread answers all of these questions and more!https://twitter.com/AnonIndustries_/status/1663229977456967681A rather significant bug has been spotted in Monero's decoy selection algorithm that may impact your transaction's privacy. Please read this whole thread carefully. Another one! 7-26-21
If users spend funds immediately following the lock time in the first 2 blocks allowable by consensus rules (~20 minutes after receiving funds), then there is a good probability that the output can be identified as the true spend.
https://twitter.com/monero/status/1419852036913475587CoinDesk: Bug Found in Decoy Algorithm for Privacy Coin Monerohttps://youtu.be/7sTghOv4rCIPrivacy coins no more? CipherTrace files patents for tracing Monero transactions Nov. 2020
The firm claims it will be able to identify XMR used for illicit purposes to support criminal investigations.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/privacy-coins-no-more-ciphertrace-files-patents-for-tracing-monero-transactionsCipherTrace develops Monero tracing tool to aid US DHS investigations - 2020
https://cointelegraph.com/news/ciphertrace-develops-monero-tracing-tool-to-aid-us-dhs-investigationsMonero Privacy Protections Aren’t as Strong as They Seem | WIRED 2018
https://www.wired.com/story/monero-privacy/
Monero [XMR] Privacy Protection May Be Deficient - 2018
https://globalcoinreport.com/monero-xmrs-privacy-protection-may-be-deficient/Monero has some real issues! 2018
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16688416Monero Transactions History Can Be Revealed and Exposed: Researchhttps://cointelegraph.com/news/monero-transactions-history-can-be-revealed-and-exposed-researchCryptoNote Currency Bug Allowed Creation of Unlimited Number of Coinshttps://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/cryptonote-currency-bug-allowed-creation-unlimited-number-coins/Disclosure of a Major Bug in CryptoNote Based CurrenciesPosted by: luigi1111 and Riccardo "fluffypony" Spagni
May 17, 2017
https://getmonero.org/2017/05/17/disclosure-of-a-major-bug-in-cryptonote-based-currencies.htmlWarning: Every CryptoNote/Monero transaction in history will be retroactively exposedhttps://steemit.com/cryptonote/@macrochip/warning-every-cryptonote-monero-transaction-in-history-will-be-retroactively-exposedFundamental monero security flaw, Chain Split attackWhat chain splits mean for Monero - 2018
https://youtu.be/TlVsMTeT_nEIt Turns Out Monero’s Privacy Coin Wasn’t So Private After All By Robert Johnson on August 2, 2018
Reports out today highlight yet another security vulnerability within Monero XMR, a cryptocurrency designed for optimum privacy. Now we already know of the associations between Monero and malicious mining, but this marks another example of how XMR traders and investors have been put at risk, simply due to the markup of the currency.
https://cryptodaily.co.uk/2018/08/it-turns-out-moneros-privacy-coin-wasnt-so-private-after-all/US DEA ‘ACTUALLY WANTS’ CRIMINALS TO KEEP USING BITCOINSpeaking about altcoins, specifically Monero and Zcash, whose privacy-focused technology has likewise come in for flack from naysayers, Infante said that even these were not beyond the DEA’s radar.
“We still have ways of tracking them,” she added.
https://bitcoinist.com/dea-wants-criminals-use-bitcoin/On-chain tracking of Monero and other Cryptonotes 2019
Final nail in the coffin of Monero privacyhttps://medium.com/@crypto_ryo/on-chain-tracking-of-monero-and-other-cryptonotes-e0afc6752527FloodXMR: Low-cost transaction flooding attack with Monero’s bulletproof protocol 2019
The attacker could potentially trace nearly 50% of inputs at a cost of less than $2,000.
https://www.ccn.com/vitalik-buterin-eyes-research-on-privacy-coin-moneros-traceabilityhttps://eprint.iacr.org/2019/455.pdfA well-respected cryptographer released a tool called
http://www.monerolink.com, where you can link all transactions from 2014-2016 with 100% (due to blockchain timing analysis apparently), and all transactions from 2016-2017 are linkable with a probabilistic distribution dependent on mixin size. So they have a table on the site, 1 mixin transactions are linkable 86% of the time, 10+ mixin transactions are linkable 22% of the time.
Monero has since fixed this bug going forward, but if you used monero on a Dark Net Market between 2014-2017,
BEWARE!Devs disclose critical XMR-burning bug in Monero wallets 2018
Hackers could have tricked exchanges into giving up their XMR
https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/09/25/monero-burning-vulnerability/Monero security flaw could’ve seen XMR stolen from cryptocurrency exchanges 7-4-2019
Devs have just disclosed nine scary bugs in Monero code
https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/07/04/monero-cryptocurrency-security-flaw-bug-hackerone-disclosure-hack/Further InvestigationsTLDR: Monero was never a real privacy coin. Multiple problems that Ciphertrace is currently exploiting were reported to Monero project in 2016 and remain unfixed since. To draw attention to the issue I will publish transactions, IP addresses and porn preferences of 100 "lucky" Monero users every day.
Monero "BADCACA" tracking project
Monero doesn't work. There is a dozen of known ways to track it.
Did you use Monero yesterday? If so, check the list below, you might be on it.
https://monero-badcaca.net/Unveiling the truth over the major Monero scamhttps://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=755840.0Dash's privacy feature has never been broken - Turns out Monero's privacy feature has never really worked to begin withhttps://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/comments/65fz68/dashs_privacy_feature_has_never_been_broken_turns/ Former Monero Maintainer ‘Fluffypony’ Arrested and to Be Extradited for Non-Crypto Crimes Riccardo Spagni, who was arrested in Tennessee, will be extradited to South Africa to face fraud charges.
https://www.coindesk.com/former-monero-maintainer-fluffypony-to-be-extradited-for-non-crypto-crimes Monero’s former maintainer arrested in the US for allegations unrelated to cryptocurrency An arrest warrant for Riccardo Spagni was issued on July 20, 2021, at the request of the South African government. He was apprehended the same day in the United States.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/monero-s-former-maintainer-arrested-in-u-s-for-allegations-unrelated-to-cryptocurrencyhttps://www.saps.gov.za/journal/sdetails.php?jid=13981Fluffy, you got some Splainin to do...
Dissecting the MyMonero Scam: Part Onehttps://librehash.org/dissecting-the-mymonero-scam-part-one/DISCLAIMER: I am a Bitcoin, ETH and DASH fan and I do not deny a conflict of interest. Nevertheless I endeavor to be factual and I suggest that readers consider the facts, check the facts, reach your own conclusions about what happened and how it matters today, and finally to avoid the temptation to attack the person stating the facts or the coin(s) with which he might be associated
EDIT: add disclaimer, various typos, writing cleanups, reformatting, add references.
They drew first blood. This thread was Creatively inspired by...
Why the darkcoin/dash/dashpay instamine matters
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=999886.0