[XMR] Monero - A secure, private, untraceable cryptocurrency

[GingerAle]

Does mixing from the newly minted coin transaction matter? If so, this is relevant.

GINGEROPOLOUS's POOL SHAME LIST

https://moneropool.com/#payments

mixin 0

http://minexmr.com/#payments

mixin 1

http://hashinvest.net/#payments

mixin 0

http://mro.poolto.be/#payments

mixin 0

http://monero.crypto-pool.fr/#payments

mixin 0

http://monero.xminingpool.com/#payments

mixin 0

(sorry pool ops)



Winner list

http://xmr.prohash.net/#payments

mixin 3

https://monerohash.com/#payments

mixin 3

edited to add:
http://monero.backup-pool.com/#payments

I don't know what your deal is. Mixin 3, then 0 as of recently.

[smooth]

Does mixing from the newly minted coin transaction matter? If so, this is relevant.

Yes it matters just like any other.

[dEBRUYNE]

My suggestion to those involved here, is that you should consider targeting not only the tech savvy but dumb things down a lot also on social media and marketing, to draw in new people. Clearly state in easy to understand ways why someone looking at Monero doesn't get lost in tech talk, but very simple reasons this coin is the best.

We've gotten quite a bit of play in the comments at http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2zrdxz/withdrawals_halted_as_stolen_evolution_coins_make/

which is currently the top post there

This is the kind of thing that can really raise awareness especially if done relevant and factual way that does not come off as spam.

I would also like to add that we started a socialmedia team some weeks ago to utilize our twitter/fb/G+ more and also make it a lot more active. We try to post/tweet, next to the weekly missives/digests, informative articles/pieces on a regular pace. So far it has been paying off since we are receiving new interest and new followers on both social media platforms.

What is the twitter link please? Are you representing the official Twitter page?

Here you go: https://twitter.com/monerocurrency
Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/monerocurrency

Official is a big word. At first Quanttek was handling it, but he didn't have enough time on his hands to maintain doing it. Having that in mind we gathered a new team (dnaleor, davidlatapie, GreekBitcoin, Quanttek (if he has time) and me). After some discussion with the core team, we came to the conclusion that this was the best way to handle it and the core team had no problem with us doing it. Having non-core members handling the socialmedia also lightens some of the workload of the core-members and they can instead focus on more important matters.

PS: I mostly post the things on Twitter and Facebook, but before that we, as a team, first discuss what is going to be posted and how we will post is.

PS2: If you have a Twitter or Facebook account, please follow/like us. Coingecko takes the amount of followers/likes in consideration and liking/following us will thus boost our rank on Coingecko.

EDIT: If you have some additional articles/pieces/posts that you think are tweetworthy, just shoot me a PM and we will look into it. Also if you have some recommendation on how to improve the managing of Twitter/Facebook, just shoot me a PM!

[jehst]

The best doesn't win and since market cap / price might be the big attractor (LTC excluded lol), we should be careful with Monero in not "hedging" our bets regarding getting the word out on podcasts and such.

The miniscule market caps of these altcoins mean nothing to the mass of potential outside adopters looking for something useful, which I have yet to see from any crypto, including Bitcoin.

Saying that Monero has to win tiny market cap battles in order to achieve wider adoption is like saying you have to be the most popular kid in high school in order be successful in the real world.

That may be true, but don't confuse a point I made for the wider argument. I don't think my nor anyones argument here should rest on a point or two, unless explicitly meant to.

The basis of my argument/point is to market Monero, not to raise the market cap to market it. How the marketing goes about is open to debate. I suggested podcast interviews, or even advertising spots (possibly), etc. I think brainstorming is more constructive than right or wrong perspectives here. Can't hurt...

Raising XMR's marketcap makes Monero more useful, which should in turn raise its marketcap more in a self-reinforcing process. It also has the side benefit of enriching Monero's largest holders, who are likely to use some of that money to fund Monero development and external projects. Thus, the best way to market Monero is to simply buy it. Absorb the emission. It's even better than talking about its merits, advertising it, or accepting it at your place of business. Realistically, XMR can surpass everything but LTC in the mid-term. This is the best marketing possible. You can't ignore #4 on CMC default view. That's when people start to talk about it and when its actual merits become debated by everyone in the wider crypto-community.

First, to your prior mention of thieves using DRK/XMR to wash coins in - Very good point. I was aware of that but that skipped me. With the daily volume on Poloniex, you would think XMR is a target, but not really sure. I guess LTC can even serve that function for a bit.

Regarding your quote above - again, I don't disagree with you, but why limit expression to just this? Totally agree, you get early adopters having lots of extra money then they do with XMR what BTC'ers did with theirs - reinvest and actualize the dream. But all the same, no reason to wait on that when we have lots of possibilities here. Not saying I know what is best, double again, just some brain storming.  

Page 1111 !!!!

I always ask "Compared to what?" Donating some money to advertising and getting articles featured is good, but it's a one-time thing. Most people don't go back and read 8 month old Coindesk articles or listen to 8 month old podcasts. That advertising will either reach people while it's new or not. After it has its run, it's pretty much useless.

I think that XMR is so small right now that we're better off investing in something that keeps giving back. Development is one such thing. If XMR gets and upgrade today, we can keep enjoying that upgrade over and over. And also if you buy XMR today, you take that XMR out of supply, you can keep it out of supply for a long time, or add to XMR's liquidity by putting it for sale on the orderbooks for whatever price. And if you build an XMR service today like xmr.to, we can keep using that service for a long time.  

So in my mind, marketing is pretty wasteful compared to other ways of supporting XMR. Mass-medium advertising (e.g. paying to be featured on podcasts, publications) is for the cash-rich, which we're not. If it's free, then that's fine.

[iCEBREAKER]

if you build an XMR service today like xmr.to, we can keep using that service for a long time.  

marketing is pretty wasteful compared to other ways of supporting XMR. Mass-medium advertising (e.g. paying to be featured on podcasts, publications) is for the cash-rich, which we're not. If it's free, then that's fine.

Agreed.  Subsidizing transcription/translation of missives and other content (with crowdsourced XMR that might otherwise to the dev fund) is the only marketing expense that makes sense to me.  Because translation helps grow our audience/community, it should at least pay for itself in donations from outside the Anglosphere.

Development is the absolutely critical funding need.  If the devs can build out a solid enterprise-ready platform, the services which build on it (xmr.to, tippero, free/open-market) will handle advertising.

First build the better mousetrap, then let the world do the rest.   

[Shrikez]

if you build an XMR service today like xmr.to, we can keep using that service for a long time.  

marketing is pretty wasteful compared to other ways of supporting XMR. Mass-medium advertising (e.g. paying to be featured on podcasts, publications) is for the cash-rich, which we're not. If it's free, then that's fine.

Agreed.  Subsidizing transcription/translation of missives and other content (with crowdsourced XMR that might otherwise to the dev fund) is the only marketing expense that makes sense to me.  Because translation helps grow our audience/community, it should at least pay for itself in donations from outside the Anglosphere.

-snip-

I've been pondering to translate getmonero to German and Italian for a while now. My Problem, apart from the steep workload, is that the content is far from being complete. Editing it later will be a bitch and is a lot less effective.
 I could also do with some help assigning levels of importance to the content to start with the most important stuff and slowly dig into the more remote, less urgent content. The obvious parts I can figure out myself but some hints/wishes would be appreciated.

Should anyone want to donate even better haha but that's not the point. I just think that when Monero is ready for a wider audience the audience should be as large as possible.

[iCEBREAKER]

I've been pondering to translate getmonero to German and Italian for a while now. My Problem, apart from the steep workload, is that the content is far from being complete. Editing it later will be a bitch and is a lot less effective.
 I could also do with some help assigning levels of importance to the content to start with the most important stuff and slowly dig into the more remote, less urgent content. The obvious parts I can figure out myself but some hints/wishes would be appreciated.

Should anyone want to donate even better haha but that's not the point. I just think that when Monero is ready for a wider audience the audience should be as large as possible.

Has the Cryptonote whitepaper been translated?  If it has, that saves us some trouble with the highest-priority basics.  Of course it still needs to get into all 32 languages supported by transifex. 

Second highest priority would be guides for using the node/client and other wallets.  Third is the roadmap.  Fourth are the missives and digests.

Good news everyone!  Transifex is free for open source projects!

I have an open source project. Where do I sign up?

We are committed to supporting open source initiatives!
Open source projects can sign up for free using the option above and enjoy unlimited translations. If you’re an open-source project and need a premium account for some reason, get in contact with us.
https://www.transifex.com/pricing/

 

[Its About Sharing]

To non technical people just comparing the two coins, Dark may seem good enough. And what additionally worries me in a way is that many people thought OS' like Windows would eventually fall away as they were so problematic (e.g. Blue Screen of Death) but money was put into marketing. I was a DBA for Sybase in the 90's and I found it superior (at the time) and easier to use than Oracle. This was both functionally and technically (e.g. File systems on oracle and no raw partitions at the time), yet Oracle slammed Sybase with an inferior product.

The best doesn't win and since market cap / price might be the big attractor (LTC excluded lol), we should be careful with Monero in not "hedging" our bets regarding getting the word out on podcasts and such.

I'm not sure if the huge rise today in DRK is just inside buying but the volume on Poloniex has just shifted from XMR to DRK, so it makes one wonder.

You worry too much, look at Bitcoin, its miles away of any altcoin, yet facing growing technical problems like the apparent lack of fungibility and privacy, no scam will get to come near Bitcoin. Monero may.

see paycoin, aurora, etc...

The only other coin that can compete with Monero is another cryptonote coin, and it has to be better and gather larger confidence and support.

Zerocoin/Zerocash doesn't exist and looks like will never make a viable cryptocurrency, crypto is not vhs/beta, its not an operational system and not a new Internet, its layers of financial software, and people in the end will use the best, with their best interest in mind.

Not sure why you equate preparation/planning with worrying? I'm more in a creative helpful mode. If you equate inaction with contentedness, I would say it depends on many factors. Likewise, suggestions and worry are not really connected in general. Perhaps some caring, sure.

My basic perspective is that we probably would benefit from a well rounded approach to getting Monero out there. I don't see strong disagreement to that idea.
Now, you can argue that one approach is accumulation, and those early adopters then reinvest - That is fine, was mentioned before and I don't disagree for sure.
You can argue to let it come in time, that is fine as long as it works, but that is an unknown. Sitting idly in a fast moving market is probably not the best strategy.
I don't want to pay per say for spots on podcasts and such, but it would be interesting to see the point spoken about. If we have podcasts talking about anonymous Cryptos, we should be in the discussion for many obvious reasons. Anyway, I think we should be open here and not decide to hastily. We are talking about the future of Cryptos to a point.

I'm not really familiar with Zero cash, but it certainly sounds interesting. If a few BTC whales get behind anything though, look out. This small market can be easily moved.

[coinits]

My suggestion to those involved here, is that you should consider targeting not only the tech savvy but dumb things down a lot also on social media and marketing, to draw in new people. Clearly state in easy to understand ways why someone looking at Monero doesn't get lost in tech talk, but very simple reasons this coin is the best.

We've gotten quite a bit of play in the comments at http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2zrdxz/withdrawals_halted_as_stolen_evolution_coins_make/

which is currently the top post there

This is the kind of thing that can really raise awareness especially if done relevant and factual way that does not come off as spam.

I would also like to add that we started a socialmedia team some weeks ago to utilize our twitter/fb/G+ more and also make it a lot more active. We try to post/tweet, next to the weekly missives/digests, informative articles/pieces on a regular pace. So far it has been paying off since we are receiving new interest and new followers on both social media platforms.

What is the twitter link please? Are you representing the official Twitter page?

Here you go: https://twitter.com/monerocurrency
Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/monerocurrency

Official is a big word. At first Quanttek was handling it, but he didn't have enough time on his hands to maintain doing it. Having that in mind we gathered a new team (dnaleor, davidlatapie, GreekBitcoin, Quanttek (if he has time) and me). After some discussion with the core team, we came to the conclusion that this was the best way to handle it and the core team had no problem with us doing it. Having non-core members handling the socialmedia also lightens some of the workload of the core-members and they can instead focus on more important matters.

PS: I mostly post the things on Twitter and Facebook, but before that we, as a team, first discuss what is going to be posted and how we will post is.

PS2: If you have a Twitter or Facebook account, please follow/like us. Coingecko takes the amount of followers/likes in consideration and liking/following us will thus boost our rank on Coingecko.

EDIT: If you have some additional articles/pieces/posts that you think are tweetworthy, just shoot me a PM and we will look into it. Also if you have some recommendation on how to improve the managing of Twitter/Facebook, just shoot me a PM!

Thanks for this. I will look at it and let you know if I can help in some way.

Cheers!

[5w00p]

Saying that a well-designed, intuitive, easily-used Graphical User Interface doesn't matter is simply ridiculous. I realize that fluffypony had a specific issue that he was making a point about when he wrote what he did regarding adoption, business integration, and the GUI.

However, a well-designed, intuitive, and easily-used Graphical User Interface are crucial for the success of virtually any piece of software or hardware in today's day and age.
Why is Apple so successful? I would argue that their GUI's, combined with the hardware to properly utilize the potential of their GUI's, is the entire basis of their success. Sure, marketing and reputation have been vital, but without good-looking GUI's their marketing department would be trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Why is Windows more popular than Linux? Linux is free, Windows costs money. Shouldn't people run the free OS more often? Windows is easily used. Linux has come a long way, but it inevitably requires substantially more effort for the average person.

If the Monero GUI can make the slope of the learning curve so easy to climb that Your Mom Can Use It, it will be vital in propelling the success of XMR that all of us are so eager to witness.

[GingerAle]

I've been pondering to translate getmonero to German and Italian for a while now. My Problem, apart from the steep workload, is that the content is far from being complete. Editing it later will be a bitch and is a lot less effective.
 I could also do with some help assigning levels of importance to the content to start with the most important stuff and slowly dig into the more remote, less urgent content. The obvious parts I can figure out myself but some hints/wishes would be appreciated.

Should anyone want to donate even better haha but that's not the point. I just think that when Monero is ready for a wider audience the audience should be as large as possible.

Has the Cryptonote whitepaper been translated?  If it has, that saves us some trouble with the highest-priority basics.  Of course it still needs to get into all 32 languages supported by transifex. 

Second highest priority would be guides for using the node/client and other wallets.  Third is the roadmap.  Fourth are the missives and digests.

Good news everyone!  Transifex is free for open source projects!

I have an open source project. Where do I sign up?

We are committed to supporting open source initiatives!
Open source projects can sign up for free using the option above and enjoy unlimited translations. If you’re an open-source project and need a premium account for some reason, get in contact with us.
https://www.transifex.com/pricing/

 

okay, how does Transifex happen to monero? Who needs to do what?

[iCEBREAKER]

Has the Cryptonote whitepaper been translated?  If it has, that saves us some trouble with the highest-priority basics.  Of course it still needs to get into all 32 languages supported by transifex. 

Second highest priority would be guides for using the node/client and other wallets.  Third is the roadmap.  Fourth are the missives and digests.

Good news everyone!  Transifex is free for open source projects!

I have an open source project. Where do I sign up?

We are committed to supporting open source initiatives!
Open source projects can sign up for free using the option above and enjoy unlimited translations. If you’re an open-source project and need a premium account for some reason, get in contact with us.
https://www.transifex.com/pricing/

 

okay, how does Transifex happen to monero? Who needs to do what?

Who owns the missive transcription project?  Translation is the next step, so to minimize delays ideally (some of) the same people would handle both stages.

[fluffypony]

Saying that a well-designed, intuitive, easily-used Graphical User Interface doesn't matter is simply ridiculous. I realize that fluffypony had a specific issue that he was making a point about when he wrote what he did regarding adoption, business integration, and the GUI.

However, a well-designed, intuitive, and easily-used Graphical User Interface are crucial for the success of virtually any piece of software or hardware in today's day and age.
Why is Apple so successful? I would argue that their GUI's, combined with the hardware to properly utilize the potential of their GUI's, is the entire basis of their success. Sure, marketing and reputation have been vital, but without good-looking GUI's their marketing department would be trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Why is Windows more popular than Linux? Linux is free, Windows costs money. Shouldn't people run the free OS more often? Windows is easily used. Linux has come a long way, but it inevitably requires substantially more effort for the average person.

If the Monero GUI can make the slope of the learning curve so easy to climb that Your Mom Can Use It, it will be vital in propelling the success of XMR that all of us are so eager to witness.

I hope it's been demonstrated with MyMonero that we know a thing or two about UX and simplicity, and that will translate to the GUI.

That said, it's simply not acceptable for us (to echo your words) to put lipstick on a pig and ship a GUI that is pleasant enough, but takes 4 days to sync from scratch, requires 6+gb of RAM, sucks a ton of bandwidth, and is accepted nearly nowhere.

We will deliver a proverbial work of art, but it requires building out parts of the foundation that we had previously viewed as less of a priority (until the 202612 attack). Oh, and we're doing it on like no money, so there's that.

[dEBRUYNE]

Saying that a well-designed, intuitive, easily-used Graphical User Interface doesn't matter is simply ridiculous. I realize that fluffypony had a specific issue that he was making a point about when he wrote what he did regarding adoption, business integration, and the GUI.

However, a well-designed, intuitive, and easily-used Graphical User Interface are crucial for the success of virtually any piece of software or hardware in today's day and age.
Why is Apple so successful? I would argue that their GUI's, combined with the hardware to properly utilize the potential of their GUI's, is the entire basis of their success. Sure, marketing and reputation have been vital, but without good-looking GUI's their marketing department would be trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Why is Windows more popular than Linux? Linux is free, Windows costs money. Shouldn't people run the free OS more often? Windows is easily used. Linux has come a long way, but it inevitably requires substantially more effort for the average person.

If the Monero GUI can make the slope of the learning curve so easy to climb that Your Mom Can Use It, it will be vital in propelling the success of XMR that all of us are so eager to witness.

I hope it's been demonstrated with MyMonero that we know a thing or two about UX and simplicity, and that will translate to the GUI.

That said, it's simply not acceptable for us (to echo your words) to put lipstick on a pig and ship a GUI that is pleasant enough, but takes 4 days to sync from scratch, requires 6+gb of RAM, sucks a ton of bandwidth, and is accepted nearly nowhere.

We will deliver a proverbial work of art, but it requires building out parts of the foundation that we had previously viewed as less of a priority (until the 202612 attack). Oh, and we're doing it on like no money, so there's that.

I admire this view and the core team shouldn't just release some half-baked thing. I think Jojatekok or even Jwinterm's version are sufficient to use to marketeer once the DB is integrated in it. You can find screens of jojatekok's wallet here -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=683365.0. As you can see, that shouldn't be to hard to use for the average Joe.

[wpalczynski]

Saying that a well-designed, intuitive, easily-used Graphical User Interface doesn't matter is simply ridiculous. I realize that fluffypony had a specific issue that he was making a point about when he wrote what he did regarding adoption, business integration, and the GUI.

However, a well-designed, intuitive, and easily-used Graphical User Interface are crucial for the success of virtually any piece of software or hardware in today's day and age.
Why is Apple so successful? I would argue that their GUI's, combined with the hardware to properly utilize the potential of their GUI's, is the entire basis of their success. Sure, marketing and reputation have been vital, but without good-looking GUI's their marketing department would be trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Why is Windows more popular than Linux? Linux is free, Windows costs money. Shouldn't people run the free OS more often? Windows is easily used. Linux has come a long way, but it inevitably requires substantially more effort for the average person.

If the Monero GUI can make the slope of the learning curve so easy to climb that Your Mom Can Use It, it will be vital in propelling the success of XMR that all of us are so eager to witness.

I hope it's been demonstrated with MyMonero that we know a thing or two about UX and simplicity, and that will translate to the GUI.

That said, it's simply not acceptable for us (to echo your words) to put lipstick on a pig and ship a GUI that is pleasant enough, but takes 4 days to sync from scratch, requires 6+gb of RAM, sucks a ton of bandwidth, and is accepted nearly nowhere.

We will deliver a proverbial work of art, but it requires building out parts of the foundation that we had previously viewed as less of a priority (until the 202612 attack). Oh, and we're doing it on like no money, so there's that.

I admire this view and the core team shouldn't just release some half-baked thing. I think Jojatekok or even Jwinterm's version are sufficient enough to use to marketeer once the DB is integrated in it. You can find screens of jojatekok's wallet here -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=683365.0. As you can see, that shouldn't be to hard to use for the average Joe.

I actually really like using this GUI Monero wallet.  Sure it's not released by the official DEV team but so what?  To the people who are afraid of their funds being stolen by its creator (some imaginary backdoor or exploit) I will say that if it was to happen it would have happened by now.  I and many others have been using it for an extended period of time with no problems and certainly no Moneroj missing.  Some of the people using it have high balances of Moneroj, certainly worth pushing the button so to speak if there was such a possibility.  Its Safe, Simple and Super Easy to use!!

Not everyone in the crypto community is a scammer.  And to that I'll add that from my almost 1 year experience with the people behind and involved with Monero they seem to be some of the most honest, hardworking and objective people in the cryptocurrency world.

[Its About Sharing]

The Missives in podcast format is just such a brilliant and helpful thing. Incredibly well done guys (and much appreciated.)
I think having them transcribed would allow valuable information to appear via Search Engines.

Would you consider other "podcasts" to maybe give an intro and inside look at Monero and what it means, does, basic tech, etc.?
I really enjoyed that long podcast you did on Monero (Think you were guests on a podcast, forget now.)

I think once word gets out in audio format that really crosses many barriers and potentially hits new audiences.

Podcast ad? That I would chip in and pay for on one of the LTBTC affiliates (if others thought it was a good idea).
Is it ok to just say "Learn about the most advanced anonymous coin out there. Check us out
at www.... or look at our forum at www...." Whatever slogan/ad you want. Just something real short and basic, can let people learn more in a concise way, not
having to search forums per say. Just like the perfect app for the common man, we need a way to communicate in the same way.

Just an idea.

[iCEBREAKER]

there is even a "Monero Mountain" near the city, and careful with the "Monero Canyon"

Monero Mountain, future home of the People's Crypto-Republic of Tacotopia!



But Monero Canyon's temporary autonomous zone will have better parties... 

[mmortal03]

Monero will never be a contender until it loses its dependency on BTC.

If consumers can't easily acquire XMR, then merchant adoption is out of the question. Fluffypony is right that a GUI means nothing. The core team builds the protocol. It's the responsibility of third parties to develop the necessary tools for consumers.

But we will never have the consumer demand to drive such third party development without a dedicated and easy fiat exchange. Notice I said "dedicated." It's not enough to be included on some BTC-fiat platform with other alts. There needs to be a stupidly easy way to purchase XMR with fiat money. And yes, I realize that achieving this (legally) is an extremely challenging problem.

In Europe, you can already send money to Bitfinex using SWIFT, and then transfer whatever the equivalent is in dollars as TetherUSD to Poloniex, correct? Poloniex has low volume on the XMR-TetherUSD pair at the moment, but this should definitely be further popularized here if it's possible. I can't go this route, as I can't send money from my US bank to Bitfinex using SWIFT, but there should be a good number of international people who can.

[mmortal03]

Recently a close friend of mine asked me how she could acquire some xmr. I agreed to get some for her, but should I instead have replied, "oh, monero isn't popular enough among crypto geeks for you to be able to buy it with your dollars. Instead you have to buy this other much more popular crypto first, and then trade it on a complicated exchange that won't make sense to regular folks like yourself"?

Valid point IMO.

Even something like retail prepaid cards would be much better.

Everyone always says this for every coin. Fact is the demand isn't there. Nobody noticed that polo offers usdt, nobody noticed how hilarious the volume is.

USDT is fairly useless. It's still crypto and you still need to buy USDT with USD somehow unless you are trading crypto-to-crypto.

It's not useless if people here start to use it to buy XMR directly.

[mmortal03]

The best doesn't win and since market cap / price might be the big attractor (LTC excluded lol), we should be careful with Monero in not "hedging" our bets regarding getting the word out on podcasts and such.

I'm not sure if the huge rise today in DRK is just inside buying but the volume on Poloniex has just shifted from XMR to DRK, so it makes one wonder.

Evan Duffield was on the LTB podcast the other day. We need to get the XMR devs on there, end of story.