[XMR] Monero Speculation

[child_harold]

1. Roughly how many XMR are currently sitting on Polo? (looking at polo im guessing a very high number)

2. Roughly what percentage of coins are secured by users themselves (i.e. on their own computers)?

3. Roughly how many XMR does mymonero hold? Looking at mymonero it says the user controls their private key. But can they back it up (i.e. the .dat or XMR equiv) in case the site gets hacked?

4. Roughly how many XMR are mined every day?


Thanks in advance.

[smooth]

1. How many XMR are currently sitting on Polo?

You'd have to ask polo. I doubt they will tell you though.

2. What percentage of coins are secured by users themselves?

Unknown

3. How many XMR does mymonero hold?

Also unknown.

Looking at mymonero it says the user controls their private key. But can they back it up in case the site gets hacked?

Users can back up their key by writing it down (or printing, taking a picture, storing in a file, etc., but writing is safest).

4. Roughly how many XMR are mined every day?

At least this one we can answer. About 18,000.

[aminorex]

Probably about 500k on polo.  Less now than before, since I've been moving mine off this past week.  Stupid daily withdrawal limit.

Almost certainly > 80% are secured by users.

[child_harold]

1. How many XMR are currently sitting on Polo?

You'd have to ask polo. I doubt they will tell you though.

2. What percentage of coins are secured by users themselves?

Unknown

3. How many XMR does mymonero hold?

Also unknown.

Looking at mymonero it says the user controls their private key. But can they back it up in case the site gets hacked?

Users can back up their key by writing it down (or printing, taking a picture, storing in a file, etc., but writing is safest).

4. Roughly how many XMR are mined every day?

At least this one we can answer. About 18,000.

Thanks for the reply.

1. Dont get the bit about writing down ur private key. I'm accustomed to backing up a .dat file. If mymonero explodes or whatever and im left holding a piece of paper with some random words on it I'm not sure how I could recover my funds! Pls explain

2. More generally speaking has there ever been aired by members of the community concerns regarding centralization of XMR or difficulties in securing the coins on your own PC?

Thanks

[smooth]

1. Dont get the bit about writing down ur private key. I'm accustomed to backing up a .dat file. If mymonero explodes or whatever and im left holding a piece of paper with some random words on it I'm not sure how I could recover my funds! Pls explain

The standard (command line) wallet software has a function called "restore-deterministic wallet" that asks you for a list of words and restore the wallet from that. Unfortunately there is a small difference in the format of the words used by mymonero currently so this doesn't in fact work, but it will be fixed soon. In the event of a mymonero failure you can be sure it would be fixed in short order (by other community members even if not by the core team).

2. More generally speaking has there ever been aired by members of the community concerns regarding centralization of XMR or difficulties in securing the coins on your own PC?

Has there ever? Sure.

This is a matter of baby steps. In the couple of months we've seen mymonero and lightwallet added to the mix. More such user friendly solutions will follow, along with continued strengthening of the core technology. Mymonero really is far less centralized than exchanges though, so this is really not such a small baby step.

[smooth]

Stupid daily withdrawal limit.

I think you can ask support for a larger withdrawal. The daily limit is mostly because they keep many coins offline in cold storage and don't want the hot wallet to run out.

[child_harold]

1. Dont get the bit about writing down ur private key. I'm accustomed to backing up a .dat file. If mymonero explodes or whatever and im left holding a piece of paper with some random words on it I'm not sure how I could recover my funds! Pls explain

The standard (command line) wallet software has a function called "restore-deterministic wallet" that asks you for a list of words and restore the wallet from that. Unfortunately there is a small difference in the format of the words used by mymonero currently so this doesn't in fact work, but it will be fixed soon. In the event of a mymonero failure you can be sure it would be fixed in short order (by other community members even if not by the core team).

Fascinating. Never knew about this restore-deterministic wallet function. Really cool but is it as secure as having a password protected file on a thumb dive (something you know and something you have) versus simply something you know (the random words)? Brute forcing   restore-deterministic wallet passwords is mathematically almost impossible? I have unlimited guesses? I notice they are all dictionary words… I hope you have a good vocab

Thanks for fielding these Q's
All the best

EDIT: or would i need to enter passphrase AND my address to recover funds?

[nioc]

The Electrum wallet for btc also is a deterministic wallet that uses a 12 word seed.  Even if you know somebody is using Electrum or Monero and also know the word list, I think the Electrum list is public and I imagine Monero as well, the "seed" is unhackable. 

[saddambitcoin]

Quoting this for child_harold, from Monero core dev fluffypony:

I just tried the new Monero 0.8.8.6-release. Maybe it's a stupid question but those "25 words" that can be used to recover access to my wallet seems to be generated from some predefined dictionary... so I'm wondering

(i) if I can choose my own set of 25 (imaginary) words, and
(ii) if a brute-force wordbook attack would be feasible in order to crack my wallet given that the predefined dictionary is surely finite.

In short, can I somehow turn this recovery-feature off to feel safer?

1. No

2. It's a 24 word seed + a single word checksum. This gives you a 256-byte key generated from a 1626-word word list (position relative to the previous word is important, and they're generated in sets of 3 - i.e. 32 bits per set). You'd need the world's computational power and then more time than our sun will exist.

[lyth0s]

XMR price pretty stable around 0.00178 for the past 3 hours...impressive that there wasn't a massive sell off quick profits.

[jehst]

XMR price pretty stable around 0.00178 for the past 3 hours...impressive that there wasn't a massive sell off quick profits.

If people want to dump, they can. Maybe they're asleep.

[lyth0s]

XMR price pretty stable around 0.00178 for the past 3 hours...impressive that there wasn't a massive sell off quick profits.

If people want to dump, they can. Maybe they're asleep.

Of course. But they haven't dumped almost all day. I'd imagine they would have dumped before bed if they planned on doing it before the day's end. Now we have to wait until tomorrow to see what happens.

[ArticMine]

In the US, you have Coinbase monitoring your transactions and cancelling accounts if you spend BTC at a gambling site, buy cannabis seeds, or do whatever is deemed unacceptable by the gov.

Is this true? If it is, are they just monitoring transactions out of Coinbase (Coinbase->dice) or further (Coinbase->wallet->dice)?

I can confirm with 100% certainly they monitor what you are doing and ask questions not just transactions out but also transactions in.

I don't know specifically what blockchain analysis they are doing, how far down the chain it goes, etc.

There are reports (which I can't confirm) of false positives on allegedly suspicious BTC activity which suggest they are looking more than one hop.

Ok, that should certainly be very good for XMR. There's something very wrong and evil in Coinbase's actions...two or three years ago, no one would have believed there will be something like this in the future. Sometimes I don't like the way bitcoin is developing.

Another angle on this is Operation Choke Point in the US. http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Staff-Report-FDIC-and-Operation-Choke-Point-12-8-2014.pdf. Basically certain industries are being targeted for the denial of financial services by officials in the FIDC and the Department of Justice.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the primary federal regulator of over 4,500 banks, targeted legal industries. FDIC equated legitimate and regulated activities such as coin dealers and firearms and ammunition sales with inherently pernicious or patently illegal activities such as Ponzi schemes, debt consolidation scams, and drug paraphernalia.

Coinbase's actions are hardly surprising in this context. The opportunity this creates for crypto currency in general and XMR in particular becomes clear when one understands the power of the gun lobby in the United States for example.

Edit: Here is an interesting video on the subject. http://overlawyered.com/2014/12/operation-choke-point-hits-ammunition-company-maryland/

[lyth0s]

In the US, you have Coinbase monitoring your transactions and cancelling accounts if you spend BTC at a gambling site, buy cannabis seeds, or do whatever is deemed unacceptable by the gov.

Is this true? If it is, are they just monitoring transactions out of Coinbase (Coinbase->dice) or further (Coinbase->wallet->dice)?

I can confirm with 100% certainly they monitor what you are doing and ask questions not just transactions out but also transactions in.

I don't know specifically what blockchain analysis they are doing, how far down the chain it goes, etc.

There are reports (which I can't confirm) of false positives on allegedly suspicious BTC activity which suggest they are looking more than one hop.

Ok, that should certainly be very good for XMR. There's something very wrong and evil in Coinbase's actions...two or three years ago, no one would have believed there will be something like this in the future. Sometimes I don't like the way bitcoin is developing.

Another angle on this is Operation Choke Point in the US. http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Staff-Report-FDIC-and-Operation-Choke-Point-12-8-20. Basically certain industries are being targeted for the denial of financial services by officials in the FIDC and the Department of Justice.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the primary federal regulator of over 4,500 banks, targeted legal industries. FDIC equated legitimate and regulated activities such as coin dealers and firearms and ammunition sales with inherently pernicious or patently illegal activities such as Ponzi schemes, debt consolidation scams, and drug paraphernalia.

Coinbase's actions are hardly surprising in this context. The opportunity this creates for crypto currency in general and XMR in particular becomes clear when one understands the power of the gun lobby in the United States for example.

Edit: Here is an interesting video on the subject. http://overlawyered.com/2014/12/operation-choke-point-hits-ammunition-company-maryland/

Your first link no longer exists 404, do you have a copy of the original?

[ArticMine]

...

Your first link no longer exists 404, do you have a copy of the original?

Corrected in the post and below. http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Staff-Report-FDIC-and-Operation-Choke-Point-12-8-2014.pdf Thanks.

[lyth0s]

In the US, you have Coinbase monitoring your transactions and cancelling accounts if you spend BTC at a gambling site, buy cannabis seeds, or do whatever is deemed unacceptable by the gov.

Is this true? If it is, are they just monitoring transactions out of Coinbase (Coinbase->dice) or further (Coinbase->wallet->dice)?

I can confirm with 100% certainly they monitor what you are doing and ask questions not just transactions out but also transactions in.

I don't know specifically what blockchain analysis they are doing, how far down the chain it goes, etc.

There are reports (which I can't confirm) of false positives on allegedly suspicious BTC activity which suggest they are looking more than one hop.

Ok, that should certainly be very good for XMR. There's something very wrong and evil in Coinbase's actions...two or three years ago, no one would have believed there will be something like this in the future. Sometimes I don't like the way bitcoin is developing.

Another angle on this is Operation Choke Point in the US. http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Staff-Report-FDIC-and-Operation-Choke-Point-12-8-2014.pdf. Basically certain industries are being targeted for the denial of financial services by officials in the FIDC and the Department of Justice.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the primary federal regulator of over 4,500 banks, targeted legal industries. FDIC equated legitimate and regulated activities such as coin dealers and firearms and ammunition sales with inherently pernicious or patently illegal activities such as Ponzi schemes, debt consolidation scams, and drug paraphernalia.

Coinbase's actions are hardly surprising in this context. The opportunity this creates for crypto currency in general and XMR in particular becomes clear when one understands the power of the gun lobby in the United States for example.

Edit: Here is an interesting video on the subject. http://overlawyered.com/2014/12/operation-choke-point-hits-ammunition-company-maryland/

Thanks! Added a quick write up here. Also included Monero as a payment alternative
http://www.geekcipher.com/featured/fdic-operation-choke-point-could-bitcoin-be-the-answer/

[smooth]

EDIT: or would i need to enter passphrase AND my address to recover funds?

saddambitcoin quoted a correct answer to the rest of your questions but in response to this one the answer is no. You need just the seed words. The address is derived from those.

[tokeweed]

XMR price pretty stable around 0.00178 for the past 3 hours...impressive that there wasn't a massive sell off quick profits.

If people want to dump, they can. Maybe they're asleep.

Of course. But they haven't dumped almost all day. I'd imagine they would have dumped before bed if they planned on doing it before the day's end. Now we have to wait until tomorrow to see what happens.

why not hold for now instead, and sell later for a much better price? 

[restless]

I haven't paid attention recently - whats the reasoning behind this last small pump?

[S3052]

I want to elaborate a bit on the comment on Monero I made on October 3, 2014. At that time, Monero traded at 0.00315 BTC and then dropped by -71.11% to 0.00091 BTC. XMR is still down -44.44% from October 3.

This is what I said back then:

"...There is no big enough reason that XMR outperforms these other assets yet. XMR would need much more awareness and traction to make it outperform."

This is still true in general.  Currently, Monero is #17 in terms of market capitalization.

I am not the expert on cryptocurrency technicalities. I have heard that Monero seems to have some advantages over bitcoin. But to make this hold and manifest, much more awareness is needed.
Even if Monero would be as good or even better than the other altcoins, just because it was not one of the first, it needs much more effort to overtake them..

David Latapie mentioned to me the latest initiatives (new wallet, marketing task force), which I think is going into the right direction.
The recent price rally could be the first inidication that things change for the good for Monero.
It will be exciting to watch and bullbearanalytics will continue to cover Monero.

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