I travel a lot, so would be fun to start decorating the places I visit (within reason). https://tuxstix.com/product/monero-xmr-stickers/ would be perfect but it is only EU for shipping. https://monerosupplies.com/ also would have been perfect but they seem to redirect to Trocador for some reason now.
Just completed my first trade on https://retoswap.com/ going from cash->monero. I highly suggest you also try it out! Time spent sending a letter with cash is a small price to pay for not being KYC'd and being snitched on to the IRS and who knows who else by centralized exchanges.
When a 'privacy' coin has the ability to freeze the main pool used for private transactions, one must question if they are actually a private coin, or if they are actually just a Bitcoin fork with a small amount of glitter artfully smeared on top.
https://internetfreedom.torproject.org/projects/onion-browser/
Tor is doing a crowdfunding campaign for a bunch of privacy projects. The way they track it is by looking at on-chain transactions, and because they don't have the view keys for the Monero addresses, they cannot track them. Thus, we have proudly broken Tor's campaign.
PS (site shill): if you want a more comprehensive list of places that accept donations via Monero, check out: https://donatemonero.org
There are two main objections I have heard so far:
Staking isn't private/permissionless" -
Zano has already proven that it can be. See:
https://docs.zano.org/docs/learn/zano-features/overview/#zarcanum-anonymous-proof-of-stake
Monero has largely become what it is today by borrowing aspects that other projects have already proven to be sound. For example, privacy research into Bitcoin brought us Dandelion++. Taking inspiration from Zano here is no different.
"Staking recreates the banking system" -
Yes, true. Staking rewards go to those who already own Monero.
However, below I will outline how Monero has already recreated the banking system, just without the benefits that come with a finality layer and staking:
Its emission was far faster than Bitcoin's, so its supply is likely still more centralized. See:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/512kwh/useful_for_learning_about_monero_coin_emission/
And now that we have entered tail emission, a significant portion of its hashrate appears to be controlled by botnets. See:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MoneroMining/comments/1t8u423/miner_on_my_cpanel_making_insane_hashrate/
I realize this accounts for only 2-3% of the global hashrate, but this is a single botnet operator. In all likelihood, more than one operator is running botnets mining Monero, so it is entirely possible that a large share (perhaps even the majority, if I were to speculate), of Monero's hashrate comes from botnets.
Thus, Monero has effectively recreated the banking system because early miners hold a large portion of the supply (more so than many other coins), and you cannot realistically acquire it today through mining because mining profitability is made miserable by botnets. This also further centralizes supply, since rewards are concentrated among a relatively small number of botnet operators.
TL;DR
If we have already recreated a form of centralized banking, and staking has already been implemented privately elsewhere, and there are numerous benefits to a finality layer (faster transaction times for day-to-day payments, a more secure network that does not rely solely on botnets that do not have our interests in mind, and no reorgs like with Qubic), why has Monero been so closed-minded toward a finality layer?
This will be updated on a semi-frequent basis when usage stats become outdated, or new businesses decide to publicly list their Crypto payment data.
Why does it matter?
- One of the false claims often used against Monero is that it is only used by criminals. This site makes this claim easy to disprove, without having to waste time explaining.
- Having a centralized place with this data can be used as an effective means to convince businesses/individuals to accept Monero.
Please, please, please do your own research rather than believing the words of someone on this Reddit, who may very well even be writing posts with AI to sow distrust in Monero.
A good place to start is with Jeffro's talk at Monerotopia: https://www.youtube.com/live/87xayqeQY2E?t=6640s
If you have questions you can always join community hangouts and ask them there: https://www.getmonero.org/community/hangouts/
Discord, IRC, Matrix, etc.
I'm hoping this can finally be put to rest with this post, as every other week there seems to be a new potentially-not-human-created post that gets a ton of engagement and successfully creates confusion for those not in the loop.
