Talk:Monero/Archive 1

Latest comment: 7 months ago by Jtbobwaysf in topic Proposal for adding Monero sign
Archive 1

Creation of the article by a NPOV author

This is a bona fide introduction to Monero.

I am member of the Core Team. Despite trying my best to offer only factual informations, I may have written biased content. I asked several time people to write a Monero article but no one did it. My hope is that this article will bootstrap writing an article were my writings get diluted among content created by more neutral people.

Similarly, if you find something that could be neutralised and do not know how to do it, please mention it here. Hopefully someone else than me will neutralise it.

Thank you for your cooperation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Latapie (talkcontribs) 10:41, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Monero history

I did some research and linked the events from the first days of BitMonero/Monero, most of it from bitcointalk.org, history is important for legitimacy and now everyone can read through the archives and understand how Monero came to be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nemesis0618 (talkcontribs) 18:38, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

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Is this still legal? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.104.113.89 (talk) 23:12, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Usage

The section usage looks to me like an advertisement. XMR.TO aparently is a commercial service. With the same relevance, one could add any other commercial service, accepting XMR as a payment which would result in a very long list. If there is no opposition, I will delete this section after a few days. --DirtyDishes (talk) 21:00, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Indeed! One could add a usage section explaining how to (i) buy Monero, (ii) store them (what sort of wallets do they have? Is the block chain so big that it is too massive to download, thus making Ethereum type wallets desireable?), (iii) how to exchange other altcoins for Monero and vice versa. I'd be interested in seeing this information in Wikipedia.
Thanks! Lehasa (talk) 12:59, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
Monero can be bought and sold for various other cryptocurrencies, as well as euros and US dollars, at https://www.kraken.com/ . I used them to sell Litecoins and received euros deposited in a bank account, so it really works. This was about two years ago, though.
I assume there are other similar sites; I mention this one simply because I know it exists. 199.246.169.15 (talk) 02:23, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

interest rate issue

User:103.9.76.7 whatever your deal is with the interest rate, it is not a simple thing. Per WP:INFOBOX, infoboxes are for simple facts that are supported by reliable sources in the body of the article.

Please add reliably sourced (not from something uploaded to google docs) content about that to the body, and we can see if it boil-downable to something for the infobox. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 04:04, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Promotional "note" only in the lead

The following was tucked into the lead.

Monero's modular code architecture has been praised by Wladimir J. van der Laan, a Bitcoin Core maintainer.[1]

References

  1. ^ "Wladimir J. van der Laan". http://bitcoin-development.narkive.com/. Retrieved 29 September 2015. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)

A few things

  1. Per WP:LEAD, nothing goes in the lead, that is not in the body. The lead just summarizes the body.
  2. The "who cares?" question looms rather large. Why should the world care that van der Laan likes the architecture? Wikipedia is written for a general audience, and the question matters.

This is the kind of spammy thing that gets added into WP some times, and it needs justification and better placement in the article, if we are to keep it. Jytdog (talk) 04:08, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Spam, lead

Hey. Content in the lead summarizes the body. We base content on independent, reliable sources in WP. We do not need a link to the website in the first "reference". Jytdog (talk) 18:54, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

WP:OR, bad sourcing

The following contains original research - straight WP:OR as well as WP:SYN, and really terrible sourcing.

Folks need to find independent, reliable sources that meet the WP:RS criteria and check all this against them.

comments on reddit are not OK, and neither are youtube videos by who knows who. these two edits earlier today were an assertion by an editor about the relevance of two academic papers ; we need an actual RS that says those papers are relevant, not just an editor saying so.

Privacy
 
The changes in the results of blockchain analysis after implementing the ring signatures.

Monero protects privacy in three ways for all transactions on the network: 1) ring signatures hide the sending address, 2) RingCT hides the amount of the transaction (currently enabled by default and mandatory by the end of the 2017), and 3) stealth addresses hide the receiving address of the transaction.[1] A planned fourth way conceals the origin node for transactions in I2P, and the Kovri router that would allow for this is currently in development. The following paragraphs describe these three technologies in more depth.

Monero daemon uses the original CryptoNote protocol except for the initial changes (as the block time and emission speed). The protocol itself is based on stealth addresses and "one-time ring signatures"[2], invented by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Yael Tauman (2001)[3] and modified by E. Fujisaki and K. Suzuki (2007)[4]. Cryptography used for signature is essentially Daniel J. Bernstein's library for Ed25519, which is Schnorr signatures on the Twisted Edwards curve. The end result is passive, decentralised mixing based on heavily-tested algorithms.[5]

However, several improvements were suggested by Monero Research Lab which covered the proper use of ring signatures for better privacy.[6] Specifically, the proposals included "a protocol-level network-wide minimum mix-in policy of n = 2 foreign outputs per ring signature", "a nonuniform transaction output selection method for ring generation" and "a torrent-style method of sending Monero output".[7] These changes, which were implemented in version 0.9.0 "Hydrogen Helix",[8] can help protect user's privacy in a CryptoNote-based currency according to the authors.

As a consequence, Monero features an opaque blockchain (with an explicit allowance system called the viewkey), in sharp contrast with transparent blockchain used by any other cryptocurrency not based on CryptoNote. Thus, Monero is said to be "private, optionally transparent". On top of very strong privacy by default, such a system permits net neutrality on the blockchain (miners cannot become censors, since they do not know where the transaction goes or what it contains) while still permitting auditing when desired (for instance, tax audit or public display of the finances of an NGO).[9] Furthermore, Monero is considered by many to offer truly fungible coins.[10][11][12]

In April 2017, several research papers criticized the input selection method,[13][14] arguing that the current method makes it easier to guess the real transaction input than ideal. Community discussions have been in progress through most of 2017 to improve this selection algorithm to better reflect real use.[15]

References

  1. ^ "Monero: The Essentials". YouTube. Retrieved 4 March 2017.
  2. ^ Saberhagen, Nicolas. "CryptoNote" (PDF). cryptonote.org. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
  3. ^ How to leak a secret, Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Yael Tauman, ASIACRYPT 2001, pp 552-565. doi:10.1007/3-540-45682-1_32
  4. ^ Eiichiro Fujisaki and Koutarou Suzuki. Traceable ring signature. In Public Key Cryptography, pages 181–200, 2007.
  5. ^ Spagni, Riccardo. "Alright devs, own up: what's the deal with "magic" block 202612?". Reddit. Retrieved 29 March 2015. Based on our current level of technology and our current understanding of cryptography there is no vulnerability in ring signatures, not in theory nor in our implementation (which is mostly based on old, exceedingly well-tested cryptography and code from SUPERCOP / libsodium / NaCL). The cryptography is directly based on work that is nearly 10 years old, which in turn is grounded in cryptography in a paper from 1991, so we're talking about something that has already been analysed by very gifted cryptographers.
  6. ^ "Monero Research Labs". getmonero.org. Monero. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  7. ^ Mackenzie, Adam; Noether, Surae; Monero Core Team. "Improving Obfuscation in the CryptoNote Protocol" (PDF). getmonero.org. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  8. ^ https://getmonero.org/2016/01/01/monero-0.9.0-hydrogen-helix-released.html
  9. ^ Latapie, David. "March FinTech Open Mic Night – Monero". youtube.com. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
  10. ^ "Monero is not an Altcoin – The arrival of fungible digital money". steemit.com. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  11. ^ "On Fungibility, Bitcoin, Monero and why ZCash is a bad idea". weuse.cash. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  12. ^ "About Monero". getmonero.org. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  13. ^ Kumar, Amrit; et al. "A Traceability Analysis of Monero's Blockchain". University of Singapore. Retrieved 4 May 2017. {{cite web}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last1= (help)
  14. ^ "[Discussion] Raising the mandatory ringsize in the v6 hardfork, September 2017". GitHub. GitHub. Retrieved 4 May 2017.

-- Jytdog (talk 02:32, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Sourcing

User:Verifiedaccount Wikipedia articles are based on independent, high quality sources. We use primary sources and WP:SPS only with great care. Jytdog (talk) 21:41, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Some examples
i don't doubt that in the way you and some others think and read about cryptocurrencies you find these important (although not the Reuters ref which doesn't even mention Monero) but this is not how Wikipedia articles are built. Jytdog (talk) 22:20, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
User:Verifiedaccount still looking to discuss with you here... Jytdog (talk) 22:51, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

RingCT / CT attribution

The change in https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Monero_(cryptocurrency)&oldid=801229609 is correct. The following change by User:VerifiedAccount reverted it, perpetuating the incorrect information. Greg Maxwell didn't develop RingCT. He developed CT. The concepts demonstrated in CT are used in RingCT but none of the CT code is present in RingCT. The development of RingCT is all original work in Monero. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.136.45.51 (talk) 13:10, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Recent Vandalism

This article has been extensively vandalized (see: Wikipedia:Blanking) by a small number of users under the guise of cleaning up inadequate sourcing. A quick glance of history page will see that a large amount of independently sourced, high quality content has been removed by users such as Jytdog. Over the next week or so I will be reviewing the edits carefully, reverting vandalism/blanking and adding additional sources where needed. I will begin by restoring it to its unvandalized state, then carefully and critically auditing all content to ensure it meets guidelines. From then on the page will be actively monitored. Further vandalism will be referred to moderators and I will recommend the page be locked. If you have any questions, please drop a message at my talk page. Thanks. DreamingSea (talk) 06:39, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, do see your talk page. Jytdog (talk) 13:28, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Blanking Follow-up

There appears to be some controversy regarding adding content to the page. While it would be much more efficient to restore the page to a more complete state and use that as a starting point to improve it, to avoid conflict I will instead add edits incrementally. Note that the page is a work in progress. Will users: Investanto, Jytdog and Timewalk kindly avoid edit warring while the article is improved, thanks.

DreamingSea (talk) 15:03, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi! As the article has been protected before you've wrote this, there's no possibility to do edit warring from my side at least. TimeWalk (talk) 15:17, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
thumbsup: DreamingSea (talk) 15:21, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

My focus initially will be significantly improving the quality of the references. After that, I will add back in content that is supported by those references, then polish the grammar and structure. Thanks

P.S., I'm glad there's so much fresh interest in this page. Given time and collaboration, I'm sure we'll all end up with a great article!.DreamingSea (talk) 15:24, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Any place you'll put your draft? Could be useful to give feedback or add changes.
P.S. I've added some : so that it's more readable. Add them at every line if you write multi-line messages TimeWalk (talk) 15:51, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Tag

Will the user who added the buzz-words tag please clarify what specific terms they are referring to, as I have been unable to identify any. If no one is able to, I suggest removing it. Thanks. DreamingSea (talk) 15:05, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

I think it's outdated. If no one objects within a week, I will remove it. Sounds good? Emesik (talk) 01:37, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
thanks for your contributions to the artile. i trimmed some crystalball stuff but otherwise great. i removed the "buzz" tag. Jytdog (talk) 03:29, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Secondary Sources

As one of the Monero Core Team it would be untoward of me to edit the Wikipedia page, other than to correct any clear errors others have missed. Nonetheless, in order to satisfy the notability requirement the following should be considered: "Notability requires only the existence of suitable independent, reliable sources, not their immediate citation." To that end I have compiled a list of media, academic, and other sources that are either about Monero, or mention Monero. It is worth noting that cryptocurrencies are a "niche" (albeit a rather large one), and as such the majority of the news outlets that would cover Monero are cryptocurrency related, while "mainstream" media largely finds cryptocurrencies disinteresting. At any rate, some of these may be relevant to the Wikipedia article, the rest can live on in perpetuity on this talk page.

Online Media

Print Media

Due to the technological aspect of cryptocurrencies it is unlikely there will be print articles about Monero any time soon.

Books

  • Handbook of Digital Currency: Bitcoin, Innovation, Financial Instruments, and Big Data - David Lee Kuo Chuen, 2015 Google Books Link
  • Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies - Andreas M. Antonopoulos, 2014. Google Books Link
  • Black Market Cryptocurrencies, The rise of bitcoin alternatives that offer true anonymity - Will Martin, 2014. Google Books Link
  • Anonymous Cryptocurrencies: The Rise of Bitcoin Alternatives That Offer True Anonymity - Will Martin, 2014. Google Books Link

Academic and Research Papers

It is worth noting that the Monero Research Lab research bulletins (as found on https://lab.getmonero.org) are in Google Scholar's database, and have been cited by some researchers. Nonetheless, the list below refers to papers that aren't MRL publications.

  • Trends in crypto-currencies and blockchain technologies: A monetary theory and regulation perspective - Gareth W. Peters, Efstathios Panayi, Ariane Chapelle, 2015. Link
  • An Analysis of the Cryptocurrency Industry - Ryan Farell, University of Pennsylvania, 2015. Link
  • Enabling Blockchain Innovations with Pegged Sidechains - Adam Back, Matt Corallo, Luke Dashjr, Mark Friedenbach, Gregory Maxwell, Andrew Miller, Andrew Poelstra,

Jorge Timón, and Pieter Wuille, 2014. Link

  • Can bitcoin be self-regulatory legal tender? : a comparative analysis of United States, European Union and Islamic legal systems - Mohammad Mahmoud Ibrahim Tayel, 2015. Link

I'm certain others will expand this list over time, and I trust this settles the "notability" requirement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fluffypony (talkcontribs) 08:05, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for posting.
  • So the crypto-blogs in the topmost list are often full of hype and need to be taken very much case by case. Some of them are very good and careful, some not.
  • Among the books:
  • Handbook of Digital Currency is fine, Academic Press. Has only a few mentions of monero, but something!
  • Mastering Bitcoin - I would use this carefully. It is published by O'Reilly Media which does a lot of hype. (even that WP article is obviously promotional)
  • Black Market Cryptocurrencies and Anonymous Cryptocurrencies are both self-published, not OK
  • academic and research papers.
  • "Trends" is not an actual journal article, but a gussied up Ernst & Young report - you can download the published version directly from the "journal" here. Also Monero is mentioned once and not discussed.
  • "An Analysis of the Cryptocurrency Industry" is a (master's?) thesis. This is not the greatest source but would be kind of OK... however monero is only mentioned 3 times and not discussed.
  • "Enabling Blockchain Innovations with Pegged Sidechains" is not a journal article, but a white paper by the founders of Blockstream. Not peer reviewed, and is SPS. Monero is mentioned in one paragraph only, so not a lot of use anyway.
  • "Can bitcoin be self-regulatory legal tender?" is like the "Analysis" paper a thesis. So similarly marginally reliable. It only mentions the word "monero" and doesn't discuss it though.

-- Jytdog (talk) 19:13, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 4 November 2017

Hi.

In this part: "runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and FreeBSD", "Mac" should be "macOS" And in: "for the financial gain of the malware develope.r", "develope.r" should be "developer."

Thanks. Wrapash (talk) 06:14, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

somebody did this. Jytdog (talk) 08:23, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Cyptocurrency hype; sourcing

So about content concerning "upcoming features". Please stop adding content like this.

Everybody understands that a) cryptocurrencies are cutting edge (technology as well as finance); b) there is tons of speculation (technology as well as finance).

Content that is "X plans to introduce feature Y", even repeated by a cryptocurrency blog, is still at base WP:SPS and promotional. Can we please keep the "here is the exciting feature that is Coming Soon" content out of this Jytdog (talk) 13:51, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Not to mention it also violates WP:CRYSTALBALL Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:57, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
I agree, an "upcoming features" section is unnecessary speculation and not encyclopedic and therefore it's better to leave this out of the article. SPLETTE :] How's my driving? 15:28, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Yep. Crypto news sites are particularly bad for this - they'll run articles on all manner of speculative project that doesn't eventuate - David Gerard (talk) 16:42, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Oposition to Sputniknews

I'm referring to this Special:Diff/808654580 by Jytdog. Sputnik is a government backed international English language broadcaster. While it has faces criticism in its coverage of the geoplitical topics, this is a purely technical subject matter. Please outline how in your view it does not meet WP:RS. Thank you. Melmann(talk) 07:42, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Sputnik is garbage like RT. We can do way, way better. It is a waste of everybody's time to argue over just how shitty a source is. Raise source quality, please. Do you want people to read this article and think "Oh, this is such a piece of shit cryptocurrency that people have to scrape the gutter just to find sources?" That is what I think when I find Sputnik cited in Wikipedia --desperate editors. Jytdog (talk) 07:44, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Please refer to WP:AGF. As you've failed to offer any meanignful opposition aside from unsupported opinion I will be reverting your change. Please be aware of the WP:3RR before making further changes. Thanks. Melmann(talk) 07:52, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Its got nothing to do with good faith, it has to do with source quality. There is no reason to scrape the gutter with a propaganda rag. I appreciate your effort to cite policy but see WP:CLUE. Aim high, please. Really, we could get into hours of bullshit argument about whether Sputnik is just barely good enough maybe to use. What is the point? And please be aware, if you are following the "rulebook" so closely, that it is BRD, not BRd(a little)R. You will be very unlikely to get consensus to use trashy sources here. And I mean it, you will need to go to RSN and get consensus if you want to use Sputnik and everybody there will groan and say "Why are you insisting on your low quality refs? Why?" Jytdog (talk) 07:54, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
What does this have to do with propaganda? The Sputnik link is used to source the statement that Monero does not have a hard block size limit like most cryptocurrencies. Do you seriously suggest this is made up by Russian propaganda? Is there *any* doubt at all that Monero has a flexible block size? I think not. Therefore I find the argument that Sputnik is garbage to be misleading and suggest to restore that part of the article. SPLETTE :] How's my driving? 15:01, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
No, that is not what i am suggesting. Jytdog (talk) 19:04, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Reddit

Just noting this thread. Folks who come here from Reddit:

  • Please be aware that Wikipedia content is governed by "policies and guidelines" put in place by the editing community over the past 16 years. It takes time to learn them. Please see User:Jytdog/How for an overview of the mission of Wikipedia, and how this place works.
  • Please be aware of WP:MEAT, which is one of those policies. This community put that in place for obvious reasons, as many groups have tried to gather/organize off Wikipedia to influence articles. This is not OK.
  • Please also be aware that holding a cryptocurrency and then coming here to edit about that currency (or to denigrate others) is a financial conflict of interest, that needs to be managed by disclosure and by putting edits through peer review. See WP:COI.

-- Jytdog (talk) 14:39, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

I am confused about about the third point. I disagree that WP:COI necessarily applies here just by holding that cryptocurrency. I am holding Euros, does that mean I am in conflict of interest when editing Euro and that I need to disclose this on the article's talk page? I don't see any such disclosures on that talk page. Also, I am a biologist. Should I better steer clear of any biology-related articles because I am clearly biased about the topic? SPLETTE :] How's my driving? 15:12, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
It's completely straightforward and there's nothing confusing about it, it's a direct conflict of interest in the plain language sense. Euros are typically just used as money. Crypto assets are typically things held as investments with a view to them going up. Advocates have a notable tendency to want to promote the crypto they have a holding in, and do so on Wikipedia as well, as we're seeing live in action now. COI doesn't preclude editing, but the WMF TOS does require disclosure before editing. If you really want to argue the definition of "conflict of interest" and how it works at Wikipedia, I suggest you ask at WT:COI about your Euro example - David Gerard (talk) 16:42, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
User:Splette due to the boom in cryptocurrencies, and so many people watching their valuations carefully as investments per se, and especially due to the presence of online communities that advocate for (and against) various currencies, holding a crytpocurrency is now formally defined as a form of financial conflict of interest in Wikipedia.
What that means concretely is that we ask folks who hold cryptocurrencies and want to get involved at relevant articles is a) to declare the COI ("I hold currency X"), not edit directly, but instead propose changes on the talk page for prior peer review, and of course, to keep their COI in mind when they do stuff at the article - to be aware that they very likely have a bias.
This is similar to what we ask people to do who are employees of a company and want to be involved in the article about that company or is products, or someone who wants to be involved with the article about themselves or their friend, or if someone is involved in a lawsuit.
The process of managing conflict of interest through disclosure and prior peer review is common as dirt throughout the publishing world as a way to bring integrity to the publishing process. Nothing kooky here at all. Jytdog (talk) 19:13, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Discussion about MRL sources

Since the bone of contention here seems to be what kind of sources are reliable enough for Wikipedia. First of all let me state the obvious:

Blockchains are a new technology that only starts to filter through to academic journals. Anybody writing anything in this area will need to rely on self-published primary sources. AFAIK this is not against Wikipedia rules on sourcing as long as this is done with care (Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works)

With regards to the sources that we have available for Monero, I can list those off the top of my head

  • Annotated Saberhangen Whitepaper [1] - quality: self-published, contains factual errors.
  • 6 papers (later referred to as MRL papers) [2] - quality: self-published, no glaring errors that I can see
  • Singapore Paper [3] - quality: peer reviewed and published
  • ZCash Paper [4] - quality: peer reviewed and published, however it has a nearly total overlap with the Singapore paper with addition of a COI

I imagine the main sticking point for the MRL papers will be that they are published pseudonymously. The community knows them, however let me list them for the benefit of others:

Please note, for the benefit of Wiki-newbies, it is against the rules to out a pseudonym here.

  • Brandon Goodell, not a pseudonym
  • Jan Macheta, not sure
  • Adam Mackenzie, if I'm correct this is a developer with long standing contributions to bitcoin
  • Sarang Noether and Surae Noether are both academics with either PhD or MSc in Mathematics
  • Shen Noether, again not sure
  • Xavier Smooth, a monero core developer

I imagine the Monero Core team in contact with most of those people. Perhaps if they agree to waive their pseudonyms we can use their papers as a self-published primary source.

I look forward to everyone's opinion on which sources we can use and to what extent Fireice (talk) 16:18, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

>> Just a note here... Surae Noether is Brandon Goodell. He unmasked himself multiple places, including here: https://forum.getmonero.org/8/funding-required/87822/continued-funding-for-postdoctoral-researcher-surae-noether-me — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.138.253.166 (talk) 19:20, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for posting. The MRL papers can be used some, and sparingly. Sourcing a WP from sources generated by the subject of the article inevitably leads to an article that is a mere mouthpiece. There is a very good reason why the editing community prefers independent secondary sources that aim to provide accepted knowledge.
It is very correct that this is an encyclopedia, and this means that WP does not do "cutting edge" well. If there are not independent secondary sources that express accepted knowledge in a given field, then there is not much we should say.
I completely understand that some people mistake WP for a blog or a newspaper and rush in and try to add lots of detail about cutting edge stuff. One can do this. One can also write "cow cow cow cow". Everything good in Wikipedia happens because people do what they should do, aiming for the mission of providing readers with articles that summarize accepted knoweldge. This is all described in WP:NOT - which is all about the mission of WP.
(did i beat a dead horse there with the "accepted knowledge" thing? i think i did. sorry) Jytdog (talk) 00:39, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks! If you excuse the direct approach - I'm a programmer therefore when I see a problem, I want to solve it. Let me suggest an article layout that would x-ref self-published sources with a peer reviewed article - Singapore paper (am I wrong in thinking that peer-reviewed articles are an excellent source as far as WP is concerned?)
* First part - we use the MRL papers to explain general structure of Monero and the basics
* Second part - to stop the article being a mere mouthpiece, we add criticism from the independent Singapore paper in the second part explaining problems and privacy concerns
* Third part - we add general "social" concerns such as usage by drug dealers
Would you be amenable to this kind of general structure and sourcing?
Fireice (talk) 03:26, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Like technical people I too reach for the manual if I want to know how something works. But that isn't how we build WP content. A whole section built from self-published sources is not a great idea in WP. But i don't want to play dictator. User:David Eppstein is an admin and has been watching our crypto-stuff. Pinging him to get his read on this structure and sourcing... Jytdog (talk) 07:51, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks! In general I'm trying to flip the discussion from what we cannot do to what we can do - this way we will hopefully be left with a blueprint for an article at the end of the process =). My particular concern is that it would be hard to do the second section (the Singapore paper essentially builds on the general description in MRL-005) without the first. I look forward to feedback from User:David Eppstein! Fireice (talk) 11:28, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
As I can see that things are heating up with other editors, please note that I haven't made any edits to the article. I would much rather hammer out a compromise that leaves us with a good WP article Fireice (talk) 11:33, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for your note. I am very appreciative of how you are approaching this. Jytdog (talk) 19:06, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
I think I used unfortunate wording in the first paragraph. Can we move the discussion to [5] ? Fireice (talk) 22:59, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I see no reason not to keep firmly to the Wikipedia sourcing rules: WP:RS, WP:V, third-party, as mainstream as possible.

In the specific area, we need to be super-careful because crypto sources are largely advocacy and hype - they look like specialist-topic press, but are very aspirational, prone to stories about things that don't actually exist at all yet talking about them like they do, etc. So keep it as absolutely as mainstream as possible.

Primary sources should be kept out of it as much as possible. This is not the Monero wiki, it's Wikipedia. If a fact isn't noteworthy enough to be in verifiable third-party Reliable Sources, it probably shouldn't be in Wikipedia.

This is the same standard that got me multiple personal attacks from Ethereum boosters, but it made those articles much better and less ad-like; this is the same style of abuse that Jytdog is getting from Monero boosters in turn. It turns out offsite abuse from advocates trying to increase the value of their holding isn't actually a reason to loosen Wikipedia sourcing requirements, and may in fact be a reason to tighten them - David Gerard (talk) 18:44, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Discussion about Monero sources (Singapore and ZCash papers)

I am making a new section because I want to shift everyone's focus slightly. I want to examine the applicability of the Singapore paper to WP in particular [6], [7] combined with the ZCash paper [8]

Would you all be amenable to having the article sourced from both of those papers combined? There is a lot in both that can be used both to describe the general workings of monero, weaknesses (I'm not planning on glossing over that part, given that this is the focus of both papers) and strengths.

I absolutely sympathise with the fact that it is hard to keep a level head when you have abuse being hurled at you - I get that a lot from the Monero community too. I am trying to hammer out something workable - I think we have the sources to do it if we can sit down and think constructively. Fireice (talk) 22:57, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Since the interest in the article seems to have died down and I couldn't get any feedback/guidance here, I referred a proposed edit to WP:RSN. Fireice (talk) 20:02, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 15 November 2017

Under the "Problems" section, change "Th esecond threat," to "The second threat," to fix a spacing error. Ivantam (talk) 08:29, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

  Done72 (talk) 12:58, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

I'd like to source some input from the community on whether we should include a brief mention of Kovri and OpenAlias. For those not familiar, Kovri is a C++ implementation if the I2P protocol anonymity layer under development by the Monero devs. The end goal is enabling Monero transactions without having to broadcast your own (or remote node's) IP address. OpenAlias is a project to simplify use of unwieldy cryptocurrency addresses by offering a human readable alias in a decentralised and secure manner. I think it's notable because it claims to be a solution to Zooko's triangle. Both projects are developed primarily for use with Monero, by Monero developers which may make them relevant. On the other hand, neither are only usable by Monero and are designed to be usable by projects and technologies other than Monero. Perhaps a solution would be to give them a section within Monero article until they can be spun out into their own articles (if ever)? Melmann(talk) 10:39, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


Request for comment on content and source quality

Should the edits reverted by Jytdog be entirely removed or should WP:ATD be followed and article content and sources allowed to continue improving and developing? Secondarily, is Sputnik a valid source for technology topics? Melmann(talk) 08:38, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

This is a badly framed RfC. WP:CLUE is knowing what works. This RfC doesn't work.
On the first question, it is not reasonable to require people to go dig around in the history to try to find out what you are talking about. We haven't even begun to discuss the other problems with the edit, as well. We were just talking about the first most obvious problem with it. RfCs are used when things have been talked through and there are clear outstanding questions.
As for the second question, this is why RSN exists. At RSN, you are required to present the content and the source for consideration, and you have not done that here.
The whole thing is a mess, unfortunately. Please withdraw it and deal with things like we should do. RSN is the place for source disputes, and as mentioned we have not even started talking about the rest of your edit. Jytdog (talk) 08:47, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Concur - take it to WP:RSN. If you can't find high-quality verifiable third-party reliable sources for a claim, then it's quite likely that claim does not belong in Wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 16:42, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
  • user:Melmann for the edits -- if you mean Special:Diff/808654580 by Jytdog -- that seems a lot to do all at once, and pulls from Wired, CoinDesk, InsideBitCoins, BitCoinMagazine, CoinSutra, etcetera and I'd suggest do it in bits rather than all at once. In the context context used for Monero block size remark, Sputnik News would seem a RS. You might also look to other sources for additional block size info since that seems an important characteristic with Monero and the cryptocurrency community. Perhaps something like this Cryptocompare article. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:47, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Do not understand why something is considered spam

Could anyone explain why this edit was made, removing so called "spam"? [9] I am not sure why citing the New York Times mentioning a Monero-based project as one of only two praiseworthy projects in 2017 in the entire cryptocurrency space is considered spam, other than that it does not help further the narrative that Monero is strictly for "illicit use" that this wikipedia entry seems to be trying to claim (seemingly in violation of the impartiality goals of Wikipedia). Just trying to learn how this works, as I am inexperienced in this. - Ndcro (talk) 20:55, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Scaling problems.

Monero suffers even worse from the scaling problem, because the block size is significant larger than other coins. The size is 12k bytes per transaction due to more advanced signatures, compared to 200 bytes with Bitcoin. I would suggest to entirely remove the word scalability from the introduction. The official Monero whitepaper does not even mention the word scalability, so it definitely is not a core focus of the project. Initramfs (talk) 18:36, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Why does "cryptojacking" redirect here?

I entered "cryptojacking" in the search box, expecting to find an article about malware that mines cryptocurrency. Instead, I got the article about Monero. "C̶̶̶r̶̶̶y̶̶̶p̶̶̶t̶̶̶o̶̶̶c̶̶̶u̶̶̶r̶̶̶r̶̶̶e̶̶̶n̶̶̶c̶̶̶y̶̶̶" "Cryptojacking" appears nowhere in the Monero article. So, why the redirect? SlowJog (talk) 19:55, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

'Cryptorags' & forum references

The current version of this article contains a lot of references to 'cryptorags' including CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, CoinCentral, The Merkle, CoinWire and Unblock, as well as a reference to the cryptonote forum. Are these types of reference acceptable? @Jtbobwaysf: @Jytdog: @Retimuko: Technoir2 (talk) 08:39, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi Technoir2 (talk · contribs) Forum posts have no place at all and should be deleted without question 100% of the time. Relating to this article there is not yet a fixed blanked policy on sourcing relating to these low quality cryptorags as you mention. There is a policy on Bitcoin Cash due to heavy promotional edits and the IOTA article got killed entirely. I would say we editors are still trying to figure out what to do. I personally would like to keep one or two of the cryptorags, such as CoinDesk and Bitcoin Magazine, but other editors want to delete them all (I think I am in the minority here.) But to answer your question I think editors just patrol and try to apply WP:RS policy at articles where there is an obvious problem (at least a bigger problem than other places). There is so much work to do at wikipedia, take a look at this article PLDT, note all the unsourced promotional content. I think cryptocurrency gets more focus today as it probably gets a lot more hits as well as editors are interested in it. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:56, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
PLDT? Jtbobwaysf (talk · contribs) Technoir2 (talk) 18:03, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Was just giving PLDT as an example of an article that probably doesnt get much editor patrol eyeballs and hence suffers from sourcing and content quality issues. Doesnt really relate to Monero. Jtbobwaysf (talk)

COI disclosure of OSNF2P

Hi guys I'm kind of new to Wikipedia and got a notification I had to disclose a COI. Not sure if this is the proper way to do it, but: - I used to be an active member of the Monero community (2017/early 2018) - I no longer have a stake in Monero - I am no longer part of any Monero initiative/group/etc I've moved onto other Cryptocurrencies but just wanted to clean up the Wikipedia page before I went. I know a lot about Monero from my interest in it in the past, but no longer have much to do with it these days.

Hope that clears some stuff up. I made a lot of edits past couple days. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OSNF2P (talkcontribs) 20:02, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to segregate description of controversies

This articles contains some purely descriptive content about the history and design of a cryptocurrency, which is well suited to Wikipedia's encyclopedia remit. However, there is also information about controversies (seemingly two types: (i) differences of opinion among developers of this & other cryptocurrencies, and (ii) controversial uses of the technology such as money-laundering and surreptitious mining on other people's computers). It is right and proper for Wikipedia to dispassionately document the existence of controversies (provided adequate sources are available), but the article would be easier to follow if controversies are separated out from purely descriptive material. A common technique in Wikipedia articles is to use a subheading (Views or Controversies or Critics etc.) to delineate such material. This makes it simpler for writers to be objective when describing non-controversial parts of the subject, and focuses their minds on the extra diligence that's required to be balanced while writing content for the controversial parts.

I therefore suggest that the History of bytecoin part be renamed Relationship to bytecoin and that the controversial parts of that history (a code-fork prompted by allegations of a secret pre-mine, if I'm understanding correctly) be moved out of history and into a new Controversies section, along with the reference to bytecoin's response. The new Controversies section would also be a more logical place to put some of the material about surreptitious javascript mining: that would allow the Implementations section to be made less confusing by limiting it to a survey, plain and simple, of what implementations exists. The fact that some implementations have been used in more controversial ways than others is logically separate from the fact than multiple implementations exist. Also, the money-laundering controversies seem to be implementation-agnostic, so it's a little confusing when the layout of the article creates an unintended connection. Disclaimer: I'm not a cryptocurrency trader, and my use of jargon here may be erratic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.145.105.198 (talk) 16:05, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Following on the the above suggestion (which I made from a different computer), another controversy is now causing difficulties: the new content about use of Monero by white supremacists. I therefore invite editor Drmies to study the above suggestion. The problem with having a white supremacists section is that it's really just one example of use by controversial entities, with the white supremacists' motives for using monero being exactly the same as a tax evader's motives. I think having a Controversies suggestion would accomplish Drmies 's entirely reasonable objective of recording controversial uses, without unintentionally insinuating that there's some sort of affiliation between the subject of the article and one of the many entities that uses the subject of the article in a controversial way. As it stands (i.e. the white sumpremacist section being separated from other controversies), there's a risk of sliding into polemic, which is not what wikipedia is for. As an analogy, I don't think anyone would want a paragraph on anti-semitism to go in the wikipedia article on bacon, but that article does have some relevant information about cultural/religious considerations.94.117.63.144 (talk) 16:50, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Are you making a proposal to make sub-sections? If I read this correctly, seems that approach seems totally normal. Also the "ties to white supremecists" content looks pretty outrageous. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:51, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
In general it is a poor idea to split off controversies. see WP:Controversial articles which recommends this; one of the reasons is that this fragments the story, and things that happen lose their context. Jytdog (talk) 18:31, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
OK, I have struck my comments below per the policy noted by jytdog. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:47, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I'm looking at whether or not a different layout can made it less confusing (I'm trying not to get involved in the content at its atomic level since I'm not an expert). The guidance that Jytdog has just linked to is useful for contributors to this article, as is the observation about fragmentation; but I was actually thinking of this guidance, so perhaps I should use the word Criticisms rather than Controversies. I agree that fragmentation is bad, but fragmentation is what's already happened! Examples of controversial uses are sprinkled haphazardly through sections that are trying to be be straight descriptions of the anatomy/history of the article's subject, so perhaps the Criticisms examples here are a useful model (save for the depressing inevitability of wikipedia wahabbis indiscriminately misapplying WP:INDISCRIMINATE...). I agree with Jtbobwaysf that a ties to white supremacists heading is pretty weird, but has a previous editor stumbled into this by accident? Was the intention just to provide an example of a use of Monero that has been criticised, and if so, would it solve the problem to defragment the various controversial use mentions into a single section? (Whether you call the heading Controversies or Criticisms is a minor technicality that can be handled seprately from the text under it.) {Same author as 94.117.63.144 above}88.145.105.199 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:09, 14 September 2018 (UTC) Just to clarify, I'm using the word criticism in its strict sense of being both positive and negative; but the Wikipedia custom is to use the word Reception in this context and to reserve Criticism headings for negative criticisms. In the present context, Monero seems to have been positively criticized by e.g. white supremacists & tax evaders, and negative criticized by the opponents of white supremacism & tax evasion of the basis of those positive criticisms, at the same time as being positively criticized on anti-surveillance grounds by people who don't necessarily agree with white supremacists or tax evaders. Since Wikipedia's role is neutral about everything (including white supremacism, tax evasion and Orwellian states), the word Reception may therefore be a way out of a semantic quagmire.
First, please remember to sign your comments with four ~. I am ok to change to criticisms. Whatever can be done to expand the nature of the section to be more inclusive. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:45, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
My suggestion (I will go ahead and implement it if no-one objects), it to bring back the Illicit uses sub-heading that somehow got transformed into Implementations. I'm not quite sure how ransomware is an implementation (as opposed to a use) of cryptocurrency. Fireice (talk) 08:33, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
I wrote the above suggestion for a Controversies/Critcisms/Reception subheading, and I'm probably thinking along the similar lines as Fireice (i.e. encyclopedia content on [contentious] uses of a technology being logically separate from encyclopedic description of the technology itself). So, if Mr Fireice is ahead of me in this endeavour, perhaps he should go ahead, while keeping an open mind about the exact wording of the subheading itself. The difficulty with illicit is that it's conditional on who you are and where you are: consequently I was exploring other words, like controversy, reception. In recognition of Wikipedia's neutrality, I'm leaning towards an Alice-says-this-whereas-Bob-says-that style, which might affect what works as a heading. Wikipedia's neutrality isn't compromised by documenting white supremacists being an example of an interest-group that says one thing about Monero while some other interest group (e.g. the EU's TAX3 committee) makes an opposing case. The conclusion to the Reserve Bank of St Louis' recent essay is a useful example of an even-handed discussion of the controversies associated with Monero (except they've exercised their right to state their opinion, which Wikipedia doesn't want to do!). Perhaps the St Louis essay should be cited: as a Review, it's the kind of source that fits Wikipedia's remit. Possibly the same goes for the TAX3 study. 88.145.107.64 (talk) 13:45, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
Please familiarise yourself with NPOV Policy Jytdog, please correct me if I'm wrong, but WP policy on NPOV necessarily includes leaning on the side of wider consensus as to avoid creating an impression of a debate where there is none (Creationism is a good example here). If we go by dictionary definition of illicit [10] - "Breaking social norms" - we will describe the consensus on white supremacy, malware and malicious browser mining. Fireice (talk) 16:50, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
Hi Fireice, I think you're addressing Jytdog rather than me above, but your observation about debate where there is none is a helpful criticism of the idea I was exploring. Where there is a debate is the argument made on behalf of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis versus the argument made on behalf of the EU's TAX3 committee (reasons not to ban versus reason to ban). I agree that it would be a mistake to present the likes of electricity theft & incitement to violence as being some kind of serious debate taking place within social norms, and my slight misgiving about the word illicit relates to lesser things like different age limits for alcohol buyers in different jurisdictions. If those corner-cases aren't covered, then illicit works in the subheading (until someone throws a spanner in the works with stuff about cannabis). The wiktionary entry for illicit is quite entertaining! 88.145.107.64 (talk) 18:29, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
I was talking to you, just asked the more senior WP editor for advice. Out of those two sources only TAX3 mentions Monero, and only for general description while dealing with cryptocurrencies as a whole. As such I don't think those are suitable for a Monero article. You can use them in more general article like Cryptocurrency. Also please increase the indentation (add an extra ":") when you reply to someone please. It makes the conversation easier to follow. Fireice (talk) 19:22, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, should have said which parts I was referring to. Last para. of St Louis review says "History and current political reality show that, on the one hand, governments can be bad actors and, on the other hand, some citizens can be bad actors. The former justifies an anonymous currency to protect citizens from bad governments, while the later calls for transparency of all payments." I assume this is a reference to Monero, but if your involvement in other cryptocurrencies informs you otherwise, fair enough. The TAX3 review (typeset page 58) does explicitly take a position on Monero: "If cryptocurrencies are used for criminal purposes, it is therefore not the technology that needs to be addressed. On the contrary, it is the illicit use that should be targeted. Exceptionally, however, an exception can be made in well-defined cases, such as the mixing technique used in the context of Dash and Monero's RingCT, stealth addresses and Kovri-project" and on page 84 "To mind come the mixing process attached to Dash's feature PrivateSend and Monero's RingCT, stealth addresses and Kovri-project. In essence, these features are designed to make cryptocurrency users untraceable. But why is such degree of anonymity truly necessary? Would allowing this not veer too far towards criminals? Imposing a ban for such aspects surrounding cryptocurrencies that are aimed at making it impossible to verify their users and criminally sanctioning these aspects seems to be in line with the Council's conclusions...". Overall, the problem with the Monero article is that it reads like a manic argument between a libertarian polemicist and an authoritarian polemicist, and the zeal of the polemicists (both sides) has annoying side-effects for those of us who just want detached information about the architecture, developmental history, uses (good, bad & ugly) and regulatory environment. You mentioned the wacky classification of covert mining as an "implementation", and that's a representative example of what I'm talking about — nobody really wants that kind of disjointedness, and it's why the article needs to be subdivided in a way that defuses polemicism. 88.145.107.64 (talk) 21:31, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
In the TAX3 quotes I still don't see anything that can go into illicit use section. Regulatory interest might be notable but precisely for the reasons you stated I want to keep that section specific in scope and to the point. Fireice (talk) 21:44, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
There might be a COI with the "ties to white supremacists" change. Fireice is working on a direct Monero fork and competitor, "Ryo"[1].

-- 185.69.244.30 (talk) 16:17, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi! All WP-notable (Ryo isn't WP-notable) currencies that I own or helped to develop are declared on my user page. Actually I forgot to Dash (I contributed to that too). Fixing Fireice (talk) 16:59, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
  • It is generally a bad idea to single out "controversies" and the like. The white nationalist uptake after they were denied access to other payment platforms is part of the history of this cryptocurrency. Also, independent reliable sources all say that illicit use has been a key driver of Monero's growth and market cap since the beginning, and having the history all continuous shows this. This is perhaps som ewhat unhappy to members of the Monero community but that is what it is. Jytdog (talk) 17:05, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Reformatting of "implementations" to "illicit uses"

This is a continuation of the previous section that got a bit crowded. As I said before, "implementation" is not a correct term to use here. Monero is an implementation of a cryptocurrency. Wannacry is not. It uses a cryptocurrency. Fireice (talk) 15:39, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes it needs improvement. The wannacry thing is an event and should be moved into the history. But please suggest changes here. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:41, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Ok. If we do that what do you think should be done about the other two illicit uses described? (stealth browser mining and app mining) Fireice (talk) 15:47, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Those also happened in time and can be incorporated into the history. I was starting to do that the other day and got distracted. Jytdog (talk) 15:48, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
I will let you develop the article then. I have a question regarding COI, while letter of the law states "you are strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly", it doesn't say I must not. Is that what you take the spirit of the law to be? My concern (from my previous experience of a complete lack of feedback on RSN https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_232#Monero_(cryptocurrency) ) is that I might struggle to find non-COI editors that want to touch this topic with a barge pole. Fireice (talk) 16:05, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
It could get messy, trying to fit on-going phenomena (stealth mining etc.) into a list of events. Specific instances of illicit uses (e.g. wannacry laundering actions) are indeed events, but the existence of an unknown and ever-changing number of secret mining processes over an extended period with an unknown start-date is difficult to slot into a temporally linear narrative. The other problem you run into with putting usage events into the same History section as technological events is this: it creates an impression that the developers have amended the code-base in response to those usage events - if that happened it should be stated explicitly with secondary sources (which would presumably reference code-commits as their primary sources) and if such sources aren't available it shouldn't be insinuated. (This anomaly probably came about by accident, from the article's quirky structure, but it's unfortunate because it conflates development history with market history, and that's a speculator's POV that Wikipedia shouldn't be plugging. Actually, quite a lot of the article reads like an attempt to pump up the exchange-rate by plugging black market utility., and Fireice's suggestion will restore some balance.) 88.145.107.64 (talk) 16:50, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
responding to F. Everything that is good in WP, is there because people did what they should do. Most of the bad stuff, is from people doing what they can do, but not what they should do.
responding to the IP - the content should make no WP:SYN suggestions. Jytdog (talk) 18:19, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
I would prefer a yes or no answer instead of riddles Fireice (talk) 16:12, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Jytdog I have re-done the parts of my edit that you don't appear to object to. With regards to your idea of merging everything into history:

  • "In general it is a poor idea to split off controversies. see WP:Controversial articles which recommends this", I can't find that recommendation. Can you perhaps point me to it? Are we talking about WP policy or your stylistic preference here?
  • "Those also happened in time and can be incorporated into the history. I was starting to do that the other day and got distracted." is fairly eyebrow-raising as those are ongoing problems. What point in time would you pick for them? What about if we want to expand and describe their ongoing impact? Fireice (talk) 13:11, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Ok. Can you answer the questions from my comment that you replied to, as this will enable me better to have an idea of your vision for the merged section? So far I'm fairly confused as to how an ongoing problem can be incorporated at a particular point in time. Fireice (talk) 14:22, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Something like this would work. I have self reverted to see if folks are OK with that, and to respect the GS, since how to discuss this appears to be controversial. Jytdog (talk) 14:31, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I'm happy with this version (apart from the typo). Note that I started the other section to separate the discussion about the blurb and the body, since now you have raised an objection to both. Fireice (talk)

Jytdog] [11] Can you please explain your objection to this edit? Fireice (talk) 14:33, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

The content overemphasizes negatives. Procedurally it was overly bold. Jytdog (talk) 14:38, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
The reason I added it is because of stylistics (Rule_of_three_(writing)), and those were three most important issues there, I think. How do you feel it should be balanced as not to overemphasise the negatives? Fireice (talk) 14:58, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I offered my version above.Jytdog (talk) 15:03, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
That version is a wholesale revert of the blurb. If you feel there is no way to balance the edit above, can you explain your reasoning? Fireice (talk) 15:26, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Not sure what you mean by "blurb", much less "wholesale reversion" of it. Do you mean the "implementation section? If so, what i did was incorporate it into the history, which is what i said i would do. Jytdog (talk) 15:31, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
This is the dictionary definition [12], but let's say introduction so we don't argue on semantics. Just in case you are still confused this is the edit making it [13]. I assume you referred to this edit when you said "The content overemphasizes negatives. Procedurally it was overly bold." If so, can you please address "The reason I added it is because of stylistics (Rule_of_three_(writing)), and those were three most important issues there, I think. How do you feel it should be balanced as not to overemphasise the negatives?", the edit that you made deals with another section entirely. Fireice (talk) 15:47, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I know what a "blurb" is for pete's sake. are you talking about the lead? See WP:LEAD. Jytdog (talk) 16:40, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
You are indeed correct. AFAIK they are synonyms. Just in case you are still confused this is the edit making it [14]. I assume you referred to this edit when you said "The content overemphasizes negatives. Procedurally it was overly bold." If so, can you please address "The reason I added it is because of stylistics (Rule_of_three_(writing)), and those were three most important issues there, I think. How do you feel it should be balanced as not to overemphasise the negatives?", the edit that you made deals with another section entirely. Fireice (talk) 16:51, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
a "blurb" could be any bit of content anywhere on the page. Somebody who brags on their ten years of experience should be able to use basic terminology in WP. You have exhausted my patience for now. I will come back to this later. Jytdog (talk) 18:27, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Hi Jytdog, I'm the contributor of the earlier suggestion (Talk, not Article), which Fireice] seems to developing into something more fine-grained that my rather woolly stream-of-consciousness stuff. From my perspective as a non-contributor to the Article itself (apart from 2 secondary sources that I added where previous editors had forgotten to source their statements), it looks like you need to bring in another editor who is less personally involved. Your assertion that the article "overemphasizes negatives" matches my perception, so I am puzzled by you hostility to Fireice's effort to develop a structure that opens up the possibility of a more balanced article. Fireice's last edit, when viewed in isolation, doesn't remove the negativity, but equally it doesn't increase it either (it just re-locates it on the page). It's pretty clear to me that he is trying to open up space for any less negative events/receptions/whatever to be documented on the same footing, so it's a little worrying that your objections revolve around him personally rather than around his text. This is what logicians refer to as the ad hominen fallacy: we're all susceptible to it, and I encourage you to pause for reflection. I've just had a look at Monero's code repository (challenging for me as a non coder!) and I see that someone using the name Fireice has donated code from his own project. If that's the same person (I've no idea, never met him!), it means you're on extremely shaky ground accusing him of taking sides. I recommend that you hand over to another editor who does not share your apparent desire to pump up the price of Monero through black market advocacy (and I hope my impression here is wrong). Since your aggressive behaviour has compelled me to move beyond cautious suggestions, I will not be making any contributions to the article or talk until other editors have reviewed the situation. 88.145.104.127 (talk) 15:51, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for your input. See your talk page. We are probably going to need some form of DR if we cannot agree on how to handle the stuff about "illicit use". But it ~appears~ that Fireice was more or less OK with my test edit to blend the content.. Jytdog (talk) 16:27, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
  • I support jytdog's suggested edit above. I don't see how malware running on a website should be called an implementation nor should it be called an illicit use. Illicit uses of the currency should be when Bob buys drugs from Alice with it. It's a WP:FRINGE mining theory to argue that a website running malicious code to covertly mine coins when Bob visits Alice's website is called an implementation. If you want to explore this fringe mining POV, then add a section on that over on some mining article (e.g. Cloud mining), but not on this article (which would imply that malicious code is an implementation of this monero currency and not an implemenation of another coin like bitcoin). This whole fringe treatment is an obvious NPOV issue and lacks any merit. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:54, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for your support on the "implementation" wording. I think we managed to hammer out an agreement on that section (merge into history). The only open issue is having a balanced lead / blurb. Fireice (talk) 18:12, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
OK, i have hacked down the lede a bit as well. Is that better? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:39, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Looking good, can you perhaps review this edit [15] I think having three issues listed together sounds better - Rule_of_three_(writing)? Perhaps the next paragraph can be removed then to keep balance. Fireice (talk) 19:17, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Against this change. This has been touched in the history section already. 185.69.244.16 (talk) 19:40, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
The point of lead is to introduce issues discussed later. Fireice (talk) 19:43, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
There is no point in introducing something that is discussed in only 1 sentence later. 185.69.244.16 (talk) 19:46, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Little typo: ";ate" instead of "late". 185.69.244.13 (talk) 19:22, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I have fixed this typo to late. I have also moved the sentence in the lede about the browser mining to the history section. I am guessing it is overweight in the lede. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:54, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 November 2018

Change "Due to its privacy features, Monero experienced rapid growth in market capitalization and transaction volume during the year 2016, faster and bigger than any other cytocurrency that year." to "Due to its privacy features, Monero experienced rapid growth in market capitalization and transaction volume during the year 2016, faster and bigger than any other cryptocurrency that year.". 91.129.110.90 (talk) 16:43, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

  Done, thanks! ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 17:36, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Creator- Spagni

It appears that a person named Ricardo Spagni is an important figure, or mabye the creator of this project. But he is not covered in the article. Might be useful to start collecting sources and later include him. Feel free to add to the list below, I will sign here and keep the list below as a list. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:19, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi Jtbobwaysf, Here's a personal observation from a neutral observer (me; interested in the non-monetary applications of techniques used by Monero). I've met the gentleman in question once, as as far as I can tell, he is slightly exasperated by the perception that he is the originator of the project (think Life of Brian). It seems that the perception has arisen from (i) the administrative tasks that he undertakes as a person who merges donated bug-fixes/improvements into the master copy of the source code (following a cooling-off period of public viewing and reviewing by other coders), (ii) his own contributions to the same source code under the non de plume of fluffypony (see https://github.com/monero-project/monero/graphs/contributors), and (iii) his public lectures on the same subject. Probably also exacerbated by poor public understanding about the nature of open source software project & the duties of a maintainer. If my impression is correct, he is one of several hundred contributors; and the perception that you allude to above is primarily a side effect of his non de plume being memorably whimsical and his public lectures having given him more visibility than his follow contributors. These are, of course, personal impressions, and I freely admit that I haven't attempted the meta-analysis of the contributors list that's required to confirm/refute your postulate. I offer these observations in the hope that they will assist you in upholding Wikipedia standards for information in living persons. 88.145.105.10 (talk) 22:29, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
We wouldn't be able to use analysis of github commits or any other WP:OR to make any sort of determination on this. It would only be on the basis of secondary WP:RS (assuming we could find sufficient RS). Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:51, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Correct. A reliable secondary source is compatible with its primary sources, while an unreliable secondary source is not. Hence data-mining of software repository commits is useful to Wikipedia only as a determinant of whether an apparently reliable source really is a secondary source as opposed to being a de facto primary source for its own author's unsourced conjectures. 88.145.104.80 (talk) 16:52, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
I found this the other day https://www.forbesmiddleeast.com/en/the-cryptocurrency-entrepreneur-turning-coins-into-cash/, which kind of shows it's very difficult to trust anything anyone says (the article is completely unsourced and factually incorrect). The original founders were anonymous and Ricardo has denied being one of them, so I disagree that there's anything worth collecting there. Dr-Bracket (talk) 02:40, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
Hey Jtbobwaysf - this is very flattering, but I have no problem having no mention on the page. I do not doubt that my role in Monero has been significant, as I was part of the 7 that originally forked it away from thankful_for_today and have devoted a great deal of time, money, and effort to its growth, but Monero is about a lot more than one person regardless of their contribution. The article doesn't mention moneromooo, for example, who is an incredibly prolific open-source contributor who is responsible for a significant portion of Monero's codebase. It doesn't mention any of the other early, important contributors such as Thomas Winget or Zachary Michaels. In fact, as mentioned above, we are all simply one of over 500 contributors. Open Hub's page on Monero points out that "this is one of the largest open-source teams in the world, and is in the top 2% of all project teams on Open Hub", so suffice it to say that the phrase "it takes a village" is very, very true of Monero. Thank you for noticing my efforts, though, I am very grateful of the part that I have played in Monero's early history and subsequent growth! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fluffypony (talkcontribs) 11:02, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 December 2018

The sentence "As of May 2018 Monero was led by 7 members, 49 developers and 3 researchers, with the unofficial figurehead of pseudonymous Luigi1111" is both unattributed and factually incorrect. The 7 members of the Monero core team (of which I am one) are merely stewards of the GitHub repositories and the primary Monero domains. OpenHub lists 526 contributors on their page on Monero. The Monero Research Lab has more than 3 researchers that have contributed to it, and it is permissionless to join that workgroup in any event. luigi1111's role is maintainer of the monero-site and monero-gui repositories, and I am the maintainer of the main monero repository. Other repositories, like the meta and research-lab repositories, are separately maintained. Fluffypony (talk) 10:38, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

  Note: It appears that you have a conflict of interest regarding this article. I have left some information on your talk page that you should read, and I have modified your edit request to get an editor with that expertise to take a look at this request. Thanks! ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 16:22, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Reply 04-DEC-2018

   Edit request declined  

  • The request is declined for two reasons:
  1. No actionable request: The proposed changes do not substantially differ from the ones which are currently used, or if they do, the proposer has not highlighted the importance of those differences adequately.[a]
  2. No references provided in CS1: The article uses CS1, while the COI editor has offered links to the information which they say confirms their claims as plain URL links. If these claims were to be implemented, the references would need to be added to the article using the citation system already in use in the article, per WP:CITEVAR. Surely, if the editor has time to list these changes and their evidence, they also have time to format the references correctly.[b]
Regards,  Spintendo  21:38, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Claim Currently Proposed
Members 7 7
Contributors[c] - 526[a]
MRL 3 >3[d]
Luigi1111 role involved involved

Notes

  1. ^ a b If the COI editor wishes Wikipedia to keep a running total of all members, developers/contributors, or Monero Research Lab (MRL) researchers, this is not its purpose, per WP:NOTSTATS, WP:NOTADIRECTORY.
  2. ^ As Wikipedia is a volunteer project, the COI editor is kindly expected to have these references formatted correctly before their request is submitted for review. In any event, as these changes were not implemented, this reason is to be seen as the lessor of the two issues.
  3. ^ The current version of this claim in the article uses the term developers. The COI editor in their proposal uses the word contributors. The actual difference, if any, has not been clarified by the COI editor in their request.
  4. ^ Were it not for the reasons offered in note #A above, the suggested figure to be used here, "more than 3" would still be unacceptable — as it is an imprecise figure to use in the article.


Perhaps this sentence should just be removed. There is no sourcing on it, and as said, WP:NOTSTATS. Dr-Bracket (talk) 02:13, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Removing it would be more logical than keeping it. Compliance with Wikipedia's remit (of documenting consensus knowledge) is testable by refutation, and the existence of the edit-requester's contrary links (without them needing to be Wikipedia-permissible sources in the own right) refutes the notion that the sentence contains consensus knowledge. 88.145.104.248 (talk) 23:33, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
The request was not to remove the information without any replacement text being added (in other words, to just delete it). The request was to replace the information. That is distinct, because it is a request to delete information and then have different information take its place. As the items that are offered as replacements are seemingly identical to the information that is being requested to be replaced (in other words, it is not different) there was no reason to make the change. This is due in large part to my own belief that there is a certain inefficiency to having details deleted and then immediately replaced by seemingly identical sets of details, which was the main reason why I declined making the change. Whether or not the sentence in question should be deleted without replacement text is an edit request I have yet to receive. I cannot place words into the COI editor's request which arent there. If they wanted the information deleted as not containing consensus knowledge as the IP editor suggests then they need to ask this by using those words, per WP:MINDREADER.  Spintendo  16:52, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for explaining your editing technique. I have three requests for addition clarification. First: since the matter in hand is one unattributed (& in this case, contested) statement, and the article does in fact contain rather a lot of unattributed statements, can you confirm that you're hoping to see draft replacement sentences placed here on the Talk page where they can be commented on &/or improved before being dropped into the positions currently occupied by the non-WP:V sentences? This approach, if it's what you're advocating, would be a substantial improvement on the shockingly aggressive POV contest that you see in the earlier Talk. It's very promising that you're moving away from summary deletion of not-yet-perfected content.
Secondly, can you comment on how you would like to address the structural anomalies where content appears to be under the wrong heading (e.g. the weird conflation of uses with implementations)? Many of the structural anomalies could be resolved by relocating sentences unchanged on the page, but past experience shows that even such a conservative approach will set off a Wikipedia-lawyering feeding-frenzy if prejudiced Wikipedia insiders aren't suitable buttered up beforehand (I'm hoping that your participation marks the start of a more grown-up approach!).
Third, the article doesn't currently touch on Regulatory Responses. Although some might contend that the whole point of cryptocurrencies is "regulation = decentralized [competing] validators", there are quite a few secondary sources showing that conventional financial regulators see things differently and are therefore actively exploring new policies in responses to Monero (& in Japan have already implemented). As it stands the article has a glaring asymmetry in that user reception is heavily covered (albeit haphazardly strewn about under unrelated headings) while regulator reception (whether nuanced or dogmatic) isn't covered at all. If I were editing the article, I would add a new section (provisionally titled Regulatory Environment, with the option of changing it once the words under it have taken shape), but it would be deleted immediately without proper discussion. (I'm keeping an open mind about whether or not Regulatory Environment should be a subheading on the same level as a User Receptions type of heading). I am therefore proposing the idea here in the hope that readers of the article will come here and be alerted to the asymmetry. Would you care to suggest a better approach? 88.145.104.240 (talk) 15:41, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
While I certainly agree the page should mention Japan's laws on privacy-centric coins (since that was a fairly big thing), I'm not sure it merits its own section. Perhaps it could be added to the pre-existing transaction-linkability section, and if expanded on enough could be split into its own? Dr-Bracket (talk) 15:51, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
I suggest collecting examples (e.g. press reports of regulators' statements) here on the talk page and then seeing how voluminous the whole thing looks. The Japanese laws are one example, and the TAX3 quote above is another (since it's technically a secondary source whose primary sources are (i) Monero itself and (ii) law enforcement reports). The transaction-linkability section: it depends on whether that's meant to be a section about technical linkability or a section about any linkage technique up to and including fines/jail etc. There's also a Reserve Bank of St Louis (part of US Federal Reserve) response cited further up this talk page, but someone argued that it wasn't sufficiently Monero-specific (my impression is that it is Monero-specific since the privacy of Dash & ZCash are opt-in, but I'm open to suggestion). 88.145.104.240 (talk) 16:35, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 January 2019

This request has two parts: a change in the wording of one sentence and a change in the location of that sentence within the article. The sentence currently says “In January 2018, Bloomberg suggested the hackers who stole approximately 500 million NEM tokens ($530 million) from Coincheck exchange could launder the stolen funds by a service such as Shapeshift to convert the funds into Monero.[27]”. Since this assertion is directly contradicted by the cited secondary source that purportedly supports it, I suggest modifying the sentence to be compatible with that same source as follows:—

In January 2018, Bloomberg suggested the hackers who stole approximately 500 million NEM tokens ($530 million) from Coincheck would struggle to launder the stolen tokens by selling them for Monero since at least one exchange, Shapeshift, had blocked NEM addresses associated with the theft.[1]

(And before you ask: No, I'm neither affiliated to nor in competition with Shapeshift, and I don't stand to gain or lose from removing Wikipedia's insinuation about that company. I'm just trying to correct a non-compliance with WP:VER, since it's silly having content that's contradicted by its own source. If someone finds valid sources for actual examples of currency exchanges knowingly or unknowingly aiding Monero-mediated money-laundering, then it would be proper to add content citing them, although obviously not in this unrelated section since such content would belong alongside the stuff about the Wannacry extortionists.)

The sentence is currently in a Section entitled Transaction linkability, even though it's not about transaction linkability. The rest of the Transaction linkability section exists in order to describe weaknesses (past & present, posited and actual) in Monero's efforts to to attain fungibility through unlinkability, along with responses by Monero coders to the reports of those weaknesses. It makes perfect sense to have such a section, but it makes no sense for it to include material on an anti–money-laundering action that uses neither Monero's unlinkability nor weakneses therein. As a stop-gap measure (not intended to prejudice future work on the article's structural problems), I propose that the corrected sentence be moved to the History section. 88.145.106.49 (talk) 15:18, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

I certainly like your request on the NEM tokens, but I'm a bit confused on your second request. The section is explicitly titled "Transaction Linkability", so it would make no sense to move the information relating "linkability" to history while keeping "unlinkability" there (unless, of course, we renamed the section as well). I think in the future it would be best if you made these requests separately just so we could handle each on their own time, but I'll wait for your clarification on the moving part before proceeding for now. Dr-Bracket (talk) 17:59, 7 January 2019 (UTC)


Thank you for checking that Bloomberg source and confirming that it is indeed rather more subtle the the current wording here on Wikipedia gives it credit for! My proposed tweak to the wording is off-the-cuff, so there may be room for refinement (e.g you might want to swap “struggle” for “find it challenging” so as to be a clearer echo of the source, which puts it as “find it challenging”). The reason for treating this as one request (rather than 2) is that it's a request to tweak a sentence and move the tweaked sentence to a less incongruous section.
About the proposed move: I should have explained that in the context of an article about a currency that aspires to be technically fungible, the word “linkability” (or its corollary, “unlinkability”) has a specific and precise meaning that you may not have encountered before. Monero is non-national, so it falls outside the legal mechanisms that enforce the fungibility of Dollars, Euros, Rupees or whatever. Monero therefore tries to attain technical or intrinsic fungibility instead, and it does this by making it difficult (ideally impossible) to link an address's incoming transactions to that same address's outgoing transactions: this resembles cash (where its difficult to keep track of whether or not a $5 dollar bill paid by Bob to Charlie is the same physical object that Alice previously paid to Bob) and contrasts with Bitcoin (where the public ledger is fully transparent by design). An earlier editor of the Monero article has recognized that Wikipedia's duty to be objective necessitates the the content about fungibility be balanced by coverage of published assertions that Monero's unlinkability might break down in some situations resulting in linkability (which amounts to infungibility in the absence of legal enforcement). That previous editor has sensibly implemented this balance by creating a linkability Section as the place to record those assertions and the responses of Monero coders/researchers to the same. It's not intended to be a section about the linkability of other assets: indeed most other crypto-assets (including NEM) neither claim nor aspire to avoid linkability in the first place. Anyone who advocates using Monero to launder an infungible asset is casting a vote of confidence in Monero's unlinkability, so it's incongrous to document that advocacy in section that's dedicated to suspected flaws in the unlinkability (which, of course, manifest themselves as the linkabilty in the section's title!) unless their advocacy is tied to a specific rebuttal of one or more of the linkability complaints. And in this case, there's no such tie since the authors of the Bloomberg article are taking Monero's claims of fungibility (≈ unlinkability) uncritically as their starting postulate. 88.145.105.222 (talk) 00:19, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
  Done, thanks for the clarification. Makes perfect sense to me and I don't see anyone objecting after almost a week of the request being made. Dr-Bracket (talk) 16:20, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
You're admirably patient, trawling though my convoluted explanation. Incidentally, the citation itself seems to have gone AWOL. A formatting glitch? I guess you can rescue it from the talk page (it's the Alpeyev & Nakamura that you can see below). 88.145.105.222 (talk) 18:24, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Creating a section on Monero mining

Monero mining seems to be quite popular, including for ransomware attacks as well as the ASIC resistance. Right now there's a few mentions of it all over the page, it may be best to congregate them into one section instead? Dr-Bracket (talk) 03:26, 18 November 2018 (UTC)


The above suggestions all look relevant to me. Leading on from this, this page may also benefit from restructuring to accommodate of new information and also to better balance the range of views. For an industry researcher, it may also be helpful to find relevant comparative information on tech-developments and industry-related insight on events to clarify and differentiate different types of crypto-projects. I have included a list of additions on the section ‘Suggested Page Structure’. If there are more practical ways to incorporate this, please advise how this may be achieved.

([TJMZX] (https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User:TJMZX "TJMZX's Wikipedia User Page") 07:15, 1 February 2019 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by TJMZX (talkcontribs)

Suggested Page Structure

  • History: Divide into two sections: P1(Creation) P2 (2016-2018)
  • Create: Transactions Section
  • Create: Mining Section
  • Architecture: Move P5 into Mining
  • Mining: Move P6 from History into Mining: Botnet Mining Software
  • Create: Wallets Section
  • Create: Network Upgrades Section
  • Network Upgrades: Move P3 from History into Network Upgrades: Increase to Ring Size
  • Create: Economics Section
  • Create: Privacy Section
  • Privacy: Move Transaction Linkability into Privacy: Transaction Linkability
  • Create: Governance and Funding Section
  • Create: Move P8 from History Governance and Funding: Organisation
  • Create: Criticism Section
  • Criticism: Move P5 from History into: Criticism: Illegal Hacking and Cryptocurrency Laundering
  • Criticism: Move P4 from History into: Criticism: Circumvention of Censorial Control

Architecture

Cryptographic Protocol

Unlike many cryptocurrencies that are derivatives of Bitcoin, Monero is based on the CryptoNight proof-of-work hash algorithm, which comes from the CryptoNote protocol.[6] The CryptoNote protocol possesses significant algorithmic differences relating to blockchain obfuscation.[7] In particular, the ring signatures mix the spender's input with a group of others, making it exponentially more difficult to establish a link between each subsequent transaction.[3]

Additionally, "stealth addresses" generated for each transaction make it impossible to discover the actual destination address of a transaction by anyone else other than the sender and the receiver.[8] Finally, the "ring confidential transactions" mechanism hides the transferred amount.[9][3]

[//]: # (P5 moved to Mining)

History

Creation

[//]: # (from Architecture, P1)

In 2014 Bitcointalk forum user known as thankful_for_today forked the codebase of Bytecoin into the name BitMonero, which is a compound of Bit (as in Bitcoin) and Monero (literally meaning "coin" in Esperanto).[3] The release of BitMonero was very poorly received by the community that initially backed it. Plans to fix and improve Bytecoin with changes to block time, tail emission and block reward had all been ignored, and thankful_for_today simply disappeared from the development scene. A group of users led by Johnny Mnemonic decided that the community should take over the project, and five days later they did while also changing the name to Monero.[citation needed]

2016-2018

[//]: # (from Architecture, P2)

Due to its privacy features, Monero experienced rapid growth in market capitalization and transaction volume during the year 2016, faster and bigger than any other cryptocurrency that year. This growth was driven by its uptake in the darknet market, where people used it to buy stolen credit cards, guns, and drugs.[3] Two major darknet markets were shut down in July 2017 by law enforcement. [14] From the beginning, Monero has been used by people holding other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to break the link between transactions, with the other cryptocoins first converted to Monero, then after some delay converted back and sent to an address unrelated to those used before.

Transactions

Stealth Transaction Protocol

For each standard transaction on the Monero network, the Cryptonote protocol combines the sender's public spend key with their public view key to form a one-time private key which is then recombined with a number of foreign public keys to form an extrapolated value known as a key image that is used for signing the transaction.[27][28] When signed, the protocols allows for each transaction to enforce a ring size parameter which is equal to the transaction output plus the number of foreign outputs.[29]

Units

One Monero has twelve decimal places and follows a naming convention to describe each rounding. Similarly, each larger denomination is classified up to a factor of six.[30]

Denominations of Monero

Nme Base 10
Piconero 10^-12 ɱ0.000000000001
Nanonero 10^-9 ɱ0.000000001
Micronero 10^-6 ɱ0.000001
Millinero 10^-3 ɱ0.001
Centinero 10^-2 ɱ0.01
Decinero 10^-1 ɱ0.1
Monero 10^0 ɱ1
Decanero 10 ɱ10
Hectonero 10^2 ɱ100
Kilonero 10^3 ɱ1,000
Meganero 10^6 ɱ1,000,000

Transaction Fees

Unlike many other cryptocurrencies which either have a fixed block-size or transaction systems which do not require transaction fees, Monero employs a dynamic block-size which scales from a minimum amount in relation to the transaction volume.[31][32] With recent upgrades to the underlying technology, the average transaction fee dropped significantly owing to the implementation of 'Bulletproofs signatures', a zero-knowledge proof verification system which increases efficiency in the way proofs are validated.[33]

Exchanges

Monero can be traded for many other digital assets with a wide range of exchange pairs on both proprietary and also decentralised exchanges, or 'DEX', however, currently, the majority of volume is currently traded on Bithumb, a Korean-based exchange.[34][35][36]

Mining

Hardware and Software Requirements

[//]: # (from Architecture, P5)

Monero is designed to be resistant to application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining, which is commonly used to mine other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.[10] [11] It can be mined somewhat efficiently on consumer grade hardware such as x86, x86-64, ARM and GPUs.[12][13]

Solo Mining

Through using the Monero CLI or GUI, Monero can be 'solo mined' directly from a computer on a wide-range of operating systems.[37][38] Throughout 2018, the Monero developer community decided to implement to a number of network upgrades which have altered the mining algorithm to maintain ASIC resistance and ensure mining can be achieved on the widest possible range of hardware.

Pool Mining

Due to the low level of technical requirements, and Monero's committed stance to remain ASIC resistant, it continues to be one of the most popular cryptocurrencies to be mined by home mining enthusiasts.[39] A wide range of mining pools and third-party developers offer software which are available for certain operating-systems and distributions, some of which may require developer fees.[40][41]

Botnet Mining Software

[//]: # (Lead in)

As a result of the relatively low-tech hardware specifications required to mine the Monero blockchain..

[//]: # (from History, P6)

malicious hackers have previously embedded Monero mining code into websites and apps seeking profit for themselves.[18] In late 2017 malware and antivirus service providers blocked a JavaScript implementation of Monero miner Coinhive that was embedded in websites and apps, in some cases by hackers. Coinhive generated the script as an alternative to advertisements; a website or app could embed it, and use website visitor's CPU to mine the cryptocurrency while the visitor is consuming the content of the webpage, with the site or app owner getting a percentage of the mined coins.[19] Some websites and apps did this without informing visitors, and some hackers implemented it in way that drained visitors' CPUs. As a result the script was blocked by companies offering ad blocking subscription lists, antivirus services, and anti-malware services.[20][18]

Wallets

Full Nodes

The CLI and GUI full-node wallets developed my the Monero developers are the standard way of sending and receiving transactions, and also storing Monero and is considered a secure method to hold funds independent of third party exchanges or via web-wallets. As with many other cryptocurrencies, using full-node wallets is also helps to build network security through downloading and uploading the blockchain to other nodes on the network.

Light Wallets

Light wallets are more convenient and secure alternatives to using a full-node, as with web wallets, users must rely on proprietary web browsers which in certain situations may present difficulties for ensuring data is encrypted during transmission. Some light wallets now offer a greater amount of cross platform support, including both desktop and mobile versions.[42]

Hardware Wallets

Currently Monero is supported on two proprietary hardware wallets, the Ledger Nano S and Nano X, which provide wallets that interact with the Monero blockchain, offering another way of securing funds.[43]

Network Upgrades

Increase to Ring Size

[//]: # (from History, P3)

On January 10, 2017, the privacy of Monero transactions was further strengthened by the adoption of Bitcoin Core developer Gregory Maxwell's algorithm Confidential Transactions, hiding the amounts being transacted, in combination with an improved version of Ring Signatures.[15]

Mining Algorithm

Throughout 2018, Monero has undergone a number of significant scheduled network upgrades, otherwise known as forking the mining algorithm, whilst some have been 'hard-forks' others upgrades have been 'soft-forks', both types are to ensure centralised (ASIC) mining remains less likely. This has threatened the security of several other blockchains via '51% attacks' also known as 'double-spending'.[44][45]

Economics

Block reward trajectory

To incentivise mining indefinitely, mining rewards will gradually drop until tail emission commences which is expected to happen in 2022 when rewards will be fixed at 0.6 XMR per block.[33][46] This design feature is expected to give Monero a stable and predictable inflation rate.[48]

Fungibility

Monero is said to be fungible because it is private by default and units of Monero cannot be discriminated by vendors or exchanges due to the origin or history of Monero funds.[50]

Scalability

Monero’s [dynamic block size] changes based on transaction volume to provide lower fees and faster transactions. [51] Higher transaction volume leads to larger block size limit, whereas low volume leads to a smaller block size limit. 'Bulletproofs', a zero-knowledge transaction verification protocol, implemented in the last major network upgrade version, 'Beryllium Bullet' also helps scalability by significantly reducing transaction size and fees, making Monero stand out among other cryptocurrencies.[52]

Governance and Funding

Organisation

Monero's governance structured is relatively looser than many other cryptocurrency projects.[33][47][N22]

[//]: # (from History, P8)

As of May 2018 Monero was led by 7 members, 49 developers and 3 researchers, with the unofficial figurehead of pseudonymous Luigi1111.[citation needed]

Funding

The launch of Monero in April 2014 was pre-announced. There was no pre-mine or “insta”-mine, and no portion of the block reward goes to development.[53] therefore, development and research mainly relies on public donations. It is estimated that over 1.2 million USD value (65,000 XMR) was raised and directed to R&D initiatives.[49]

Suggested Page Structure (Notice)

Thanks for the reply, sorry for not observing these points, I am indeed a new user of Wikipedia. As these sources are deemed unreliable, I would like to revise some of the suggestions and/or provide alternative references.

Regarding Conflicts of Interest, I am a cryptocurrency enthusiast, user, without any affiliation, occupational or significant financial interest.

([TJMZX] (https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User:TJMZX "TJMZX's Wikipedia User Page") 01:17, 7 February 2019 (UTC)) 07/01/2019 — Preceding unsigned comment added by TJMZX (talkcontribs)

Criticism

[//]: # (from History, P5)

Use in Illegal Hacking and Cryptocurrency Laundering

The operators behind the May 2017 global ransomware incident WannaCry converted their proceeds into Monero.[2] In June, The Shadow Brokers, the group that leaked the code used in WannaCry, started accepting payments in Monero.[2]

Circumvention of Censorial Control

[//]: # (from History, P4)

After many online payment platforms shut down access for white nationalists following the Unite the Right rally in 2017, some of them, including Christopher Cantwell and Andrew Auernheimer ("weev"), started using and promoting Monero.[16][17]


REFERENCES

[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]

([TJMZX] (https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User:TJMZX "TJMZX's Wikipedia User Page") 02:05, 7 February 2019 (UTC))


([TJMZX] (https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User:TJMZX "TJMZX's Wikipedia User Page") 07:18, 1 February 2019 (UTC))

A few things. First, there's not a single appropriate source you've provided that's not already in the article. Blog posts and press releases are not reliable sources, and while Github commits and original research can be used to justify something in a talk-page, it does not have a place in the article (with some exceptions, see WP:NOR). For this reason, the majority of your sections don't have much merit. There's also a few other issues I'd like to point out, including WP:INDISCRIMINATE (for your table of denominations) and WP:DUE for things like funding Monero.
I can see you're a new contributor and it was not long ago I was in your situation myself but trying to refactor pages and create new ones, especially for projects relating to cryptocurrencies, is generally a very bad place to start. If you really want to edit cryptocurrency articles I would recommend you look at some of the articles in the WikiProject Cryptocurrency scope and fix up some smaller ones, but be sure to have reliable sources since there is very little room for error on these pages (you can look into some of the things other users got in trouble for here). I would also disclose any conflicts of interests you have in your talk page, as it's strongly discouraged to edit those articles as well. Dr-Bracket (talk) 19:05, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Privacy

Transaction Linkability

In April 2017 research highlighted three major threats to Monero users' privacy. The first relies on leveraging the ring signature size of zero, and ability to see the output amounts.[26] The second, described as "Leveraging Output Merging", involves tracking transactions where two outputs belong to the same user, such as when a user is sending the funds to himself ("churning"). Finally the third threat, "Temporal Analysis", shows that predicting the right output in a ring signature could potentially be easier than previously thought.[26]

The Monero development team had addressed the first concern in January 2017, prior to the actual release of the research paper, with the introduction of Ring Confidential Transactions (RingCT) as well as mandating a minimum size of ring signatures in the March 2016 protocol upgrade. Monero developers also noted that Monero Research Labs, their academic and research arm, already noted and outlined the deficiency in two public research papers in 2014 and 2015.[citation needed]

(Soronrheeyi (talk) 17:40, 16 August 2019 (UTC))This needs to be added, Soron Rhee Yi(Soronrheeyi (talk) 17:40, 16 August 2019 (UTC))

In a paper dated April 23, 2018, a team of researchers from a broad collection of institutions—including Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, Boston University, MIT, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign exposed flaws within Monero that make it possible to extract individual transactions, making the popular cryptocurrency not as private as it may seem.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.04299/ https://www.wired.com/story/monero-privacy/

Underscoring the instability of Monero is the recent rash of news articles citing hackers using Monero mining malware. https://cointelegraph.com/news/researchers-find-monero-mining-malware-that-hides-from-task-manager https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/08/14/this-spooky-monero-mining-malware-waits-to-be-controlled-remotely/ https://decrypt.co/8431/meet-norman-the-latest-virus-plundering-monero https://cointelegraph.com/news/xmr-cryptojacking-malware-smominru-updated-now-targeting-user-data https://www.thepaypers.com/cryptocurrencies-bitcoin-virtual-currencies/varonis-researchers-discover-monero-mining-malware/780254-39 https://www.fxstreet.com/cryptocurrencies/news/well-known-monero-mining-malware-modified-to-steal-user-data-201908140445

(Soronrheeyi (talk) 17:40, 16 August 2019 (UTC))Soron Rhee Yi

The wired source is for sure a WP:RS. The other cyrpto sites for sure are not. Nextweb maybe. See what you can do with good sources. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 02:50, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 December 2019

Change latest Version to v.0.15.0.1 Source: Github Awesomemartine (talk) 18:27, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

  Done. --Nemoschool (talk to me) 01:25, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

RandomX PoW Change

The Monero 0.15.0.0 update changed the proof of work hash function from CryptoNight to RandomX.[29] The infobox and mining section should be changed to reflect this. Offtopica (talk) 22:06, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

  Done Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:06, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Sources flagged as "unreliable"

Several references to sources are flagged as "unreliable".

In some cases, for example references to the book "Mastering Monero", this seems to be the personal opinion of one Wikipedian. "Mastering Monero" is not self-published. The technical material in it has been discussed by crypto experts (disclaimer: I'm not a crypto expert) and seems to be generally good. No source anywhere is 100% reliable - this book seems to be as reliable as the typical Wikipedia source. The flagging should be removed. Longitude2 (talk) 09:18, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Monero fans like the Monero book? That's nice - David Gerard (talk) 13:26, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
"Mastering Monero" sounds like a horrible rip off of the mastering line of by books by Andreas Antonopoulos. Looked at the website, not an RS here. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 15:45, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Monero is a technical subject and needs technical sources to properly explain its concepts. The book seems to provide just such a summary of Monero's technicals and is written by a security expert. Looking at the above comments, I don't see any real argument against including the source. With a publisher different than the author it is not a self-published source so this non-RS stuff is nonsense. A similar source would fly anywhere else on Wikipedia. 23.241.127.109 (talk) 23:39, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not generally considered a convincing argument on Wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 14:20, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
As you point out, we do have looser sourcing requirements on some articles. This genre is subject of WP:GS/Crypto as well as a consensus to be much stricter. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 16:50, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
From my reading, the general sanctions do not restrict the nature of sources allowed. Additionally, I have not heard of a consensus that restricts sourcing requirements and you haven't provided any backing to that claim. There is however, a consensus that articles about free software are allowed to cite sources associated with their subject. For instawce KDE heavily cites itself and a KDE fan site. dwm cites its own website and an article written by one of its own developers, but has survived multiple AfD requests. The article for par (command) cites only its own documentation and not a soul has been bothered over it. Examples abound. Editors are fine with these sources because software with available documentation, Monero included, is inherently verifiable. 23.241.127.109 (talk) 18:08, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Correct, GSCrypto doesnt create stricter sourcing. But we did have a RfC on Bitcoin Cash that implemented stricter sourcing on that article that has been implemented on all crypto articles. I believe there may have been other RfCs as well. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:30, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Well, there does seem to be such an RFC for Bitcoin Cash. The summary adds: "Several editors proposed extending this proposal to all cryptocurrency articles. A consensus on an article-talk page is normally normally does not extend beyond the individual article. If anyone wishes to seek a broader scope of consensus, a proposal to cover all cryptocurrency pages may be run at Village Pump Proposals. A reasonable effort should be made to notify relevant article-talk pages or Wikiprojects." You mentioned that stricter sourcing was implemented across all articles? Was there a VPP for this? I am not finding one. 23.241.127.109 (talk)
WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is generally considered a failing argument, particularly when the "other stuff" you cite is not an area under severe general sanctions. Keeping out trashy sources is how we control the firehose of spam on Wikipedia crypto articles. And may I say, you're a very knowledgeable new IP - David Gerard (talk) 19:57, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
I suggest that we follow the established consensus used across all free software articles instead of manufacturing arbitrary sourcing rules. And as has been confirmed, the GS do not have anything to say in the way of sources. Also I'm not a new IP (I've been around for nearly one year and that's only since my first edit). Please refresh yourself with WP:IPHUMAN and treat me like any other editor. 23.241.127.109 (talk) 00:10, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
GSCrypto allows us to lock an article to prevent low quality edits. Are you suggesting we do that to this article? Second, uh, no we are not going to change the sourcing policy for this article. Dont keep pushing this by trying to find some limited consensus here. If you want to address the issue as a whole for all cryptocurrencies, then this limited discussion is not the forum. We will not create a special monero policy, no more than we will create a special IOTA policy. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:13, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Oh, you have me mistaken. I am not asking for a special policy for this page or for all cryptocurrency articles. What I am suggesting is that because there are no policies which restrict sourcing on cryptocurrency articles (or if there are, no one has provided them other than in the case of Bitcoin Cash) - I simply suggest we follow the existing rules and consensus. And under the existing policy, a source like that in question is not a problem for inclusion as you have yourself admitted. 23.241.127.109 (talk) 20:19, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
The answer is no. You should be very clear by that now. Do an RfC if you really want to push it, you will see the result. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:36, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
No RFC is needed. A valid source is a valid source. 23.241.127.109 (talk) 04:44, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
You are pushing to add Mastering Monero and multiple editors are telling you no. Pay attention. Are you the author of that book? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:34, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
By my count, we have two editors for and two against. Please don't misrepresent the facts. And no, I am not the author of the book (obviously). 23.241.127.109 (talk) 19:41, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Make it 3 and my return to stopping low quality edits, then. If it's truly notable enough, new sources will pick it up soon. Dr-Bracket (talk) 19:59, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Interesting. You seem to show up in the same discussions as Jtbobwaysf - which I could pass off as coincidence if not for seeing you two together in articles outside the scope of cryptocurrency (such as Julian Assange). I think other editors should be aware of it and I welcome them to see all the overlaps in you two's contribution histories. 23.241.127.109 (talk) 02:37, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
That's not exactly against policy as long as no unconstructive or disruptive edits are being made. Ed6767 (talk) 02:41, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
A request for Mr Gerard. Please do not use this talk page to promote your own book, Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain. Nobody other than you cares whether it's sold more copies than Mastering Monero, or less. There's plenty of room for improvement in the article, so please confine yourself to constructive comments about how it can be made into a more accessible and reliable source of information about its intended subject. You can even suggest your own book as a secondary source if it makes you feel better, but try to do so in a friendly and constructive manner. And a suggestion for Jtbobwaysf: Like you, I haven't read Mastering Monero, so I'm going to refrain from mocking it (just as I refrain from mocking Mr Gerard's book, which I haven't read either). I suggest you do likewise because you're making yourself look very foolish. 79.64.195.193 (talk) 09:51, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
That's a weird thing to say, given I haven't done that thing - David Gerard (talk) 11:28, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
Further up this page you explained your belief that Mastering Monero is not a reliable source by writing “Monero fans like the [sic] Monero book? That's nice.”; an assertion for which the general case (minus your gratuitous and grossly discourteous snideness) is “Source A is an unreliable source because Source A is liked by people who are interested in the subject-matter of Source A.” I don't think you actually believe such a ridiculous proposition, so I'm left with no explanation other than your hostility to books that are in competition with yours. As Andreas Antonopoulos (another of your competitors) has pointed out in another talk page, you're welcome to hold contrary opinions but it's wrong to let those opinions compromise Wikipedia's objectivity. The discussion above is trying to establish whether or not Mastering Monero is a reliable source: therefore it would have been perfectly reasonable for you to say what attributes of that source lead you doubt its reliability. For instance, do you agree with Jt Bob Way SF that one can tell a book by its cover, or do you prefer to go by its content like the other editors who've commented above? 79.64.195.193 (talk) 22:52, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
Do you think you're actually convincing other editors here? - David Gerard (talk) 08:37, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia is open editing by anyone (with the proviso that conflicts of interest be handled honestly). It's therefore possible that other people will try to improve this article, and that they will do so by examining the reliability-or-otherwise of its sources, including Mastering Monero. I haven't read that book, so I don't presume to rule on its reliability, but I am satisfied that you're using invalid criteria for rejecting it (I've encouraged you to comment politely and constructively on its reliability, but you haven't done so, so I'm assuming you haven't read it either). Other editors can make up their own minds. I'm not here to argue with you, so this discussion is now over. 79.64.195.193 (talk) 13:27, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
Please stop. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:14, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Cryptojacking

Cryptojacking is not the same thing as montero. I don't want to start an edit war, so please explain why my edit was reverted. - -MartinThoma (talk) 13:38, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

"Cryptojacking" listed at Redirects for discussion

  A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Cryptojacking. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 October 2#Cryptojacking until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:25, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

"Cryptojacking" listed at Redirects for discussion

  A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Cryptojacking. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 December 21#Cryptojacking until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Aasim (talk) 08:16, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Regulatory Responses

Should point out the law firm Perkins-Coie's analysis of regulatory compliance of Monero, published on 2020-09-15. https://www.perkinscoie.com/en/news-insights/anti-money-laundering-regulation-of-privacy-enabling-cryptocurrencies.html 84.203.30.25 (talk) 22:29, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Inclusion would not be wp:due. We need inclusion in some third party publication. We don't publish legal opinions and PR by law firms. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:25, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Monero GUI Image

Does WP:NOTCENSORED apply to images? CanadianOtaku Talk Page 05:12, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 April 2021

Change age from 6 years to 7 as yesterday was the 7 year anniversary. Itzblaze111 (talk) 15:56, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Not done, as there is a template responsible for doing that, try purging this page by adding "?action=purge" to the end of the url. CanadianOtaku Talk Page 16:39, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 April 2021

was requested by the open source nature of the community to update logo and instructed to roll it out on the platforms.

File:NEW! Monero Logo.png
Modernized version of the Monero logo commissioned by those in the open sourced community

Lehtianimation (talk) 08:48, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:04, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 April 2021

Telegram now allows for groups to be verified (see: https://telegram.org/verify). Unfortunately, Monero only has a verified Twitter account. In order for Telegram group to be verified, we would need to have a link anywhere on the Wikipedia page to the official Telegram group (https://t.me/monero) (NB: THIS is the changed being requested:) The link to this group can also be verified by checking the link in the "Reach Out" section of the footer of the official website (https://www.getmonero.org). This change is not a big deal, it would just be nice to get the verified flag on Telegram to prevent people from being scammed. Thanks for your consideration! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fluffypony (talkcontribs) 19:11, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  Not done: Fails WP:ELMIN. See WP:LINKFARM as well. Also, I would hazard a guess that making changes to Wikipedia based on policy of a non-governmental external party is highly likely to be frowned upon. If you want to see this link included, I would recommend you stick to arguments focused on how your proposed change benefits Wikipedia. Melmann 20:29, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

@Melmann makes total sense, thanks for that colour. To be clear, as I understand it the change would only have to be temporary just for verification, and could be reverted thereafter, so it wouldn't necessarily trip up WP:ELMIN. With regards to how it helps Wikipedia, I think that it is clear that Wikipedia is viewed as well-sourced and canonical, which is a view that I agree with! Could I ask for the change to be made temporarily, just for a couple of hours? - Fluffypony

@Fluffypony: Is there any proof whatsoever to demonstrate that this is Monero's official Telegram group? I don't see this Telegram link mentioned on Twitter anywhere. I also don't see it on the Monero website, despite it having links to the Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, GitHub, three separate IRC bridges, and eleven Matrix channels. Would you care to explain this? jp×g 23:32, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
  Not done for now: It is very unlikely that someone will temporarily edit the article in that way, but of a consensus emerges to do so feel free to reopen the edit request. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:34, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
@Fluffypony: If the only purpose of these changes is to benefit an external group, then I don't support implementing them, regardless of how temporary it is. If there is a reason for said link to be added to the article that would improve the overall quality of Wikipedia, please explain it here. Deauthorized. (talk) 23:36, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

@JPxG yes - as mentioned in my original post, if you visit the official Monero website (getmonero.org) and scroll to the bottom, you'll see a link to the Telegram group ("Telegram chat" under the "Reach Out" section of the footer). @Deauthorized frankly, given the authoritative and canonical nature of Wikipedia, I would prefer a few critical social media / comms channels be linked in the sidebar instead of weird facts like "circulating supply" (which changes every 2 minutes!) or "block explorer" (I love xmrchain, but it's not an official one, and not the only one). - Fluffypony

It is both bewildering and regrettable when a large website decides to require guideline violations in order for someone to get a bluecheck. Many such cases! jp×g 01:11, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
@Fluffypony: Per above. The "weird facts" you mention here is information regarding the block hashing system of Monero, and how long each block waits before being mined. Said information, in my opinion, a lot more notable than a Telegram chat, and less of a guideline violation. I am not comfortable with implementing these changes. Deauthorized. (talk) 02:16, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Does #10 WP:NOSOCIAL mean that we cannot link to the primary social networking page (e.g. Coca-Cola's FB page)? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 20:48, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: No. It means we should avoid doing it unless it can be justified. We are restricted to only one official link normally by WP:ELMIN which links to the main online presence of the subject which covers activities described in the article, which is normally interpreted to be the main website of the subject in most cases. But, if the main website of the subject is its social media presence (such as for example with fuckjerry) then linking to the social media is fine.
A more fundamental issue here is that the requester (who has CoI) is not here to build an encyclopedia. Melmann 06:54, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
I disagree about WP:NOTHERE and dont have any problem with fluffy's edits, he has properly disclosed COI and should not be discrimated as such on this basis. But understand your other logic of the primary presence, this doesnt meet that test. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 09:14, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Request edit on 6 May 2021

  • What I think should be changed: It is an open-source protocol ORIGINALLY based on the CryptoNote application layer.[1]
  • Why it should be changed: Monero is no longer based on Cryptonote, with significant deviations since a long time.
  • References supporting the possible change (format using the "cite" button):


Antanst (talk) 10:45, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Not done, as you have provided 0 sources. CanadianOtaku Talk Page 16:20, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Alpeyev, Pavel; Nakamura, Yuji (2018-01-29). "How to Launder $500 Million in Digital Currency". Bloomberg. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  2. ^ [27] [CryptoNote Technology, Standard CryptoNote transaction](https://cryptonote.org/inside/)
  3. ^ [28] [moneropedia.entries.transaction \| Moneropedia | Monero - secure, private, untraceable](https://www.getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/transaction.html)
  4. ^ [29] [moneropedia.entries.ring-size \| Moneropedia | Monero - secure, private, untraceable](https://ww.getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/ring-size.html)
  5. ^ [30] [moneropedia.entries.denominations \| Moneropedia | Monero - secure, private, untraceable](https://www.getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/denominations.html)
  6. ^ [31] [Block Size Explained - Mycryptopedia](https://www.mycryptopedia.com/block-size-explained/)
  7. ^ [32] [monero-research/Monero Dynamic Block Size and Dynamic Minimum Fee - DRAFT.md at master · JollyMort/monero-research · GitHub](https://github.com/JollyMort/monero-research/blob/master/Monero%20Dynamic%20Block%20Size%20and%20Dynamic%20Minimum%20Fee/Monero%20Dynamic%20Block%20Size%20and%20Dynamic%20Minimum%20Fee%20-%20DRAFT.md)
  8. ^ [33] [Smith and Crown Monero Report](https://www.smithandcrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/SC_Monero_Report.pdf)
  9. ^ [34] [What is a DEX (Decentralized Exchange)? - Crypto Income: Make Money with Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency](http://cryptoincome.io/dex-decentralized-exchange/)
  10. ^ [35] [Monero Exchanges \| CoinGecko](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/monero/trading_exchanges#panel)
  11. ^ [36] [Monero (XMR) price, charts, market cap, and other metrics \| CoinMarketCap](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/monero/#markets)
  12. ^ [37] [How to solo mine with the GUI \| Monero - secure, private, untraceable](https://ww.getmonero.org/resources/user-guides/solo_mine_GUI.html)
  13. ^ [38] [Downloads \| Monero - secure, private, untraceable](https://ww.getmonero.org/downloads/)
  14. ^ [39] [Best Monero Mining Pools in 2019: Complete List \| Beginners Guide](https://www.coinbureau.com/mining/best-monero-pools/)
  15. ^ [40] [Mining Monero \| Monero - secure, private, untraceable](https://ww.getmonero.org/get-started/mining/)
  16. ^ [41] [How to mine Monero solo with its GUI wallet or pooled using XMR-Stak - How to Mine](https://howtomine.co/2017/12/10/how-to-mine-monero-xmr-stak/)
  17. ^ [42] [MyMonero](https://mymonero.com/)
  18. ^ [43] [Ledger Wallet - Hardware wallets - Securing your crypto assets \| Ledger](https://www.ledger.com/pages/supported-crypto-assets)
  19. ^ [44] [Blog by Tag \| Monero - secure, private, untraceable](https://ww.getmonero.org/blog/tags/releases.html)
  20. ^ [45] [Double-spending - Wikipedia](https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Double-spending#51%_attack)
  21. ^ [46] [Inflation rates of crypto currencies \| abrok.eu](http://blog.abrok.eu/inflation-rates-of-crypto-currencies/)
  22. ^ [47] [Is Monero (XMR) Centralized, Decentralized or Semi-Centralized?](https://questions.coincheckup.com/monero/is-monero-xmr-centralized-decentralized-or-semi-centralized/)
  23. ^ [48] [Monero Claims to Be the Sleeping Giant of Cryptocurrency, Here Is Why](https://blokt.com/news/monero-claims-to-be-the-sleeping-giant-of-cryptocurrency-here-is-why)
  24. ^ [49] [[Guest Post] Monero: A Model for Decentralized Governance - Currency Journals](https://currencyjournals.com/monero/guest-post-monero-a-model-for-decentralized-governance/)
  25. ^ [50] [Monero \| Completed Tasks](https://forum.getmonero.org/22/completed-tasks?page=1)
  26. ^ [51] [The Merits of Monero: Why Monero vs Bitcoin](https://www.monero.how/why-monero-vs-bitcoin)
  27. ^ [52] [Block Size Explained - Mycryptopedia](https://www.mycryptopedia.com/block-size-explained)
  28. ^ [53] [Stanford University - Bulletproofs](https://web.stanford.edu/~buenz/pubs/bulletproofs.pdf)
  29. ^ "Monero 0.15.0.0 "Carbon Chamaeleon" released". getmonero.org. Retrieved 30 December 2019.

Edit request

The reference [2] for the section under Efforts to trace transactions should include [1] since the current reference goes to a page for subscribers only. Additionally Ciphertrace makes the claim that they can trace Monero [2]

File:Ciphertrace 8.4.21 Announcement
CipherTrace Announces Enhanced Monero Tracing Capabilities for Government Agencies and Financial Institutions
Bitcoin.com is an unreliable source, and CipherTrace is the primary source. We need a reliable third-party source to mention this. TarkusABtalk/contrib 15:53, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 November 2021

This isn't mentioned in the header section, but Monero also uses Dandelion++ to obfuscate another detail of the transaction IP addresses. As a side note, Monero users can also use Tor/I2P, but that is optional, thus would not go along with the next sentence, which says "these features are baked into the protocol". So here is my edited header section as this is a semi-protected page, and I have to submit an edit request.

The protocol is open source and based on CryptoNote, a concept described in a 2013 white paper authored by Nicolas van Saberhagen. The cryptography community used this concept to design Monero, and deployed its mainnet in 2014. Monero uses ring signatures, zero-knowledge proofs, "stealth addresses", and Dandelion++ to obfuscate transaction details. These features are baked into the protocol, though users can optionally share view keys for third party auditing. Transactions are validated through a miner network running RandomX, a proof of work algorithm. The algorithm issues new coins to miners, and was designed to be resistant to ASIC mining.

Radonafoot (talk) 08:55, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

  Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Melmann 23:34, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for the quick response, however the Privacy section's 3rd paragraph already explains Monero's use of dandelion++ and cites appropriate sources.[1][2][3] Radonafoot (talk) 11:51, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
  Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 20:16, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Bojja Venkatakrishnan, Shaileshh; Fanti, Giulia; Viswanath, Pramod (2017-06-13). "Dandelion: Redesigning the Bitcoin Network for Anonymity". Proceedings of the ACM on Measurement and Analysis of Computing Systems. 1 (1): 22:1–22:34. arXiv:1701.04439. doi:10.1145/3084459.
  2. ^ Fanti, Giulia; Venkatakrishnan, Shaileshh Bojja; Bakshi, Surya; Denby, Bradley; Bhargava, Shruti; Miller, Andrew; Viswanath, Pramod (2018-06-13). "Dandelion++: Lightweight Cryptocurrency Networking with Formal Anonymity Guarantees". Proceedings of the ACM on Measurement and Analysis of Computing Systems. 2 (2): 29:1–29:35. arXiv:1805.11060. doi:10.1145/3224424.
  3. ^ "Dandelion for Monero". www.monerooutreach.org. 2020-03-03. Archived from the original on 2021-01-27. Retrieved 2021-05-08.

Outdated info

Hey everyone, editing is blocked for me but I guess thats because of my low level. Two infos are outdated: - 8 years (7,8) since introduction, not 7 - Block reward is ≈0.72 XMR (between 0.71 and 0.73), not 1.16

Not extremely important but I just wanted to write that down. HatSimulator2 (talk) 10:30, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Update Infobox

The article is protected, can someone else make these changes? The block reward has fallen to like 0.7 XMR, but just post the "Tail Emission" block reward because this article is only getting updated a few times every year, and the tail emission will stay the same and we won't need to change it.

Block Reward = 0.6 XMR (Tail Emission after May 2022)

Plural = Moneroj

Symbol = XMR or ɱ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.228.183.181 (talk) 18:49, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Please capitalize Monero

the article is filled with "monero" instead of Monero 84.232.179.231 (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Yeah I noticed this too. I'll change it now.

Bangabandhu (talk) 14:08, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Monero has completed its tail emission time to reflect this

In light of news Monero has fixed its block reward at 0.6 XMR (or in other conversion 0.60 XMR) from Late May 2022 onwards I suggest that we update the article to reflect this the block reward even before now wasn't even 0.67 it was usually between 0.61 and 0.63 Monero that 0.67 was probably from last year anyway that's my suggestion let me know what you think Dolapomoradeyo2 (talk) 14:38, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

06:12, 10 June 2022 (UTC)06:12, 10 June 2022 (UTC)~~

Monero Can Now Be Tracked By US Homeland Security

A tool for tracing Monero was built by intelligence firm CipherTrace for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The firm said the tool would be beneficial Monero, getting listed again in exchanges that delisted it. The tool could allow investigators to explore Monero transactions. The firm spent one year developing the tool as per its contract with the DHS Science & Technology. It was also paid $2.4 million out of a maximum of $3.6 million potential value in the contract signed in 2018. While the tool can track stolen or illegal funds, CipherTrace plans to add more features, such as wallet identification and exchange attribution. But the private nature of Monero makes the tool unable to give a 100% guarantee on the data. CipherTrace CEO Dave Jevans said tracing Monero is more about probability than guarantee. "You can say: Well, I have 98% probability that this went from this address to this address, or 78%, or that type of thing," When asked if the tool can trace the identity of the individuals, Jevans said "We don’t identify individuals," he said. "That task belonged to the law enforcement,"[1] SabaneUS (talk) 23:11, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Looks like this article is just describing a poisoned output attack (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iABIcsDJKyM). I hope the DoD didn't pay millions of dollars for that. Also I think this is the correct link: https://www.ibtimes.com/private-coin-monero-can-now-be-tracked-us-homeland-security-3037794 192.245.0.2 (talk) 06:14, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Licit and Illicit transactions

@TarkusAB Regarding your revert... Monero's monthly tx count continues to grow(https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/monero-transactions.html#3y) and the number of law-abiding merchants accepting XMR continues to grow (CakePay, Mullvad, IPVN, et al). Given said growth, is the onus on me to prove these txs are licit or on someone else to prove ALL growth is illicit? Matthew.kowal (talk) 18:48, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

@Matthew.kowal: Sorry for the late reply, I forgot to answer you. The onus is not on you, rather we wait for sources to report it. We need a reliable source which states that there is growth in licit transactions, just like there are several reliable sources that discuss its increased use in illicit transactions. You are looking at transaction charts and coming to your own conclusions, which is WP:OR and thus not permitted on Wikipedia. TarkusABtalk/contrib 15:52, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Monero kinda haves a max supply

Not a complete fixed supply, but is capped around 18.4M From there the inflation rate drop’s to significantly, probably even not been able to increse due to the monero burned and lost overall. 95.125.86.234 (talk) 04:40, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Errors in the Subunits of Monero

There are some errors in the subunits : 1 nanonero = 1 / 1 000 000 000 (and NOT 1 / 100 000 000) 1 piconero = 1 / 1 000 000 000 000 (and NOT 1/ 10 000 000 000) 195.135.95.113 (talk) 08:26, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

This is fixed. TarkusABtalk/contrib 17:59, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 May 2023

hello i request the deletion of the category "ransomware" because the monero project itself isn't involved in these or any crimes. and so it's a political motivated decision to link criminal activities of individuals to a medium of exchange or any object to defame it. everything can be used for crime e.g. cash, gold, any cryptocurrency and any valuable exchangable item. and it's a wrong decision to inform curious and clueless people (who just want to learn something about the medium itself) about any criminal activities. instead it's defamation and propaganda. wikipedia should be an objective and political neutral platform, and nothing else as an encyclopedia.

so please accept my call for objectivity and neutrality and delete the category "ransomware". would a company or any corporation be directly involved in a crime (so they're the criminals), then you're completely right if you link these crimes to the wikipedia article of the corporation. otherwise it's defamation. the same thing for the german monero page. a user called Joshi71 just reversed my deletion of "kriminalität" without an explanation, no wonder because again it's political motivated defamation. a new editing is still pending, please take care of it.

i just checked the bitcoin page and found unrelated crimes as well in the category "economic and legal concerns", the "use in illegal transactions" part. but unsurprisingly i cannot see any crimes on the wikipedia page of gold (the precious metal). but gold was definitely used by criminals in the past, you would lie if you wouldn't say so. even ISIS used gold. so this is clearly an action against cryptocurrencies!

i am willing to publish this letter to the press in case you refuse to delete reports of crimes of individuals without an involvement of the monero and bitcoin project.

kind regards crypt95 Crypt95 (talk) 22:32, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

  Not done: Callmemirela 🍁 23:12, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Picking a block explorer

There is no "official" Monero block explorer. There is no block explorer run from getmonero.org. This Monero page links to a block explorer. The Bitcoin page on Wikipedia does not. Should this article still link to an unofficial block explorer like it does now? What is the reasoning for that? If it should link to an unofficial block explorer, which one should it link to and why? SamsungGalaxyPlayer (talk) 19:40, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

If there is no official one, it's better we do not link to any. Yes, the Bitcoin article is a good precedence for this. Readers aren't dumb and can find one through a search engine if they want one. TarkusABtalk/contrib 22:58, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Good call. Grayfell (talk) 23:00, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

On the advertising.

@Grayfell removed the advertising example and asked to "provide context for advertising". I'm unsure what this means, but the article already confirms that monero is used amongst anarchist/anti-establishment groups, quoting from the privacy section:

These features have given Monero a loyal following among crypto anarchists, cypherpunks, and privacy advocates.

So the advert stating

Marketing material distributed by the Monero community promoting crypto anarchism

Does seem justified and placed into context within the article. And if the citation is not enough, I'm sure more can be found. Pouring grain (talk) 22:07, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

For context, this is about this edit.
The very simple answer is that neither 'getmonero.org' nor 'monerooutreach.org' are reliable sources. Further, Wikipedia uses independent sources to demonstrate encyclopedic significance. So the goal should be to use reliable, independent sources to explain to readers why some bit of information is encyclopedically significant. Those sources were not sufficient for this.
I advise against looking for sources to support your own first-hand knowledge. Instead, look at what reliable sources are saying and summarize them without interpreting them. Only dip-into primary sources for extremely basic information or to clarify something that is only partially explained by reliable independent sources.
It's also worth emphasizing that Wikipedia isn't a platform for promotion or advocacy, so we need to be saying something more substantial than "marketing material exists, here is an example". Our goal is to provide context, nor merely compile trivia. Grayfell (talk) 22:51, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for the comment and I now understand the issue. I'm new to Wikipedia so the policies can be sometimes overwhelming. For the topic of WP:RS I think I will use the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard for additional sources that could be of use to the article, but have concerns over.
Pouring grain (talk) 09:19, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
We do have some extra restrictions (informal but widespread consensus) to use only high quality WP:RS on all cryptocurrency articles. So that means no blogs, press releases, WP:UGC, and other low quality stuff. I would suggest you look for sources that can be found as greenlighted on WP:RSP. Things like fortune, bloomberg, nyt, wsj, etc. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:50, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Proposal for adding Monero sign

Previously I wanted to add Monero sign (ɱ) to the page however @Grayfell reverted the change and mentioned the sign can cause confusion with similar signs and asked for citation.

This seems to be valid concern however only Bitcoin page has citation but lots of cryptocurrency pages with their sign included without citation. Some examples are: Dogecoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, Primecoin, Auroracoin and much more.

And if citation is still required these links may be used:

  • https://unicode-explorer.com/c/0271
  • https://cryptobriefing.com/bitcoin-crypto-signs-symbols/

Throat0390 (talk) 20:51, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, a lot of pages about cryptocurrency have unsourced or poorly-sourced information. Problems at other articles are not a valid excuse to add new problems to this article. I have made some adjustments to the Litecoin article, but as always, much much more work is needed.
As for these sources, "Cryptobriefing.com" is not a reliable source. Even with the caveat that it should not be cited, it does explain that the use of most of these symbols is inconsistent. It also barely mentions Monero at all. About the ɱ for Monero it says "Though these symbols are appealing and stylized, observers from outside the crypto world may not instinctively recognize them as currency signs".[16] Wikipedia isn't part of the "crypto world"; this is a general-audience encyclopedia. If reliable sources do not support the wide-spread use of this symbols, this is nothing more than jargon and heavy-handed branding.
But as I said, this doesn't appear to be a reliable source, anyway. Crypto outlets rarely are.
I also do not see any indication that Unicode-explorer is reliable. It doesn't appear to have any indication of fact-checking, nor any explanation of its editorial process, nor any indication of who hosts it or why. The simple standard for reliability is that a source has a (positive) reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, per WP:RS.
To clarify, I'm not disputing that some people have used this symbol for Monero (or other symbols for Litecoin, etc.). I am saying that without a reliable source, this is both needlessly confusing and also indistinguishable from trivia. Just because bitcoin and "real" currencies have a symbol doesn't automatically mean that every cryptocurrency also has a symbol, and it would be up to reliable sources to tell us what that symbol is. As the unreliable source mentions, users of these cryptocurrencies have pushed these symbols specifically as a marketing tactic, but Wikipedia isn't a platform for promotion. Grayfell (talk) 21:51, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
I have set the request to answered, as there is no consensus. You can continue to discuss this, but please do not reopen this request until consensus has changed. Grayfell (talk) 21:52, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
  • When I did a search of google for this odd symbol which linked to Voiced labiodental nasal. While interesting to me in that I have never heard of it (wikipedia editing is fun in that it shows us some really odd things). But back to the subject, at hand, I dont see anything even on google that suggests this is the system. Even when i search for the sumbol and the word crypto, i only see some complaints on reddit that we dont include the symbol. This is not the level of content quality that we include, we tend to follow at wikipedia, and we dont lead. I too am opposed to this inclusion without a few good RS. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 06:38, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
  1. ^ Mislos, Vincent. "Private Coin Monero Can Now Be Tracked By US Homeland Security". www.ibtimes.com. IBTimes LLC. Retrieved 1 June 2022.