Latest / Monero Talk / Darknet Market Maximalism with Anti Moonboy Creator xenu | EPI 347

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Darknet Market Maximalism with Anti Moonboy Creator xenu | EPI 347 · Monero Talk

• Doug Alright, xenu, what's up, man? xenu Hey, what's going on? Thanks for letting me on your program. Doug Yeah, of course. Anytime. Anytime. We've done a Monero talk, right? Have we done one? Did we do one? No, you are just... Yeah, we just... We just done a Monero talk, yeah. xenu It was Monero Topia, yeah, and you were like on some guerrilla marketing campaign mission. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Doug Yeah, it was an awesome day awesome damn fucking marching around Mexico City. It's beautiful hot day xenu You were literally in a taxi actually during it. So actually Good old tuxy interviewed me. We had a good chat. It was a good time. Yeah, I was like, huh, man I think that was back in October Doug But yeah, that was surreal for me, man, because I was running around doing Monero Topia Prep, and I was going to find an ATM, right? And I found it. I found the ATM, and they did accept Monero. Really, a Monero? We had, yeah, it was a, they had Monero on the ATM in Mexico City. Oh, wow. But remember, I remember, yeah, that's what I was going to do. I was going to find the cafe that had the ATM. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you were on, oh, and I was putting stickers up. I was putting Monero Topia stickers up throughout the city. As I was listening to Zeno on Monero Topia Live, it was pretty surreal. It was an epic Monero moment for me, to be honest. I remember, what were you talking about? What were you, I gotta say, because I wasn't fully focused. xenu Yeah, sure. It was back when I launched my channel anti moon boy Uh, this was this was back in october and when I launched my channel Um, it was with the series attack of the poison outputs, uh, which I actually haven't finished yet But uh now it's up to 30 episodes long. It's entirely free. It's on youtube And uh, it's uh, it's basically my reboot of breaking Monero Um, you know breaking Monero was made back in Like 2018 2019 and that's a long time ago in crypto years. Um You know that series they don't even talk about Flooding attacks, uh, they really kind of gloss over the co-spend heuristic And they really don't even talk about kyc exchanges, which is really how most people are being targeted these days So my series goes into a lot of detail with actual real world situations, you know with for example darknet market admins getting Um caught and we look at that we analyze how you know chain analysis and all these blockchain surveillance companies are trying to attack Monero So i'm really happy with it. Um, yeah, it's like 30 episodes long right now totally free And uh, that was back in october when I launched. So, uh, the editing quality on it is a little I was figuring it out on the on the fly Basically, but uh, the quality is really good of the the education educational material Doug Yeah, I was, I was, I was trying to cram it today. Starting at like four o'clock. I was cramming your information. I was listening on 2X. Sounds great on 2X. Great. I did a little bit on 1X as well. Just, dude, it's a great show, man. xenu Well, yeah, so that right there, that's anti- Doug I love the the roebuck and he can he join jump on our show at some point today. Is that possible? xenu Well, right now he's on vacation. He's in Italy right now. He's got a girlfriend and it's a long story. Doug He fell in love with the Panini machine, he moved on to the Panini machine. xenu Well, it was actually the coffee maker. It was kind of a a tryst. I don't want to really get into it It's kind of rough to talk about but basically now he's with the toaster right now. They're uh, they're in Italy and They're on some like honeymoon. I don't know. Apparently they can fall in love or something. I don't really know what's going on with that But anyways, yeah, what you just had pulled up. That's some another show I have that's called anti moon boy news That's a a weekly podcast I have And that's more like me kind of going over What's happening during the week and I just provide some commentary on it So it's I try to try to make it at least an hour if I can Sometimes I just don't have the time to be honest But it's been pretty much just me with a mic kind of going over what has happened and I have an RSS for great I might rip some anti moon boy calm if you don't like YouTube I got all my links on there as well as a RSS feed. I'm self hosting it, too So it's it's all pretty cool stuff. And yeah, if you're more into the podcast kind of vibe I highly recommend that show because you know the whole point of like my channel is not to be just like, you know brain dead price speculation like 99% of you know cryptocurrency we're talking about digital cash and it being used so mostly we're talking about Monero but I also talk about Bitcoin and kind of the stuff going on in the ecosystem as well on a Way that I'm being critical of things and not kind of just you know Allowing thing like you know, it's shilling just a bunch of cryptocurrencies now We're being critical and we're looking at real-world usage. Did you do a great job? Speaker 2 Do you love coffee and Monero as much as we do? Consider making gratuitous.org your daily cup. Pay with Monero for premium fresh beans and if you like what you taste, send a digital cash tip directly to the farmers that made it possible. Proceeds help us grow this channel, gratuitous and Monero. Doug Um, so yeah, I pulled up, I pulled up your website. I love it. Minimalist, very, uh, cypher punk-ish. xenu Yeah, I made that with the help of some AI, I guess. Oh, really? Nice. Yeah, I mean, I've never used Hugo before. I mean, I didn't really use AI that much. It was pretty straightforward. But yeah, I got a got a server with Monero. It's all paid with by Monero from donations, actually. And yeah, dude. Doug What is your, I probably asked you this that day too when you were on Monero, Toby, but do give us your quick Monero story, man, as much as you're willing to provide some of how you got involved. xenu uh yeah so uh basically i got into cryptocurrency because um actually i wanted to bet on uh ufc fights and at the time um gambling was like illegal everywhere it's totally different now but like back then it was like illegal and so um yeah i uh i got bitcoin and sent it to this like shady like gambling website kept it by the way did not use a wallet i kept the bitcoin on the gambling website too like i was doing like everything incorrect and uh yeah i like broke even that day and then um like a month later of course i kept the bitcoin on the website i didn't even like withdraw it but then like a month later i went on to like make some more bets and like then the bitcoin i had in there like was doubled in value and i was like the i i don't remember that me get like because i had like a hundred dollars in there and then it was like two hundred dollars or something i'm like huh so then i started reading the economics of it i'm like oh that that's actually really interesting and like scarcity and then i discovered like the whole cypherpunk aesthetic and like i was like oh this is like really interesting Doug around what time was that? Was this happening? Like 2016. Oh, okay, that's awesome. xenu Yeah, and then I found Monero and I was very impressed with how they didn't really hold your hand with anything and how it was very much based on digital cash and it was great. I got started on the CLI wall, I was reading everything and I was also pretty jaded with talking to Bitcoin people. I was pretty much banned off Bitcoin message boards because I would just be skeptical and you know, it was just like, all right. Doug Now, were you a Bitcoin privacy guy first, and then a Monero guy, or you were kind of a- I don't want to. xenu it was kind of it was kind of happening all at once i was kind of just doing a lot of research i actually um the main reason i i discovered Monero actually was because of the ASIC resistance that was actually what really drew me to Monero um in fact i was um interested in oh what the hell uh vert coin do you remember that oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i was like really i was like interested in that for like a week but like it was i was like oh this is yeah because like i was very um like i was very confused as to why people were like totally okay with ASICs i was like we should have like a better type of mining like that's not you know just bitmain you know products so yeah that's actually really why i found Monero but also i was beginning to question like the the i guess like how bitcoin wasn't updating stuff on the base layer that was kind of bothering me and kind of through that i i was also just reading a lot about Monero and i was i was vibing with it but i was definitely not like an expert um and so anyway i got a little funny story though related to you so by like late 2019 early 2020 i started getting back into crypto right and i and i have like a very bad association with your show because i was like obsessively listening to your podcast because like you you're basically the archival list of Monero right you like interviewed basically everybody so i was like listening pbs of Monero yeah pretty much and so anyways i was listening to like your interviews with like you know like howard chu or whatever and like back back from a while ago but like i was getting caught up and like i was listening to that while the whole covid nonsense was like starting to break out so i have a bad association because like i remember i'd be like driving to work and like i'd be listening to your podcast and i'd be getting texts from my mom she's like and i'd be like mom shut up and i'm gonna listen to your show so i'm sorry about that there's like a bad it's bad vibes but it's not really your fault yeah you know i i'm kind of Doug What was, you know, not, I don't mean to say this in a bad, was, you know, those were exciting times too. Like you had a bad time during COVID. xenu Oh, I mean, I was fine. I was just saying like it was kind of like negative because like things were shutting down I'm like people are so stupid. Why are people like freaking out right now? Doug like I was I was running for Congress during that time in 2020 rise wild man with Covid happening and I remember yeah it was it was a memorable time for me but yeah that's so we got we got to change that we got to change your perception of men there now well can we meet that did we meet up and out to xenu briefly I'm a pretty laid-back person like yeah I don't go around telling people I'm zenu at conferences yeah we met we met yeah I wish I could have talked to you longer yeah yeah Doug You got to come to the next one because what's great about that venue too and the location is you really can show up Anonymously right because it's like you mix the public in with with the attendees so anybody can kind of come in there and xenu Oh, yeah, I want to know I really want to speak at the one the next one in Mexico I want to speak at. Oh, yeah. Hell, yeah, that's a Doug I would love to maybe we get you helping with hosting too if you're down for that you'd be a fantastic host. Yeah, well, maybe xenu Yeah, I'd consider it for sure. I can also speak Spanish, not particularly well, but I can get by with that too. So I'm not gonna talk right now about that. I haven't warmed up, I'm not gonna do it out in the air. But yeah, I can just, I can. Doug speak Spanish though. Yeah, we had Vlad host this year. We'll be posting all those videos soon, hopefully very soon. xenu I actually did make an appearance this year because I did the voiceover for Rukmium. Doug Oh, wow. Oh. xenu sit really yeah he it was pretty funny cuz like I had just been like starting to do attack of the poison outputs and then he hit me up and he's like hey do you want to do this room like yeah of course and it was pretty cool I had so we had like a little collab going and I'll probably do his next one as well but maybe I could do it live I guess I don't know just read read off this PowerPoint live or something Doug Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fantastic that he participated. Sheldon tip 30 bucks. The attack of the poison output, wow, $30. Dang. The attack of the poison output series is very good. I'm going through it right now. I'll make a donation to that once I am done with the series. 0.005 per episode seems like a nice amount. Wow, all right. xenu That's very nice. Thank you very much Sheldon. I appreciate that. Doug Yeah, you use XMR chat as well, which I do great job using it people send in their questions right in advance xenu So basically yeah XMR chat comm slash Xenu and on anti moon boy news I open each episode and I answer whatever questions or comments I Receive and they're pretty all over the place. Sometimes they're just people trolling me, which is cool I'm fine with that. Hey, if you're gonna donate money, I'll read a troll message at any any day of the week But I very often get like really good questions through that too. So it's been a lot of fun and I open each episode with that So you can yeah Doug It's like it's like fan mail. I love it. It's like a great way of using it. Oh for sure xenu Yeah. Well, I've definitely noticed that the best way to build an audience is being consistent. So I'm trying to get this out every week on Monday night is when I release it. I'm trying to keep up with that because when you have that consistent every week, an hour of good content, that's how you build an audience. Doug Dude, you're welcome to hang out on Monero-Topia whenever you want. If you want to use it as a platform to get your content out as well, by all means, coming out there. Come be a regular on Monero-Topia. We have some good regulars, man. Bonnie's fantastic. Tux is fantastic. Oh, yeah. It's a good crew. Obviously, Tony does the news. Artik Mai now pops in all the time, which is amazing, right? Yeah, he's a good dude. Spending your Saturday morning with Artik telling everybody how Monero will flip Bitcoin in the bear market because of scaling issues. What do you think about that, man? What do you think about that? xenu I don't think it's going to flip Bitcoin, but I do think it's going to perform very well during the bear market. That's because people actually use Monero. It's got this constant current of people buying it and using it. We've seen that from adoption, but yeah, I don't know. I think it's more so that I'm highly skeptical of the concept of worldwide adoption. I think that's kind of ridiculous, to be honest, which is actually kind of an unpopular opinion. I know a lot of people really are pushing for that, but I actually think that stablecoins are what's really going to be adopted. We're already kind of seeing that. Stablecoins are actually being used right now. In third world countries, I'm hearing people who do receive Bitcoin just swap it right into Tether or USDC or whatever. We're seeing cartels actually launder money in stablecoins because there's no volatility. I think that that is probably more likely to be used and Bitcoin is just more of this kind of scarce NFT kind of thing because Bitcoin usage is just trending downward. Now the problem with that though, and this is where I agree with Arctic Mine, is their whole fee model is based on usage. They need transaction fees and it's not being used as much as ... I mean, it is still being used, but it's trending down and it's hard to ... It's hard to tell people to buy as much Bitcoin as you want because your number is going to go up and then it's like, hey, use Lightning Network and they're not going to do that. Why would they do that? Because they want to hold their Bitcoin as long as possible. That's actually really problematic because yeah, their fee model is based on transaction fees and stuff, which is not good. Doug So then what what what do you see as being the ultimate role of Monero if it's not used? Peer-to-peer digital cash right peer-to-peer digital cash. It's going right now. We're using stable coins, right? so why isn't it get to the point where a large swath of society is using digital cash xenu I think, yeah, because I think most people are just going to do what the government tells them to do, to be honest with you. We've already seen some examples of that, speaking of COVID, like they're just going to go along with what the government says. So I mean, if... Doug it's possible that the efficiencies that Monero provides could lead to people using it in place of the centralized systems. So if done right, things could become even more efficient, more fluid than the current system. xenu Yeah, I think it's possible for sure, but I think it's just more likely stablecoins will be used because it's just similar to the system we have now. It's kind of like when you're trying to onboard somebody to using cryptocurrency, you have to convince them why it's better than using Venmo or Cash App. And that's really hard because that is like super convenient, right? And so I... Yeah. Doug But we're at a point, I agree with you, but I'm saying maybe we're not, I look at it as Monero potentially being more convenient and less frictionalist than the conventional system. Definitely banking, right? We use Monero often in our businesses and then we also use the traditional banking system and it's night and day between using Monero. It's like going from tin cans and a string like the telephone when you use Monero cryptocurrency versus using the traditional banking system. Like when you gotta send money through the bank, it's a whole process and the KYC and all the things that can happen like the fee you gotta pay. Now, Brad, did you have something like a Venmo, which is, that's a nice, sexy, easy way to use banking. But to be honest, my 10-year-old can start using Monero tomorrow. She wouldn't be able to start, spin up a Venmo. xenu Well, I think one issue I have, though, is to make things more convenient, you have to bend the knee to regulations and centralization. That's kind of just what's inevitable and that we're already seeing with basically every type of like, you know, anything that's used on like a really large scale, there's like elements of centralization and regulations that come into play. And that's kind of where I'm a little like skeptical of, you know, I mean, ideally we have like- Doug more of an optimist in that area. Yeah. xenu I'm just black-pilled, I guess, you definitely are, Matt. I'm just looking at this from the perspective of past events and how cryptocurrency has developed over the past decade. And how it's developed is that no one's really using it. They're just buying it and it's like number go up. That's really all they care about. Doug like XMR bazaar right so you saw that yeah but do you see that as having real potential where like you know you can effectively live off of XMR bazaar as easy as you can live off of Amazon or eBay xenu Um, I mean, yeah, it definitely has potential for sure. I wouldn't, you know, I'm not going to knock down on people who are doing that. I'm just, I'm kind of just being like, I'm looking at this from like the perspective of like Joe, the mechanic, you know, like Joe, the mechanic, he does not understand how any of this works. Um, he's kind of just like, he just has like, uh, he cares about the game that's coming on in the weekend and he, you know, he has, he has a job, you know, he's a mechanic and he gets paid and that goes to his bank account. And so when you add like Monero to it, he's got to learn how to download a wallet and, um, you know, onboard on the Monero and there's different types of cryptocurrencies and then people are talking about nodes and what the hell is mining, how do people do that? This is all simple for us, but for him, this is like a lot and that friction, I mean, we're starting to kind of chip away at it for sure. But I, I mean, that's kind of a lot for, for the, for the normie out there. You know, um, now this is, yeah, yeah, yeah. Doug That's why the early adopters are the ones that really have to understand the value proposition and are going out of their way to use it. xenu So, so here's the thing, though, this is a good segue, because this actually leads me into the manifesto I'm releasing, Darknet Market Maximalism, because here's a good segue. Here's the thing, okay? People on Darknet markets, they're not using cryptocurrency because they want to. They're using cryptocurrency because they need to. They have no other choice. And if you were to magically wish away cryptocurrency, Darknet markets will collapse overnight. Like, they can't function without uncensorable digital cash, okay? Like Joe, the mechanic, if he wants to buy drugs on the internet, then he's going to have to learn how to use Monero. Like he needs to do that. But the thing is, the people on Darknet markets, they're not waking up saying, oh yeah, I get to use crypto. It's like a hurdle they have to jump over. It's a nuisance, really, what it is. But from my point of view, it's actual usage. And that kind of like real organic adoption is like extremely valuable from my perspective because it's actual adoption that's happening for people who don't care about the price of cryptocurrency. They're caring. Doug Oh, yeah. No, I've always looked at it that way. I've been criticized. I was criticized in the beginning. I was talking about all the time to make that you got to talk. Do you have to talk about it as being the best? Yes. And the ransomware hackers, right? They prefer getting paid in Monero versus Bitcoin. Obviously, there's a liquidity issue. But yeah, I mean, that is the environment that your crypto should be winning in if it functions as the best digital cash. Because that's the market that would use that tool first before anybody else. xenu Yeah, I know there's a stigma against it, but this is our propaganda tool if you want people to learn about Monero. I'm telling you right now. Doug But I take that a step further, right, abstracted, right? So the criminals or whatever you want to call them and label them, right, I don't necessarily, you know, there could be lots of things out that are being sold on there that are ethically just fine, right? It's just two people in commerce with each other peer to peer. But that idea can extend way beyond dark markets, right? Like Joel the Plumber can also see value in pure digital cash, right? Pure digital, people doing shady things, they're the first to really be like, I need pure digital cash. But everybody else also benefits from pure digital cash, right? They see value in being able to receive money without everybody knowing that they got it. Like Joel the Plumber gets it, like he wants to get paid in cash versus getting a credit card payment, right? So that idea might, you know, will likely swell way beyond dark markets and into the mainstream because at the end of the day, everybody would want to have a pure cash tool because they're certainly going to benefit from it. They're going to, there's going to be less surveillance from their government, which leads, can really lead to them having more money, right, securing their money better, right? From being abstracted from by governments or corporations and being able to transact with the government not knowing that they're doing it, you know? So they can't as easily abstract their pound of flesh, right, for taxes. So it's going to be used as a tool, just like cash is. I mean, unless you think something, like will stablecoins provide that same type of cash-like experience? No, it's not. xenu To add to your point, we're definitely seeing that dark net adoption has actually led to clear net adoption. You look over the past three, four years, and this is when that shift has happened on dark net markets like coin cards, for example, ShopnBit, SilentLink, servers.guru. Any website that's collecting data on cryptocurrency usage, it's showing Monero is punching way above its weight. I actually think that's because that all else equal, more people are just using Monero. That does actually flow from dark net market usage. I'm not saying everyone using Monero is a criminal. I'm just saying that because people are just every day using Monero, it just increases the probability that other people will use Monero. There's not really a lot of cryptocurrencies that you could say that that's happening. Are people waking up saying, oh, man, I really need Litecoin today? I don't know. I don't really think so. Are people waking up today saying, oh, man, I really need Monero today? Yeah, they are actually. That's a really key difference. Part of the reason why I'm focused on dark net markets, or at least the cryptocurrency usage on them. Now, regarding stablecoins, it's still early on with their UX or whatever, but the concern I have with it is how it could be co-opted. I don't know if you watched the recent Senator Lummis hearing with the cryptocurrency digital assets summit thing. The entire thing was about stablecoins. They said the word Bitcoin like three times. The whole thing was just about stablecoins, and really the main reason why is because they want censorship and they want control over it. My concern is that that is what's going to be pushed and- Doug They want to base it on the dollar, right? And they want the dollar to still be the world reserve, so they need an easily accessible version of the dollar for the world. xenu Yeah, 100%. It bothers them that they can't control it. So having stablecoins, when Trump was president, he released that executive order talking about we're getting rid of CBDCs and everyone's like, oh, we won. No, they just rebranded it to stablecoins. I think it will be adopted because actually stablecoins are already being used. If you look at usage statistics, even on coin cards, stablecoins are being used actually a pretty decent amount. I've seen documentaries of people like in El Salvador, they just take that Bitcoin and just swap it over to USDC or Tether or whatever. They are popular just because of that volatility. And I think over time, that's going to become more and more used because people just want access to cryptocurrency. And so you also have these lighting network being built with stablecoins where you can send a cryptocurrency or I guess it would be a stablecoin over and it immediately swaps into the other currency and things like that. My assumption is that over time, it's just going to get easier and easier to use. And because cryptocurrencies are programmable, they'll just have different currencies that are stablecoins that you can interact with other stablecoins with. It'll just be a very fluid, easy experience without much friction. I don't think that really exists yet, but in my opinion, that's how things are going to trend because people, they clearly don't want to use Bitcoin like this being pushed. They're just buying and holding Bitcoin. And I think Bitcoin is more reflective of the greater market right now, which I'm not really particularly interested in. I'm more interested in the digital cash side, as you are as well. So I definitely think that the focus that we should have is just ignoring the noise and just focus on building our own parallel economy. And we are going to get converts over time and the long-term vision I think is key here because we keep out the moon boys who are really going to come here and just shit everywhere and make everything miserable for us who just care about idealism and the vision that Satoshi actually had of peer-to-peer digital cash. It's a beautiful concept. It's probably the greatest open source discovery in history. We're being honest here, it's a brilliant discovery. And that's why I'm so passionate about it. Doug So I love it man. I love it. But but why be no anti moon boy I get right I get but you're You also seem to just be anti like price Appreciation like don't even don't don't even store, you know, don't don't value, you know, hold your value in Monero xenu No, common misconception, I am not against investment at all. I think investing is great. Doug You see Monero as a tool for holding and storing value as well. xenu That is a use case, absolutely. My issue is that there's just kind of a crossover between people who are investing in Moonboys, but there's a key difference though, because obviously there's scarcity in cryptocurrency. That makes it so if the demand of it goes up, if you're holding it, then you can sell it and make money. I understand that. But the problem though is the people who are only buying Monero just to get rich, those are Moonboys. They don't really care about all the things we're talking about, like freedom and stuff. The problem is once they come in, they multiply. They're rats. They keep multiplying and they don't care about ... Bitcoin used to be freaking based, and now it's- I know. Doug I remember like I remember in like it really went sour in 2020. It was one of like really like yeah Completely changed. No much sailor xenu wasn't even really around back in 2020. He came like... Doug Yeah, and now I'm glad the 2020 was the word that I feel like Bitcoin has never been the same ever You know, even even you know 17 18, right? You had people that were in it for for pumping I you only I experienced I started experience Bitcoin community in like early 2014 2013 December 2013 is when I first like started watching, you know, yeah Bitcoin on a closer level So yeah that even that was a different time But yeah by class by the class of 2020 man, it was a completely south Oh, yeah, sweet like you could you get stills to this day You could like look at a tweet I like a Bitcoin tweet and you can you could kind of determine what? What Bitcoin class they were before you even like like right when you read their team. It's got it's kind of kind of remarkable xenu Yep. It's a very low bar. It's a pathetic bar these days. They're literally here just to make money and it sucks. And you know what's worse though? Here's the worst part. They larp. They pretend, oh, I'm here for the freedom and liberty. No, you're not. Come on, dude. These people are frauds, okay? And there are- But do we have- Doug I don't think we have that much of that in Monero. I mean at least I'm not really I'm not really seeing that yet Who are who are the moon boy? Who are the moon boys? Are you consider me a moon boy? No, there's no way xenu I I consider you no no no I I think you've done so much work for Monero like anyone calling you a moon boy doesn't really get it like you like that's that's not really the point now like like being passionate about a project is great it if it's Doug And I want to see the price go up 100%. Yeah, that's fine. You know, I believe in... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. xenu It's definitely fine like I'm not the moon boys of thing is people who aren't idealistic you know they're like they're like they're not putting in that like extra like literally 10 minutes of research and like because of that they're they're like willing to compromise their ideals for more number go up now Doug if I were to tell you if I were to tell you okay we can we can pump Monero's price 10x but here's the thing we're gonna have to lower the privacy so or I don't know we're gonna we're gonna have to would you agree with that Doug No, absolutely not. That's how I came from Bitcoin to Monero, man. I made the ultimate sacrifice. Let me tell you, it's definitely been a financial one as well, right? So it's I've definitely not even let the number go up. xenu a lot of moon, but like they have to be coaxed into it. You can't like, okay, you can't give it like a, just a direct question like that. But over time they, they're just like, they're willing to kind of give in and stuff. Yeah. You know, like, like with, yeah, like with Michael Saylor, like everyone just like licks this guy's nuts. And like literally like freaking like five months ago, he was talking about, oh, I think exchanges, people should just have their Bitcoin on exchanges. Like that's, that's a good idea. And it's like, dude, what? And you know what happened to him? Nothing. Like there was a couple of angry tweets and then he likes, he was like, oh, I'm sorry. That was it. It's like, what? Like that, that's it. Like he, now he's still like the leader. He's like the emperor of Bitcoin now, whatever he says, like happens. It's frigging insane. But I mean, I guess. Doug I guess where we differ the most, I mean, there's probably a few, but definitely like exchanges, right? Like I'm okay with Monero being on centralized exchanges. I want to see it listed on more centralized exchanges. For that, you're probably like, ah, no, no, no, man, oh. But for me, I mean, as far, as definitely what's full chain membership proofs comes as well, right? Then that really should take away any fear in terms of people onboarding through a centralized exchange, going through KYC, like not ideal, but I always see it as, if you have to use any crypto to obtain it on an essentialized exchange, might as well, like Monero should be the one that you pull off the exchange. That's like how you should, that's how you should go from centralized exchange land into crypto land. And then once you're in crypto land with your Monero, you could go buy whatever, maybe you go buy Bitcoin or something, right? But it makes more, it makes sense if you're gonna go through a centralized exchange with KYC to use something like Monero. Monero really is the only choice. I guess you could say Zcash or something, right? But those would be the ones that you would want to use to remove your value from the centralized system. xenu So yeah, I don't really have a problem necessary with people using KYC exchanges because one, I can't control that. People are going to do that anyway, but also like it's more, I'm, the reason I'm against using KYC exchanges is for people, especially who have like a use case that involves privacy. Because KYC exchanges are like the biggest culprit for people leaking metadata because that's what you're doing when you're on KYC exchanges. So like if I'm giving somebody advice as to how to use any cryptocurrency from a privacy perspective, it's don't use KYC because that is like the foot in the door that blockchain surveillance companies use. Now the thing though is like, yeah, if you're buying Monero as an investment, like there's no issue with using a centralized exchange. I think there's like, especially like, like, because believe it or not, people pay their taxes with Monero. I know, crazy, crazy concept, but like if you buy Monero on a centralized exchange and you put it back into the centralized exchange later, pay the capital gains, like it's completely legal. Like I, people like don't understand that, but like it's, I don't know. Doug We brought a business on Monero, I mean we're very public. MoneroTalk LLC, we file our taxes. We have payments that come in at Monero. We do capital gains on every, you know, comes in and goes out, it's frickin' pain in the ass. Oh yeah. Yeah, can't be done, it's not ideal, but there's no aspects of life that are, you know. No, for sure. Fully integrated into the state. xenu Yeah, it's it's not that's not an issue, but again, though, if I'm if I'm going out, though, from like the privacy advocate, I have to I have to at least advise my audience that, hey, if you're using cryptocurrency from a privacy perspective, don't use KYC because that is the biggest issue. Doug Sure, it's the best thing you can do, yeah, yeah, yeah. xenu Yeah, so that's really it Doug So what advice, so somebody, you know, Joe the plumber, he wants to get, you know, you're talking to him, he's getting the crypto thing. He's like, oh, no, I understand Bitcoin. And then he's like, as Eureka, he gets why something like Monero matters, because now nobody can see the transactions. And he's like, oh, shit, how do I get some, man? I want to get, I want to get 20 grand worth. xenu Probably the easiest way would be cake wallet. Doug That's the advice you're giving people. We go. xenu for like if it's like a normie yeah it's just like super easy it's got to build Doug and I'm I'm telling people yeah xenu Right, right, right, because the thing is, if I'm giving my advice, or if I'm giving the advanced privacy use case advice, I'm assuming I'm not really talking to Joe the plumber. If I'm talking to Joe, I got to dumb things down if I'm talking to Joe, because Joe, he's looking forward to the football game this weekend. The crypto stuff, it's very confusing for him. He's probably going to use a centralized exchange too. I can't. You know what I mean? That's just a very basic thing for them to understand, give my identification, whatever. I don't really care. Then they use a centralized exchange. That's probably what's going to happen. That's just the reality of it. Yeah. I mean- I used to have people that were there. Doug So Joe the plumber, you're telling him, you know, download kick while you're telling him to like get like litecoin or something on a centralized exchange and then send it off xenu I would say that would be completely fine. Yeah, I mean obviously it's not ideal But like at the end of the day he is using Monero and that's that's a plus Yeah, and like if you if you look at so for example If you look at how people on the darknet are getting Monero that's like the most common way is buying big corner like coin and Swapping it using cake wallet or truck a door or any of these like swap services the coin swap Like exchange stuff is like that's how people are doing it and it's really hard to like for blockchain surveillance companies to like follow so like a lot of this is like also kind of ignoring the fact that there's like people who are like targeted have like a completely different like Opsec kind of game that they have to play right for Joe the plumber. He probably doesn't have to really care that much but like And that's why like I'm on my show attack of the poison outputs I make it really clear that privacy. It's it's not on or off switch There's it's a cat and mouse game and you know having like a completely fleshed out understanding Monero is obviously the best way But if we're being like, you know rational and realistic They're not the people who are like really low down. They're not going to like study Monero, right? They're gonna just use it and that's why like cake wallet for example is like super easy Like it has all like they kind of think it's like magic when the coins like swap into each other They don't they don't understand what's going on, right? Doug for sure for sure we do have another XMR chat chat Scott finally tip 25 cents hi guys do you guys know if unstoppable wallet is about to incorporate been there I have seen them tweeting I don't really know much about that wallet at all they're I think they're new on the scene I think they're like with you know seemingly legit I don't know I don't know as you know if you've done your homework on them but I have seen that they're adding Monero yeah are they a popular Bitcoin wallet or I don't know yeah okay so yes I have heard that as well maybe we'll get them on Monero topia at some point once they add it I actually reached out to them a couple weeks ago oh cool yeah so tell it so what what is this series like what are you gonna be doing for the series you're gonna be talking about like instances of Monero being used on the dark markets and stuff or like what are you stats are you like showing like that would be right that's the I've been I've been wanting to do I always want to do something like that but I don't think I have the chops for it you do a great job xenu Oh, actually not really. No, so in Attack of the Poison Outputs, I show people who have gotten caught with Monero or Dark Dark Market Admins and things like that. Dark Dark Market Maximalism is more of a really... It's probably like an hour's worth of reading. I'm actually releasing it in text form and then I'm going to do a spoken word. I'm going to read it, I guess, and record it and release it as an album, basically. It has, I think, 12 chapters. Basically, I'm proposing what a Dark Net Maximalist is. By the way, it's a tongue-in-cheek name. It's kind of satirical. People hear that and they think I'm saying, oh, you got to go in the Dark Net. That's where the future of money is. No, it's more like us recognizing the fact that from the perspective of the government, we are really no different than the drug dealer. The privacy advocate, basically the same thing. They look at us the same way. In fact, we're more of a nuisance to them because we cut again the way. It's kind of like a reframing of that where we're kind of like, screw it, we're Dark Net Market Maximalist kind of thing. What I'm doing is putting forward that this is actual usage. We need to study this, why we need to study it and flushing that out over the course of 12 chapters. It's like, I don't know, 12,000 words, something like that. Something you can read with a cup or two of coffee and I don't want to put too much data into it just because I kind of want it to be something that you can read and just get. I might have one chapter where I go the history of Dark Net Markets and throw some stats in there. For example, Dread has this super list where in the super list, it's the most reputable markets in their opinion. There's six of them and of those six, four of them are Monero only markets and the other two are Monero and Bitcoin. Doug I've heard people say like that list isn't necessarily like the legit list for the dark like I've heard that I don't know them well enough to know like so are those the legit like six like top markets that people are actually using we had a guy I don't I guess you didn't see the presentation because unless you were watching Monero topia conference did you watch the virtual conference xenu I don't remember any presentation about dark dimmars. Doug Yeah, we had somebody that went came and he had presented before in the past, actually. Oh, cool. And originally he came and presented how Monero is being used on the dark markets. And now he was saying it's not really being used much on the dark markets and that most people are using like, he was considering Telegram. xenu that guy's an idiot uh dark the largest dark in the market's archetype it has over like 600 000 users you can go to it right now it's Monero only Doug No, we went up to I went up to him after and he didn't really have he's a professor from like Belgium or something. Yeah well xenu the thing is like people are using telegram to be fair um and like they are they are using like people that still use like instagram to buy marijuana and stuff like people are idiots but like well like from an observable perspective Doug Say like tell like there's a huge amount of volume going through a telegram or but well Yes, I mean it could be like so it works like trading stable like using stable coins to buy xenu disagree though because I understand what he's saying though what he's saying is like so what happens actually is if you become like familiar with a vendor you can like take your chat off of the dark den market and then just buy from him directly through like you know I don't know like telegram for example or yeah yeah exactly and that way you're communicating directly with the vendor and it would be easier for you right so I understand that I don't know where he's getting this data from with like stablecoins being used and stuff like yeah Doug Yeah, it was pretty crazy. I think he missed the mark on this one. I don't know. It was weird. It was like he didn't want to really investigate the dark market. He kind of disregarded the whole thing. It was like, oh, nobody really... He's like, that list isn't really like the list of what people are using. Those markets really aren't that popular. xenu Well you know what, Chainalysis for example, they just put out a report talking about dark net market usage and in the report they're like, yeah, we're not talking about Monero. They literally say that, like, huh? You're kind of missing the main cryptocurrency that's being used on there. I guess they just don't want to like. Doug Data crypto, yeah, over 1 billion users on telegram, that's a lot of freaking people and there are a lot of sales on telegram, but not in the same amount. Small deals are in telegram, big deals are in dark markets, yeah. xenu Well, you're just including everybody who has a telegram account in that for 1 billion users, right? I'm highly skeptical of that number. With a darknet market, we can see how many accounts have been made on it. Or if you go on Dread, you can see how many accounts have been made on it. It's totally legal, by the way, to go on these sites. I'm not encouraging people to go buy drugs on the internet. I'm just saying, from a journalistic perspective, it's totally fine. Doug Yes, I went on, you know, I've checked it out every now and then, but I haven't been on it a while. So that's why I was I was wondering, I've been like, yeah, so I checked it out, to be honest. xenu Yeah, I check them out every so often kind of like read around kind of read the temperature and it's funny So I actually did go on the other day and I wrote a post about the a speed stuff that happened recently I'm sure you're familiar with this and so I made a post about what you should like like, um Not like advising anything But like I was explaining what a speed is and like, you know What it means for usage and stuff and like how where'd you post it on the Monero subdread? Oh, very cool. So I posted that and uh, I had one person comment on it No one even like cares really like it like just went right over their head I think um, yeah people like on twitter They they're making it seem like everyone's like freaking out now. No one really cares Like it's all network effect on on dark dev markets believe it or not And yeah, they're kind of just like um, they're on the mindset of yeah I'm i'm i'm getting Monero not kyc. Anyway, at least on drat They're a little more advanced than like, you know, joe the plumber. He's probably on reddit actually figuring out to this. Yeah Doug The last time I went on really was to because I was, you know, building XMR Bazaar, right? I'm like, I got to look at what these other markets are doing, right? Because we're basically I Need to I need to take a fresh look to archetype is like the most is the slickest one, right? And that's the most popular one xenu Yeah, I mean, they've been around since 2020, which is a freaking long time for a dark net market. So I don't know how much longer they're going to be around because usually they have. Doug their their custodial right they hold the funds they use like an escrow where they hold the money and really right they're not using xenu There is actually one there is a market that has multi-sig. I forgot the name of it though, but there is one Yeah, it's becoming more popular Doug didn't really see it. xenu Yeah. One of the markets on the super dread list or whatever, it is a multi-sig market. And now that multi-sig has been proven secure through that auditing that happened recently, you probably will see more of those. Plus, Havana uses multi-sig too, I believe. Doug Bizarre. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. It's built into the browser, essentially. It's pretty cool. xenu Now actually, to hype up Darknet Market Maximalism, I am having a merch sale. I'm going to have two t-shirts coming out. The design is sick. The album art for Darknet Market Maximalism, it's freaking awesome. I'm super excited to release that. It's under wraps, but I'm going to have a giveaway and stuff, but I'm probably going to use XMR Bazaar to sell it. Oh, sweet. Please do, brother. Yeah. It's really freaking hard doing self-hosting. I'm trying to figure out how to self-host my e-commerce thing, and I'm like, ah, screw this. I'll just use someone else's website. I'll probably just end up using XMR Bazaar, but yeah, that's the plan. I'm going to have a t-shirt giveaway too on my Twitter, which is at Xenu Monero, by the way, for anyone listening. I'm on Twitter if you're into that sort of thing. Doug So I'm sure most of the people listening in they probably all know are already following you know, yeah, dude I mean anybody is like somewhat into Monero on X xenu Dude, that's a weird thing. For a while, I didn't realize that people... I didn't know I was becoming a Monero influencer kind of thing. And then I've read comments mentioning me. And then the other day, there's a guy spamming my name in the XMR IRC. Did you see that? Some guy was spamming my name. Say I'm spreading propaganda about him. It's the guy who got into... I don't even remember his name. It's the guy who got involved with Havana... Oh no, what was it? Quillie? What the fuck is his name? Yeah, he was building an app or something. I don't remember his name. No, that's another guy. I forget his name. He was building an app and he got... Oh, he abandoned the project or something. He abandoned the project. So I mentioned that on my podcast and he spammed the IRC chat. I woke up and I had 50 direct mentions. It was more than that, actually. I'm like, the hell? Yeah. I guess I'm like, I'm causing panic. He's welcome. Doug Jump on this show, reach out man, if you want to come talk about it, you come on Venerotopia and we'll bring Zeno up. I don't want to talk to that guy, he can suck a dick, alright? He basically just ran away, right? With the... xenu what my lore is I don't like it like if someone's being annoying like that I just ignore like I don't have time for that Doug Yeah, no, I don't know the whole story would happen there, but it sounds like, yeah, yeah. xenu So anyway, I'm an influencer now, so, you know, I gotta protect my brand. Yeah, you know. Doug You definitely are. You have a great brand too, man. Thank you. You do a great job branding. Everything is high quality. You can tell you put a lot of work into it. Yeah, it's fantastic. I will definitely be listening to your series. Yeah, I'm hoping to hear some stats of what's actually happening. Yeah. xenu The problem with the statistics is it's not like these markets are really putting out a lot of data, but I will be mentioning though, so incognito market is one of the more important markets to study. One, because the guy who got busted for it was a total piece of crap. This guy was a total piece of garbage. He actually extorted his marketplace. He extorted a bunch of drug dealers. That's how crazy this guy was. He's like 23 years old from, I think he was American, but basically he got caught. On his server was every single cryptocurrency transaction that ever happened. On the server was all recovered by feds. What's interesting is incognito market existed between 2020 and 2024. We actually can see that transitionary period of Bitcoin and Monero happening. His statistics showed that Monero was used more over that period. It was very close, but it was like Monero 280,000 transactions and Bitcoin was 250,000 transactions. You can actually see during that period, the shift happened to Monero being dominant. That's actually real usage we do have, for example. Also, if you go on Dread or even like TorTaxi is an aggregate for onion links and stuff, you can actually see what onions or hidden services accept Monero only or Monero and Bitcoin. There's really no Bitcoin only markets left. Doug Any other cryptos actively being used? No, they could, on dark markets. No, they're not using lightning, the rumor's not true. They're not using lightning on the dark markets. xenu No, that's not happening. There was a market that accepted Litecoin and Zcash as alternatives, but it was kind of in name only. People weren't using it, but the potential there could happen. It's pretty much just Monero and Bitcoin right now. There's really no push to have anything else. And this is actually a problem if you want to encroach on Monero's market share, you have to convince these people that your cryptocurrency is just that much better than Monero because a lot of these people already just know how to get Monero. I just don't see that happening to convince somebody that their cryptocurrency is just so much better that they have to make that switch. It's actually really hard to do if you think about it. It took a long time to convince the markets to switch over to Monero, a really long time to think about it. Doug And that now with full chain membership proofs like yeah, quick. It's all coming It's like it doesn't really make sense for anybody to make that leap right like and to start that You know thinking we have something better. It's like it's gonna be really fact. It's too too large I think and I mean if we if we didn't move fast enough I would say you know maybe maybe that would start to be viewed as a whole because it could it could just start to lead to people getting Caught doing things right with an arrow if there were targets And I'm sure it has are already in ways So if that went out long enough, I do think Monero would have would have faltered But obviously we're seeing that gets fixed. So I think that's tremendous. I mean, right? I mean, what do you think right? I mean, I think that was like that needed to be done xenu Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a huge deal. I mean, really, this is the most significant update for Monero and its history by far. We've been waiting for this for a long time. Graduating for Ring Signatures is like, we've been talking about it since Monero has been created. We knew Ring Signatures were temporary. So once we get this out of the way, we can then, I guess, focus on really just improving the scaling of it and the UX and things like that. And making the transaction sizes smaller, improving the way it's used and stuff. From a privacy perspective, at least on chain, the privacy for it, it appears to be solved. Now, the only problem though, and this is why I talk about KYC exchanges, is, yeah, you can still attack full chain membership groups if you're using centralized exchanges. 100% can happen still through timing analysis and amount correlation. So it's not a silver bullet if you're kind of being lax still. But from an on-chain perspective, if you're just trying to decipher the actual blockchain, I mean, you're looking into a black hole at that point. Doug Right. And that's no different than Zcash or any other privacy coin. Nobody's solving that problem, right? 100%. Yeah. Yeah. That's just the nature of dealing with the centralized exchange. 117 tip, 25 cents. Venus here is, yeah, it's qubit. xenu Yeah, that guy yeah, I talked yeah, there's a whole Lord's eye dude. I can't I don't have time for that But yeah, he's speaking Doug The guy that I was thinking was was Eric Coney. I don't know if you ever dealt with him. I'm like, yeah xenu Oh yeah, I am aware of that guy, yeah. Doug Yeah, he was a problem, he was a problem. xenu Yeah, he's a he's he's a he's a kookina. I'll I'll I'll ask anything. Yeah, yeah, nice guy, nice guy. Doug Yeah guys, any questions you have for Xeno, please do send, please do send. What is your Zcash take, man? What is your overall Zcash take? I see you constantly. xenu Lately, yeah. I mean, I... I don't know where that... Doug But the right information is out there correcting the zghast community. Oh, yeah. I mean what's your overall? xenu Take well lately. Yeah, I have been tween a decent amount at them lately just because um, I don't know I just have been I don't know if you saw the other day I um, I like dug into their transaction usage and it's really bad It's actually their daily transactions are at an all-time low right now. That's how bad it is Doug I find that hard to believe, to be honest, because like the price was pumping, you would think there would be some transaction volume to come from that. Yeah. Well. xenu If you look at the 90-day simple moving average, it is just totally off a cliff, basically. People just aren't using it. Now, with Zcash, if you're just talking about the privacy, it's fantastic. Now, I have so many issues with Zcash that are beyond that, though. The implementation of everything in this project is just really bad. The dev tax, the foundation, the fact that these guys are working with a company, and they're all not anonymous. There's this snobbery, this snootiness that comes along with it where they're above dark net markets. They're above that kind of thing. They're always just refer to their white papers. There's a lot of these little things, the ASIC mining too and stuff. It's just like, yeah, if we're just talking about shield transactions, that's great. They're doing research, but pretty much everything else is just bad. What's frustrating is when you're debating with them and you bring up these things, they kind of just ignore you and they're just like, well, shield transactions are better. It's like, okay, Monero is more than its privacy. It's the complete package and that's why I'm really passionate about it. Zcash has just really dropped the ball on basically everything with the exception of their research and privacy. In my opinion. I tend to... Doug I tend to agree. But I do think they've made some improvements, right? So did they get rid of the founders? No, did they get rid of the dev tax? There was some change. What was the change that was made there in terms of where money is going and amount of money being taken out? xenu uh i i don't have that like up Doug to date, maybe the founder's reward ended or something. I don't know, there was some thing that changed. xenu Well, they're actually voting on extending it because they've pretty much run out of money, which is like, that's actually kind of like a big thing too is like, because they're dependent on like people donating to them. It's like, they're they've just done a really bad job with the money that they're given. Like, if we had like a million dollars, like going into Monero every year to improve it, like I feel like we could do so much more than that. You know what I mean? Like, and like, we're just like, we're, we're like raising money for Monero and like, our usage is like so much more than this, right? It's like when you look at Zcash, you're like paying some guy to make a music video like $60,000. Like, yeah, it's just like Doug it's like a it's like a silicon valley run start-up slate but poorly run xenu Can you name me an American company, a software company that hasn't been completely corrupted or compromised? I don't really trust them that much. Their track record just speaks volumes in my opinion. Doug There's obviously there's VC money involved right because they're a part of the founders on right. Yeah xenu And that's that's a thing too like and then in addition to the bad implementation It's just kind of shady very sterile to like when you're when you're when you're like like okay compare the Twitter like The the people who support Monero on Twitter versus the people that support Zcash, right? It's like very snooty and like you could just like they just smell their own farts You can tell like it's just like it's totally different vibe. Whereas the Monero guys were like extremists like, you know We're like very libertarian hate the government like that kind of thing. It's a completely different vibe I know I I do feel like I I don't like want bad for Zcash but like I'm it's actually good that I should I feel like it's good that I'm like tweeting about them because like I was actually The first guy who like broke the story that they had a spam attack out of you knew that it's like my most viewed tweet Like it was it was like retweeted by like a bunch of like super high follow accounts I think it I think I hit like a million like views of that tweet and But I was like the first one to like notice that like they're being spam attack you know and so I actually got a lot of people from Zcash like thanking me for that cuz like I I like actually Talked about it, you know, there's kind of this I don't like Stockholm syndrome where they like don't want to criticize the foundation cuz like they're dependent on it Whereas the Monero like it's kind of like open project Right like anyone can kind of come in and leave and like we're just really passionate about advancing things Whereas there like they can't they can't piss off, you know, the researchers like that's all they have Doug So yeah, Monero's like, you know, a true like open marketplace. You could go in there with any idea, try to pitch it to the community. But you may get like completely destroyed. That's the thing here, right? Like the Monero community doesn't hold back, right? Like, and, you know, it's like it's fierce, it's fierce, which is good. xenu Yeah, I it's frustrating because like I think that they are doing like good privacy research but like that's kind of like everything else about the project just sucks and like we can pick a pick it apart bit by bit but it's not even worth it to my opinion it's just not even being used. Yeah for sure. Doug For sure. For sure. But it is interesting, yeah, from a tech perspective, you know, definitely they get mad respect and I love, you know, that I think it helped push Monero towards implementing full chain members proofs. You know, obviously it's different, it's different tech at the other day, it's built from scratch. But it forced Monero to figure out how to basically implement the same thing and into Monero into the ring and deprecate the ring signatures. So competition is good, man. Competition is good and respect to them for that. I would like to get them involved in Monero-Topia. We had somebody speak remotely, he actually did a great job, but nobody's yet to show up in person at a Monero-Topia conference from Zcash. Like, come on out, guys, you know, use your corporate funds, come on over to the Monero conference. You should want to talk to every, that doesn't make any sense to me, like, why they wouldn't be approaching the people that are most interested in digital cash, right? xenu they could convince people that their privacy is really good. I think they could do that. But that's like the other thing too, because it's not privacy by default. And that was such a blunder by their part. If they just went privacy by default from the beginning, there would be so much more respect for them. Though I guess they ran into issues because those transactions were just too large and they weren't able to do it or something. But yeah, Doug Yeah, that was- Do you think that will ever change? Or no? I mean, they're going to be- No. The way they're integrated into kind of centralized exchanges and whatnot. xenu Yeah. And that actually might be ending soon. I don't know if you heard about that with Binance. They're kind of flirting with the idea, getting rid of them. And I think- Well, I still think- Doug voted, right? But they didn't, they didn't, they didn't put Zcash on the list. They put like Firo on the list, which, uh, there goes, there goes our Firo. We had some from Monerotopia. They paid, uh, I think a sponsorship in Firo that we, who chapped at some point. I'm like, oh boy, that's probably Firo now. xenu Yeah, and that's the thing with Zcash because they've spent so much time being buddy-buddy with these exchanges where if they are delisted from Binance, I'm not wishing that to happen. I don't want people to lose money or anything, that's going to be ugly because if you look at it from the Monero perspective, we generally don't like KYC exchanges or we're more likely not to like KYC exchanges and the price got nuked when Binance delisted Monero. That was like a big price dump, I was like, we're still like recovering from that, right? So that happened like Zcash like dang, that's a lot of value being lost, I don't know. Doug Yeah, but they didn't include them in the vote, so you think they're just still considering and they still might do it? That'd be kind of crazy. xenu Yeah, I do, actually. I don't think they really particularly care about Zcash. If anything, they're probably trying to get exit liquidity for them, and then they'll just dump it. I don't know what's going on behind the scenes with these places. I think anything with somewhat privacy, they're getting a lot of- Like Europe. Doug They're getting pressure from Europe really most right? That's like xenu Yeah. And these blockchain surveillance companies are lobbing them, and they just don't want to deal with anything remotely adjacent to privacy. They're not thinking about it rationally. They don't care about people's rights. So yeah, unfortunately- Doug And so with Trump do you think like his executive order and all this stuff it's all bullshit like it's not this We're not living in more Monero and privacy court friendly times here in the US xenu I think it's complete bullshit. Really? I do. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like the recent- You are the black, you just- Doug You just want the constant fight, man, you know what? Which I like, I don't know how to put, like, I think it's wrong with the, you know, momentum where we can, right? xenu No, I'll tell you why. So like, look at Senator Lummis, for example, her bill that promotes Bitcoin and like the buying Bitcoin, it's like totally is against like privacy and like that kind of like usage of privacy. So we have that to like lean on. But like what happened recently, for example, with the memo that got put out, right? With the Department of Justice. So that got released, everyone's happy about it. But then you start looking into it and there's a lot of questions here. The Rage has a really great article, shout out to Lola Leets. She's doing a great job. It breaks down really that like the question of like the fact that these people, tornado cash and samurai law, because they knew criminals were using their service, that is still a point of contention. And because of that, the Department of Justice is going after them and the memo does not like say anything about that. So like, from my point of view, like they're still attacking like Monero and privacy. Like there's no reason why these cases should be going forward if they were against that. You know, for me, it's actions and not words, right? So like, I see a memo, I see an executive order. Okay, but like these people are still being, you know, they're facing trials still, right? And like, that's not even that too. Like with tornado cash, they're doing all this like weird stuff with like witnesses and like they're like trying to, they're just being like, it's like dirty kind of like playing around, like trying to like get them to reveal their witnesses prior to the trial starting, like things like that. Like they want to be playing dirty for like they, or they wouldn't even have the trial anyways, right? So like, I'm looking at that and like, because they're having the trial, like the words don't really matter to me. It's like what they're actually doing. And I think what they're trying to do is they're trying to set a precedent with any type of like service where like the people, like where financial transactions are happening with criminals. And by virtue of that happening, then they're going to charge you with a crime, which is, I think ridiculous, but you know. Doug it doesn't really matter for the government. I mean, I want to see Monero listed on Coinbase, man. And I think now is the time with Trump in office. Well, it's going to happen. This would be the time. You're saying it might be worse than ever right now is what you're xenu I well, I just don't see a difference really I like well, I here's the difference. Okay. The difference is love you Doug cracking potentially delisting Monero in this environment, I see it going the other way. Yes, I do. xenu actually. They delisted Monero in Europe. I don't see why. The difference between the Trump administration and the Biden administration is the lobbyism. If you go and look, the amount of lobbying that went into the Trump campaign broke records, hundreds of millions of dollars in the crypto lobby. That's why he's shelling Ripple. Well, a lot of that came from crypto. Doug Kraken they were yeah, they were like the early they were early our shop xenu Yeah, I'm sure. All these exchanges and all these different projects, they've spent a ton of money supporting Trump. So he's supportive of everybody sending money to him. And I don't think Monero sent much money to Trump. I don't think we sent any money over to him. He has no idea what Monero is or anyway. But I just don't see his status quo being like, okay, I don't see them actually going after like, like all these like Doug Barren definitely has some Monero, man. Come on, Barren. xenu Baron probably has some and he probably has pictures of Monero Chan. Let's be honest. He's doesn't folders or something Doug That's all we got to do, we just got an on-board baron, and like, that's all we would need. I know you would hate that, man. You would hate that. I'm the ultimate Moonboy. Moonboy tactic. xenu But you know, it's funny you say that because that's really how crypto pumps happen is if you have just like once we're talking about it And that's true like a bear Doug Could you imagine if Barret just started talking about Monero? Yeah, I think Game Over. xenu Yeah, the price would pump. It's true. And that's just how it is. You know? That's really all it takes is you just get someone famous to talk about cryptocurrency. You know? Doug Especially you being the anti-moon boy, you must have been like fucking laughing your ass off when Trump launched his meme code. xenu Oh yeah, that was great. What's funny is like, I'm not even surprised, like everyone was shocked, I'm like, this is like par for the course. I was surprised though, by the Melania one. That was, that was amazing. I know, it's like wow. Doug happened I love can you go and I'm gonna do one too did you even know this you look like oh my god xenu I didn't have no idea, that was bold, I'm surprised that happened. The Trump coin, that didn't really surprise me that much. That just sounded like Trump. I think he already did do something too, like a while ago. Oh, he had NFTs, that's what it was. Doug Yeah, so what is Trump right Trump is that what is it at? What's uh? That's $8. What's the market cap of like a bill? It's crazy man xenu Isn't the- it's probably above Monero. Doug Yeah, I think it was. xenu Where's Milania at? I got a fat stack of Milania. Uh, no, I mean, yeah, it's... Doug Yeah, that's the thing that really bothered me is that more people had access to Trump Coin within an hour of being launched than they've ever had access to Monero. When you think of it that way, that's why I'm like, we got to get it on exchanges so people can access it. xenu Well, actually, so I have a black pill argument in your favor, okay, bear with me, is that because KYC exchanges can't attack privacy, it makes actual a lot of sense if Monero is listed on a lot of KYC exchanges, because it will give law enforcement a better opportunity to trace it. Oh, yeah. Doug Yeah, no, that's been the argument. It's like, I'm talking with like Justin Earnhofer, the early, yeah, like, yeah, like, why are they delisting? If anything, they would want to keep it listed. xenu They've unintentionally helped Monero improve in privacy because they've done that. Because we've invested all this time building coin swaps and now we have these decentralized exchanges. The only reason there's so much demand for that is because of the delistings. So if they never delisted us, that stuff probably would not have happened. It's kind of funny. So shout out to the government, I guess, for helping that. Yeah. It's, I don't know. Yeah. That's the argument. Oh, and another thing too is Kraken. It's possible the reason Kraken exists is to make sure that all the Monero is in one location. So it makes it easier for blockchain surveillance and law enforcement to attack Monero if it's in one location. That's my conspiracy theory. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's one way to think of it instead of having it on multiple exchanges. Doug Oh, like funnel everybody into one exchange and that makes it even just easier to... xenu That's my guess, because it doesn't really make much sense. Why aren't they allowing it on more exchanges? It's just a very weird... I don't know if they don't care, maybe? It's probably... Maybe they just don't really care that much. It's just a small fish, right? Doug I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Speaker 2 Yeah. Doug I mean, yeah, I hope you're wrong. I hope you're wrong, man. I hope things friend in the opposite direction, Monero becomes normal a lot. So it's not that you don't wanna see it become normalized, right, you just don't think it will. xenu Yeah, I'm just yeah, I'm kind of just I because the thing is I don't really see cryptocurrency usage normal yet Right people aren't really using Bitcoin, right? So if Monero was at bitcoins level would people be using Monero Monero? I don't know like people because like Historically like usage is just not what people buy cryptocurrency for That might change though. I hope it does, you know, so there's yeah Doug Hope is with Monero, it actually makes sense to use it, right? It doesn't cost $5 to send the transaction, it costs a fraction of a cent, and you get the value in knowing that nobody saw the transaction, but it makes sense to spend that versus... xenu well well the like Bitcoin transactions Bitcoin transaction fees are like very low right now though like I don't know it's people just don't really want to use Bitcoin and most Bitcoiners Doug What? They just want to hold. Exactly. That's part of that anti-moon boy because that's the only way you see this stuff being used is if it's not pumped. Pretty much, yeah. So you want to see like a, you know, which I think is what's been happening, a graceful rise in price that's in tandem with the actual utility of the network. xenu to me. And I do not want Elon Musk to tweet about it. I do not want, I don't want Barron Trump to start tweeting about Monero Chan. I just want it to slowly rise and I want to just slowly just have long-term rise. That sounds good to me. And then that gives us time to make everything nice, and that would be ideal, but I can't control everything. I can't control anything actually. So I'm just an extrovert, right? But unfortunately, yeah, I'm probably going to have to be the bad guy. If Monero does pump, I'm going to have to be like, all right, guys, you know, freaking, yeah, take it down a notch here where we still got work to do. There's a reason we're here, you know, that sort of thing. Doug So I mean, you're probably going to hate this, but I'm going to ask you anyways, like, which cryptos would you invest in? What do you see as none of them? Like if you were going to use crypto for gaining value over time, which ones are you saying are the ones to choose, if any? xenu Um, I don't really know um, you know, what do you want? Doug Come on. Yeah, you have money. You're doing something with it. Alright, so you keep it out of crypto You don't hold any crypto. I don't hold crypto Well, you lost it all I'm sure but what a hold it xenu Yeah, um. Doug for losing it. I'm sorry. xenu Yeah, I'm all in on Zcash. Doug Try to drive it down so you can scoop up some more. xenu Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I'm flooding Zcash. Yeah, I mean, like, I think from a... All right, let's answer this. Or you tell me, like, I'd be like... Doug I honestly, you know, I keep my money elsewhere for forgetting. xenu I do. That's the thing. I think Monero has potential. Absolutely. I'm not going to lie. I don't like the idea of spending a lot of your paycheck investing in cryptocurrency. Historically, very bad idea. That's why I don't really advise people to do that, but I understand people want to get rich and stuff. If you want more of a safer kind of thing, than Bitcoin, it's long-term the safest. Ethereum, I don't know why it's not doing as great, but I view that. It's probably a good buying opportunity. I didn't like saying that. No, but yeah, I would say just because of its name recognition, but I don't really know much about it to be honest with you. It's out. Doug And really no other cryptos that you would say are worthy xenu I do um, I like like coin. I don't hold any but It's actually the only other cryptocurrency mentioned in the dark that Bible just because it's got low fees and stuff And you know, they've got some nice I got nothing against like going Yeah, I really like I don't really like look at different cryptocurrencies really I kind of just observe the market and like Monero works for me and Bitcoin as well. I like Bitcoin I guess but it's just like so crap these days that like You know, it's not really worth spending much time on Doug So I will the advice of just being a hundred percent Monero because then you're forced to use it It'll live off of it. That's xenu should I tell people about it? Yeah, that, I mean. And then you use it, right? Like, that's true. Doug If you want to use it xenu It's I mean, you can't do that. It's possible for sure No, it's that's just hard. I'm I wouldn't advise that to the average person If you like i've heard stories of people who like just live off crypto hats off to them and I can't do that I really can't but um, I use like here's the thing though. I use Monero all the time So that for me, that's that's the best best of uh The the best way really to have Monero and is to use it in my opinion And yes, you could have cold store. I'm not saying you can't have cold storage or you can't invest in Monero That's not what uh moon boyism is, but I think i've made that point clear. Hopefully I I don't hate you know people who want the price of Monero to go up never have it never has been that way So yeah, I hate some of her though Doug Yeah, the moon boys. Yeah, you know those guys are luck. Yeah So what do you after full chain members approves like like what do you see as the next thing we need to focus on in terms of improving the protocol usability from a technological standpoint xenu Yeah, I guess getting transaction sizes smaller, having, well, I was going to say having faster sync times, we might even already be having that. But that, you know, that's something that's even annoying. Like I have this like older like Doug got to get rid of the lock time man that's a lot of time xenu It's frustrating that I know that for full chain membership proofs One of the criticisms is that you can only have like eight inputs at once It's something really low. Whereas right now it's like 150 They might they might be increasing that but that kind of sucks because like you it's gonna take longer to like I don't know send transactions if you receive a lot of them so that that kind of sucks I might be kind of wrong about that, but I'm pretty sure I'm right So in general just making things like so it's like easier to send want to prove Doug if I made it as a big one. xenu Yeah, that's that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah quantum the whole quantum argument. Um, i'm kind of new bishat. Um I did actually listen to your talk with luke parker about that and with care upcoming and yeah, it's important stuff Doug We're getting we're getting forward privacy, but we're not getting so our secret Steve, but we're not getting right Yeah, all the historic transactions xenu Yeah, exactly. That probably can be improved as well, I would imagine. We just got to keep improving bit by bit on each front. But what's great though is the privacy part of it, that should be locked down at that point. Because maybe we can focus on... One thing that Minerva doesn't have is privacy for your internet service provider, like a HTTPS kind of encryption. Minerva doesn't really have that as a base. Actually, Bitcoin has that, believe it or not. Minerva doesn't have that. So that kind of sucks. Doug We have dandelion plus plus, but yeah, why don't we have something that upsets? xenu It's lost in like ... Yeah, it's been like a work in progress and I think it's been kind of on the back burner. I mean, yeah, I guess the note, the cup rate stuff is a big deal though. I'm hoping that that's good and improving our infrastructure too so it works really well with full chain membership proofs. I don't know if that's like set in stone yet with how different wallets work with full chain membership proofs that there's kind of like ... Yeah, so there's a transitionary period and things like that, but overall I would say scaling and things like of that nature are probably the main focus to just make Monero easier to use. So Joe can use Monero very, very easily and he's not confused about wait times or whatever. Doug Are we talking about this on the outset? What do you think of like the scalability issues of Bitcoin versus Monero? Do you you don't you don't? Basically agree with Arctic's assessment of Monero Ultimately overtaking Bitcoin because of its ability to scale on chain xenu Yeah, not really. I agree with his points on scaling. Like I don't really like Bitcoin's fee model and like, I think Monero learned from Bitcoin's mistakes, and they implemented, you know, telemission with dynamic block size, I think that's great. Yeah, I just the overtaking Bitcoin stuff. I don't know. Like, the thing is, like, cryptocurrency doesn't make much sense. And it really comes down to like a moon boy pump that can happen. I think that is more likely to cause Monero to rise in value than like, long term with like scaling, like, it really comes down to like influencers tweeting about it, which is sad, but that's, that's how I kind of view it. Doug it. What do you think about a potential like second layer on Monero? xenu Um, yeah, I mean it's it's possible. Um I mean, I don't really know too much about second layer stuff to be honest with you Like whenever I like look into like bitcoin custodial options like cashew and liquid and stuff It's like custodial crap. So I kind of like you know, once I see custodial, I just throw it into the trash kind of thing um So I don't know. I mean I guess if we improve our ux, I don't really see why we we would even necessarily need it But like having like payment channels, I think that that probably could be pretty useful. Um Doug Yeah, I mean it from my my understanding is with full chamber membership proofs. There's more interoperability there It's what like ways to yeah connect second layers Rag Ragnock says I just use Bitcoin Litecoin. I'm a narrow as a savings account the Bitcoin is stuff I bought years ago Haven't touched it in years But every paycheck I go all in I I basically do that Basically treated as it you know, unfortunately, I lost a big chunk of my savings But it's you know, same way just a big piggy bank that you can yeah raw from it It holds value pretty damn. Well, like I'd say yeah, actually xenu And relative to other currencies, it is true that Monero is pretty stable. Yeah. I mean, it still dumps like 10% every so often for like more, you know. Doug They're running out of exchanges to de-list this from so we shouldn't see anything major like that anymore, right? the maker tipped 25 cents Zcash has DARPA and government grants tied to them working out a little something on Zcash in the near future xenu Yeah, I mean, well that's a thing, like, they do have a shady past too, that is part of the, you know, like, where it originated from and stuff. These things add up too, it's not like, it's one thing, it's just a lot of different things with Zcash. Doug The VC money behind it and who was involved in the in the tech and yeah, I don't know Yeah, let me see. Let me see. See any other questions any other questions or anything else we should talk about that anything else We want to bring you up. I think we actually covered a lot. Yeah, we cover good man. This is good I was throwing a lot a lot of a lot of questions at you there man. Yeah xenu No, hopefully I handled the hot seed pretty well. Oh, yeah, fantastic. Other than my mic failing in the beginning, you can cut that out in post. Doug Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll edit that. Thank you. xenu Yes. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think this project, I have an upcoming dark them market maximalism. I think people are going to really, I think people can like point to it and kind of just like this is, I think a different way of looking at cryptocurrency where it's based on usage as opposed to just number go up. And I think that, yeah, it's an observation that I've made that a cryptocurrency that's being used on dark them markets is probably what we want in the future because this is how we have our counterbalance to Fiat is that kind of censorship resistant protest. And that's really what peer to peer cash is. And there's no better representation of that than dark them markets. So I will be releasing it in text form all at once, hopefully by the end of the month, but probably in May. I'm always behind schedule. But I will also be recording, recording like an audio version of it. If you'd rather just listen to it, should be like an hour or longer. So I'm excited about that. A lot of cool artwork coming out, a lot of lot of exclusive artwork coming out that I'm excited to release for that because our work is, I think, a really good way of showing that your project has soul, I guess. I don't know. When you have like a creative stuff like that, it shows that you care. And I'm really passionate about having artwork. So I've been working with Vosto a lot on that. We have some Monero Chan exclusive and some surprises. So are you working with Vosto Amisio? Oh, yeah. I've seen that name around. Yeah, we're actually good friends. Yeah, I'm actually got him to do Monero Con. I told him about it. And he's been doing Monero Con design for the past couple of years. Oh, he does like the logo and everything for that? Yeah. Doug Yeah. Oh, he does a great job. Yeah. xenu Yeah, yeah, he's great and we we've collaborated a lot on Like the there's videos on get my narrow that we've made like info info videos like about Dynamic block size we did we did one on Random X the full chain membership proof one we did recently It's like two minutes long or whatever and it just talks about what full chain membership proofs are so that that's a collaboration between me and him Doug Yeah, those videos are very well done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah xenu those. And I guess I directed them too because like I gave them like a storyboard and we kind of like went back and forth on those. We're probably going to make one for the upcoming hard fork to like kind of tell people what to do because it's like a big, you know, it's a big update. There's a lot of moving parts there. And it's important I just have a video you can point to. I think the full chain membership proof one I see posted all the time. I Doug I think a lot of people really like that one. My daughter keeps reaching out to me because somebody posted on XMR Bazaar, they're selling kittens. Oh, shoot. xenu I'm not surprised Doug And I've reached out to the person, but I don't know I think this might be a kitten scammer I think it's home didn't scammer. Which is the worst scam ever What's kids really? Yeah, at first they were like I started chatting with them They're like because they claim to live in the New York City area And then it like became like just far enough where it'd be pretty far for me to drive there And I was like well, I could just send you the cat. I could just send you the kitten I was like what I was like who buys a kitten sight unseen. I'm like are you like find a better scam, man? So you're selling trying to scare people by sending them kittens in the mail xenu That's Exa Marbazar, anyone? Exa Mar- Thank you. Doug The bizar-ness of XMR Bizar. Yeah. All right, brother. Why don't you go ahead and put your info out one last time, just so people know where to find you, follow you, find your podcast. xenu Yeah, anti moon boy comm you can just go there. I'm on YouTube. I just see it rumble My series attack of the poison outputs. It's pretty intense It's about Monero and its privacy if you want to learn all about that you'll be an expert after watching that It's all free. I also have a weekly podcast called anti moon boy, which is Very pretty much my thoughts on the past week of crypto news so for example on my upcoming episode, I will be talking about the Memo that got released among other things that Department of Justice memo of regarding what the Trump administration Should be pursuing or what the Department of Justice should be pursuing. I will be going over that and all the other topics as well and Also darknet market maximalism that is dropping soon and to promote that I will be having a t-shirt Giveaway on my Twitter. So keep an eye out for that because everyone likes free t-shirts, right? So Doug There will there will be will be please do put please do list your swag on XMR bazaar. That would be awesome Well, we'll definitely promote it. We'll promote it up. Yeah xenu I'll reach out to you on that. It'll be a good time, yeah, for sure. And oh yeah, my podcast, the RSS, you can manually put into whatever feed reader you have. I'm trying to get it on Spotify, but I put that on the back burner because I'm doing other stuff right now. So, it'll be on Spotify soon. Doug I didn't ask you this. I probably should have any chance you can make it to the pork fest xenu No, I can't. My mom scheduled this family vacation the first week of June, so I'm missing both MoneroCon and Porgfession. I'm like, come on, mom, I can't do it, but I definitely want to speak at it. Doug Like, mom, get it, get it, get it, change the vacation location, uh, like, eh. xenu She actually listened to all my podcasts funny enough. She has out of it No, I she has no idea how any of it works, but she's probably my biggest fan. So shout out to mother's Doug That's awesome. xenu Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, no, I want to I will speak at Monero Topia 26 if you'll if you'll let me know Doug Hell yeah, man. Consider it done. Like I said, we could, you know, think about hosting. I think you'd make a good host as well. xenu Yeah, I'd have to wear like a luchador mask or something. Doug That's not like that. That'd be a long, long- xenu I know, that's the thing, yeah, I don't know. I have to figure something out. I could do like a black metal face thing, you know. Not black face, black metal. Anyone, okay. I'm tired here, man, the jokes are coming out. All right, let's. Doug you're good brother um all right man we will we will leave it there and go ahead and play the outro and yeah sure we'll be in touch guys please do go follow Zeno if you don't already check out his content he does amazing work and yeah man you're welcome on Monero talk or Monero topi anytime so I'll say someone say it's a xenu Super Chat. Sire stood. Doug We have another one. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. It was about to close out. I sent a super chat and it was not addressed. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. Where is the super chat? I didn't see his super chat pop up. Did he did you send it to XMR chat.com slash Monero talk because we got everybody else's super chats here. Um, yeah, brother. I don't see it in the re, resend, resend your chat right here outside of super chat. Happy to answer it. Why didn't it pop up? I don't know. I don't know where he sent it. Let me check actually. XMR chat.com slash Monero talk. Um, um, no, I don't think we got, I don't think we got your super chat, man. I don't know. Sorry, brother. I don't know what to tell you. It's working for everybody else. I don't know, man. Um, we'll leave it there. Sorry for that awkward ending, but I want to want to address the guy. Uh, we will, we will leave it at that. Let me go ahead and play the actual music. xenu man. Uh, maybe I'll see him in Aerotopia one of these days. Yeah. All right. xenu Thanks for listening, everybody. Doug Yep, adios.