Latest / Monero Talk / Growing our Monero Family w/ XMRfamily | EPI 345

Transcript

Growing our Monero Family w/ XMRfamily | EPI 345 · Monero Talk

• Doug Alrighty, we are live. Wow, we already got a heart. Wow, I don't think we've ever got a heart so early in the stream, so we must be doing something right at some point. You guys got some fans out there. XMRfamily I have a lot of fans, well, I don't know about fans, but I have some stalkers like that. Doug You got stalkers, yeah? Alright, that's it. XMRfamily Good to have. I just want to say thanks for having me on the talk. I love what you do with Monero talking. I love some of your previous guests having Alex from local Monero. It's an honor for me to be on this podcast, and I'm really thankful. Doug Great holes. Yeah, no worries, man. No worries. I know you've been around the community for a long time I'm sure we'll get into it. So You know this this platform is for the for the community. So I love having Especially new guests that have been around for a while that never have gotten around to coming on the show So it's means a lot to me as well. So thanks for doing this man. Appreciate you XMRfamily Yeah, of course. I mean, I can give a little background on the, like, what... Yeah! Doug Yeah, yeah, please do we got we got 17 live viewers right now guys like and share. Let's get let's get the word out Let's get let's get some people in here watching Let's get the noobs discovering Monero as they see the the live stream pop up on X We're also live streaming now on rumble. I don't know why we haven't hadn't had that set up earlier I think actually rumble wasn't live you weren't able to live stream on rumble until maybe like a year ago So we finally hooked that up. So we're live streaming on X on YouTube rumble Yeah, those those are basically the main ones so guys like and share retweet. Let's get a bunch of people in here. Also use XMR chat, I'll put it up with the link in XMR chat comm slash Monero talk if you guys want to send any Monero based super chats as we Talk over here and I'll bring them up on screen and questions you have for XMR family XMR chat comm slash Monero talk XMR family. Yeah, man. Take it away. Who are you? What are you willing to die mold? XMRfamily Well, I kind of got involved in the beginning with Bitcoin. I wasn't a Monero Maxi now, you know, until maybe like half a decade, a little more ago. But you know, I've been a trader on local Monero, I think stat wise, like over like a thousand different trading partners and 1,500 trades on local Monero. Doug Wow, wow, wow, wow. You're one of the engines of the Monero circular economy. XMRfamily Well, I did like to play a part in it, but, you know, being a P2P trader has its challenges, you know, it's, it's the simple thing, you know, the concept of it, but in reality, like most people don't last a long time because of all the challenges and consequences that come up P2P trading. Doug Yeah, no, it's a dicey situation, especially Yeah, right in the early days. It was very you know, nobody knew what was legal. What isn't legal? We saw we saw people get attacked right for being traders on local Bitcoin local Monero attacked by the state accused of Operating without a money transmitting license, right things like that. So it's a it's a risky endeavor XMRfamily Yeah, and I know traders who've been like, you know arrested like like Dave Scott see he was like local Monero trader And he got like indicted California and he got off pretty easy and you got charged with like running on licensed my service business and the money laundering But the way they got him is, you know, it's just that's stupid and like they really set him up in a sense But and like I was this which guy was that I was it was the Dave Scott see he was like a pretty well-known Welcome Monero trader Because it's like a relatively small community, you know Compared to others, you know Monero It's very like close-knit but also like very diverse You know I've been surprised by the types of people interested in Monero and it's you know It's a lot of things that people won't really expect But you know even like man trying to manage like like I recently got like elected to Magic Rance So it's kind of like a thing I wanted to talk about, you know I love talking about regulation and things like that and because regulation is I think something that is really important to talk about Doug Yeah, let's get into it. Let's stick on local Monero a little bit more because I think that's really interesting too. We'll cover it all, regulation, and then you want to talk about- Hovino. ... Monero grants and Hovino. We'll weave it all together like we do here on Monero Talk. Tell me more about the local Monero because that is really interesting. The advice that I normally, you know, that I give to people is if you're using peer-to-peer exchanges like that or even doing it on XMR Bazaar, right, is just make it clear that you're not doing it as a business, right? That's kind of the safest way to proceed. Would you agree with that? XMRfamily Yes, yes. I mean, it gets really kind of complicated because there's differences between federal and states. You know, running the unlicensed money service business is kind of mainly a federal thing with FinCEN, but it's also really kind of state dependent on state money service business laws. Like, you know, New York has, you know, their bit licensed and pretty much because of it, like no one even wants to even do any, you know, trading there. Like even crack in, like, you know, won't accept New York residents and things like that. So like what I'm trying to do with like, I'm trying to getting more forward ahead of myself. No, I was. Doug There's no worries. But people are saying they're hearing some background noise. That's actually a funny comment. I feel like ExoMore Family is cleaning his room while he's talking. I'm sorry. I think we're just, yeah, just, I don't know, there's some movement around there that's making some noise. But it's really not that bad. It's just kind of a funny comment though. Yeah, keep it going, man. So yeah, so obviously there's, we have the federal level, we have the state level. Here in New York, things really suck with the bit license. I don't know if you've seen, but I've been trying to start a movement here to get rid of the bit license in New York. I think now is the time to strike with Trump in office, with even New York State starting to swing more Republican, that this could be the time to make a political move and try to influence things and get New York State to get rid of the bit license so that they can compete among the other states. And once again, perhaps be the financial capital of the world. I know there's a lot of anarchists out there that when I say these things, I'm an agarist. I live by Monero. I'm all about opting out. But I would like to try to get New York State to a limit of the bit license, just so more normies could get access to Monero. A lot of people are like, well, why do you even want to do that? Why do you want to deal with the state and try to get them, just ignore them? Why do you want to get Monero on centralized exchanges? But yeah, what's your response to that? XMRfamily So I mean, I think it would be a great idea to repeal, you know, New York's bit license And then now is is kind of a great time I'm almost also worried though of like bit license almost spreading like especially with California They're kind of forming their own right their regulations now I don't think they're really clear yet on regulations, but they go on effect in July and they went for public comment And so like the question is kind of how to go about like, you know dealing with regulation and that you know blockchain association is one of the largest like lobbying kind of groups for cryptocurrency and You know, I saw that you follow it like Dan Spieler on Twitter I've actually met him at like you pen blockchain conference and Because we I would want one of my goals is to get magic or magic grants or the Monero fund to become a member of the blockchain association and To you know, it's actually having Monero voice in You know, Washington Doug Yeah, I've been saying that for a year. That's why I ran for Congress in 2020. We are definitely on the same level here. I think we should be trying to... I see it as fighting on multiple fronts. Opting out is one means, and that's the one that we're most focused on. But we should also, at the same time, try to advocate on behalf of Monero and just reduce the rules and regulations that exist and normalize Monero. So people get aware of the fact that privacy is normal, that it should be considered completely legal to use Monero, especially here in the US, to accept Monero and to trade Monero. These things should all be normalized. It shouldn't be treated differently than any other crypto or differently than cash. XMRfamily Yeah, and like I love the circular economy for like Monero, like I've bought a couch off Craigslist with Monero and, you know, I did it because like I searched like, you know, people who are accepting cryptocurrency and, you know, I saw this couch and when I talked to the person they didn't even know about Monero, but like I had to end up actually like spending time with them and teaching them about Monero and like it took some time and they accepted it, but it takes a lot of time sometimes like teaching people and educating them about it. Doug Yeah, it's pretty sad that more people know about Dogecoin or even Trumpcoin than Monero, right? Like, it's like... It's pretty... More people knew about Trumpcoin within four hours of it being launched than know about Monero. Speaker 4 That's really fucked up. XMRfamily Yeah, and I think a lot of it has to do with like in the cryptocurrency Like a lot of people care more about like speculation and just you know, making money and you know, the price rising and It's really like I'm not a big I'm an e-cater the theorem hater And the way I see it is like, you know A lot of Bitcoin maxis that I know actually do really support like know about Monero and support it But they don't really talk about it surprisingly But they know about and they like it, you know, they always like advocate for Bitcoin and Doug Yeah, they don't want they don't want to piss off their their own people and they don't want to I guess hurt Bitcoin, right? Cuz they they're the bag holders of Bitcoin. So they're just kind of they just kind of see Monero as a hedge I think right right XMRfamily and then like there's I mean like my it's kind of like my opinion but like from like the conference is like I've been to like people don't understand like the real use cases of like cryptocurrency like they just want to make money and that's it's good to make money like in cryptocurrency but it's not really easy I'm distracted Doug Yeah, I mean, there's nothing wrong with wanting to to trade and try to, you know, increase your stack by trading. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with it, but just realize there's a gambling element to it. And unless you really know what you're doing, you might you might end up losing more along the way. And it may be more wise to just slowly stack, right? Earn, earn, earn crypto, put your extra money into into crypto into Monero, uh, proceed that way. Although I would say with Monero, it's it's it really is a stable acts as a pretty damn good stable coin. So like you're taking too much risk at this point for going for just going in on it and using it as needed. Yeah. XMRfamily I'm a collector and one of the things I like to collect is actually physical Monero coins. That's one of the niche use cases of it is like physical Bitcoins are very valuable and collectible. And there are also a lot of Monero coins, but there's only kind of one main maker, Liana. I mean, like a few other makers like have explored getting into like physical crypto was like polymer bits. He's made like Monero notes, but they're pretty rare. Doug yeah what's um what's what's the one popular what like uh is anybody making Monero coins now or that these are like just old ones that were made XMRfamily They're they're old ones that were made. There was a yeah moody Was the person who was known as? He kind of retired pretty much in like sometime around like 2020 2022 I think So there's not really, you know a maker of that right now. Okay Doug You think you think that's something that will start happening again? XMRfamily I do think it will and, you know, they also make great gifts, you know, the little physical collectibles because it's actually a tangible thing that people can hold and things like that so it's a great way, in my opinion, to introduce new people to Monero as well. Doug Fairly reasonable saying he's talking about silver coins right now. He's talking about Monero coins, right? XMRfamily Yeah, I mean, there are silver ones. I mean, I could. Doug You're talking about cases like coins that actually have the private key in the coin XMRfamily Yeah, I mean, there are they're normally made from like brass or nickel, but like the more valuable ones are made from silver or even gold. Doug And that's awesome. Yeah, I would love I would love myself a gold Monero coin XMRfamily You know it like it's actually interesting like on XMR bazaar actually through XMR bazaar I've actually you know traded silver like 90% silver actually for Monero Doug You did. Yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. XMRfamily It's just like some people, there's a demand and there's people who supply the demands. Doug I'm starting to, yeah, I was starting to see a lot of, I mean, the first, the first purchase on XMR Bazaar is what I bought goldbacks with Monero. So I mean, that is, that's where the demand is, right? Do you see XMR Bazaar being used more for those purposes, like kind of local Monero type purposes on XMR Bazaar? I don't promote it that way, but obviously all the tools are there for that, right? Yeah, you could perfectly use it for local Monero purposes. I try not to promote that only because, like we were talking about before, all these regulations. So I advertise it more as a place, like a Craigslist, to buy and sell goods and services, but obviously people are inevitably using it for saying, hey, I'll trade gold for Monero or trade cash for Monero or euros for Monero. And then, like I said, I always then, I'll even, if I see something like that pop up, I'll even DM them and be like, you know, you should just probably make it clear that you're doing this not as a business, but that you actually have a need to exchange your dollars for some Monero right now, peer to peer, right? That you're not, you're not in the business of selling cash for Monero. But yeah, do you see XMR Bazaar being adopted more for those purposes and should we lean into that? XMRfamily I mean part of it really kind of depends on the mediators like I think you guys are playing on changing some things with the mediators because you know There is a lot of like disputes that happen in trading and because there are a lot of malicious actors You know even for traders like accepting electronic payment methods is a real pain in the ass Because they you know accounts get shut down or like in terms of service It's actually against the rules for to trade cryptocurrency. So like even though it's legal your electronic payment You know will get shut down if they find out about it, and that's like a real bitch Doug Yeah, I mean the escrow, have you done escrow on XMR Bazaar? Have you tried on... XMRfamily Well, I tried in kind of in the beginning working. Oh, yeah. Doug test it out. So it's getting better and it will continue to get better, but what we're going to do beyond escrow is we're adding a bonding system. So sellers, vendors basically will be able to post a bond. So they'll be able to buy a bond like one Monero worth bond, for example. And so now if I'm selling a piece of silver on there and it's worth less than a Monero, you as a buyer, you purchase it, you send Monero, I never send the silver, I rip you off, you would then automatically get reimbursed from that bond. Well, with the mediator, but in that case, the mediator, it would be obvious. Like, hey, I never sent the silver. Well, I mean, like... XMRfamily Like a lot of times, you know, that requires like video evidence or something and sometimes people might not have it, right? Right, right, right. Doug But my point is it at least avoids the escrow portion, so you don't need to have multi-cardies putting money into escrow and then taking it out of escrow. The money would be drawn from a bond that vendors put up that will be permanently there. They could always pull their bond out, like take it back out if they want. So if they're selling expensive things, they could put up a 10 Monero bond. And then they could always pull that bond back out and we would just take a service whatever we set it at. XMRfamily So I mean I it's a good option, but I don't because it's too little too centralized It's very so much a local Monero. I don't want like replace it like that You know P2P trading has been kind of like really kind of interesting since like local Monero has shut down You know and have you know is the main Where place where people do trading now and it's grown massive, you know, it's white. Yeah, that's beautiful Yeah, like, you know, there were a lot of bugs and especially at first and like issues and there still are issues with have you know But in a very complex world with like regulation and government attacks Like it is kind of what is going to be necessary to like replace local Monero You know local Monero is a unicorn in the six seven years that it Operated where they really had like no exit scams issues Controversies, I mean maybe the only one was probably when they stopped like Russia as like a Option because of sanctions and I kind of understand why they did that but there were so like workarounds for them Doug Why? Do we really know why they shut down? I mean, I was hoping to get the, you know, the local Monero guy on the show. Again, once he shut down, we were in communication. But yeah, we never really heard a reason as to why. XMRfamily Yeah, yeah, no one knows really but I guess besides like the actual staff at local Monero, but you know, I think Doug It became too risky. Yeah. XMRfamily in the sense it's like, um, that's why like Hovino is kind of the future, you know, the future. And in my opinion, like it has its issues and a lot of local Monero traders, you know, don't necessarily trade on Hovino. They still deal with like their direct clients, but you know, that doesn't really work well for like new people in the space. We don't really know much because like scam, scamming and impersonation scams, like is a kind of big problem for like P2P traders, you know, like I have impersonators, other traders have impersonators and like, you know, people have lost money, like thinking that they're trading the real person. Doug Yeah, I was hoping that XMR Bizarre could help solve that problem too, right? Because if you could have an account on XMR Bizarre, create it anonymously, whatever, you build up a profile, and then we're adding ways to verify, right? So like, obviously I know you, right? So I'd be willing to verify you as the real XMR family guy on XMR Bizarre. But then also verification through things like X and other means, and then hoping that that then becomes the kind of the trust and reputation engine of the Monero circular economy, and also where you go to communicate with the real Doug Tooman, the real XMR family, right? Because through, they have their, you know, through PGP, you know, PGP, right? They have their key, and you know that you're messaging the real person at that point, right? So like, this actually came up, because people, as you can imagine, there's people impersonating me, quite a few, and like one that was quite successful at it, and ended up ripping off a lot of people. He was doing it through Telegram, hitting people up, pretending to be Chao Bongaman on Telegram, and getting people to send money in Monero and other cryptos for purposes of me needing money right away, because I was trying to buy miners, because I'd be buying Bitcoin miners, and it was Bitcoin miners, so like, guys, really? Really said I got to be out there buying Bitcoin miners, and telling you I need you to send me money, like, tomorrow? I mean, not tomorrow, like, in the next two minutes, like, I felt really bad, because the people that, you know, fell for it are really good people that fell for it, because they know me, and they trust me, so they were so willing to do it, like, they didn't even think, like, they're like, oh, Doug needs this, he'll pay me back, and it was really sad to see, but, you know, maybe that becomes a solution, like, all right, if Doug needs talking to you about these things on Signal or Telegram, go check in with his PGP key on XMR Bazaar, and verify that that's the real Doug that you're talking to. XMRfamily I mean it'd be it's a nice idea, but I don't think necessarily that a lot of trade like people who do like kind of like P2P trading would actually Like migrate their text more bizarre Doug Why is that any way you think we anything's we could do like I said should we should we be trying to do you're saying You're saying stay away from it because you know yeah XMRfamily away from it like it's like nor like Haveno is kind of better suited for it and that's less liabilities there yeah yes Doug Yeah, I mean, yeah, with XMR Bazaar, obviously, I exist as the creator of my mind. Like I said, people have to do what's legal in their jurisdiction, right? XMRfamily Yeah, and that's the kind of also like the problem with like running platforms like XMR Bazaar or you know, local Monero It's like what's legal in one place might not be legal at another and like, you know to try and have to like monitor babysit Like it's not good guys's job Doug Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. So tell us, tell us more about Havenos. XMRfamily So yes, like, you know, and, you know, kind of came out like in, uh, was it May last year, 2024 kind of really rushed, you know, once her was, has been working on it for a while by himself, but people really, yeah, he did. I love the work that you still continues to do it and I support it. Um, you know, and it's really crazy. Like the numbers also, in my opinion, like how fast it's grown, you know, from 20, see I have my notes from like 2024, like, to when it started from like May to December, you know, they did about like $2.4 million in volume where they sold like 14,586 Monero in like 2,682 trades. And, you know, already in 2025, just from January to March, you know, they've done eight, over $8 million in volumes, like 37, yeah, 37,000 Monero. Um, so like, it's almost doing like a million dollars, you know, but the fact that, you know, when, or anyone. Doug How how are most people what what are most trades like is it like they're using Venmo? They're using it's it's it's very diverse You know because it's the most popular trades like Monero too XMRfamily I mean electronic payment methods are definitely like the most popular one because it's the most convenient fastest one things like that But they also tend to be like smaller trades and they don't really You know, they they have more issues as well with them, you know charge back It's an issue fraud like that's things that like P2P each traders have to kind of deal with him Like, you know, okay, you know KYC is like a very I don't know controversial thing almost I mean, like I definitely don't you know don't support like shotgun KYC or things like that But for like traders like, you know, they're legally required for like for like, you know, large transact You know transactions to you know file like certain reports and you know, take ID and also like to stop You know to lower the risk for high-risk trades, you know, sometimes traders might KYC their clients Because they don't want like to charge, you know, the risk of charge back and getting accounts shut down Doug Yeah, there's a lot in the bull, why somebody's selling. Yeah, yeah, would wanna do, ask for KYC because they don't wanna take the risk. They don't know who the person is, right? XMRfamily Yeah, but then there's also the risk of like, you know, the person could use your ID or things like that for like malicious purposes And so it's a real complicated topic Doug So what would you say the percentage of trades on like a Vino or like a local Monero come with issues versus smooth trades where there are no issues? XMRfamily Well, I mean I give like one example for like from like have you know I think like one of the first like scams that happened on have you know, that's the thing even with escrow and like Moderation or you know people having their funds like once the trade is completed, you know, there's nothing really Mediators can do you know cuz the funds are gone But a lot of times like for electronic payment methods Like you know it might be like a week two weeks later when like, you know funds get charged back and things like that and You know different electronic payment methods have like different policies regarding that Some are more better than others Doug So walk us through, actually, a typical trade on Jovino and then how it works from each party involved, including the mediator, and if you can. XMRfamily Yeah, so Havenoo, one of the issues with kind of like Havenoo, at least it was a bigger issue in the past, but was like they're, you know, requiring 15% deposit for the maker and for the taker. So if you're buying Monero and you have no Monero, you couldn't really buy on Havenoo and that was like a big issue, but also from like a, you know, software side, like it's kind of necessary to prevent like spam attacks and things like that. They did come out with like no deposit trades that people can, you know, you can send pretty much like person, a person can open the trade if you give them the password. But so theoretically, like, I don't know, if someone wanted to buy like $1,000 cash by mail, you know, they would have to deposit it by like 15% of it in XMR, at least before. And then they would open up a trade and they would pretty much get the details of where to send like cash by mail and things like that and send it and, you know, take evidence like that you packed or, you know, that was what was nice about local Monero is it was really new friendly, I would say, and user friendly, like, it didn't have like a high learning curve, they had tips on like, you know, how to take good evidence, you know, so if there's a dispute, you know, you can dispute it properly and not get screwed over because you don't have evidence. So that's kind of thing like have, you know, it has like a, I would say like a small, like learning curve, but it's also not, you know, that it being like a software, like it can't be run, you know, it'd be not being able, you can't use Haveno on mobile devices currently. And that's kind of a really big issue because, you know, a lot of times traders are very mobile, they don't always have their. Doug Well, somebody's working on that, right? They're trying to make a mobile version? They're... XMRfamily There was some drama, actually. Doug There was. Yeah, somebody started in the... XMRfamily And he like, he stole like Fudd like Cupid was promising things and I forget how much money he took but like that was like a whole shit show. Doug It's and so just to back up though when when they're making I mean it has escrow, right? It has it's actually quite similar to kind of like XMR bazaar right as mediators. It has us. Yeah Oh, if I'm bought if I'm if I'm buying Monero and I'm you know gonna send cash Wouldn't it be that that the seller would put the lock the money up in in escrow? Well, I locked the Monero up in escrow and then once you know, once the dollars are received then the Monero would be released XMRfamily Yeah, so like the funds are always kind of like safe in the sense of like until the trade is completed Like you can always like dispute it and you know That's kind of the nice thing about you know, too It's like, you know mediators can't see any details really about the trade unless you open up at disputes 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 And so what are the just like, you know, how do the disputes normally go down in for somebody who's buying, let's say somebody's buying Monero with cash, cash by mail. What are those situations normally look like and they don't have Monero to put down? XMRfamily So like that would require like a no deposit offer and that would kind of really kind of depend on the specific maker. Like I don't know too many people who are doing like no deposit offers on Vina. Doug Yeah, but that's what I'm not understanding because what's still the big risk, right? Because the seller of the Monero and he just locked, he's only just locking it up in a multi-sig wallet with ... Well, like, what do you think about it? So now he gets locked up, guy never sends the cash, okay, so he gets his Monero back. Guy does send the cash, then a mediator says, okay, all right, I'm going to unlock the Monero of the buyer. Yes. XMRfamily And so that's where media is very useful, though, in like cash by mail. But for example, in like Amazon gift card or certain electronic payment methods, you know, you send Monero for Amazon gift card, right? You got the Amazon gift card and you put in your Amazon account. The money's there. And then you complete the trade, right? Because there was no issue. But then like a few days later, at least it's had one, you know, it's like Amazon took out the funds because it was the most likely coming from fraud of some sorts. So that's kind of like one of the issues with, you know, electronic payment methods. That's why things like cash by mail and face to face is relatively safe for for traders because they don't have to. Doug But I guess, so why were they requiring a deposit for cash by mail for a buyer? Why did the buyer have to put down of an arrow deposit? And if he's not, why are they still not selling to him, even though there's third-party escrows? XMRfamily I mean, there could be several reasons like one of them is what's called like coin lockers, you know, malicious people who you know It happened on local Monero, too That's kind of what's nice about local mirrors They could see malicious actors more easily and kind of like ban them or block them But you know like the deposit is kind of to make sure both parties are you know Acting in good faith because like, you know Say you want to send like payment it opened up a trade and your funds are locked and then the person just disappears You know that's kind of what the deposit is also for is to give you know Penalize the person for not being a good trader and like going afk for days That's like one of the reasons like, you know, I'm sure the deposit Doug That scenario definitely, definitely makes sense. XMRfamily And like, one of the other issues quickly with Hibino is like, you know, if you're a trader and you say have like 100 XMR, right, and you accept multiple payment methods, well, you can't, you'd have to put like a certain amount for each one, you can't like, unlike local Monero, you wouldn't have like 100 XMR available for all your payment methods. And then once it's taken, once the offer is taken, the other offers disappear, it's just kind of like, like the way it's the software kind of works. Doug So what are some things you'd like to see happen that I'm heavy and obviously you want to see more users, more value? XMRfamily I was saying, like, you want to see a blap. Hovino's done, like, a lot of improvements through, like, different issues. Like, you know, from PayPal and Cash App, you know, those used to not be available even on Hovino. To even, like, larger trade amounts is now more, it's easier. You know, there were limits before on, like, Hovino. Doug what what are some other things you'd like to say obviously other than uh XMRfamily I mean, the phone client is actually one of, I think, the most kind of vital parts to having, like, Haveno become more user-friendly and accessible, and I think would also make it grow a lot. But finding, like, a good developer who would actually, like, follow through with the project, you know, that's kind of also the difficult parts. Doug How many people are working on it right now? Is it being, I mean, obviously, you have Plitzer. XMRfamily I mean, what's there's more working on like in Vino the working on the mobile client to be more tasked to somebody else? Like there's you know, the CCS bounties for him, but there's also like different requirements for some like it You know, is it just like a notification app or is it also getting people to actually trade? So like kind of that's what I would like to see for you know Like more user friendly and it's slowly working that way like you know That's kind of the thing with you know, you says, you know, like kind of that smart bazaar It's like, you know, it's not nothing's perfect in the beginning, especially Yeah Doug Yeah, you can't try to build a perfect system. You got a lean startup method, build something, and then based on user feedback, iterate it, right? Yeah. XMRfamily And, you know, there's different, you know, have, you know, solves like a problem, but, you know, that was, it still doesn't kind of, it doesn't replace local Monero, local Monero made it like super easy for anyone, you know, clear net tour I2P, you know, to access and trade. Doug Well, that brings me back to XMR Bazaar, right? So, you know, should we try to develop the local Monero aspect to it more? I mean, like I said, all the elements are there. Like, what would you see need to happen change to make it more usable for those purposes? XMRfamily It's, I'm trying to think how to say it. Doug Actually, it's really weird man. So the obviously obviously we're live but the the stream on X it's not letting me share it I've never I've never seen that before unless X just recently changed something But normally you're able to to like and share the the live stream So yeah guys if you can like please please like share retweet. Let's get more people out. I don't know. I feel like There's something glitchy going on right now Monero Monero talk to your castle of East censored out here. I'm telling you Speaker 4 Alan. XMRfamily I mean, it's when you talk about controversial things, you know, censorship is a real problem like most people don't even really understand it until they kind of experience, you know, being censored or like, you know, that's why people don't really value privacy until they like lose it or something. It's, you know, people don't appreciate the lot of things they have until, you know, it's gone. Doug That's pretty much in everybody in society, and that's why things suck for the most part. Nobody has the ability to look more than two inches in front of their face, right? But yeah, you were going to give some good feedback, thoughts on if we wanted to improve the use case, like local Monero use case in XMR Bazaar, what are things that can be done. XMRfamily I mean, in my opinion, you'd have to focus only on that. And you'd have to stay away from like the marketplace in a sense, you know, the goods and services part of it because that adds, you know, a lot more complexity to it. But like I said, in my experience, Doug It really is just a category. You know what I'm saying? Like it is just a It's it's just another type of sale, right? So instead of like you said you sold you sold silver or you bought silver with mineral on there or you sold? It's not I think I sold something. It's awesome. It's awesome. So like, you know, it's just like that, right? so right, how's that how's that any different than You know selling selling cash for? XMRfamily yeah I mean it could it like in theory it could replace it but I don't know if the volume like the trend the amount of traffic is there necessarily for XMAR and bazaar Doug Yeah, it would have to become more known for that use case, which I think it naturally would if it was working well for that. XMRfamily Yeah, but like another thing I could talk about it's like magic, you know, magic grants, it's like a non-profit and you know, I became a committee member in January for it and actually one of the things I want to talk about also. Doug Yeah, well we'll bring up this question too, and this is related to magic rats Yes, it is Adam tip 20 cents, and he's asking what are your views on metro narrow should they crowdsource funds without CCS? XMRfamily I mean, in my opinion, like, you know, I wish the best for Metro narrow and their team and Doug Metronarrow is built by the Bitcoin. I mean the Monero ATM people right that which are I love the I love that That couple there. They're they're amazing, right? Yeah Yes, and it was basically remind me again what it is. It's um, it's like a XMRfamily it was like a Monero only kind of like payment processor and He'll let us system. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and so like we did with the committee kind of voted like not to They didn't receive the three required votes, you know to find out Doug Why? I was surprised by that. Yeah. I mean, different members- Very Monero-esque to me, like building the circular economy. From what I know, they're very much purists, the way they were building the Monero, also just the Monero Pay, right? They build Monero Pay, which is kind of a competitor to BTC Pay, but Monero-based. XMRfamily I mean, I could just say from like my point of view, they were, it's not that they were asking for a lot of money, but you know, it would have been like 60% of our available funding. I mean, we could have also a proud fund, you know, raise some funds, but in general, you know, we have a lot of different kind of goals we want to complete with magic and you know, like we want to raise more funds too. And like, so one of the things, you know, we're working on is like also like merchandising and things like that. But overall, they. Doug Well, what do you think of magic versus the traditional CCS system? XMRfamily Magic is better in my opinion because it doesn't, it's not, you know, the members are more close-knit and there's not as much politics or drama. I mean they can all, they can still be but Doug Yeah, the CCS system is like the drama. It's like, you know, it's prevented me going back for do I'm actually was thinking of doing a CCS recently, I did one obviously a while ago. And I think I could say it worked out, it worked out well. And so the, you know, but anybody who watches or seeing these CCS and what goes down, it's like, the biggest hurdle is just the drama and the emotional investment, you have to make it to like going through the process because it could be quite brutal, right? XMRfamily Right. And so, like, if they can raise funds and, you know, they shouldn't work on it, you know, it's a great system. But also, when it comes to, like, merchants and things like that, like, on the business side, you know, it's not really good to be Monero only exclusive, realistically. Like, a lot of merchants' businesses want to accept several other cryptocurrencies. And, you know, that's what Doug So if I had done, like, an XMR Bizarre Magic Grant, you guys would be like, oh no, we don't want to see a Monero-only marketplace. No. XMRfamily Yeah, I'm just the one committee member. I can't at least Doug What would be your response? Would you be like, oh, no, we want this to also accept the Zano? I highly doubt that would be the case. Is that what you guys would be pleading for? I doubt it. XMRfamily Well, part of me is like my goal is more with magic, at least is kind of work more on regulatory things. And that's something we're exploring and, you know, part, you know, joining the blockchain association is going to cost money, you know, dues and things like that. And so how? Doug How much are there in the grant system, in the Monero grant system? How much money is there? XMRfamily Well, it's it's kind of spread between different like committees and things. There's like the privacy fund or the privacy guides, the Furo fund and then Monero fund, but like actually that's kind of, you know, I can talk else about, you know, magic actually has like two, three hundred thousand dollars set aside for Monero research for post-quantum research as well. You know, so like we try to prepare, you know, for the future, you know, like Monero magic grants this like a lot, my opinion for Monero from like, you know, providing like two audits for Sarai. Huge. Yeah. Doug So they were able to get that done? Well, then obviously there was CCS money too, like for Luke, right? His work on full shame membership proofs. And I guess, yeah, none of his Sarai stuff went through the CCS at all, went through Magic Rants. XMRfamily Yeah, so like for when FCMP had my notes, I'm kind of trying to look for them, can't remember everything else out in my head. But Magic actually funded three audits for FCMP and where they're in the middle of the third audit right now. And actually, you know, Monero Fund is a five committee member, but one of our members actually resigned. So we are planning actually on having like a special election to have a new member join Magic Grants. So, you know, if anyone's interested, I think we're still working out on like exact days and things like that. But, you know. Doug Yeah, it's a great service. When it first started, I think I was part of it, but then I'd never participated, so. I wasn't a good fit for it. I didn't have the time or dedication up to, working on too many other things, but it's an important piece of the community. Get some people involved in that, hopefully open-minded people. They'll come there with some politicals like Angle, try to be as open-minded as possible. You really should be oriented around wanting to grow Monero, right? Is the reason why I think your base philosophy should be. Will this maximize the growth and adoption of Monero? XMRfamily Yeah, and that's kind of what I also really like about like magic and the Monero Fun Committee is like, you know It's pretty diverse, you know There's people with a lot more technical skills than me, you know, cuz like, you know reviewing some of the proposals You know the math it gets kind of complicated. I'm not a you know math major But you know, so that's where like I like to also when it comes to proposals and things like that I do try and reach out to like community to get their input as well to see what they think of it and more street It makes it more efficient in my opinion Doug What was the community saying about Metronym? XMRfamily That machinero is like a great team. Doug I'm surprised. I'm surprised they didn't get the funds. So you said really it's because they were just too Monero focused and then also because there just wasn't a lot of funding available. XMRfamily There were some like soft skill issues. I don't know, like it's, you know, it's kind of tough. Like, you know, I thought about like, you know, do I regret my decision? Should I have voted? Yes, possibly. But even regardless, you know, we wouldn't have reached the three, the three members required to accept it. Doug get another member on that board. I'm joining the board and we're doing another project. I think it's a great project. We need some good POS systems, right? So get people starting to try to get that going. Definitely nobody's cracked that egg yet. XMRfamily Yeah, not the POS systems, but like, never mind. Doug No, I guess you were gonna say something with regards to to Metro narrow that it wasn't an issue of it being a POS system But something else XMRfamily Um, no, like it's good. Like it's needed, you know, it is needed. There's not, you know, they're trying to do something that no one else has done. But one of the, my concerns in a sense also was like, you know, it gets completed. But, you know, how many merchants will actually use it? I mean, yeah, sure some will, but like, you know, that's like a whole, in my opinion, that's a little bit of a whole nother topic, but. Doug Yeah, I mean you can say that about anything that somebody's trying to build in the Monero space, right? Like, obviously there's no brainer things, right? If it's an improvement to the protocol, yeah, nobody's going to say, you know, say we shouldn't fund full chain membership proofs, like, that's, you know, everybody in the community would have donated to that. Something like, I want to build an app, a business, a thing around Monero that's a tool for help, you know, improving the way people use Monero. Obviously, it's going to need to come with growing adoption for that. XMRfamily Yeah, like, you know, we have another proposal for like, HTLC, I think is pretty much like it's related to like atomic swaps and things like that. And we're kind of like, thinking about, you know, what we think of their proposal. And, you know, it's a good proposal, but, you know, if you look at like atomic swaps now, in my opinion, like, they don't really get utilized that much. There's, there's liquidity, but not like that much liquidity for atomic swaps. Yeah, don't use it. Exactly, you know, and like, I like testing things too. And like, you know, I think I'm pretty sure I've done atomic swaps, but like, I can't even recall. Doug Was the Hovino app, was that money raised through Magic Rants? XMRfamily So no, CCS, or I think there's, there might be another, I think it was like, well, Monero Social when, where funds were raised for, uh, Habuno app. But like I said, there is drama and stuff like that with like Qubit and like money getting taken and, you know, sorry. Doug Yeah, he's he's just stopped work XMRfamily I don't know if she ever worked on it. So that's kind of the issue with sometimes development. You can fund it, but also making sure it's effectively done to the end and not just dead at the end. Doug Yeah, I mean, I was considering trying to do because when I did the CCS, it ended up helping me out quite a bit. The original tension was that I was going to be working full time on Monero. I ended up keeping the day job, but then just dedicating more years time. And then those funds really, I mean, they helped me get Monero Nodo off the ground. They helped me a lot with the Monero Topia Conference, keeping that going. Even XMR Bazaar, getting that off the ground because I had the extra funds. And I actually ended up being quite successful, I'd say. So I was considering maybe trying to do something again. And adding to that on my list of projects, one that I wanted to add was the advocating for the removal of the bit license in New York and getting Monero listed on exchanges in New York and actually taking action, putting work to get it done. I know people here. I could work the political channels here in New York. Obviously, can't promise anything, but I think all we can do is try. Speaker 4 I think I could do probably better than Doug Anybody else in terms of trying to get the bit license eliminated in New York and get Monero listed on exchanges in New York and I would make that part of what I'm looking for funds we're funding for. Obviously, I do these things anyway, but it would give me more capital, more resources and make it more serious for me to get it done. But what do you have? Fairly reasonable. Doug, this is anarchy. Just resist them all. You know, I agree, man, but I'm working on both ends and I'm fighting the war on both ends. Right? We could all just ignore them, but it's just going to take a lot longer for other people to find their way to us. I want as many people as possible to come ship. XMRfamily Yeah, and that's like the yeah, introduce like introducing new people to Monero and even like in the Monero community like just networking and talking with people like they've inspired me to work on other projects. Doug as well. I think it's crazy that people here in New York, from the early days of crypto, Monero was relatively early, 2014. You've never been able to buy Monero on a centralized exchange here in New York as a New York resident. Any other crypto you were able to buy in 2017, you were able to buy Litecoin and all these other ones, but people in New York never had access to Monero. That really did its growth at that. It was successful and people will say, it's good that it wasn't, but that's how a lot of people obtain cryptocurrency is through centralized exchanges. They'll learn to use decentralized exchanges, they'll learn to pull the money off, they'll learn to hold their own keys, but I don't think they should advocate for cutting off access to normies. XMRfamily Yeah, I agree a hundred percent, you know, that's kind of you know That's why like swapping is really popular too It's because you know, like you can't necessarily buy XMR by itself really easy But it's a lot easier to buy like Bitcoin and especially like, you know Like coin is better for swapping because of fees but you know Swapping like other crypto currencies to get Monero. It's very popular and Like that's kind of more what Sarai is gonna be focused on and like that's why I'm really excited for Sarai when it does You know when Sarai signs counter sound But that's why I really you know for me like hunt be knows really like I really love to be knows because it Fulfills the fiat XMR piped line that you know The local Monero was doing but no not really many others and you know, we know we talk about centralized exchanges, right? Kraken being the only one that really sells Monero Especially in the United States, but you know with them launching, you know Launching an IPO and things like that and like part of me is worried that you know them being like a public company You know, they're gonna be more under more scrutiny and things like that. They might stop selling XMR I mean, I really hope they don't but that'd be so much dumb Doug They were very involved in the Trump campaign, obviously. There's a bunch of big crypto people involved that were lobbying and funding Trump's campaign. But Kraken, I think, was the one that led the charge and were the earliest to get involved in Trump's campaign. That's what I'm saying when I say, I think, now is might be the right time. We got Kraken that's whispering into the ear of Trump. Trump passed that executive order that, in my interpretation, was clearly saying, Monero is legal here in the US and we're promoting the use and adoption of tools like Monero. But I hear what you're saying, if they were to IPO, would things change? You think things might go the other way, with California becoming more strict and creating their own bit license? I see things right now loosening up. Trump led executive order. He launched a shit coin the day before he was named president, made it illegal for anybody to basically launch a meme coin and it wouldn't be considered illegal in the eyes of the SEC. XMRfamily But that's more easy and more better. Trump might be better for the United States regulation, right? I also share about Europe and- Doug Well, Jake, thanks to you to be getting right, because that's the competition, right? But Europe may have to change to compete. Because if this model here works out in the US where more liberty is better, and it leads to people having happier lives, as Trump dials down the state a little bit and gets rid of a bunch of regulations, and if we start to flourish again, the hope is that EU is going to have to compete, right? If they don't want to miss out on the crypto boom, they can't make it illegal to use bananas. XMRfamily They you know the EU with their mica bill, you know, pretty much kind of made made it so like Monero can't be traded anymore That kind of I forget what that like in the last year. It yes and became it's like this So that was like a real hit in my opinion To Monero community, you know it affected me Doug I mean, Monero is not listed on any European exchanges, right? I don't believe so. Right? Is that the point we're at now? Yes. Yes. Yeah. And that's because of the Micah bill, essentially, right? Yes. XMRfamily So, and that's what I really want, you know, regulation not to happen, and I don't necessarily think it will. You know, it depends on who's advocating, you know, we have chain analysis and Coinbase advocating for regulation that they think is better. It's going to probably not be in Monero's interest possibly, you know, why hasn't Coinbase listed Monero? You know, I see you talking about that all the time. Doug Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying. I want to get it done, man. I want to get done now. If I were to do another CCS, and it would be for my other projects as well, what would be your recommendation at this point? Use Monero CCS, do Magic Rants, do Akuno. How do you see things? How do you see the ecosystem at this point in terms of? XMRfamily I mean, I would say it really kind of depends on your project and what type of like fun, you know, fundraising you like are trying to get. Because, you know, Kuna is pretty good, in my opinion, for things like fundraising, and CCS does too, it's just like, yeah, there's options. It's good to utilize the whole option opinion. Doug What do you see each one being good at good for like, how would you break them down like their differences and why should you know somebody's working on you know, in what instances should somebody do a CCS versus a magic grant versus XMRfamily I see I don't I don't have any experience with like making my own CCS I don't know if I'm the best person to talk about that. Okay fair enough Doug Fair enough. I think CUNO is the easiest, obviously, to get going, because you're just like, hey, I got a CUNO, raise funds. But then you have to do the work of getting people to see your CUNO, and it's really very fringe, very community-based and grassroots. The Monero CCS, if you can get it approved, and it's voted in, and it's voted to this funding stage, usually funds end up flowing it. It's more guaranteed that you then get your funding, because there are funds there. Magic grants, I guess, is more of the in-between. It's not as easy as a CUNO. There's more process there. It's a little more like the Monero CCS, but not as onerous, not as political, and you're not as out in the open in the community getting attacked by ... You're inevitably getting attacked by the one Monero person that totally hates you, for whatever reason. It's a little more shielded to the bad side of Monero's culture. Then what you do, when it does get passed, once again, you get funding. The funding just comes right through. You're guaranteed at that point. That's how I would describe the three. For those that are listening in and trying to understand how the funding ecosystems here work in Monero. Is there any other thoughts you have about how we could better fund Monero projects and keep the ecosystem growing? Because we don't have anything built into the protocol. We don't want to be dev taxed. These are all arguably very good things. But there's something to be said for a Zcash that has Zcorp behind it, and it's getting a dev tax and they could go hire people, for example, to advocate and lobby, which they do. Zcash is more represented in terms of people lobbying for it on the federal level and state levels than Monero. Nobody's out there lobbying for Monero, but they are for Zcash because they use their funds to pay people to do that. XMRfamily Right. I think there's a question from Lucifer. Do I think there's hope of mainstream finance embracing Monero? If regulations are friendly enough, I think mainstream finance will embrace Monero. And that could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you see it. Because, you know, I like, I forgot if I said this already, but like, you know, I've talked to like, with different like Bitcoin ATM makers and things like that. And, you know, they're, they don't really want to accept Monero, you know, sell Monero at their Bitcoin ATM. So, you know, it'd be very easy for them because, you know, the risk of them getting audited is a lot higher if they sell Monero. At least that's what I heard, you know, makers have told me that I've talked to. Doug Yeah, that's another time we could talk about ATMs and stuff, something I've been thinking about as well. But yeah, just back to that question though, do you have any ideas, thoughts on what we need in terms of improving the funding ecosystem in Monero so we can continue to fund the development of the protocol and the development of new projects in Monero? So CCS, Monero. XMRfamily I mean, I'm relatively new to like the funding part of the community, you know, at least in my grand experience and I mean, I think the way funding is currently right now, it's relatively good Like I said, like magic, you know, we have funds, you know hundreds of thousands set up side for like future Quantum, you know research from an era to make sure it can withstand that and that's the thing like lots of people can have like At least when it comes to funding I think you know a lot of people have good ideas But actually getting the money for it is you know Your idea has to be really kind of people would need it or want it or it solves things and if it does It'll get funded, you know in one way or the other private donations magic, you know If the idea and project is really valuable to the Monero community. I guarantee it'll get fun You know, Monero is my mirror community. My opinion is pretty generous very generous. Yeah Doug Yes. I agree. I mean, it has to be though, right? Because that is our funding mechanism. Right. You know, like I said, there's no dev tax. So the funding needs to come. XMRfamily Yeah. And like, look at, you know, have, you know, have, you know, could be charging fees, you know, for the service that they provide. But, you know, they received private funding where they don't have to charge any fees, you know, I forget their arrangement, but, you know, that, that was a good thing, my opinion. Doug Yeah, what is the current arrangement like in terms of there are there are fees like going into a treasure like for development though Isn't there and for like upkeep? For what do you mean on Haveno like are there's there's not so? XMRfamily No, there's no no so like makers like P2P traders will have like markup fees You know like, you know various by payment method and things like that in a volume But yeah, if you know that like doesn't charge any fees in in the beginning I think they charge like makers, I think like 1% maybe or even less than 1% They removed it Doug Yeah, okay, because there was fear of... XMRfamily And no, it wasn't no fear, it was kind of to increase adoption, you know, to make people Doug more like eating. Well, yeah, I think it was both, though, too, because, you know, the people running it didn't want, with tornado cash happening at that time and stuff, they didn't want to be seen as profiting off of, you know, this platform that's being used for making trades. XMRfamily Well, so that's why, you know, the way a lot of people don't even really kind of understand Hivino or what RitoSwap is and like the way I like to describe it, it's like, you know, Hivino is like the, the game, but RitoSwap is like the network, uh, pretty much it's like the game server that people play on. And, you know, it's run by the people who actually made RitoSwap. And that's why like, you know, the Hivino core teams didn't want to run it because of the legal implications and things like that. Doug It has made it a little confusing though for people to be XMRfamily Yeah, no, I definitely get that, you know, the data makes it a little harder for people to like, you know, be interested in trying out, you know. Doug Right, and we may see other implementations of Haveno itself other than retro swap. XMRfamily Yes, possibly. There was another one I think. I don't think there was any volume at all, but that's kind of also where you have to be cautious of malicious actors. I really like the Rideau Swap team and I think they're doing a great job. Doug Very cool. Very cool, man. What else do you want to bring up? You said yeah, you might you might be coming to pork fest this year XMRfamily Yeah, I forget exactly when it is in June. I think it's in June, right? Doug Yes, thank you. XMRfamily Yeah, I'll probably be there. Doug June 16th through the 22nd to be precise actually let me let me bring it up on screen might as well shill this for a quick second guys if you haven't already heard we're doing a Monero topia tent at pork fest pork fest is I would say the biggest libertarian family friendly event in the world I don't know maybe maybe there's something else I don't know about but pork fest seems to see it's the best one I've been to there's freedom festival which is like a big conference that people go to but this is this is like this is a meetup of libertarians that are opting out for the week and living off of each other yeah and together yes but living off a cryptocurrency and goldbacks it's freaking awesome and so you can see this in this picture you see that bar and that's that's the main pork fest stage that's where all the main talks are and then you can see that white tent we're basically gonna have that white tent and that we're gonna have our own event going on in that white tent it's gonna be like a Monero topia at pork fest event we're gonna have different speakers obviously just like Monero topia people talking about digital cash opting out all that stuff and I team we're teaming up to it Aaron day to pull this off and Aaron day is like mr. pork fest he's been going forever it's like like an early adopter big part of like the you know what's the freedom you know movement and obviously the movement are trying to get people to move to New Hampshire to opt out so he'll be running that with me and it should be super cool so if you want to attend just go to pork fest buy tickets to pork fest I think they're gonna give me a discount code that I could chill so you could get discounted tickets but yeah there's no there's no ticket for Monero topia itself just you just got to get tickets for pork fest and then you got to figure out how you're getting there and figuring out your accommodations that's that's on you guys I mean you should be able to figure it out XMRfamily And that's what I was talking about in there, is how it gets involved in so many different cultures and communities, you know, like from the Libertarians. Doug Beautiful to see, right? I'd be very concerning if people were not... That's why I went to Porkfest the first time because I heard so much about it and I heard how a lot of the early Bitcoin users came out of Porkfest. At Porkfest, some of the first people using Bitcoin were at Porkfest because they were accustomed before even Bitcoin existed. They were accustomed to using non-fiat ways of buying and selling goods and services from each other like coins, silver, whatever it is. And then when Bitcoin was invented, they were the earliest adopters. There were people that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars off of selling smoothies at Porkfest in 2011. It's like, I'm not joking. Yeah, I think one guy was selling baklava or something. He was like, yeah, and he made, yeah. To this day, he's known as the baklava porkfest guy and he made tons of Bitcoin there selling his baklava for like three Bitcoin or so whatever it was. And so I went to Porkfest the first time to see if they were using Monero because I would have been very concerned if they weren't because here we are saying Monero this, Monero that. It's used on the dark markets. It's starting to get used on dark markets. I was like, okay, so if it's all cracked up to be, then the people that understand this the most that are the early adopters should be into Monero and sure enough, from the first one I showed up at, which I don't even know what year that was, wasn't maybe 2019, I guess? 2018? No, I think it was 2019. They were Monero adopters and I've only seen it grown since. So pretty much anybody that accepts crypto at Porkfest at this point is willing to accept Monero if they're not already accepted. XMRfamily If I go to Quarkfest, I'll bring Monero collectibles, like physical collectibles for people to see. Doug Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know you could set up we can maybe give you like a little table near near the tent Cool man. Yeah. Yeah. I hope I hope you could pull it off. It'd be cool XMRfamily I think I will be able to pull it off. It's a lot easier than going to Mexico. Doug Yeah. People have been calling for a US-based Monero event. So we had the first Monero-Topia was in Miami. The first Monero-Con was in Colorado, but there hasn't been a US-based. So this is the US-based Monero event. And then the next one will be back in Mexico in February. Yeah. And it's actually happening at the same time as Monero-Con, as I'm sure you're aware. But also, that's also difficult for a lot of people here in the US to head over to Monero-Con and Prague. It's awesome. It's very cool. I've been to all of them. And we're going to be teaming up with them. There's a bunch of drama involved with getting their pool to vote on it. Anytime there's a board involved in anything Monero-related, it's a fucking disaster. That's the only problem. I heard a little bit. XMRfamily about that trauma. Doug You get a group of people like, you know, that's why you with the magic grants people to come together vote It's just like I don't know. I don't want to be involved. Yeah, there's a way the Monero way the Monero con board It's like got you know, God bless them I hope that I hope they can make it to the finish life Here with a conference because you watch the way that they're handling things. It always ends up coming together It's been smoother in the past because AJ was running it and others that were really like Basically running it on their own with volunteers and help from others But now it's seems like the board itself is kind of taking over management of it And it's you get you know, too many too many cooks in the kitchen too many cooks in the kitchen We have our own conference Monero topi so we know exactly what's involved like I know exactly what's involved in throwing we throw Monero con we throw our own version of it and It's just a lot easier when it's literally just me and Sunita being like, alright, so we're gonna we're gonna allow it Let you know let this person sponsor or you know, you know It's it's not a Voted on by you know, it's a hundred people with a hundred different personalities XMRfamily Yeah, exactly, principles over personalities. Doug Yeah, so we did they finally did vote yes say voted no at first We got them to do a re vote as that We had people from like the Monero topia community, which I always thought and hope was the same as the Monero con community But apparently not they went in and they voted on behalf and we were able to get the vote pass So now we are officially collaborating which doesn't really mean much at the end of the day It was more of like a let's just like acknowledge each other, right? Like I want Monero con acknowledging the fact that Monero topia is happening at the same time in Porkfests where more people are using Monero than at Monero con, right? I just want that to be acknowledged essentially and that you know If you want you can watch watch our live stream because you should be interested in What's gonna be spoken at on the main stage of the Monero topia conference at pork fest if you're at Monero con You should be interested in those things and then vice versa We're obviously we're gonna we were gonna be playing the Monero con talks. Anyway, even if they didn't give us permission to collaborate I'm obviously gonna be live streaming Luke Parker when he's talking about, you know Full chain membership proof implementation at the Monero topia tent, right? Like why wouldn't I play that? So that's really all the collaboration is we'll just be playing each other streams and then what I would like, you know I what I'm pitching it at like selling it as is let's let's think of this as The biggest Monero event we've ever had globally, right? Cuz we have two happening at the same time on other side, you know different sides of the planet essentially It's gonna be two big Monero Physical Monero nodes that are that are blossoming on the same weekend. We should see a an optic in transactions, right? We should see a high transaction count During that weekend people will be using a Monero at pork fest and at Monero con and yeah That's that's what I'm gunning for saying look like let's let's raise the Monero transaction account Transaction count with these two events happening together. Yeah XMRfamily You know, collaboration is great and it's a pain in the ass sometimes. That's what I've learned too, is like, you know, collaborating with different people is a pain in the ass. And that's where centralization, you know, is kind of useful. But anyways, yeah, I'm just really excited for the future and what's going to happen in the Monero community. Because, you know, we're always, you know, improving and progressing and not just staying in our old ways. Doug you see things playing out. What is kind of your overall take? You know, what is Monero, the Monero community, Monero usage, adoption, what do things look like in two years from now, five years from now? XMRfamily In my opinion, once people start seeing that one Bitcoin doesn't equal one Bitcoin, and once more stories, new stories of negative consequences happening because of mass surveillance and things like that, Monero is going to be a lot more, I think, talked about and focused on and that'll introduce new people. Monero is going to keep growing. I love what XMAR Bazaar does and things like that. And just seeing how different platforms are going to grow throughout their time. Some are going to stay, some are going to exit scam. That's the thing. It's a lot of grassroots. So there's a lot of good people, a lot of malicious people sometimes. Doug Yeah, unfortunately, we got to take the bad with the good because we're just so completely permissionless. Anybody can use Monero and you can use it in a way where nobody has to know who you are. So obviously, it leads to, we got bad people using it as well. Like any other useful tool that we use. XMRfamily And that shows it as value, you know, it's heaven. Doug Right. If those people need it and they're relying on it, it probably means it's working as intended. I just wanted to bring up XMR Bazaar. This is one of my favorite posts now. I have a couple of favorites that I love in this one. Somebody selling 16 acres of land in Binghamton, New York. I know where that is. I have friends that went to school up there in Binghamton. I almost went to Binghamton undergrad. Somebody selling an interesting plot of land on a hill overlooking the city of Binghamton. 16 acres. It's exciting. I like it. I'm involved in too many things, but it's tempting to get excited about what can we do there. All of a sudden, I'm considering Binghamton as a place where we can get Venera adoption going. It's so random. XMRfamily Yeah, and I like that, you know, more assets are, you know, being, you know, you know, for sale for Monero, you know, I know like Vic I think was trying to sell his car and like art smart work as well on that smart bazaar. Doug Yeah, exactly his roles Nothing. Yeah, maybe maybe a couple more decades for that one. I don't know And you know like Sid art XMRfamily Yes, Siddhartha. Yeah, so like, I love Siddhartha, you know, he inspired me actually a lot in some ways during tough times. And actually, I'm gonna put up like one of his words. He sent me on Exmar Bazaar and all. Doug He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's a great guy. Yeah, and he He designed our posters. We've commissioned him to make our posters for Monero topia for all the conferences So yeah, yeah, I like how I like him and I yeah, I see his art. He's on XMR bazaar. He's posting things Right. Well, yeah this lat right you like I'm picturing, you know a little little Monero hotel here Monero hotel and thar in In sort of get upstate, New York, right? They'd be quite nice Jacuzzi going in the winter, you know people coming out hanging out at the Monero Monero Club Yeah, so it's Teen Acre Hill outside overlooking the city of Binghamton XMRfamily You know, I love like Monero only stuff, especially Monero Maxi, but I still think like, you know, for Monero's future, it becoming more involved kind of other cryptocurrencies. And but what I mean by that is like, you know, a lot of services might, you know, sell or accept like cryptocurrencies, but almost a lot of times they, you know, they exclude Monero, you know, that's what I mean. Like, there's a lot of politics somewhat behind it. Like Bitpay, Bitpay, for example, you know, yeah, you know, I work with like different nonprofits and things like that. But even if you look at like, you know, stacks of hours, you know, they're like a, they, they do auctions and things like that for like physical crypto currencies, so I've sold some pieces on there and bought some and, you know, you can actually pay for the auctions with Bitpay. You know, I mean, I think you pay 2%, but, you know, Bitpay doesn't accept Monero, which is like, why, you know, just pay in the ass. Doug Lucifer is saying, get your jackets. This is where I'm going to be hosting. Speaker 4 I am Binghamton in February. Doug Just do it. Let's do it. Love the world. The bonfire is going people will be selling Beaver beaver hats in hot apple cider. That's the say warm on apple cider You live it off of each other peer to peer trying to literally trying to survive near peer to XMRfamily is like great and like really kind of the grassroots especially like you know you know I don't have much experience with like Bitcoin P2P trading but you know I know people who do and you know P2P is really like you know you know me sending it to you that's not really like you know the original kind of like you know purpose kind of I would say behind like Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and not having to rely on like institutions and things like that. Sure, for sure. Doug Anything else we have? We've been going almost an hour and a half here. Yeah, it was very nice meeting you, man. I'm sure we'll have you on again. Or you should jump up on Monero Topia as well, whenever you want. Whenever you want to get some information out there, whatever it is you want to, you know, promote in the Monero community, get info out. Because obviously you follow things very closely. So if you ever want to come on, tell us things about Hovino or Magic Rants, you're always welcome there as well if you ever want to jump on. XMRfamily Thanks Doug, I'm sure we'll keep in touch and we'll plan some things in the future. Doug Anything you want to close out with and put info out for people to know about, follow you, find you, or just want to direct people towards... XMRfamily Yeah, XMR Bazaar, you know, as you know, I want people should check out Rito swap, and people should also check out matching grants, you know, support, you know, organizations that you think are doing good for the community. Doug And I guess I will ask you before you then, one more time before we close out, just general thoughts on XMR Bizarre, right? Things that, you know, we could do better there that you think to help build that out. Get more people using it. XMRfamily Uh-huh, I haven't checked, you know, been on Ex-Mart Bazaar much, you know, recently. Um, it's kind of like really into it, like in the beginning. See, they lost him. So how's life? We gotta, we gotta bring it back. I had, you know, light, life is complicated. Yeah, but I, I don't know, I'm just, I'm maybe a little bit better organization. I would say when it comes to like categories could be, you know, improvement. Um, I don't know if I've checked this in, but like making sure like, you know, food category, you know, the food category is actually food and not like other things like that, you know, Doug If you do find the time, you want to give me some concrete feedback, I'm always welcome to it. If you want specific things that you'd like to see altered, changed, by all means, let us know. XMRfamily Yeah, and then you have a shout out to, you know, good old admin for XMR bizarre. Doug Yeah, oh my god. She's a wonder. Is she real? Is she AI? I mean, she came out of nowhere and she's like a Monero angel. She does so much for XMR Bazaar. Obviously, you know, we pay her, but nowhere near what the amount of value that she's putting in. So yeah, greatly, greatly appreciate her. And BT Dea, you know, an archaeo, the guy who built it, he also Kudo, kind of an unsung hero in the Monero community. He doesn't want attention. He doesn't like attention. But he is, I think has done amazing work for the Monero community, and particularly for just growing Monero adoption. I think Kudo has been a great success. XMR Bazaar also, I think it's already, it's exceeding my expectation. You know, seeing land and Bingham. Speaker 4 For sale, for a minute, like this, like this. Doug you know this is like you would awaken me from a dream now be like oh no shit like i was just fantasizing about you know what it could be uh it's here it's it's working as intended so yeah XMRfamily Smart Bazaar more than Monero Market. Doug That's good. That's good. Especially well, you know, I think we're we competed with them too was dropping, you know No fees right out of the gate and never holding anybody's funds. So all right, brother. We could uh, we could end it there I gotta go eat something and I know I'm sure you got things to do as well and We'll be in touch Like I said, anytime you want to jump on Monero topia Please let me know and if you want to coordinate in any way with regards to come into to the pork fest thing You know, obviously hit me up with regard, you know, how to get in touch with me. Otherwise, hopefully I'll see you there XMRfamily keep in touch. I appreciate it. It's been an honor. All right, buddy. Doug Thank you, man. Thank you. Speaker 2 Hi, Monero Land, thank you for joining on this week's episode. We release new episodes every week. You can find and subscribe to our show, YouTube, Odyssey, iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Go to MoneroTalk.Live for a full list of places where you can watch and listen. If you want to interact with us, guests, or other podcast listeners, you can follow us on Twitter, Mastodon, or any of our social media platform. MoneroTalk is also made possible from contributing by viewers and listeners like you, and supporting us is easier than ever by typing in MoneroTalk.Crypto in your Monero.com or cake wallet send address to send us a tip. Once again, thanks so much for listening, and we look forward to being back next week. you