Is it just me or does every online Monero community feel like a ghost town recently?
The stackexchange is abandoned, the subreddits feel haunted, there are sparse posts that are few and far between with limited and carefully monitored activity, there isn't much talk about Monero even in general cryptocurrency communities other than the occasional passing mention.
Did i miss something? are external factors at play?
Its almost Monero's 10th anniversary you guys, where is everybody?
I believe things are in a state of flux as security and privacy-minded people re-adjust to the new reality wherein attacks with real-world consequences (like getting thrown in prison on false charges) are no longer theoretical.
In the past, such things mostly only happened to high-profile activists like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. Now it's happening to normal, everyday people, just like we predicted for years would happen.
Roman Sterlingov arrested and charged - without sufficient evidence - for using / operating a bitcoin mixer.
Based purely on SPECULATIVE chainalysis, heuristics cannot guarantee that he was the user. However, as chainalysis is in bed with intelligence services it is their gold standard. Now there is legal precedent to admit SPURIOUS chainalysis evidence in court. As noob judges/juries don't in2 tech they are strong armed by the state into accepting it.
Therefore anyone who holds a tainted bitcoin (or any public ledger crypto) can be tainted by that coin IN LAW and charged for any crime that utxo ever got near.
The lawyers give a great rundown of the case here demonstrating how badly justice has failed.
-He KYC'd BTC in 2011 on Mt Gox
-His utxo's bounced around a few wallets and ended up being used to buy the bitcoinfog domain [he is accused of buying the domain w/o proof]
-He later pulled some BTC out of Bitcoinfog into KYC'd exchanges to off-ramp [he is accused of being paid by bitcoinfog for services w/o proof]
The fact that the ghouls are harvesting data from early days (eg/ 2011) that anyone who ever KYC'd anywhere can be linked by chainalysis with a crime. Hence a cooling effect on crypto writ large.
Most of the regulars are hanging out on matrix. There are actually a lot of exciting things in the pipeline: Monerokon, Haveno, Serai, FCMPs, etc.
People have said the current bullrun in general is boring and the excitement is nothing compared to the last one. And Monero isn't even participating in the current bullrun :P
Shame, during the great Fediverse migration, I expected there would be more people in Monero specific spaces as the concept of the fediverse in general aligns so well with the values behind Monero, unfortunately it seems it has just become a bubble of ideologies.
I expected there would sort of be a chatter surrounding the 10th anniversary, I guess most people in the community have 'settled' and are done with Monero activism and I am the one who is late.
Hung around with the Serai people(digitally) near the start of the bullrun, as I understand they plan to launch their own native coin(which I have some reservations against), and don't really have a focus on privacy(at least right now)
@DisgracedDoctor@monero@monerobull I think this is because monero today is a boring tool that just works. The community calmed down and many activists/shills moved to greener pastures. This is probably a good thing
If you want more activity in fediverse, you can try to get micro-blogging sector going. There are many people who are interested in monero but no organization. I've seen a couple of accounts run by projects which mostly cross-post from twitter and do not engage with audience. No follow lists. We had a xmrposter Pleroma instance, but it was shut down.
Knowledge should be available in an open forum, not constricted to a chat app which will encourage repetition. I cannot fathom how people active in the Monero community, knowing how technical it is, somehow missed this
On matrix the meetings are held and people just generally hang out. There is still r/monero & r/monerosupport as well as monero.town but that one's a bit less accessible for people new to Monero.
We're still here, and have never left. Interest in crypto is primarily driven by price, and with the relative poor market performance attention of the masses is diverted. Almost like if it's planned by those who don't like xmr.