Monero Weekly Roundup - Issue #3

New CCS Proposals Enter the Pipeline for FCMP++ and Cuprate

Several new Community Crowdfunding System proposals opened for discussion this week, signaling continued momentum behind Monero's core development priorities. Core developer jeffro256 submitted a full-time 2026Q1 proposal to continue work on Carrot and FCMP++ integration, building on a track record that includes formulating the Carrot addressing specification, organizing its audit, and writing key implementation libraries. Separately, hinto-janai, who splits work between PoWER, Cuprate, and FCMP++ reviews, submitted a three-month full-time work proposal. Additional proposals in the ideas stage include integrating FCMP++ into monero-inflation-checker by dangerousfreedom, and a CCS site UI/UX redesign by SyntheticBird. According to Revuo Monero Issue #253, all current funded proposals are fully financed, leaving the community's attention on advancing these new ideas.

Bitcart Payment Processor v0.10.2.1 Released

Bitcart, the open-source cryptocurrency payment processor with Monero support, released version 0.10.2.1 on February 26 with bug fixes and improvements. Bitcart serves as a self-hosted alternative to BTCPay Server for merchants seeking Monero payment acceptance without reliance on third-party processors, making each maintenance release relevant to the broader Monero merchant ecosystem.

The next Cuprate workgroup meeting has been scheduled for March 3, 2026 at 18:00 UTC in the #cuprate Matrix channel and IRC-Libera. These regular meetings coordinate Cuprate's Rust-based node implementation work, which aims to improve sync performance and reduce hardware requirements for running a full Monero node.

According to network data compiled by Revuo Monero as of February 27, the Monero network hashrate stood at approximately 5.37 GH/s with the block height at 3,619,514. The weekly moving average transaction count reached 31,145 per day, with 37.42 transactions per block on average. The block reward held steady at 0.6 XMR under Monero's tail emission schedule, with total inflation running at 0.91% annually.

CypherGoat's This Week in Monero #25 reported mid-week hashrate at 5.77 GH/s, representing a 3.08% gain over the prior 24 hours. The network maintained its established support level around 279.95. Several new merchant and service listings appeared on Monerica during the week, including Lantern VPN, LizardSwap, VeritasProxy, and RahmTech Computing — continuing the incremental expansion of Monero-accepting services.

ProbeLab Publishes First Public Deep-Dive into Monero Network Topology

In one of the most significant Monero research publications of early 2026, ProbeLab released "Peering into Privacy: A Deep Dive into the Monero Network Topology" on February 24. Using their Nebula crawler, the team conducted a full network crawl starting at 10:00 AM UTC, completing it in approximately nine minutes. The crawl discovered over 29,000 unique IP:Port pairs, with successful TCP connections to around 60% of them. Of the nodes accepting connections, roughly 95% — totaling 16,454 — completed a full Levin handshake, indicating a largely protocol-compliant network. The report identified significant infrastructure concentration under the Spruce Creek Networks LLC hosting provider, consistent with concerns the Monero Research Lab has previously raised about potential spy node behavior. ProbeLab also identified instances where nodes exhibited different peer IDs during handshake versus ping responses — a pattern the MRL associates with surveillance infrastructure attempting to appear as many distinct nodes. The findings were highlighted by @MagicGrants on X and generated active discussion in the Monero Space forum. ProbeLab stated they plan to engage the Monero community on long-term, publicly accessible monitoring of these network metrics.

The topology report reinforces the practical importance of running your own full node and using the community-maintained MRL spy node ban list. For Docker users, Seth for Privacy's simple-monerod-docker integrates the updated ban list automatically, making deployment straightforward.

Incognito Market Sentencing Continues to Drive Privacy Coin Policy Discourse

The February 4 sentencing of Rui-Siang Lin — operator of the Incognito Market dark web narcotics platform — continued generating regulatory commentary through this week, with multiple outlets revisiting the case on February 27. Importantly, court documents detailed by The Block show that investigators traced Lin's identity through conversion of Bitcoin to Monero via exchanges requiring identity verification, along with domain registration records and email addresses — not through any direct break of Monero's transaction privacy. The case is now routinely cited in both regulatory arguments for privacy coin restrictions and community arguments about why self-custody and decentralized exchanges matter.

The broader regulatory environment continues to be shaped by the EU's DAC8 directive, effective January 1, 2026, which mandates crypto service providers to share customer and transaction data with tax authorities across member states. No new exchange delistings or jurisdiction-specific bans affecting Monero were reported during the February 23–March 1 window.

Haveno v1.2.3 Released with New Features and Improvements

Haveno, the decentralized peer-to-peer Monero exchange built on Tor, released version 1.2.3 on February 26, with developer woodser describing the update as including various bug fixes, new features, and improvements. Haveno operates as a non-custodial exchange using Monero-based 2-of-3 multisignature escrow, where arbitrators never hold direct access to user funds — a model that has drawn growing interest as centralized exchange delistings of XMR continue globally. The RetoSwap community fork simultaneously updated to v1.2.3-reto.

Cake Wallet v6.0.0 Beta Debuts Rebuilt Interface and Bitcoin Lightning

Cake Wallet released version 6.0.0 in beta this week, marking the most significant redesign in the wallet's history. The update introduces a completely rebuilt UI described by the team as cleaner, faster, and more intuitive, alongside Bitcoin Lightning support via the Spark protocol — a Bitcoin Layer 2 enabling instant, low-fee payments that bridge seamlessly between on-chain Bitcoin and Lightning. Core Monero functionality including syncing and transaction speeds was also optimized. The beta is available through the official Cake Labs F-Droid repository and the Cake Wallet forum.

Monero Hub — a community resource positioning itself as a gateway to the broader Monero ecosystem — was highlighted this week by CypherGoat's TWIM #25 as a notable project for users seeking a consolidated directory of Monero tools, wallets, exchanges, and communities.

The Monero Space forum thread on ProbeLab's network topology report generated substantive technical discussion this week, with developers and privacy advocates debating the implications of node infrastructure concentration for Monero's privacy model. The thread drew contributions from both longtime core contributors and newer community members, centering on the distinction between on-chain cryptographic guarantees and network-layer observability.

@MagicGrants published an X thread highlighting the ProbeLab topology research that brought the findings to a broader audience, prompting community discussion about the value of running personal full nodes to strengthen network decentralization rather than relying on a small set of widely-used public remote nodes.

The r/Monero subreddit saw active engagement this week around the Monerujo v2 preview available at soon.monerujo.app, which represents a ground-up rebuild of the popular Android wallet with a new merchant-oriented interface. Community reception has been enthusiastic, with users expressing particular interest in the merchant integration features and what they could mean for point-of-sale Monero acceptance.

Monero Monthly episode 013, No Price, Just Privacy, from Ungovernable Misfits featuring @sethforprivacy, Max, and Riccardo Spagni (fluffypony) continued circulating widely in community channels this week. The episode is available on the Ungovernable Misfits website and has drawn consistent praise for its focus on privacy principles over market speculation.

XMR closed the week at approximately $337.49 USD as of February 27, according to Revuo Monero data, representing a 1.17% gain over the seven-day period. Against Bitcoin, XMR gained 4.02% week-over-week to ₿0.005118, outperforming broader crypto market trends. The year-over-year performance remains strong at +61.63% in USD terms. Market capitalization stood at approximately $6.23 billion, with the street price reflecting the sustained correction from January's all-time high region near $800.

Technical indicators from CypherGoat's analysis showed the RSI at 41.1 (neutral), MACD in a bearish configuration, and Bollinger Bands with price at the midpoint — indicating stability without breakout momentum. The 20-EMA at 400.68 remains above the 50-EMA at 375.07, preserving the underlying uptrend structure despite near-term weakness. Key support is identified around $279.95, with a close below $274.35 flagged as a setup-weakening signal. According to CoinGecko, 24-hour trading volume remained in the $98–100 million range, with XMR ranked #17 by market capitalization.

Network Layer Privacy: What the ProbeLab Topology Report Means for Monero Users

Beyond its headline findings, ProbeLab's February 24 report carries important nuance about how Monero's privacy guarantees should be understood. Monero's on-chain cryptographic protections — ring signatures, stealth addresses, and RingCT — remain unbroken. What the report highlights is that peer-to-peer infrastructure concentration can introduce structural visibility into how transactions propagate across the network, independent of on-chain analysis. Nodes with greater connectivity or more frequent appearance in peer lists can gain observational advantages in theory. This finding aligns with TRM Labs' 2025 analysis, which similarly noted that 14–15% of Monero network peers exhibited non-standard relay behavior. ProbeLab has committed to ongoing engagement with the Monero community around long-term public monitoring of these metrics — a development that could meaningfully support the community's ability to identify and respond to anomalous network behavior in the future.

CypherGoat's TWIM #25 highlighted Monero's Levin Protocol documentation as the week's recommended study resource — timely given the ProbeLab publication, since the Levin protocol governs the peer-to-peer communication layer that ProbeLab's crawler examined. The document provides foundational context for understanding how Monero nodes discover peers, form connections, and relay transactions.