Monero Weekly Roundup - Issue #5

FCMP++ Audit Phases 1a & 1b Formalised with Cypher Stack

Developer jberman announced on March 16 that the proposed FCMP++ audit integration plan had been restructured, combining the original phases 1 and 2 into phases 1a and 1b. The updated plan includes more detailed audit goals, including a specific focus on the unbiased key image generator — auditing both the rationale for using a new hash-to-point function and its implementation soundness. Cypher Stack was contacted to begin the engagement. @MoneroResearchL shared the update alongside a link to the full audit tracking issue on GitHub. By March 25, the MRL confirmed that communication with Cypher Stack was active and that audit goals had been further refined based on feedback from both Cypher Stack and community reviewer irc_ukoehb. A formal three-phase CCS proposal for the audit (MR #663, budget approximately $150,000 across three phases) was opened by jberman on April 3, with the MRL set to select independent auditors. Leftover funds from each phase may be redirected toward secondary audit components such as torsion checks.

FCMP++ Beta Stressnet on the Verge of Launch

As of the April 1 MRL meeting, kayabanerve was reported to be completing the final task items required for the FCMP++ beta stressnet, after which the network will be ready for launch and community testing. An earlier note from March 25 had flagged that progress on the main blocking item — Generalized Bulletproofs changes made in response to an earlier audit — was expected imminently. The beta stressnet is tracked at GitHub issue #166.

Three New CCS Proposals Open for Developer Funding

@monero announced on March 19 that jeffro256 had put forward a proposal to continue full-time Monero development, with a focus on FCMP++ audit work, hardware wallet support for CARROT and FCMP++, and launching the beta stressnet. The proposal opened for funding the same day. On March 27, Boog900's proposal to continue full-time work on Cuprate's RPC interface for wallet support was opened for community funding. Two days later, hinto-janai's proposal covering Cuprate development and completion of the Proof-of-Work-Enabled Relay (PoWER) integration was also posted. All three proposals represent continuations of ongoing core development work.

Grease Payment Channels CCS Reviewed by MRL

The March 26 MRL meeting devoted extended time to the Grease Payment Channels CCS proposal, which requests 516.9 XMR for Monero's first operational bidirectional payment-channel implementation based on the Monet protocol. Discussion focused on one-to-one and small-scale channels rather than a full Lightning-style network. Key concerns raised included the mandatory Key Escrow Service (KES) — which serves a role analogous to HTLC+watchtowers in Bitcoin's Lightning Network but is currently a required dependency for trustlessness — as well as output history accumulation risks even with FCMP++ in multi-hop scenarios. The April 1 MRL summary noted that the review identified major unresolved issues and recommended delaying implementation until a trustless KES is available. The proposal remains under community discussion.

I2P SAMv3 Support CCS Proposal Advances

A CCS proposal by developer jpk68 to add native I2P SAMv3 support directly to the Monero daemon was the subject of extended MRL debate across multiple meetings in this period. The April 1 MRL update confirmed the main funding question — whether to use the existing I2P bounty or open a fresh CCS — was resolved in favour of a fresh CCS, with milestones now solidified and open for technical and administrative community feedback. The proposal is at CCS MR #650.

The Monero Ecosystem directory received an update by Mondetta on March 17, adding MoneroSwap, FerrySwap, Skylight, Forum, and MDC; removing Town; and refreshing logos for XMRChat, Bounties, XMRig, Gupax, and several other listings. The full ecosystem is browsable at monero.eco. Additionally, P2Pool v4.14 was released during this period, and tevador released RandomX v2.0 with a range of changes relevant to Monero's mining algorithm.

Qubic Begins Phased Exit from Monero Mining

Qubic — the AI-and-mining network that previously captured over 51% of Monero's global hashrate — announced and began a three-phase transition away from XMR mining toward Dogecoin, with Phase 1 launching on April 1. The architectural motivation is to free Qubic's CPUs and GPUs entirely for its AI training initiative (Aigarth), while outsourcing mining to dedicated Scrypt ASIC hardware. In Phase 1, Monero mining marathons were reduced from three days per week to two. Phase 2 will allow computors to choose between XMR and Dogecoin revenue before XMR is phased out entirely, and Phase 3 will shut down the XMR dispatcher completely. A community AMA on March 30 detailed the technical architecture. The transition removes a significant centralization risk from Monero's hashrate distribution, though it will gradually reduce total network hashrate until other miners fill the gap.

In an ecosystem note tracked by Revuo Monero Issue 254, developer rbrunner7 published a breakdown of different Polyseed variants across the Monero wallet ecosystem, noting that Cake Wallet supports the widest range of scenarios. The XMR PoS Android point-of-sale application also received a new UI redesign pull request addressing longstanding issues, with community testers welcome to help verify builds.

Bulletproofs* Folding Scheme Published — Potential Implications for Monero

Researcher emsczkp published a new cryptographic paper, Bulletproofs*: Verifier-Efficient Arithmetic Circuit Proofs via Folding, on IACR ePrint. The paper introduces the first folding scheme for Bulletproofs, following the ProtoStar compiler approach. A key finding discussed at the April 1 MRL meeting is that the folding prover and the NARK prover can be architecturally decoupled — meaning a third party could fold already-generated proofs without possessing the original secret witness. Developer jberman noted this opens the possibility of a block producer folding proofs from many parties without knowing their secrets, an application previously discussed in the context of Monero scalability. emsczkp confirmed the paper is planned for peer-reviewed conference submission upon completion. The related CCS update is at MR #626.

Post-Quantum Urgency Raised After Google Research

At the April 1 MRL meeting, Rucknium introduced recent Google Quantum AI research showing an approximately 20-fold reduction in the number of physical qubits required to execute Shor's algorithm for ECDLP-256 — the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem underlying most current cryptocurrency cryptography. The estimate suggests these circuits could run on hardware with fewer than 500,000 physical qubits. Core developers including jberman and rbrunner7 advocated for a focused post-quantum research effort to begin after the FCMP++ hard fork is complete, potentially contracting a dedicated research team. Developer tevador has already begun preliminary work on a post-quantum key exchange protocol. Post-quantum issues were formally added to the next MRL meeting agenda.

Arizona SB1649 Names Monero as Eligible Reserve Asset, Advances to House Floor

Arizona Senate Bill 1649, which proposes a state Digital Assets Strategic Reserve Fund, cleared the House Rules Committee on March 30 with an 8–0 vote and is now headed to a full House floor vote, according to legislative tracking records. The bill, introduced by Senator Mark Finchem, would allow Arizona to hold digital assets seized, forfeited, or surrendered to the state rather than auctioning them immediately. Monero (XMR) is among the explicitly named eligible cryptocurrencies alongside Bitcoin and others, under a "cryptocurrency fair value" scoring framework. As The Crypto Basic reported, the bill previously passed the Senate on March 9 and the House Commerce Committee on March 24. Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed a similar bill last year; the revised seizure-focused framing is designed to address those objections.

Russia to Require Foreign Crypto Wallet Declarations

Russia submitted a bill requiring residents to declare all foreign cryptocurrency wallets to tax authorities, effective July 1, 2026, according to @OrangeFren's April 5 post citing the announcement. The requirement raises obvious practical questions for holders of privacy-preserving assets, where the contents of a wallet may be indistinguishable by design. This forms part of a broader global regulatory trend toward mandatory crypto asset disclosure.

In a related regulatory context, Monerotopia Episode 256 (March 28) covered Mexico's proposed ban on cash payments at gas stations as part of its ongoing discussion of financial surveillance trends and their relationship to the demand for privacy-preserving tools.

Cake Wallet Launches Accounts Feature; Passport Prime Monero Support Confirmed

Cake Wallet launched a new accounts feature for Monero on March 10, with @CakeWallet noting that similar functionality for Bitcoin and other supported assets is also in development. On March 20, @sethforprivacy confirmed that a dedicated Monero app for the Passport Prime hardware wallet is in development at Cake Wallet, calling it "a first-class hardware wallet experience from the ground up for Monero." Passport Prime began reaching users in quantity during that same week.

Bitfinex Maintains Zero-Fee XMR Trading

@monero reposted a Bitfinex piece on March 26 noting that the exchange continues to offer XMR trading with zero fees — a notable contrast to the wave of delistings seen at other venues. A Bitfinex editorial quoted in the repost described Monero as experiencing a quiet resurgence driven by its community, steady development pace, and growing use in peer-to-peer markets.

Trading platform Margex added Monero as a margin collateral option on March 31, expanding XMR's utility for traders who hold the asset. Separately, the decentralized exchange infrastructure project THORChain was reported to be working on enabling XMR swaps, as noted by @monerify on April 5, citing community discussion around restoring liquidity access that has been reduced by exchange delistings.

Several wallet and tool releases were catalogued in Revuo Monero Issue 254 during this period: Eigenwallet v4.2.3 was released with changes detailed in its changelog; Monfluo Wallet reached v0.9.5 with address book and transaction notes support, and an experimental Rust-based "Monfluo Oxide" branch is under development; and RetoSwap App v1.0.2.1 was released running Haveno Reto v1.2.3.1 with quality-of-life improvements. Soul Reaver also published a user experience writeup on Skylight Wallet.

MoneroTalk published Episode 378 featuring Ray Youssef, the former Paxful CEO and MoneroTopia26 speaker who was arrested following his presentation in Mexico City. In the interview, Youssef described his view that U.S. regulators targeted him for building peer-to-peer financial tools used primarily by people in the Global South, framing the case as part of a broader effort to suppress decentralised finance. The episode was widely shared across the Monero community and discussed in multiple posts from @MoneroTalk.

The full archive of MoneroKon 2025 in Prague is now available, with all edited videos uploaded to a complete YouTube playlist. Thanks to vostoemisio for completing the upload.

Monerotopia shared a clip on March 27 from Tuxsudo of Cake Wallet's MoneroTopia26 main stage talk, in which he described the team's design philosophy: that Monero should be functional but also enjoyable to use. The clip was part of a broader series of MoneroTopia26 session highlights being posted across social channels.

@sethforprivacy remarked on March 26 that he would welcome a future in which Bitcoin's privacy became strong enough to make Monero redundant — but that this outcome seems increasingly unlikely given current Bitcoin development trends. The comment resonated with the community, reflecting a long-running thread of discussion about whether opt-in privacy can realistically reach the same guarantees as privacy-by-default.

@fluffypony contributed to an April 5 thread about Monero education and public perception, arguing that rather than retreating from satire or uncomfortable associations, the community's job is to identify and engage those who are curious and logically open-minded — the people between those who already understand privacy and those who never will. His reply that Monero "is a stablecoin" in response to a prompt asking for the best crypto use case was picked up widely in the community as an example of this approach.

Monerotopia shared a clip on March 30 of Edge Wallet's team at MoneroTopia26 addressing the adoption challenge directly, with the observation: "The problem with privacy is it needs a network effect. If we built an amazing private cryptocurrency such as Monero and no one uses it, it's useless." The clip was paired with a broader discussion of the gap between Monero's technical strength and mainstream adoption. MoneroTalk also posted a call on r/Monero on March 25 seeking a guest booking coordinator to help source interview subjects.

XMR traded in a broad range across this four-week period, touching approximately $359 in late March before pulling back with the wider crypto market correction in early April. According to CoinGecko data, XMR is currently trading around $328 with a market capitalisation of approximately $6 billion, ranking the asset at #18 by market cap. The asset reached an all-time high of approximately $799 in January 2026 and has since consolidated significantly below that peak.

The broader crypto market experienced notable volatility in late March and early April, with Bitcoin pulling back from recent highs. XMR's movement largely tracked broader market sentiment during this period. On-chain activity continued at a consistent baseline — sustained daily transaction volume has been a recurring feature of Monero's network despite price corrections.

MoneroKon 2026 has been confirmed for June 5–7 in Warsaw, Poland, hosted by OrangeFren.com and co-located with the Bitcoin Film Fest. The event is expected to feature developer-heavy programming including workshops on Cuprate, FCMP++ progress, and EU DAC8 regulatory impacts. Warsaw marks the sixth Monero Konferenco. Planning details are expected to be shared in the coming weeks.

Revuo Monero's Issue 254 (covering February 27–April 1, 2026) highlighted the Monero Monthly 014 episode by Ungovernable Misfits featuring Max and Seth for Privacy, as well as a community project roundup covering Monero SuperPay for Umbrel, Monero Superbrain, kyc.rip, xmr.bio (associating XMR addresses to X handles), and stables.rip. These community-built tools reflect ongoing grassroots ecosystem development outside the core protocol.