On 10th of December, Monero conducted an AMA on Crypto Revolution Community. Our guest was Diego Salazar (aka Rehrar), right hand to the Monero's Core Team. Impressive interest from our Community with a lot of questions on both Twitter and Telegram. Let’s take a look at most interesting points of the AMA.
INTRODUCTION AND TWITTER QUESTIONS
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: Ok guys, welcome to another AMA with Crypto Revolution and today we have Monero with us, welcome Rehrar, how are you today?
Rehrar: I'm aight! Thanks for having me.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: No problem, it is a pleasure always to do AMAs with the top tier coins such as Monero. We always show support for top tiers that have been in the crypto world since the early beginning. Could you please start by introducing yourself to us, and what is your role in Monero?
Rehrar: Sure, my name is Diego Salazar. Many people online know me as rehrar. I'm a UI/UX designer for my day job, and I also work for Monero's Core Team as their right hand. I do a lot of community work, design work, and really anything I can get my hands into. I'm a privacy enthusiast, and work really hard to share the value of privacy with the world, as most people really just don't understand how important it is.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: Thanks Rehrar, I appreciate the short but descriptive introduction of yourself and your role with Monero. I guess that since you are a privacy enthusiast this links really well to you being part of the Monero's core team as it is known to be a privacy coin. I'm sure alot of people have already heard about Monero, but if you were to explain to someone briefly that didn't know anything about Monero how would you introduce it to them?
Rehrar: Sure. Monero is a coin that focuses on privacy and decentralization. It's much like Bitcoin in that it only focuses on being money without a lot of the extra fluff, but it understands that without fungibility (which is enabled only through by-default privacy) it's impossible to act like real money. So Monero aims to fill that gap. Something that's just money, but without the radical transparency of Bitcoin. Like cash. Nobody knows where you spend your cash except the people involved in a transaction. You take it out of your wallet, hand it over, and nobody else is any the wiser. This isn't true for transparency coins (read: every coin based on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others). These coins leak so much metadata, and anyone and everyone can see transaction flow. This is kind of insane. It's like showing your bank statements online for everyone to read. Definitely not something I'd be comfortable with.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: Wow, when you think of it in privacy and transparency terms, you are definitely correct. Other coins including Bitcoin and Ethereum there technology is great but it lacks in privacy. I also would not want someone knowing my balance for example, in fact I get annoyed in real life when someone asks me how much money do I have sitting in the bank or wallet as given your analogy. I'm also a firm believer that it should be the users choice to keep there financials private or not. So in a nutshell, Monero provides the privacy that other coins lack, right?
Rehrar: Yes. And don't be fooled. Privacy is really REALLY hard to get right. It's not something that can just be added as an afterthought. Many projects try to bolt on privacy at the last minute and make it optional. These coins are NOT private. Digital privacy is about hiding in a crowd, and optional privacy just means fewer people use the option. In many cases as few as 5% or less of transactions use this privacy option. It just takes extra steps and nobody wants that. So it leads to a teeny tiny crowd to hide in, and using heuristics to link transactions isn't as difficult as some might think. That said, Monero's privacy isn't perfect either. Be very wary of anyone who says they are 100% private. Nothing is 100% private. Don't fall for the hype. Monero is a project with constant research as to its own weaknesses and how to improve.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: Sidenote: I hope our community is taking what Rehrar is saying right now about privacy for value. This is some really important information that should be kept in mind for everyone. Being private is something valuable and important.
Rehrar: Yes. If I can say one quick thing on this that'd be great.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: Of course!
Rehrar: Privacy is something that once you give it up, it's lost forever. If that sounds unbelievable, let me give you an example. Let's say we just meet and you don't know my name. I can withhold this information from you as long as I want. As long as I keep this information private, you don't have it, but once I reveal my name, I can't ever "unreveal" it. Once you know, you know, and I can't take it back.
This may be a kind of silly example, but the same is also true of things like financial privacy. Once information leaks and is out there, you can't "unleak" it. It's better for something to be private first and by default. You always have the option of revealing and being transparent to who you choose. But if something is transparent and open by default then you never have the reverse option of privacy.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: Definitely makes sense, you can't take back what you have revealed.
Rehrar: That's why we have a 'privacy first' mentality. You can always reveal your transactions to whoever you want later. In fact, Monero has technology specifically for that purpose. View keys! But that can be saved for another time. Anyways, please continue.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: Definitely, I'm sure we can talk about privacy measures for a long time haha! But let's get back to Monero specifically... So I've been following Monero's latest updates and I can see some exciting updates coming such as the Atomic Swaps, would you be able to provide us some more information regarding what this is?
Rehrar: Sure. So typical atomic swaps allow two people to exchange different blockchain assets without an intermediary. Put in laymen's terms, it means if you have one crypto asset (like Bitcoin) and I have another (like Monero), we can exchange them without needing a third party (like an exchange) to do it. We wouldn't even need a DEX. We would be able to make the exchange ourselves, but in a trustless manner so neither of us could cheat the other. It's a really big deal for Monero, because the typical way of doing atomic swaps, that all of Bitcoin's derivatives use, is not available to Monero due to the privacy technology implemented. So Monero has to invest an entirely new way to do atomics swaps. But we got top-notch researchers, so it was only a matter of time.
Either way, that time is now. That research has been completed since a couple of years ago, and we're building out the first implementation now, hopefully to be released in 2021. The ability to swap into and out of a private, fungible asset will be very powerful for anyone who values their privacy since Monero is often times harder to access and purchase than regular Bitcoin. Those people will be able to get Monero without having to go through KYC/AML measures of regulated exchanges if they so wish.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: Wow... This is definitely going to be a gamechanger in my opinion, I think there is a big opportunity here for Monero to get more users to understand privacy and gain exposure. Currently swaps is definitely trending in the crypto world as many people have shifted to use Uniswap which is a DEX AMM focused on ERC20, instead of traditional CEX’s which is already a HUGE move for the community as a whole. The values are actually similar to Monero’s use case as well, so will we be able to see cross chain swapping for all coins and tokens utilizing Monero’s security and privacy in the near future? This would be next level...
Rehrar: It's possible! We'll just have to see what develops on that front. But I'm very optimistic myself, yes.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: This is why i love Monero! The core team knows how to keep up with trends and still includes privacy to it! Ok so now we will do some questions from twitter that our community would like answered. We've picked 5 in total for you to answer (they can be brief, or as you wish detailed).
Rehrar: Sure, let's go!
Q1 from @ Bozkurtah62
This is an ambitious project. What about competitors in the market? How do you stand up to the big players, whether in the centralized or the decentralized space?
Rehrar: I'll be frank here. There are currently no cryptocurrency competitors to Monero, at least among any major coins. As I said, most coins only just commit to optional, opt-in privacy. These coins typically have very fragile privacy. Few coins have the courage to go privacy by default. This makes Monero really and truly stand apart from the 'competition' as it were. That said, many of us in the community don't mind if another coin like us comes around. We just want to make sure there is a private option when it comes to transactions, whether that's Monero or something else. In fact, as many of us know, competition is good for everyone. It would keep us on our toes and constantly innovating so as to fall behind (though we're doing that anyways without competition). So yeah, bring on the competition. It'll be good for the world to have multiple, mandatory-privacy options to choose from.
In regards to the centralized space, there are, sadly, a shrinking number of ways to get privacy with centralized services. At most it's private to anyone outside of the service, but those inside would be able to see what's happening, and you're trusting them that they will not purposefully reveal to third parties or screw up and leak this info to the public. But we see this happening all the time don't we? It seems like every day there's a new major leak when it comes to people's personal private info. With Monero, these leaks aren't even possible because nothing is in the clear for ANYONE to see except those involved in a transaction.
So, to sum up, Monero is kind of in a league of its own right now. Neither centralized nor other decentralized options really hold a candle to Monero in regards to financial, transnational privacy. But contrary to what you might think, we're kind of hoping that changes.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: I also agree, there really isn't a competitor agaisnt Monero. It is and always will be the leader. Love how Monero is open to competition.
Q2 from @ Winterkom
What is the Monero team's opinion on whether the United States will pay to make Monero transactions traceable? Will the essence of this crypto currency be lost?
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: I think he may be referring to the IRS Bounty?
Rehrar: Oh sure. Well, all of privacy is a cat and mouse game. We make better privacy tech, and there are those that try to break that tech, so we make it even better, and they try to break that even better privacy. This isn't just true of cryptocurrencies. It's true of other privacy tech, like Tor and I2P or other FOSS software. This would definitely be something to worry about if Monero was static and didn't do further research into how to improve. That would be bad because it would mean that in this privacy race, Monero wouldn't be moving while those trying to break us WOULD be moving forward. But this isn't the case. Monero is constantly improving and doing research into strong privacy protocols.
Even what we have right now is pretty strong, and the fact that the IRS set up a bounty means that they're interested in this information, but unable to get it. That they can't get it means that whatever has implemented is currently strong enough to withhold it from them. But we can't be complacent! We have to keep pushing forward so as not to fall behind in the race, and that's just what we're doing.
As for the essence of Monero, I don't think it can ever really be lost. Two things that the community never compromises on is privacy and decentralization. No tech would ever be added that made things LESS private or decentralized. Only more.
Q3 from @Lopyou54804819
Do you have any statistics that you can share about how people use Monero (for what kind of transactions)? It would help a lot to fight the negative view that it is used primarily for illegal stuff.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: General statistics is fine.
Rehrar: We don't! If we did that would mean that we can see what people are doing with their money, so it's kind of the opposite of what we're going for! What we can do is look at the early days of Bitcoin. Back then, people thought Bitcoin was super private (it wasn't then either) and used it for all sorts of things. Surprisingly, only some of the things it was used for would be consider bad. This also continues to this day. Bitcoin's usage is still mostly used for acceptable things as far as we understand it. So if we look at the history of Bitcoin when it was a 'bad boy' and think that this is where Monero is now, then I think we can (hopefully) assume something similar for Monero.
I know I've used and continue to use Monero at reputable places that accept it. Just the fact that it's private doesn't mean you do bad things with it. After all. Cash is private, and people use that for regular commerce all the time. Monero really just is cash for the digital world. Easier to do something bad with? Yes, absolutely. But we think going to the opposite extreme of having everything visible all the time for anyone is completely absurd.
Still not convinced? Well, why do you shut the door when you use the restroom? You CLAIM that you're just using the toilet, but you could be doing anything in there. You could be making a bomb or killing a guy. Because of the possibility that you could do something bad in there should we mandate that all bathrooms shouldn't have doors from now on? Of course not. Our privacy is too important to us.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: Exactly! Perfect! I think some people are so self convinced that Bitcoin is private, and when they hear about Monero they get a little confused lol, but i was expecting you to provide zero statistics because how can you?
Q4 from @ Victoria20kBTC
Monero is currently going well and is receiving positive attention. What will you do to get more exposure and adoption? What is the Monero message for the Community today?
Rehrar: I'm going to answer something that might sound a little shocking to hear. Especially since it goes against the traditional narrative in cryptocurrency right now. Adoption is kind of a meme at the present time.
The reality is, that cryptocurrency as a whole is not ready for the masses. It's difficult to use, easy to make costly mistakes, and impossible to recover if lost. Too many people don't write down their seed, or write it down incorrectly. Too many people don't take 'being their own bank' seriously from both a physical and digital security perspective. Too many people aren't tech savvy enough to be able to protect and secure their funds properly. All of these things add up to product that would fail the majority of people for what they need it for.
This is the reason why, at present, cryptocurrency is primarily used as an investment vehicle for the vast majority of users. They leave their cryptocurrencies in a centralized exchange so they won't have to secure it themselves, and so they can take advantage of price movements. They're no really interested in using cryptocurrency as a tool to bring about decentralization in the world in regards to our finances. You see this with how little actual, non-gambling or ICO dapps are being used. They're not being used hardly at all.
We can't know for sure how many people use Monero just for speculation, but we do know that we do want it to come to a place where it's easy enough to use and secure for the average person so it becomes a real option for most people to use as digital money. We're not there yet. Nobody is. But that's the game plan for adoption. Make Monero easier and easier to use and secure. And we're getting there. Plenty of things in the pipeline on that front.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: Great way to answer it, not just for Monero but as a whole. So we have one last question from twitter!
Q5 from @Lopyou54804819
Partnership is always an important factor for every project. So who is Monero's partner? What are the benefits you get from those relationships?
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: General statistics is fine.
Rehrar: Another answer that will raise some eyebrows. Partnership is ALSO a meme! :D
Tell me, if a coin is really and truly decentralized, how can somebody 'partner' with it? If Tesla or even Colgate toothpaste wanted to partner with Monero, who would they partner with? The community? Monero has no corporation or foundation behind it. It's not a legal entity. It's a group of privacy enthusiasts working on a coin. Maybe they can partner with individuals, or some Monero-related companies like Cake Wallet, but it's pretty impossible to 'partner' with Monero, the cryptocurrency.
Look at it from the perspective of Bitcoin. How does one partner with Bitcoin? There's plenty of Bitcoin related companies to partner with. Coinbase, Bitpay, etc. But how does one partner with Bitcoin? Or the US Dollar? What does it mean to 'partner' with the US dollar.
I'm very suspicious of partnerships. When coins can have partnerships it means centralization to a level I'm not comfortable with. It means that some entity is in charge of the whole thing, and THEY have enough sway over the project to partner with people.
Now that's not to say that Monero hasn't collaborated with other projects in the past, because we have. Mostly other FOSS projects. Whonix (a private, linux/tor-based operating system), I2P, Purism, and others are groups, communities, and even businesses that have collaborated with some of our devs on some level. The community has built out relationships, but we're too decentralized to partner with, if that makes sense..
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: Understood loud and clear! Rehrar, on behalf of our community and Danny, the Founder of Crypto Revolution. We'd like to sincerely thank you for answering all these questions in depth and simplifying it for those who are not familiar with this great project.
We usually do some live questions now as the last stage of our AMA. But this would be entirely up to you if you'd like to do it or not, we have taken up much time of yours already and we understand if you are short on time. Please don't feel obliged to do so, but let me know if you'd like to answer some live questions from Telegram.
Rehrar: Sure, I'll answer a few.
TELEGRAM QUESTIONS
Telegram User:
Monero was forked from Bytecoin right? In 2014 it was decided that it would be named Bitmonero but eventually it was changed and we get Monero? Can you tell us the story behind it?
Rehrar: Yes. It was originally called BitMonero. Monero means 'coin' in Esperanto, so BitMonero translates to BitCoin. The Bit was dropped so Monero could be its own thing. Community decision. It just flowed better, and I think it was a good move. Not too much of an interesting story besides that.
Telegram User:
Why is it necessary to have a currency that allows complete privacy and avoids all traceability? Is Monero a crypto-currency used for money laundering from scams and drug trafficking?
Rehrar: Because privacy doesn't work otherwise. As I said before, digital privacy is about hiding in a crowd. The smaller the crowd, the easier it is to identify and link transactions. Mandatory privacy ensure the crowd is sufficiently large that most heuristics are limited in their ability to do this. Again, you can always reveal later.
Is Monero used for money laundering, scams, and drug stuff? Sure. So is Bitcoin. You wanna know something crazy? You know what the biggest money used for that stuff is? The US Dollar! Maybe we should get rid of that too, huh? ;)
Telegram User:
Finding investors is hard, keeping investors is harder, so what strategy does Monerohave enough to make investors trust and with Moneroproject go a long way?
Rehrar: We make a good product with an ACTUALLY REAL usecase. I'll be honest. Most 'usecases' people say their coin solves in the cryptocurrency sphere are complete nonsense. No, colleges don't need decentralization (campuscoin). No, dentists don't need decentralization and trustlessness (dentacoin). No, MOST things don't need decentralization. 99% of coins don't have a real usecase. Sorry.
So Monero has one (privacy in finances), and we make a good product that constantly strives to be better. The dumb money can go into the dumb projects, but the long term will show their choices foolish. Monero doesn't really work to 'keep' investors. If they're smart, they'll come to good projects like us. If they're dumb, well, we can't really convince dumb people of a lot of things, so the resources spent trying might be wasted. They'd come for the pump, and leave for the next shiny thing. We'd rather attract real users.
Telegram User:
I'm an investor, convince me on what key advantages do i stand to gain if I invest in this project?
Rehrar: Privacy. If you don't care much for privacy then there is little I can do to convince you, and I won't try. It's really a worldview thing. When I try to 'shill' Monero to people, what I'm actually shilling is a world view; one where people care about their privacy and realize it's important. If a person shares that worldview, then the need for Monero becomes obvious. If they don't then nothing that I say will convince them that Monero is a positive for the world.
Telegram User:
I didn't understand how do you manage to exchange between monero and bitcoin without need of a CEX or DEX?
Rehrar: Atomic swaps are a little technical and can get complicated. This article (written by me) summarizes it in a way that I think is accessible to the common person. Read it. Hopefully you find it helpful: https://localmonero.co/knowledge/monero-atomic-swaps
Telegram User:
Monero is a crypto that undoubtedly the security and privacy that it offers is a unique system, but monero has maintained itself over time innovating solutions, what are they now working to become stronger?
Rehrar: We've got next gen tech in mind. Our Monero Research Lab PhDs have created protocols that will take our ringsizes from 11 to over a hundred. These new protocols are called Triptych and Arcturus, and are undergoing active research for benchmarking, feasibility, mathematical hardness, and implementation. And if they don't work out, we'll keep going until we find something more. Whatever it will be, I can confidently say it will only improve privacy and decentralization. We will make no compromises there.
Telegram User:
I always have little time to use a computer, so I only use a smartphone. Are there any plans to release a mobile version of the exchange in the future?
Rehrar: There are mobile wallets available. Monerujo for Android. Cake Wallet for both Android and iOS. Take a look!
Telegram User:
Y’all care too much about Monero. Monero works. It’s hodlers won’t care about beam until it’s actively broken or until they see something they aren’t getting from XMR on beam chain they want. You convert Monero users with new DEFI products when they’re available or being the net that catches them if Monero fails?
Rehrar: This is a question that was written to be aimed at Beam, not me. Copied the wrong one, bro. But yes, you're correct. Monero works, and its network effects will probably hold it pretty strong unless something much MUCH better can get a foothold. I personally don't think Beam is it. ;)
Telegram User:
Talking about a booming Defi... so does the Monero have the features and plans that are going to boom?
Rehrar: Privacy. We're working on tech that will bring us even MORE privacy. And after that we'll work on things that will bring us EVEN MORE privacy! We kinda super care about privacy. :P
Telegram User:
You said KYC is not required but some countries makes kyc to be required in order to allow a exchange to work in their country. So how can Monero get over from this?
Rehrar: Atomic swaps. Exchanges might need to use KYC as implemented by law, but that's not to say that regular people can't exchange currencies without using an exchange. It's not illegal either since individuals are not exchanges. Atomic swaps make this an easier, trustless process. Coming soon!
Telegram User:
At present, MONERO on the 15th place at CMC. Some people think that MONERO is considered the underdog. How do you feel about that, Do you think that you're competing with companies that are much bigger in scale? Do you consider it a disadvantage to you or not?
Rehrar: Monero is definitely fighting for rank against people with many more resources than us. Huge companies and foundation with thousands if not millions of dollars. By comparison, we're a little ragtag team that has to crowdfund our work (ccs.getmonero.org to see the crowdfunding system). We didn't have a premine or ICO. Monero has NO MONEY except what has been donated. That means the funds for any full time devs or researchers have to be donated. It gets rough sometimes. But hey, being number 15 when you're up against all of that just shows that we're good at what we do, and we only need a fraction of the resources to do it.
Telegram User:
After researching about Monero on one post I see that "It's Fungible". Can you please explain what fungibility is?
Rehrar: Sure. Fungibility means that one of something is the same as another of the same something. Confusing? Don't worry, here's an example.
If you have a dollar, and I have a dollar, and we switch dollars, we now have different dollars but the same value. Because $1 = $1. One dollar bill is worth the same as another dollar bill. This may seem obvious, but it's not true of everything. Having an associated history breaks fungibility. Let me prove it to you.
Let's say you have a cheap necklace ($10 worth), and I have the same necklace. In theory they're worth the same. In theory they're fungible. But what if I can prove that my necklace belonged to a celebrity in the past. Now maybe someone will pay for more for it than yours, because of an identifiable history.
The same is true for bad histories. If a Bitcoin can be shown to have been a part of a drug or pedophile transaction, then it will get your account shut down on exchanges like COINBASE or Kraken. They will lock your account pending investigation. Google it. It's happened to a lot of people. These dirty bitcoins are worth less than other ones because nobody wants them. If you have 1 BTC and I have 1 BTC and we exchange them with each other, even though we both still have 1 BTC, if I gave you a dirty one and you gave me a clean one, some value transfer may have occurred. Bitcoin (and any transparency coin) is NOT fungible.
Opt-in privacy doesn't solve this either. Because some tx are transparent while others are private. The private ones will be looked at with suspicion. No, the only way to get fungibility is for EVERYTHING to be private. That way, everything looks the same to an outside observer. Again, it's like cash. When I pay you $5, you don't know where it's been, and you don't care where it's been. It's just $5. That's what Monero is. You don't know its history, and you don't care.
If you don't believe me, go to a block explorer and put in your BTC address. You can see how much money is in there right now, and the FULL HISTORY of EVERY COIN that has EVER been in your wallet. Not fungible.
Telegram User:
What things Monero provides us about anti-hacking and security?
Rehrar: Write down your seed! Don't lose your seed! Don't share your seed! Don't let someone steal your seed! Protect your seed! If you seed is lost, nobody can help you. If you seed is stolen, nobody can help you. WRITE DOWN YOUR SEED!
That's all we can do is tell people that. Other than make our software open source so you can verify we're not stealing your seed for yourself.
Telegram User:
Does monero gives us staking option in order us to stake monero and earn monero?
Rehrar: No. Staking requires transparency. You have to show the network how much you're staking to get an accurate reward. Monero does not want to reveal these amounts. Also I think proof of stake is a meme, but I don't have time to get into that today. :)
Telegram User:
You know advertisement is very very important for a project to be succeed. What are your future plans for advertisement and get more users?
Rehrar: We educate and put out good quality educational material. We don't have an advertising budget since we have no money as a project. That said, I disagree with you that advertising is important. It's important to attract dumb money, yes. But we want to educate people about how money works and get them to think critically about their rights and their privacy. Education is better than advertising at that stage. Though maybe we should advertise our educational endeavors. :P
Telegram User:
What's the second biggest difference between monero and the other coins after privacy?
Rehrar: Tail emission which unlocks dynamic block size. Sorry to link this site again, but they have a huge amount of well-written articles about these complicated subjects. https://localmonero.co/knowledge/dynamic-block-size
Telegram User:
How is it that Monero has managed to stand for so many years? What have been your tactics to counteract all the instability that has been in the crypto world? Do you consider Monero to be one of the most reliable and stable currencies on the market? Why?
Rehrar: Projects that REQUIRE money to continue (read: all of the premined and ICO ones) don't know what it's like to work with no money. Monero does. We have no money. So when prices go down, we keep working. When prices go up, we keep working. There is passion and heart behind what we do, contrasted with other projects where there is a paycheck. Even if Monero dropped to single digits for dollars, we'd still be working. Because we believe in privacy. You should too. It's being taken from you little by little every day.
Telegram User:
What do you plan to catch monero's full potential and reach other markets and users?
Rehrar: MOAR PRIVACY! I'm serious. More privacy. If other markets aren't interested in privacy, we don't want them. IF they are, we do. But everyone needs privacy. They'll come around.
Telegram User:
I am using ZCOIN as my privacy blockchains. Why should I stop using ZCOIN and migrate to Monero? What are the advantages and salient features of MONERO compared to other privacy currencies: Zcash, SERO? What is your strategy to attract user and make #MONERO popular more?
Rehrar: Zcoin does good research. Their lelantus protocol is really exciting. They'll be private by default soon. I look forward to that competition. If you want to use Zcoin (now Firo), then right now, since Lelantus isn't there, it's no as private by Monero. Not by a long shot. If you want privacy, use Monero. In the future when Lelantus is fully implemented, sure, go ahead and use it. I don't care. As long as you have the option to transact privately. :)
Telegram User:
I think we all agree right now that Monero is the best when it comes to the privacy. But do you have any mechanisms for blocking illegal uses?
Rehrar: No. If we could identify legal from illegal, then it wouldn't be private. We do have a technology called a view key. It allows others to see into your wallet without spending. This means that if a government has a warrant or otherwise legally audits you, you can share your wallet to them with the government. So Monero is compliant with current legal standards on that front. But in terms of preventing illegal things from happening, we can't. Just like the USD. ;)
Telegram User:
During the build of your project is there any interesting thing happened? Could you share us a interesting or funny story :)
Rehrar: Monero's entire history is hilarious. It actually started out as a scam before the community took it away from the scammer! I present on the matter here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPFr5iqlGBw (yes that's me)
Telegram User:
As you know Covid-19 has a large impact in the crypto Market, So How can your company maintain its project and also the team that are working hard during this pandemic?
Rehrar: Because we don't require money to keep going and we were already decentralized! :D
Telegram User:
Do you have any local community? It might be better understand your project because I think most of people don't know monero.
Rehrar: It's up to each person to start their own local community, and you don't need permission. Some people have made meet ups locally. If one doesn't exist for you, start one!
Telegram User:
Defi and yield farming grows day to day so do you plan to add more features for monero?
Rehrar: DeFi is a meme, just like ICOs were before it. That's my opinion. You can disagree, and it's ok to be wrong. ;) More features? Sure. MORE PRIVACY!
Telegram User:
Regarding the privacy of operations using Monero, how is avoided tracing through transaction history?
Rehrar: Because Monero has technology that hides the sender, receiver, and transaction amounts. Ring signatures, stealth addresses, and RingCT respectively. How they actually work is quite technical, but there are many articles written about it. Just suffice it to say that if one tech does fail, it doesn't break the others so it minimizes metadata leakage. Worth a look if you're interested.
CONCLUSION
Rehrar: And I think that's it!
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: WOW. This is some great information, you have provided for the community. We really appreciate this, Rehrar. It was definitely a pleasure having you here! Thank you so much for your time, we hope that we can have an AMA with Monero again at a later stage, maybe after Q1 2021 to do a follow up on a few things.
Rehrar: Thanks for having me! You know where to find me.
Sergio | Crypto Revolution: AMA has ended, thanks everyone!
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