Monero is for criminals

Monero is for criminals, say the good guys. “Yes, it is,” Monero replies.

Before continuing, leave a like! And then, if you wish, let me know your thoughts in the comments. - Matte

Today I want to talk about Monero, a cryptocurrency I have been contemplating about for several months.

Not from a financial perspective, which doesn’t interest me, but from an ontological point of view—its nature, what it represents, and how it might positively impact our reality. I'm sure the web is full of similar reflections, but I want to write about it too, if only to give solid form to a thought.

How Monero Works, in brief

Monero is a cryptocurrency designed to ensure the anonymity of its users and the untraceability of transactions through various obfuscation mechanisms.

Even though Monero, like Bitcoin, is built to operate on a public and transparent blockchain, its functionalities allow for the minimization of data shared on the public ledger, making it extremely difficult to identify actions or information that could lead to user identification or reveal how they use their funds.

There are mainly four technologies that Monero uses to achieve this high level of anonymity:

1. Ring Signatures: These obfuscate the origin of transactions. Each transaction is inserted into a set of decoy transactions, making it difficult to identify who actually signed the real transaction. [Learn more here.]

2. Stealth Addresses: These are automatically generated one-time addresses for each transaction, so only the recipient can link the address to the transaction. Only the recipient, using their private key, can "recognize" the transaction and access the sent funds. Observers on the blockchain cannot directly link the temporary address to the recipient's real address. [Learn more here.]

3. Bulletproofs: A "zero-knowledge proof" technology that allows for proving the amount of a transaction without revealing any data about the amount itself. It's used to ensure that the transaction amount is valid (positive and below a maximum limit) without this being exposed on the blockchain. [Learn more here.]

4. Dandelion: The Dandelion protocol splits the process of propagating a transaction on the blockchain into two distinct phases: “stem” and “fluff.” In the first phase, the transaction is forwarded to one node at a time (rather than spreading to many nodes), reducing the chances that the sender's IP can be associated with the transaction. In the second phase, the transaction is propagated to all network nodes, but the originating IP cannot be traced back. Its operation is similar to the Tor network. [Learn more here.]

Mass Surveillance on Blockchain

The crypto sector is now besieged by companies specializing in the mass surveillance of transactions on public blockchains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others. These companies provide tracking and analysis tools to government authorities to try to identify those using cryptocurrencies for illegal activities (such as money laundering, tax evasion, purchasing illegal goods and services, etc.).

Unlike bank transactions and electronic communications, which are private (i.e., not immediately available to anyone) and subject to laws that require data deletion after a certain period, transactions on public blockchains are accessible and transparent. Blockchain characteristics make it possible to analyze data from even long ago. Even 50 years from now, someone could access the entire history of your blockchain transactions.

The potential of these companies is limitless. Thanks to the total transparency of public blockchains, they have access to tons of historical data that they can acquire and analyze without any constraints. Mass surveillance in this sector is not a hypothesis but an absolute certainty.

We know full well that it’s not just a matter of privacy or wanting to hide, but of self-determination. An economic transaction is a manifestation of one’s will to act. When this will is restricted by external interference, even just through observation (which is never neutral), we cannot claim to be free to act; we cannot live a ‘morally just’ life (oriented toward our well-being).

I've written a specific article on the morality of privacy and anonymity for those interested in learning more.

The morality of privacy and anonimity

The Chainalysis Case

Chainalysis is one of the most prominent surveillance companies in the sector. Their investigation engine, called Reactor, can analyze and link thousands of transactions, providing analysts with a wealth of data that can be used to help authorities identify users.

Recently, a video from 2023 was released in which a Chainalysis speaker demonstrated how they can observe and trace transactions using the Reactor system. In the presentation, the case study was a request from authorities to identify the administrator of an illegal e-commerce site, likely based in Colombia, starting from about a hundred XMR (Monero) transactions.

In the video, you can see the data they can acquire and monitor in real-time for each transaction, which is substantial:

• On-Chain Data

  • Public addresses

  • Transactions

  • Transaction amounts

  • Transaction timestamps

  • Wallet balances

• Off-Chain Data

  • KYC (Know Your Customer) data

  • IP data

  • Transaction metadata

  • Social platform data

  • Data from centralized services (exchanges, custodial wallets)

  • Blacklists and previous reports

Along with advanced analysis techniques:

• Clustering and Heuristic Analysis

• Coin Tracking

• Behavioral Pattern Analysis

• Temporal and Geographic Analysis

The video (link here) is extremely interesting for understanding how these surveillance systems work and how to mitigate risks.

I won't describe it in detail here, so I recommend watching it. I'll just say that in the case of Monero, at best, what these companies can do is identify the IPs of the transaction inputs and outputs. The administrator was eventually identified this way, due to a simple OpSec mistake in 2020, when he exposed his clear IP during some transactions on a KYC Exchange.

Monero is the Best Anti-Surveillance Tool

Despite the capabilities of their analysis engines, the Chainalysis presenter repeatedly states that, unlike other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, it is extremely difficult to identify users and uncover behavioral patterns with Monero, precisely because of the features mentioned above.

According to him, there’s no “second best” when it comes to anti-surveillance. Given the source of this opinion, I tend to trust it.

Meme Wars

However, the value of Monero does not stop at its technical features, which could easily be replicated by other cryptocurrencies. It’s also interesting to consider its 'memetic potential.' In cyberspace, memes are the tool through which cultural narratives are propagated, like mental viruses that lodge themselves in people's minds.

Unfortunately, privacy has never had great memetic potential. It's boring, outdated, and not aligned with the zeitgeist. No one really cares about their privacy—not even those who talk about it daily. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be online.

This is why Monero’s memetic potential is particularly significant. Despite its important technical features that provide a high level of privacy and anonymity, the memes surrounding the Monero ecosystem are not focused on these aspects, which is the source of its strength and resilience.

Anonymity becomes a foundation—something that exists but supports much more powerful narratives: chaos, crypto-anarchy, ungovernability, rebellion, extremism, agorism, and yes—even crime. It’s no coincidence that one of the main proponents of this narrative was John McAfee, the craziest libertarian the modern era has known.

Here are a few example memes:

Monero memes stand in direct contrast to another cryptocurrency rich in memes: Bitcoin. The ontological differences between the two narratives are clear and diametrically opposed.

The archetype of Bitcoin is solar, positive, and transparent. The Bitcoiner has faith and hope in the future. They believe that through the Bitcoin Standard, it is possible to eliminate the evil that pervades the world and fix everything that is wrong. For this reason, Bitcoin users often engage in open and transparent evangelism, ultimately aiming for the "Bitcoin Standard" and the so-called mass adoption of this revolutionary currency. Bitcoin users want the world to know they use it, and they are willing to give up part of their privacy and anonymity to promote this peaceful revolution, participating in podcasts, conferences, university lectures, and starting businesses built on Bitcoin.

However, mass adoption, a powerful meme in itself, brings with it a series of consequences. The most important is that it targets the so-called "normies"—people who follow mass trends in every aspect of their lives.

The “normie” doesn't care about privacy or anonymity. They are often more interested in financial gains and view Bitcoin as a tool for easy wealth accumulation (based on historical data). The normie does not have a Cypherpunk culture, isn’t interested in agorism, and is often a democratic liberal who places great trust in the state system.

The normie takes the path of least resistance when using Bitcoin, which typically means centralized exchanges like Binance or Coinbase, both of which require full user identification. The first step toward mass adoption is, therefore, institutional adoption, which propels much of the Bitcoin narrative into the financial and speculative realm.

Again, it’s easy to understand with a few example memes:

Monero is ontologically necessary

Chaos is the terrain of the soul, the fertile void from which the seeds of creation are born. It is from this abyss that the adept draws the hidden potentials of the subconscious mind. — Kenneth Grant

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. — Carl Jung

Unlike Bitcoin, Monero’s archetype is lunar, dark, and chaotic.

Monero users are not interested in mass adoption, nor in solving the world’s problems with a magical currency from cyberspace. There is no blind hope in the future, but rather a raw realism and a willingness to rebel against a world that could be better, but is not guaranteed to be so. Monero users are aware they live in a sort of global technocratic dystopia, where the digital Eye of Sauron relentlessly gazes toward the horizon. They know the Orcs are coming, and they will spare no one. Or, they are simply criminals in the eyes of the state.

For this reason, you won’t find Monero meetups with people gathering over drinks, nor grand conferences with prominent politicians and entrepreneurs. The Monero community does not engage in open, transparent evangelism; instead, it conducts digital guerrilla warfare in the underground realms of cyberspace, using agorism, black markets, anonymity, and violent memes.

Monero doesn’t seek approval from the “good guys”—in fact, its message is strengthened every time it’s attacked by them for its criminal, anti-system image. A perfect example of this is the famous meme: “buy stock in organized crime.” Monero is for criminals, say the good guys. “Yes, it is,” Monero replies. And as we know, sooner or later, anyone could become a criminal in the eyes of the state—even for merely expressing an opinion.

I’ve already written before that it is necessary today to embrace the dualism of light and darkness, and that both Bitcoin and Monero (as well as other cryptocurrencies) have their place in the universe.

However, if recent events have taught us anything, it is that now is the time to restore balance in the world and venture into the digital chaos of anonymity.

"In the darkness, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the darkness once someone has illuminated it. And who has come so close to doing it as we are right now?" — Captain Flint

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