Anonymous donation to protect the right to anonymity – Monero (XMR) is receiving an exceptional donation from an anonymous donor who clearly wants to support the development of the project, while the anonymity it confers on its users is causing regulators to grumble.
An anonymous and exceptional support
On June 6, 2021, the official Monero account states in a tweet that the team behind the project received a donation of 1,711 XMRs worth almost $500,000 from an anonymous donor. The donation was sent to the Monero General Fund. The fund was created to allow cryptophiles to support the project financially. It has both an XMR address and a Bitcoin (BTC) address.
According to a June 2020 transparency report, the fund held 2108.12 XMR and 0.09 BTC. Most of the donations received between 2019 and 2020 are less than 1 XMR. In addition, the fund received a donation of 1,020 XMR in May 2021.
Monero XMR receives an anonymous donation of half a million dollars
The Monero General Fund was used to pay for web and hosting services, tools such as ARM buildbots, as well as the fees of Diego “Rehrar” Salazar employed as a contractor by the project. The Monero core team, however, does not receive any compensation.
Monero contributor BinaryFate, which is the main manager of the fund, said that Monero will publish a transparency report in June 2021. This could inform the public about the use of this large donation.
Defending the right to anonymity
While Monero has the support of privacy-minded individuals, the project is in the crosshairs of organizations that want to end its anonymity. CipherTrace had filed 2 patents for technologies that would lift anonymity on XMR transactions. CipherTrace collaborates with US authorities in the fight against money laundering.
Until organizations like CipherTrace manage to perhaps effectively break this anonymity, the confidential nature of Monero can benefit the entire cryptosphere in the long run. The developers of COMIT Network have designed a BTC-XMR Swap tool allowing a direct and disintermediated exchange of cryptocurrencies between the 2 blockchains and 2 private wallets. This bridge would then improve the privacy of BTC and XMR transactions.
Cryptophiles who want to keep their finances safe from prying eyes can also use the decentralized platform Bisq. It allows to buy and sell bitcoins, or to exchange bitcoin for Monero.
