Which countries are actually using Monero? The answer is surprisingly difficult: We don't really know. And that's kind of the point. With Bitcoin, the blockchain is transparent. Researchers can analyze addresses, transaction flows and exchange activity and attempt to determine where BTC is being used. Monero is fundamentally different. Every Monero transaction hides: • The sender • The receiver • The amount Privacy isn't an optional feature. It's the default for every transaction. That makes creating a reliable "Top 5 Countries Using Monero" ranking extremely difficult. We can observe pieces of the ecosystem: • Merchants accepting XMR • Exchanges and P2P markets • Mining activity • Nodes and network infrastructure • XMR-related businesses and services Directories currently track well over 1,000 services supporting or accepting Monero across dozens of countries. But that still doesn't tell us where the actual XMR is flowing. And that's an important distinction. Bitcoin is a transparent monetary network. Anyone can inspect the ledger. Monero is private digital cash. An outside observer shouldn't be able to determine: Who paid whom. How much they paid. How much money either person owns. Or easily reconstruct someone's financial history. So when someone asks: "What countries are using Monero?" The most accurate answer may actually be: If Monero is working as designed, we shouldn't be able to know. That's not a lack of adoption data. That's one of the consequences of financial privacy.

What countries are actually USING Bitcoin? Not "crypto." Not stablecoins. Bitcoin. If we focus on where BTC has meaningful economic or strategic importance, these 5 stand out: 🇺🇸 1. United States The largest and most developed Bitcoin economy. • Massive institutional and ETF exposure • Major corporate Bitcoin treasuries • One of the world's largest Bitcoin mining industries • Deep BTC liquidity and financial infrastructure The U.S. is where Bitcoin is becoming integrated into traditional capital markets. 🇸🇻 2. El Salvador The most famous sovereign Bitcoin experiment. • Government holds BTC • Established a national Bitcoin strategy • Built Bitcoin-specific infrastructure • Attempted to integrate BTC into everyday commerce Everyday adoption hasn't lived up to the original ambitions, but no country has pushed Bitcoin at the sovereign level as aggressively. 🇧🇹 3. Bhutan Possibly the most interesting Bitcoin strategy in the world. Bhutan uses abundant hydroelectric power to mine Bitcoin. Hydroelectric energy → Bitcoin mining → BTC reserves Instead of simply buying Bitcoin with government revenue, Bhutan converts domestic energy directly into a scarce global asset. 🇳🇬 4. Nigeria Bitcoin has a completely different use case here. • Savings outside the local currency • P2P transactions • Cross-border payments • Remittances • Self-custody Nigeria demonstrates Bitcoin's usefulness where people have stronger incentives to seek alternatives to their domestic monetary system. 🇮🇷 5. Iran Iran shows another side of Bitcoin: Sanctions resistance. • Domestic Bitcoin mining • Converting energy into BTC • Moving value outside Western banking rails • Holding an asset without a central issuer capable of freezing it Important distinction: Iran also uses stablecoins extensively. That's "crypto." Bitcoin is different. USDT can be frozen by Tether. BTC cannot be frozen by a company because there is no Bitcoin company. These countries demonstrate 5 very different Bitcoin use cases: 🇺🇸 Financial asset & institutional adoption 🇸🇻 Sovereign adoption 🇧🇹 Energy monetization & reserves 🇳🇬 Grassroots savings & payments 🇮🇷 Sanctions-resistant value transfer Bitcoin isn't being used the same way everywhere. That's exactly what makes it interesting.

Iran's use of Bitcoin and its use of "crypto" should NOT be lumped together. They serve different purposes. BITCOIN Iran can mine Bitcoin using domestic energy. Energy → Bitcoin mining → BTC That matters because Bitcoin is a bearer asset with no central issuer. There is no Bitcoin company. There is no CEO. There is no central authority that can freeze BTC or blacklist a Bitcoin address at the protocol level. For a country facing financial sanctions, that characteristic matters. Bitcoin can also be held in self-custody and transferred without permission from a bank or stablecoin issuer. Ordinary Iranians can use Bitcoin for a different reason: moving savings outside the rial and holding an asset beyond the direct control of Iran's banking system. CRYPTO / STABLECOINS This is a different system. Iranian and IRGC-linked networks have used cryptocurrencies—particularly dollar-denominated stablecoins such as USDT—for trade, moving funds and sanctions circumvention. Why use USDT instead of Bitcoin for commerce? Because $1 of USDT is designed to remain approximately $1. That makes accounting and settlement much easier than using a volatile asset like BTC. But USDT has a weakness Bitcoin doesn't: Tether is a company. It can freeze tokens associated with sanctioned addresses. So when someone says: "Iran is using crypto to evade sanctions" you have to ask: Bitcoin or stablecoins? Because they're fundamentally different. Stablecoins are digital dollars running on blockchains. Bitcoin is a decentralized monetary network with a scarce native asset and no central issuer. Iran's situation demonstrates the distinction clearly: Stablecoins: useful for dollar-denominated trade and settlement, but issuers can freeze them. Bitcoin: harder to censor or confiscate at the network level and can be produced domestically through mining. Don't confuse "Bitcoin" with "crypto." In a sanctions environment, the difference isn't semantics. It's the entire point.

I used Nosmero to setup what I thought was a Monero payment target yesterday, but I don't think it was setup correctly. I just did it again using Ditto. Can anyone verify if they can see it and it's working properly?

#Amethyst is such a solid client 🤌

Whether or not AI is making you dumber or helping you develop, depends on how you use it. If you just copy/paste without any original thought, you're not doing it right. Have conversations where you discuss theory, philosophy, physics, etc. Learn how to code or something as simple as how to use Linux properly. Stay curious and use it as a tool to make you better.

I'm seeing a lot of posts in my feed that Monero Xaps are significantly more than Bitcoin Zaps.

ZEC 👎 Here's 10 reasons why. 1. Privacy is not inherent to every transaction. Zcash supports transparent and shielded transactions. That flexibility helps exchange compatibility, but it also fragments the anonymity set and means simply "using Zcash" doesn't necessarily mean you're private. As recently as 2026, ZODL noted that less than 11% of supply was shielded at that point. 2. The Orchard vulnerability was a serious black eye. In 2026, researchers disclosed a critical flaw involving the Orchard shielded pool. The disturbing part is that because of Orchard's privacy properties, researchers cannot currently cryptographically prove that the vulnerability wasn't exploited before it was fixed. Work is underway on mechanisms to verify supply integrity. For a monetary asset, uncertainty around counterfeitability is a big deal. 3. Zcash's cryptography is much more complex than Bitcoin's. ZK proofs are extremely powerful, but complexity creates additional implementation and cryptographic risk. Bitcoin's monetary verification model is comparatively simple. Zcash's history, including the Orchard issue, demonstrates that sophisticated cryptography expands the attack surface. 4. Historical trusted setups still matter. Orchard transactions do NOT require a trusted setup. NU5 introduced Halo specifically to eliminate that requirement. However, older Sprout/Sapling pools used Groth16 trusted setups, where compromise of the secret setup material could theoretically permit counterfeit proofs. So saying "Zcash requires a trusted setup" today is outdated, but trusted-setup legacy risk hasn't vanished entirely. 5. The development-funding model weakens the "neutral money" narrative. Bitcoin sends all newly issued BTC to miners. Zcash has historically diverted part of block issuance toward development. Under the post-NU6 structure, 20% of block rewards are still allocated through development-funding mechanisms rather than miners. You can argue that's good for development, but from a hard-money perspective it's much harder to defend than Bitcoin's model. 6. Governance has been messy. Zcash has had substantial arguments over funding, governance, ECC, Bootstrap, the Zcash Foundation, and who should control development resources. The 2025–26 period included particularly serious disputes and organizational restructuring. Bitcoin's lack of a formal governing organization is frustrating sometimes, but it's also one of its strongest properties. 7. Zcash has a relatively small user and transaction base. Privacy systems become more useful as more people use them. Zcash has significantly less adoption and transaction activity than Bitcoin, while Monero has established a stronger position specifically for private payments. 8. Monero has a cleaner privacy proposition. Monero basically says: transactions are private. Period. Zcash says: you can transact transparently or privately. Zcash arguably has more advanced selective-disclosure capabilities, but Monero's mandatory privacy creates a simpler user model and forces everyone into the privacy set. If your sole criterion is censorship-resistant private money, that's a meaningful advantage for XMR. 9. ZEC has weaker network effects than BTC and weaker privacy-coin mindshare than XMR. Bitcoin dominates hard money/store-of-value. Monero dominates the "private digital cash" narrative. That leaves Zcash fighting for an awkward middle position: Bitcoin-like monetary policy plus advanced privacy technology. Technically interesting doesn't automatically translate into network effects. 10. It still hasn't proven that superior privacy technology creates durable monetary demand. Zcash launched in 2016. That's plenty of time for the market to understand the technology. Yet BTC overwhelmingly dominates as digital hard money, and XMR has historically captured much of the privacy-money use case. Zcash therefore still has to demonstrate that its cryptographic advantages translate into lasting adoption rather than simply impressive technology.

Just stumbled across Nosmero.