Interesting, but don't forget to print the block height or the issue date, otherwise redeem that would require a full rescan.

At least better than all those endless repetitions of pictures of Bitcoin coins that you see all over the place.

It was an idea that lingered in my head for a good week so finally I gave in and made it. But damn it took like 7 hours so even though I wasn't able to make it exactly as I envisioned I just finished work as it was.

Let's get this onto Google image search for journos to find when writing articles on monero

Damn I'd be flattered if a proof of concept I posted to some niche internet forum does rounds in a tabloid for adults.

my 2 cents: it'd be cool to have "private key" and "view key" with their Esperanto translations below each. Monero is Esperanto for "coin."

Is that even remotely possible?

I mean, if you made a wallet for every one of these notes, gave each wallet 1 XMR, and printed the private key on the notes, just like on the picture, it could technically work as a "gold standard" note, a promise to get 1 XMR for it if you want to. But a seperate wallet for each note does not sound very efficient.

Well, you introduce a lot of trust again. Trust into the issuer of the note to actually have a wallet with 1XMR on it, and the promise that they don't keep the keys themselves. So why even bother?

First point I believe could be solved with a view key? Feel free to correct me. But the other is a very good point. Crypto is about decentralization, and that goes out the window when there's a single issuer.

I've addressed both points, one in the explainer one here [https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvxrcs/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvxrcs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

View keys currently are not a solution for this. There is no way to verify the wallet's actual balance.

Oh is that so? Does it have anything to do with that post which went a little like "the view key show the balance from before transaction was made" or something similar to that? I think it was about how you need the info about the transaction made to account for that amount missing from the balance. Was it that?

Yeah, your view key only sees what comes into your wallet.. so it’s not foolproof for validating there is still a usable balance on there. If you play with the CLI wallet to create a view only wallet, you’ll see commands that let you pull in key-images for utxos that have been spent, so you can true up your view only and hot-wallets. Definitely a weak spot in the design, but I think Seraphis is going to address this more elegantly.

>design Implying I know what I'm doing lol. Well, the idea I based on vague knowledge of the technology but I cannot say I truly grasp all of it.

To be clear, there's a planned update that will make it so view wallets will show correct balances. Right now it shows deposits but not spends, so it's of more limited use.

Yeah just have to wait for Seraphis to have a hope of addressing this really

Yeah. That's definitely possible. But verifying is like a pain in the ass. It's definitely not as friction-free as real cash since you would have to verify each note yourself. Second one is an absolute deal-breaker.

I mean like wallets are very small in fils size, and very expendable,it's not like making a physical wallet

a wallet is literally just an address, the only space it occupies is the transactions it makes

Aight so technically, the only two instances when a note will take up any space, is the initial deposit, and possibly eventually the withdrawal? I'm not very knowledgable in crypto, so when I had to make an assumption, I'd rather make a safer one

yes, the blockchain is really just a big singly linkedlist of blocks with transaction outputs. your wallet doesn't actually exist, the way it deduces if you have a valid spend amount is by scanning the entire blockchain to look for valid transactions with your address in it. at least that's how it work in bitcoin, it's a bit different in monero but the concept is essentially the same

As a souvenir, maybe.

Please refer to my comment for explanation https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvrw6p/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

Could this banknote thing work if lottery scratch ticket makers made it so once its scratched its worthless?

Yes that is the idea, I posted an explanation https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvrw6p/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

Actually I got some bitcoin notes a while ago. They are pretty solid and great. The tech design is also pretty awesome. This could work for Monero also. [offline cash](https://offline.cash)

I've been looking into something like this for bitcoin. Glad it exists, its a game changer to me

How do they know that your note has been claimed? You cut the trace and then scan the note and send them the code that comes back… which presumably is unique and unknowable before the trace is cut…. Hmm. Have to look at it closely.

If someone is serious about researching this and possible to use it for monero I could send you a bitcoin note from offline cash. Hit me a message

Sadly it’s not technically as easy or convenient to make hard Monero money as it is something like a transparent BTC or LItecoin note. Basically because of the private nature of the chain, you don’t really know if that note has been spent until you scan the chain from birth to the present, so it’s clumsier and clumsier to use as it ages. But it’s always a fun idea to make handsome wallets. Could you post the front and back JPG/SVG/PNG images for people to print their own? Would love to use them for a project myself. Let me know if you want a tip for that.

Thanks for the comment. It was just a "quick" design I made for the purpose of illustrating what I had in mind. I personally am not satisfied with it's looks as I had something a little different in mind but I got tired of working \~7hrs on it so I posted what I had. As it turns out modern security printing is a pain in the ass :) You can see one of the base textures I've made here: [https://imgur.com/a/lba6kCX](https://imgur.com/a/lba6kCX), there are many more layers to it ofc. I didn't bother making the back \^\_\^ Also please read the explainer, I've put all my thoughts regarding the concept in there.

yeah with this you could literally gift someone a note and then rug before they have a chance to withdraw lol. would only work if no one had online access

No not really, the idea is that there is a private view key that's visible on the note, and if my understanding of it is correct you can check if the note has been spent. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure this would work. explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvrw6p/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

the issuer can still withdraw before you can rendering it useless

Yes the issuer but not anyone down the chain of users. Well that's the aspect I haven't covered in the explainer but I've though about it. In the scheme of things, you have to trust the issuer. You totally could make an autonomous production line which would autogenerate a new wallet and apply the seal onto the freshly produced banknote, but then again you'd have to trust the person who set up the production line not to have incorporated some logging to save all the private keys, or you know that they weren't simply looking. Despite that, trust in itself isn't a such a horrible thing. In the cryptospace we like the idea of trustless solutions, but even as you're using your PC to browse reddit you have to trust the root SSL certificate issuer if you are to believe that your connection is secure. Some amount of trust is inherent to human societies and their functioning. Common sense and history dictates that you can solve the problem of trust with transparency. You can have a well known, public individual, maybe involved in the monero community set up the production of notes, also making the process as transparent and auditable to the public is a plus. Also there doesn't have to be only one banknote issuer, it comes down to, do you trust the issuer and have they put adequate protection of the spend key in place. If so, many issuers could coexist if they are trusted by most users of the currency.

your answer clearly shows you haven't thought this through. >you have to trust the root SSL certificate issuer well yeah, just like I have to trust my centralized bank for making transactions. >Some amount of trust is inherent to human societies and their functioning. >do you trust the issuer and have they put adequate protection of the spend key in place what a fucking joke. do you not see all the inherent flaws. literally no better than the current system we have, actually it's even way worse. you literally have to trust every single person down the line who has ever held a certain note at any point in time not to withdraw all the funds.

>your answer clearly shows you haven't thought this through Something tells me you might have not done the same. >literally no better than the current system we have Current system is, one issuer (central bank) and you have to trust them to keep the value of the currency (they fail lmao). In the proposed scenario you'd have, many issuers (there is no central authority, if you can make a banknote and gain peoples trust you're an issuer), and you have to trust the issuer to be fair with not holding the private keys (again singular component of trust, but you do not have to trust them to uphold the value, that's the job of XMR as a quasi reserve currency). >you literally have to trust every single person down the line who has ever held a certain note The idea is that you only have to trust the issuer, you can use modern security printing techniques to make revealing the private key void the related note >what a fucking joke If you don't see how the named example is different from the current situation I'd look for the cause in you behaving like a troglodyte, refrain from needlessly doing so

>you can use modern security printing techniques to make revealing the private key void the related note like what

Idk man. holographs, delaminating double layer stickers, could even be hidden sandwiched between the front and back layer in metallized foil so it's not seethrough and requires splitting the banknote. You can just google all of that. I'm afraid you don't see the bigger picture. Let me say it clearly so you don't accuse me of this later on. Any physical protection can be circumvented, obviously. This is about finding a compromise between the denomination of the note and cost associated with circumventing it. If one could find out the private key non-destructively using an xray machine (metalized foil might help against that) does it mean it's a bad idea? Maybe but it's associated with large upfront cost so unlikely someone would do that just to "counterfeit" a few $20 equivalent bills. Same argument could be made against fiat banknotes, after all someone can shell out $10,000 to try set up a counterfeit printing facility, does it make paper cash unfeasible? It seems like you're really stuck on the specific presentation of the concept but it's just a rough guess of what it could be, for all I care it could be an NFC card or whatever have you.

People, people! We’re going off the rails here. If you’d like to give a friend who’s a newb some Monero, here’s a nice way to present it. Obviously you’re not going to rip off your buddy, unless you’re trying to be an ass. You’d make these things yourself. Note that this has been done before with Spesmonerjuo notes: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5285309.0. The point is you’d need to trust the issuer of course. Who knows, my Carbon Chameleon notes may have been drained, but I kinda doubt it. No bad press yet.

You’ve basically made a gold or silver deposit receipt, but for XMR. I think that’s pretty neat! As long as these were printed and distributed by an institution that has earned people’s trust, I think they would have pretty great utility as physically traded Monero. Just as long as the promise that there is 1 XMR payable to the bearer on demand is kept.

Doesn't matter. The guy who made the note can still withdraw after you check it.

Consider this reply https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvxrcs/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

Sorry, not gonna happen. It's like carrying around a potentially ticking time bomb. I already have to trust enough things, I don't want to trust one more that could drain all my money. XMR community is trying to make things trustless. Solving the confirmation issue isn't that difficult. Seeing the transaction appear on the network is good enough 99% of the time, or 1 confirmation, as far as I can understand.

I agree that the confirmation issue isn't that pressing, but if monero want's to get close to partaking in any sort of circular economy the blockchain size problem could be solved by having majority of low value transactions be carried out "on paper" therefore letting XMR **scale** into a currency for the common man and not a small group of internet "wierdos". If we decide that's it's worthwhile to keep every Joe Shmoes groceries purchase on the blockchain, monero will never be able to scale into something more than a novelty. BS size reaches 50TB and it all goes to shit because no one will run a node, I certainly won't :)

I completely agree. I really want to see a paper Monero or crypto-backed paper, but, i just think we need more airtight solution

i feel like the gold backs would honestly be a more useful alternative [https://www.goldback.com/](https://www.goldback.com/) ​ mainly because people are more likely to trust gold backed money over printed crypto notes that people could be rug pulled at any time

Hello everybody, thanks for the positive feedback. The idea itself was something in between artistic fiction and a real functional use case for monero. Let me explain. In one of the comment threads on this sub there was a discussion about how **transactions take too long** to confirm and that it's annoying that the **wallet has to sync up for so long** when you need it. All of this pertains to using XMR for in person transactions of course. This gave me an idea, a sort of fully offline layer 2 for monero one might say. Monero banknotes, somewhat similar to what I presented in the above the image. A banknote represents a wallet that has both it's private spend and view key encoded in the QR codes imprinted on the banknote. The view key let's the recipient verify that the note, does indeed hold the denominated amount of XMR. The spend key is the real backing of the banknotes value, it let's the owner do the equivalent of claiming the gold promised by the central bank (in the good ol days of course). This key is protected by modern safety printing techniques, in the depiction above it can be seen hidden under a holographic sticker that voids the banknote if removed. The obvious advantage of such a system is the ability to transact **without involving the network**, because it's use causes a lot of obvious by now setbacks. Another aspect of this idea is that if we consider this scenario at scale, it would make monero more of a reserve currency rather than means of direct value transaction, which potentially could be the **answer to the growing blockchain size**, as in such a scenario **99% of transactions would leave no trace**. Only large transactions over x thousand usd, or international would be beneficial to carry over the network. It would mostly reinvent the use of XMR for local transactions. Let me know what you think, keep in mind this is just a fun concept I came up with out of boredom, maybe there are glaring issues which prevent this from working, which I'd gladly hear about in the comments. Cheers BONUS IMAGE: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/140j44c/monero\_banknote\_bonus\_image\_also\_request\_for/?sort=new](https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/140j44c/monero_banknote_bonus_image_also_request_for/?sort=new) FAQ: Q: Isn't cash better? A: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvu9k5/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3 Q: But cannot the issuer rug the money? A: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvxrcs/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvxrcs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Q: What's the point? A: I've said it above but this has the potential to **solve one of the biggest issues plaguing monero**. The growing blockchain size will outright kill monero if we were to grow a sizable userbase, even a 10x gain, not even talking handling 1% of what fiat transacts daily. This does have the benefit that **99% of small in person transactions don't unnecessarily litter the blockchain**. In a way it answers the question, is every single transaction, the likes of buying groceries, so important as to employ the full technology stack behind monero?

It has a qr code on it? It would be pretty badass if you could load a transaction amount into a qr and when someone scans it you receive the funds. Would do wonders for private IRL transactions

Wasn't my intention, it's rather meant for holding a fixed amount of XMR, "minted" during production and sealed. I didn't mention the logistics of production in the explainer but that's a pretty trivial problem, you can read the explainer here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvrw6p/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

it would be nice if we could make some balance of the address unspendable. In that case, we could issue this notes with community design, with approved anti-counterfeiting features. But I still think that would need to introduced single issuing company behind the notes and then we are back in fiat.

I regret not having made an explainer ASAP after posting, as the comment I'm linking to is "deleted" until a moderator approves it. In the mean time you can read it here: [https://pastebin.com/LNU75iKw](https://pastebin.com/LNU75iKw) Original comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvrw6p/?context=3

So, obviously it’s not possible to create a true “bearer bond” piece of paper that is trustless and transferable like this, but if someone wanted to create redeemable securities based on crypto, you could use a transparent chain to do so. You could create notes with public addresses that are always visible on chain. They would show that there is 1 unit or whatever backing the note. There is no private key on the note. You’d have to go to the issuer to have them redeem the note and send you the crypto or equivalent cash. Of course, they’ll be very concerned with counterfeiting so the notes would have to be carefully made to prevent that. This would obviously be overseen by securities laws and the SEC. Anybody that enjoys self custody will poo-poo this as pointless, but people that don’t want to self custody might actually embrace the transparency of seeing the keys on chain at all times and be comfortable with a fiduciary keeping their keys. Sorry, none of this is really relevant to privacy or Monero, except to say Monero would be a bad choice for such an instrument.

>trustless Yes, I've admitted defeat on that upfront. You need to trust the issuer of the note. As mentioned in one reply, it's not necessarily the end of the world, and the bright side is that a transaction between a "believer" and a "non-believer" is wholly compatible, then the recipient just treats it as a wallet and tries to "redeem" the private key. I don't like your presented solution because it compromises on not one but both fronts, as you need both trust and a public ledger. With "cash" you keep the privacy. And there is the whole adoption aspect, much easier to get a boomer to use "XMR" even if the use is limited to using fancy pieces of paper that are only related to XMR by being directly backed by it. >Anybody that enjoys self custody will poo-poo this as pointless, Well no one is forcing them to use it. Like I mentioned above, if someone paid them with "cash", they could withdraw at the spot. Their choice. Also I just realized that this would probably be huge for normie adoption, as they seem to love compromising on crucial things for a hint of convenience. :) >none of this is really relevant to privacy or Monero From the point of view of monero as software or its network, true. But as extending it use into the real world, it is. Although it's a total paradigm change, XMR becomes a reserve currency, just like gold was. Unless you need to transact online/long distance/or you just don't trust your government (gold)/issuer (XMR) you don't withdraw the underlying asset and keep using the abstraction of it. Most importantly it lets monero scale into low-value high-volume (most transactions) because otherwise blockchain size kills it, if anyone tells you you're gonna have a 100TB hard drive in 5 years, laugh in their face. Thank you for constructive criticism, surprisingly rarer than expected.

I’m not saying I don’t like the idea of a Monero note. If made well by a trusted issuer, they could work. It’s just more of a pain with Monero to validate the value is there. You need the spend key. Making sure the value doesn’t leave the note unknowingly is tricky, which is why I mentioned the public key only solution, which is really for people with different holding preferences… totally different conversation. Also, the NFC trace cutting/multisig solution in one of the other posts is promising looking. Who knows?

>You need the spend key Yeah, that's my bad, a shortcoming of my "design". Who could have thought that a private view key doesn't actually let you view the wallets balance 🙄 >NFC I thought about it and there are many more issues with it, but in short it shifts the trust from the issuer to each subsequent holder. Rather a bigger no-no, 1-trust vs n-trust, and like I said with 1 you can have it be someone known, maybe even involved in the effort. About the risk aspect, I was trying to be totally open about this but I don't know how well it was got across because my explainer comment is "deleted", but this is meant for driving low-val high-vol adoption and not storing all your wealth in it. Getting boomers to buy eggs for fancy notes, theoretically anyways, could happen in this system, and sure in no way is it foolproof with $2000 in equipment you could totally compromise any security measure but it's a little silly. The beauty of the concept is that in principle you could make your own banknote and start using it today with neighbors for common goods exchange, with the added plus that at any point it can be redeemed for XMR, and in the end fiat, if so a normie desires (they always do).

With the NFC/multisig solution, you wouldn’t be able to spend it unless some very obvious change is made to the note. Cutting the trace means you can go to the issuer to get one of the spend keys. You make the other one yourself. Also they don’t ship those notes loaded. So it shouldn’t extend trust to n people. It’s a little like an open-dime, but cheaper to make. http://offline.cash

If you could quickly say how much is on the note, you could quickly get a USD value for it, which might facilitate the flipping of these notes for day to day items. Perhaps another QR code to hit some kind of DApp that gives you the USD equivalent.

IMO regular fiat cash works better. You can easily swap it to XMR and back because it already has agreed value. Cash is already untraceable. You can exchange XMR to local fiat wherever you go. So, why go extra mile when the possibilty is right there?

Cash will not stick around forever and the goal should be to get rid of the parasitic middleman → Circular economy

Yes, encouraging a fully XMR centric economy was one of the principle ideas behind the concept. It makes it much more feasible to have XMR backed banknotes than to convince a boomer to carry around an app that they have to sync for half an hour. See explanation: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvrw6p/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvrw6p/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

"This comment is missing" :(

Blame the mods

Humanity can't just purely rely on digital money. That would be a disaster. Cash isn't going anywhere.

Tell that to our self-proclaimed elite.

Actually looks like that's what they are herding us towards

Cash is not as 100% anon as you might think. Every cash withdrawal or deposit is a KYC checkpoint. Every note has a serial Nr, so they know who withdrew or deposited what serial Nrs. Let's say it's 90% anon overall.

Only when withdrawing and depositing. You can't know anything that happened between them just by looking at serial numbers. Just like with CEX and XMR.

Thats quite exactly what I meant ser

I disagree, the point behind this concept is that you are 100% in control of the medium of transaction. If you want to transact with offline L2, keep using the banknotes. If you want to send that money online, maybe to someone across the globe, you simply scratch off the holographic sticker and send over network. Currently you're at the mercy of a 3rd party on LocalMonero to give you XMR/fiat, what if there is no one willing/available to do so? You can buy/sell XMR on a CEX but then again you're at the mercy of the CEX and their KYC requirements. I've made an explainer, it's not only a pretty picture :), go read it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1406oq7/comment/jmvrw6p/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

excellent idea :-)

Doesn't work. The issuer can rug at any time. The user can check, but the issuer can still rug. So the issuer has to be trusted and that's a big no-no in XMR Land

Interesting take but do you not have trust that there are no back door in monero left by the devs? I mean have you read all the source code and studied enough of high level mathematics to proove it's as safe as advertised? Or do you simply "trust" the marketing hehe

I'm not doubting that. But, it's not an excuse to add another layer of trust. There many layers of trust in life. But our goal should be to reduce them, not add them. Also, there are many community members and even governments and bad actors that are combing through the OPEN AND VERIFIABLE code to find vulnerabilities, even if you need expertise to do so. Someone issuing private keys to you and then having it travel through hands is far from verifiable in any case It's sort of like any blockchain network. It's called consensus. I cannot comb through the entire fucking ledger to see if everything is correct, but through a consensus I can say with 99.99999% probability that in this timeline, everything is as it should be. So, it's not comparable, in my estimation.

Right that's an agree from me, I'm not claiming it is comparable. But your take about how trust is a "no no" made me think of that vaguely autistic idealisation that "this is crypto man, it's 100% permissionless and wholly protected by cryptography" as if it was some law of physics that prevents any failure in this system. My reply was supposed to dismiss that notion, showing how all but a handful of users are basically trusting that the devs didn't scheme some cryptographic backdoor in, because of course they cannot even comprehend the underlying technology to proove it for themselves. For majority XMR is still based on trust, just in something else.

These r 🔥 #Xmr #Privacy #Monero

I feel like a wider real world trade option would be best. I’ve toyed with the idea of trying to put together a currency exchange in a brick and mortar sense but there are insane regulations on just what needs to go in. It doesn’t help that most people don’t want hard currency anyway, even though it’s safer and more private over short term. They just want it deposited immediately in their account.

I feel like making a Monero credit card

This will be particularly cool after Seraphis since for now there's no way to verify the balance of the address.

Monerote

OP, I think something a little better or more useful might be an open source credit card type wallet. There was this one bitcoin centric company that i saw that made this kind of product but discontinued it. It was really an amazing thing. The card machine could take normal debit or credit cards, but it could also take a special card that had a chip exactly like like a debit card. The exact details I can't remember. Ideally everything would be as open source as possible ofc. The downside is that there is more moving parts so potentially more trust involved. The upside is that to the user, it would be essentially an identical process to what they are already doing, so you wouldn't have to explain how a paper note works exactly. Also for vendors, they could still take regular visa and mastercard What do u think?

These notes are gorgeous and wonderful, and I hope you'll be around to make these even if it takes some tweaking to make it work well edit: it's really important to realize monero in its entirety is very complicated and doing things requires pulling together people with different skill sets. OP is doing great at receiving feedback, but I don't want it to be all critical or might push valuable people away because they're too reluctant

Please dont. Its a step back.