Monero has received almost $1 million in community donations in 2025 for protocol development, even as the network faces persistent selfish mining attacks from Qubic Pool causing chain reorganizations.
By Vini Barbosa
Editor Marco T. Lanz
Updated
4 mins read
Maintaining and funding free, open-source software (FOSS) is challenging, and many projects are left in limbo after some time due to low funding or lack of active maintainers. Monero, however, a leading privacy-focused cryptocurrency, has received nearly $1 million in donations in 2025 alone—for protocol developments and other activities.
The data comes from a prominent Monero contributor and analyst who goes by “Untraceable” on X. According to a post on September 18, 2025, the account highlights a total of 3,086.62 XMR raised year-to-date, valued at $925,800, as Monero trades around $300 per coin.
From the total received in 2025, 2,294.24 XMR directly contributed to core development efforts, “Untraceable” told CoinSpeaker. This funding supported a range of technical advancements, including the FCMP++ implementation with associated consensus changes, testing, optimization, and the launch of a dedicated testnet. It also covered the development of Carrot, a new addressing scheme for FCMP, as well as FCMP support for hardware wallets.
Additional work funded through these donations encompassed the Cuprate project—an alternative Rust-based Monero node implementation—along with GUI and CLI development tasks, Monero core code contributions, pull request reviews, and multiple third-party code audits.
Beyond core protocol enhancements, other Monero-related projects benefited from the 2025 donations. These included wallet development initiatives such as the Feather wallet, a full-featured desktop option; Monfluo, a mobile wallet; and a Monero browser wallet. Research funding was allocated toward network-level privacy improvements and countermeasures against spy nodes, as well as exploring potential solutions to 51% attacks and the concentration of hash power. Further support went to the creation of a network simulation tool, ongoing CCS coordinator activities, and the development of a Monero plugin for BTCPay Server.
As Untraceable described, this money was raised via the Community Crowdfunding System (CCS) from getmonero.org, destined for “protocol development and other Monero-related projects.” In total, the CCS has raised 35,916.92 XMR since 2020, which would be worth approximately $10 million at current exchange rates.
Correction: The amount raised so far in 2025 is actually 3086.62 ($925k at current valuation).
(the chart is correct)
— ᴜɴᴛʀᴀᴄᴇᴀʙʟᴇ (@DontTraceMeBruh) September 18, 2025
All this data was collected with the help of ChatGPT-5, as the contributor explained.
“I had ChatGPT-5 scrape the data from ccs.getmonero.org for both WIP proposals and completed proposals since 2020, and it spat out a JSON that I pasted into vega.github.io/editor to create the chart.”
Interestingly, 630.5 XMR—worth $189,000 and approximately 20% of the total raised so far in 2025—was donated in the last week alone, per Untraceable.
The surge matches a critical moment for the Monero network and protocol, which is facing recurrent selfish mining attacks from Qubic Pool. These attacks have resulted in occasional deep chain reorganizations and hundreds of orphaned blocks—urging the community to focus on research and development for short-term mitigations and long-term solutions. For example, the Publish and Perish proposal is being studied by the Monero Research Labs, which was covered by Coinspeaker in August.
Price-wise, Monero XMR $300.4 24h volatility: 0.5% Market cap: $5.54 B Vol. 24h: $93.00 M is currently changing hands at $299, according to TradingView’s CRYPTO index, up nearly 30% from a local bottom on August 15 and 16 during a period of high selfish mining activity by the Qubic Pool.
Monero is again trading above the 50-day exponential moving average, an important trend indicator for cryptocurrencies, suggesting it has re-entered bullish territory. The daily relative strength index (RSI) corroborates the moving average analysis, suggesting the privacy coin is in strong momentum at 59 points.
Monero (XMR) daily (1D) price chart | Source: TradingView
Nevertheless, XMR is still below the level it had been maintaining before the Qubic activity started to intensify in July, generating some uncertainties around the network. The selfish mining attacks are still ongoing, with a recent 18-block-deep reorg that raises doubts about the network’s reliability, as CoinDesk and Cointelegraph reported, based on commentary by the author of this Coinspeaker story (Vini Barbosa).
Disclaimer: Coinspeaker is committed to providing unbiased and transparent reporting. This article aims to deliver accurate and timely information but should not be taken as financial or investment advice. Since market conditions can change rapidly, we encourage you to verify information on your own and consult with a professional before making any decisions based on this content.
Vini Barbosa has covered the crypto industry professionally since 2020, summing up to over 10,000 hours of research, writing, and editing related content for media outlets and key industry players. Vini is an active commentator and a heavy user of the technology, truly believing in its revolutionary potential. Topics of interest include blockchain, open-source software, decentralized finance, and real-world utility.
