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Comment by sebstefan | Hacker News Reader

>$10,000 bounty

>There is much to explore here, so we’re announcing a bounty for improving the visualization above. Unlike most of our bounties, this one is time-bound. You have to submit your open source code by 2025-01-31 (23:59 UTC).

>The best submission will get $6,000, second place is $3,000, and third place is $1,000.

>All bounties will be awarded using Monero (XMR).

? Why are they using crypto, and, weirdly enough, specifically the crypto people use for buying drugs, to award this?

Is it some kind of scam?

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Because the efforts of Anna's Archive are unfortunately currently very much illegal, and XMR is one of the few cryptocurrencies that can actually offer some privacy to its users.

I've used XMR before. Just surprised seeing it to pay for legitimate & harmless visualization work.

I see, that makes sense

So what you’re saying is you think XMR is just for buying drugs, and you’re also saying you’ve used XMR before.

Hmmmmmm

They use monero because what they are doing (copyright infringement) will get you in to big trouble anywhere in the western world. Without cryptocurrencies much of the modern large scale archival efforts wouldn't be possible, or at the very least would significantly increase risks for the people participating in it. For me this alone is a good enough reason to admit that there are valid reasons for existence of privacy coins.

The harm they may cause in the short term via tax avoidance or being used to buy drugs is minimal, but the possibility that because of them archivists are able to fund servers for data that future historians wouldn't have otherwise been able to get their hands on? Priceless.

Because it is a book download site, which is illegal in every country that has copyright, and revealing one's identity with a bank transfer would be a stupid way to go to jail.

>Why are they using crypto, and, weirdly enough, specifically the crypto people use for buying drugs, to award this?

You really have to ask why a illegal/grey site is using currency that is build to protect privacy and anonymity?

is this some kind of sarcasm?

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