Hello everyone,
I am writing this post to introduce a project I have spent the last two years coding from scratch.
I want to keep this straightforward, professional, and entirely focused on the actual engineering behind the platform. To be completely transparent from the start, my recent attempt to share this project on Reddit resulted in an immediate ban because I used the word decentralized.
The moderation team was entirely justified in flagging that.
XMRMatters is a custodial peer-to-peer marketplace utilizing platform-managed ledger escrow, not an on-chain multisig or a pure peer-to-peer protocol network. When I used that term, I was thinking of our distributed backend storage and isolated infrastructure model rather than network consensus.
I respect the strict definition of decentralization within the Monero community and stand corrected.
I am bringing the conversation here because I value precise technical dialogue.
XMRMatters has officially been live on the mainnet for just over fifteen days.
The platform exists to provide a privacy-first environment for trading Monero without pretending that marketplace operations are entirely risk-free or trustless.
Performance and Operations
Over our first fifteen days, the platform has sustained a 99.8% uptime. Our development pipeline is structured around continuous implementation. We deploy micro-optimizations and stability patches on a daily basis, while larger feature rollouts and version upgrades are deployed on a monthly schedule.
System Architecture
We engineered the platform to eliminate single points of failure while maintaining strict, non-negotiable privacy standards. The entire financial backend is built around fail-closed behavior to guarantee ledger integrity.
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Node Infrastructure: We run dedicated, bare metal monerod instances alongside isolated fallback nodes to ensure the exchange never loses synchronization with the blockchain.
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RPC Layer: All wallet logic operates through secured, containerized monero-wallet-rpc instances running in strictly isolated environments.
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Privacy and Data Storage: We enforce an absolute zero retention policy. We do not collect phone numbers, use advertising identifiers, or run behavioral analytics. Public browsing is fully enabled so anyone can inspect active offers and terms before signing up. While our backend utilizes distributed storage to guarantee high availability, the heavy cryptographic lifting is pushed to the client side.
To protect communications, all platform trade chat is automatically encrypted at rest using the platform public PGP key. The corresponding private key is maintained strictly offline on local administrative hardware. The live production server only stores ciphertext and does not possess the capacity to decrypt past conversations. In the event of a trade dispute, communication history is pulled and decrypted locally for manual review, ensuring a server-side compromise cannot expose historical trade text.
We do not map, track, or log user transaction data. -
Security and Ledger Integrity: Seller escrow must be completely locked before a trade can proceed as funded, and every release or refund must preserve ledger consistency. Deposits require strict confirmation matching, and withdrawals are heavily audited against active locks, wallet liquidity, address validity, and network state before broadcasting. All incoming traffic is routed through reverse proxies for DDoS mitigation, keeping the internal services behind loopback boundaries without inspecting user payloads. Furthermore, all private trade and support attachments are locked behind backend authorization filters. Optional Tor v3 onion access is fully supported via loopback routing.
Open for Registration
The platform is fully operational, and I am highly motivated to see the community adapt and stress-test this platform. In alignment with our privacy defaults, registration requires no email address or personal documentation. You can create an account and explore the marketplace using only a username and a password of your choice.
My immediate development focus is on minimizing RPC latency and maximizing database query performance to keep the user experience clean and snappy.
You can access the platform at: https://xmrmatters.space
Or over the Tor v3: http://fefbn4koy23q2f2kgmtm7k64x33rtiem6dfsbn4jiltdwnuclsbq7iqd.onion
We are also available for review on these sites:
Monerica: https://monerica.com/site/xmrmatters
Monero.forum: https://monero.forum/directory/xmrmatters
I welcome all technical critiques, questions, and feedback from the community.
Let me know what you think.
Thank you for your time.
The XMRMatters Founder
Signature
— XMRMatters Development Team