Monero Leader Trolls Twitter With Binance Chain Migration

Riccardo Spagni, one of Monero’s lead developers, has polled his Twitter audience to find out whether the coin should be migrated to Binance Chain. This is, of course, the blockchain that is operated by Binance, a major exchange. However, Spagni has made it clear that the poll is a joke and that he doesn’t actually intend to migrate Monero to another blockchain.

Should Monero switch to Binance Chain?

— Riccardo Spagni (@fluffypony) April 19, 2019

Spagni’s tweet was probably prompted by the fact that Binance Chain has recently launched its mainnet. Although Binance Chain is primarily used to power Binance’s new decentralized exchange, it can also be used to host tokens. This has led a number of minor tokens—including Atomic Wallet Coin, Red Pulse, and Mithril—to migrate to the platform.

Monero Isn’t Migrating

However, Monero will definitely not be among the projects that are migrating to Binance Chain. Most respondents were in on the joke, and they largely voted against Monero’s migration. Presumably, many of those who voted in favor of migration were also aware that Spagni was not serious, so some “yes” votes may be a joke as well.

Spagni even went as far as to offer two ways to vote against the proposal. One “no” option is for those who believe that migration is “totally realistic but a bad idea,” and another is for those who “know it is nonsense.” Monero’s privacy features require a blockchain that is fundamentally different from Binance Chain, making migration impractical if not impossible.

Spagni was very self-aware and observed that the poll could easily generate unfounded hype. He wryly noted in a follow-up tweet that he “can’t wait” for a journalist to publish an article titled “Monero mulls switch to Binance Chain.” Suffice to say, the switch isn’t under consideration, and it won’t happen under any conceivable circumstances.

The Importance of Interoperability

Even though Spagni’s suggestion isn’t serious, it does raise an important topic: interoperability. Arguably, Binance Chain receives more hype than it deserves. However, interoperability is important, and ensuring that blockchains can work together and handle each other’s tokens is quickly becoming a widely-pursued goal for many projects.

Binance Chain’s interoperability features are actually fairly powerful. One commenter notes that Binance Chain’s Cosmos sidechains are capable of handling tokens that have not been deliberately migrated. Another user notes that a Monero fork called Wownero is actually moving to Binance Chain. As such, Binance Chain’s efforts are not totally irrelevant here.

Meanwhile, Monero is pursuing interoperability in another way. Spagni has created Tari, a sidechain that can be used to introduce digital assets that are interoperable with Monero. Despite Spagni’s dismissal of Binance Chain, Monero shares some goals with it—even if Binance Chain would not be a good fit for Monero itself.