Enter PirateChain. I really want to see this one take off and get supported by some markets. Pretty much no one even knows what it is. PirateChain is basically Monero 2.0. It's an entirely new blockchain from XMR, but it has privacy in mind even more than XMR does.
>Furthermore, Pirate is less secure than Monero. Monero uses its own standalone blockchain and PoW system to secure it. Pirate uses Komodo's dPoW system. This system has its own (significantly smaller) set of miners. However, they claim it is secure since they "back up" the blockchain to Bitcoin. The actual effectiveness of this security mechanism has received little to no attention, and this claim has little to no academic support. As a result, we generally assume that Monero's much larger mining network makes it more secure, since we have no good way of evaluating the effectiveness of Komodo's security. Of course, Pirate relies on a trusted setup to provide anonymity, so if this was ever compromised, then they could mint new coins without detection.
>Pirate claims to be the best of Zcash (ZEC) combined with the best of Monero (XMR) and secured by Komodo's (KMD) Delayed-Proof-of-Work (dPoW)." Though it takes some of the best components of Zcash, it has yet to include the new, better Sapling code. It has nothing to do with Monero in technology or overlapping community. The security model of dPoW has not been researched extensively, so it's dangerous to take their security claims at face value.
The delisting of Monero (XMR) by Binance is a significant setback, but it’s unlikely to mark the end of darknet markets. Privacy-focused cryptocurrencies like XMR remain essential for anonymous transactions, and alternative exchanges, decentralized platforms, and peer-to-peer trading will likely fill the gap. While regulatory pressure is increasing, demand for privacy coins persists. Darknet markets have adapted to crackdowns before, and this is just another hurdle rather than the end of their existence.
It has happend few months ago