‘Fluffypony’ Monero’s Lead Maintainer, Steps Down As Project Head

Riccardo Spagni, better known as “Fluffypony,” was the lead maintainer of Monero (XMR), the privacy-focused cryptocurrency. Fluffypony has officially announced that he was stepping down.

FluffyPony Replaced By Snipa

The Monero project was led by Fluffypony since its inception back in 2014 and will continue to be supported by him, by way of being a backup maintainer. As per the announcement that came on Monday, a “longtime” contributor to the Monero network going by the name of Snipa, will take over Fluffypony’s position of the lead maintainer.

The exact details as to why Fluffypony was resigning is somewhat unclear. However, Fluffypony had already expressed his thoughts on leaving back in May of 2018. In an interview Fluffypony did with Coindesk in May 2018, he explained that he “was the lead maintainer across all the projects,” but was forced to realize “at some point” a year prior that he couldn’t do it all. Fluffypony stressed his position as being an advocate of privacy never going away. He explained that his support for Monero and its community will still be as prevalent as ever, but his responsibilities within the network itself will be reduced.

Only Serving Backup Positions

Fluffypony is very much taking a backseat with many of the Monero network’s services. He will no longer be the one in charge of giving announcement emails to the Monero community the green light. Furthermore, he will now only serve as a backup role within tasks like administration, server access, and engineering.

The man relieving Fluffypony, Snipa, is well known within the community due to being a developer of a popular piece of the Monero pool software. Snipa also supports the network with the use of well-connected nodes. Snipa himself has a considerable amount of experience in both auditing and coding and is said to hold the desires to better Monero as a whole.

Buckling Under KYC/AML

The Monero network has been suffering through some hard times, both due to what it is and due to general trends within the cryptocurrency industry. Its Monero coin has dropped from Monday as the entire crypto industry experiences a dip in trading.

At the same time, several heavyweight crypto exchanges have started to delist the Monero coin due to new compliance risks. These risks stem from newfound legislation when it comes to the regulation of cryptocurrencies and crypto exchanges. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has mandated a “travel rule” when it comes to crypto exchanges, as well as encouraging strict KYC and AML regulations.