I think it would be naive to assume that there are not powerful, smart, actors that would love to change monero in a way that would cause it to have a chink in it's armor. 

How do we know that consensus changes of this level are not exactly that?

This upcoming fork (not sure when it is) I need to read up on it.  It worries me somewhat really.  Seems like a big one.  But I need to learn about Seraphis etc.

And Bitcoin, while also down is showing fairly strong support and not doing the sort of draw down we have seen in past bears.  Many are still calling for Bitcoin to do something it never has and pull back to below the last cycle's highs.

So anyone know what the massive spike from today was from?

Have you already tried rebooting your system? Also, do you use a custom data directory for the blockchain?

WTF was that?

OK.  This increase in usage is so bullish.

You know if you think about it, transactions on a chain are very uniquely influenced by the design of that asset.  It's not just all equal. The design and parameters of the asset create all kinds of downstream incentives, etc.

For example:

BTC: Has the small block strategy has put a functional cap on BTC's transaction volume and that has a direct impact on transaction fees.  This creates all kinds of incentives for users that do not exist on chains without a limit, or with not enough use to matter.  Transaction batching, the growing importance of trusted third parties, layer two incentives etc.  All unique to this chain still.  Also, the VAST majority of transactions on the BTC chain are 100% value focused, but not all.

ETH: Completely different.  ETH gets moved around with all ERC20 transactions.  So it's basically just constant transaction fees.  No limits mean no need to make things efficient.  The ETH philosophy is use resources without regard to cost strategy.  So that network can get congested AND expensive, and the bloated blockchain will either break ETH or centralize it in the end, and if it continues to be used people will just have to accept that.  ETH has more transactions than any chain, because it is basically involved n every transaction for every child token that is available. (I really think it is just a nightmare.)

BSV: The ultimate big block chain that isn't ETH, lol.  This chain is actually incentivizing making as many transactions as possible just to show that it can, and in my opinion ultimately centralizes.  They are actively spamming the chain constantly to support the narrative, or if you are a believer do proof of concept.  Most of what is going on the blockchain is (well there's a lot of wash transactions...) data storage.  So you are getting high transactions with high block sizes.  The central parties involved with this chain are incentivized to make transactions purely for show.  Gigamegs are core to it's narrative.

XMR: No blocksize limit, but ONLY transactional.  All of Monero's volume is value transfer.  But here's Monero's interesting twist.  We can't know very much about what happens in a particular transaction, but only that it happened.  The baked in layer 1 privacy, along with the flexible block size limits changes incentives slightly.  There is absolutely ZERO incentive to transact on the Monero blockchain for any reason but ONE.  I would not think anyone would be inflating blocksize/tx volume to try to prove a point ala BSV.  And I am not aware of any projects as of yet that would use the chain for something else, sort of like counterparty or blockstack on BTC,  or all of ETH.

So.....

We can be fairly certain that all of Monero's transaction volume is real and organic.  There is no incentive for anyone to pay for a transaction other than to move XMR. So people are actually USING the coin.  AND along with only a handful of crypto tokens aside from BTC we know that XMR is being used in real world transactions. 

This means the increased volume can only be two things that I can think of:

Increased real world use as a money.
Increased positions being taken (or liquidated) by speculators.

Like I said... this is incredibly bullish fundamentally. 

We are here.

The difference is trusting an egotistical narcissist, who will do anything in the world to prove he's Satoshi, to make rational decisions.  The real Satoshi was a pseudonym basically to protect himself and the BTC project.  The purpose of open sourced projects like these is to trust the code only, sure... but what happens when the dude who has been pushing for this all the sudden sees another problem after more people get interested in BSV and start wanting to take it in a different direction than what he has decided on?  BSVclassic is what happens.

I have some interesting/paranoid speculation...  It takes a moment to get to Monero... but hang with me.

I know my opinions on BTC forks might be different than some of my Monero brothers, and for full disclosure I believe BCH is misguided at best, and an all out scammy attack at worst, and BSV is an absolute abomination from any perspective.  I think the idea of the metanet, although fascinating, is something that will destroy the cypherpunk vision of Bitcoin. I think the correct way to achieve the metanet ideals is to run it as an opt in sidechain on Bitcoin.  The reason I think storing all kinds of data on the Bitcoin blockchain is a bad idea is it will necessarily centralize not only the miners, but also the fully validating nodes, which is a distinction with it's own essay, but not this one.

Storing virtually unlimited data on the blockchain will require both exponentially gigantic troves of data storage space, as well as the very fastest internet bandwidth, AND enormous CPU power for validation.  This will re-collapse the fully validating nodes with the miners and render those entities to be businesses on the size of FAANG, or nation states.

In the end a relatively small group of  node operators (For example USA, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, China, Russia, and maybe 5-6 more) would then control ALL the "distributed" (but no longer effectively decentralized) copies of the blockchain. They could then form a cabal that could then set the monetary policy of the new world digital currency.

I know...  Kinda paranoid.

But if that is not what happens with BSV then what is it?