Happy Birthday, Monero!
The best currency ever was launched 8 years ago today. To be precise, the Bitmonero blockchain started on April 18, 2014 after it was announced on April 9, as a fork of Bytecoin, which had a shady history with a hidden premine, but promising privacy technology. A week later, the people who'd started mining the new coin, including 
Monero 8 years by Wataru Watanabe (source)
Monerun
Today, Monero users are organizing something called Monerun. This is a grassroots campaign by random /r/Monero subscribers, not even developers or influencers. Edit: also here on Hive by 
Monerun: 18 April. Remove your monero from exchanges. Self-custody is the only way. Poster by Bluworm (source)
So that's why there was a call to buy and withdraw Monero from exchanges today, letting these exchanges scramble to find coins while the price would be rising. I was skeptical and didn't participate, but the campaign is certainly having an effect. Binance was giving their bogus Network is busy messages sometimes. And the price did go up: Monero is green in a sea of red. Anyway, it's always good to remind everyone: not your keys, not your coins.
Going up in April
In general, XMR price action has been pretty good recently. See the XMR/BTC chart below. We recovered from 50th to 33rd in market cap. Various political developments made showed how much we need uncensorable money: the ban on payments to the Canadian Covid Convoy, foreign exchange controls in Turkey and Russia, and financial sanctions against Russia. While I support sanctions against the Russian invasion in Ukraine, I want to live in a world where financial sanctions are impossible, because they are too easy. When you can punish a foreign government by pressing a few buttons, you can punish anyone buy pressing a few buttons. I don't regret criticizing the OFAC sanctions (not very effective of course) on Monero addresses of a Russian military propaganda site.
Protocol update
But wait, there's more! On April 16, it was announced that the community has reached consensus about a new protocol update on July 16. I wish we'd stop calling it a hard fork, because the comments are full of people worried about a coin split again.
There are a number of clever but not too dramatic improvements planned. The update was postponed for a few months because it had to include a fix for a multisignature vulnerability. Fee computation and output selection are adjusted. View tags enable faster scanning of the blockchain. Most important for privacy is that ring signatures are extended from 11 to 16 signatures, thanks to the more efficient Bulletproofs+ algorithm, which reduces the size of transactions. For Monero's researchers, this change will also create valuable data to help us defend against statistical analysis.
Conference
There was no virtual Monero conference during Covid, but after a lot of debate, a second edition of Monerokon has been planned for the weekend of July 18 and 19 - where else but in Lisbon! It's in a part of town I didn't visit during Steemfest 2, outside of the city center but still close to the castle, between the cemetery and the port, near the Museu Nacional do Azulejo. Arroz Estúdios is even more hipster and alternative than Lx Factory on the other side of town.
The talks will be mostly technical, it's not going to be a Lambo conference, although you could park a car in the neighborhood. Monerokon should be accessible for anyone who can get to Lisbon, with prices ranging from €30 to €150. I'm going there, and I'm even buying a car to go there, because flying is boring. I can't wait to see people IRL again, many of them for the first time after being in touch online for years.