Mysterious Group 'mf' Rallies XX Community for Network Rethink

In a surprise announcement on all official social channels during the afternoon of September 1st, the XX Network quoted in full a forum post made two days earlier by contributor(s) ‘mf’.

The author, who originally called themselves Michiel when introducing themselves back in January has since been involved in the development of a Haven browser extension and most recently was en route to being awarded a bounty for the modification of the Sleeve wallet. According to the post, they now identify as a group of people and seek to engage all elements of the XX Network community, including node runners, developers and stakeholders to discuss the current state of things, any shortcomings and a potential future direction for the network.

The post reads:

“We’ve been reading the community’s messages and feedback on multiple channels, and they seem to summarise a need for change on both branding and economic levels. As we became invested through our development efforts with xx, we also share this feeling.

We’re a collective of people who believe in proactive change rather than expecting the sky to give us what we need.

Thus, we initiated conversations with xx, the council, and the foundation over the past summer in Amsterdam, Berlin, and online about how we can contribute to a much-needed transformation.

From this week, we have begun a market and token analysis of xx.network.

This will lead to a baseline of issues on an obvious and less obvious level. Some points might be obvious (design/branding/revenue avenue updates), some of them might not be so obvious(?).

Based on our conclusions, we aim to fix initial major pain points and get ourselves ready for a (small) campaign taking place during DevConnect in Buenos Aires.

We need your help, now and in the upcoming months.

We’re looking to speak and interview: node runners, developers, token holders, and potential partners.

We’re making time for this as we want to verify our assumptions, alongside finding root causes that our own perspectives might miss.

Feel free to email me at mf@xx.network

Updates will follow as they come. We appreciate not only your efforts but also your resilience in the support of quantum security.

-mf”

The original forum post is here .

The tone of the message is curious given it was delivered officially with no context to the author or their intentions in relation to the previously established leadership, plus the fact they have seemingly obtained an ‘official’ email address (@xx.network). It feels like a concession has been made to give this group a chance to steer things in a different direction.

Some time ago it was rumoured that motions internally to take the whole network onto a different L1 and bring quantum security and privacy to a much more established network were proposed to give XX more exposure. Attempting to gain market share as a Layer 1 project as it stands without extreme financial backing in the blockchain world of the last few years is nigh on impossible. At the time it seems it wasn’t enough to sway key figures but perhaps times have changed, hence the slightly bizarre way this message was delivered.

Advancing the project in the context of a rebrand or completely different direction may be the boost of awareness XX actually needs in the broader crypto world and getting plans ready for a conference as mentioned (DevConnect in Buenos Aires which runs from 17th-22nd November this year) may attract the sort of investment that would be necessary for that level of work.

What this means for various parts of the well established XX Network remains to be seen, but it seems like the Foundation are asking everyone to pile in to ‘mf’ with as many ideas as possible.

Personally I would enjoy seeing new life brought into the network, given the unrealised value of the cMixx mixnet that has been running non stop for almost 4 years, and the clout of XX’s original founder David Chaum. There is a lot of upside, and now is the chance for folks to steer the ship.

Contact ‘mf’ directly at mf@xx.network with ideas.

Update 2nd September, 2025

mf has replied in the official Telegram about the announcement and cleared up any nuance surrounding their intentions. The message read:

“Hello hello everyone with well placed criticism. I see your words Eclipse yukaz @patcrypt and want to make you aware we are not initiating a coup:)

My collective is mainly consisting out of autonomous individuals. Some of them prefer to stay anonymous due to other jobs they work on. We don’t have any token we publish or trade, nor do we intend to.

What I define under collective is a bunch of like minded people working under a similar goal without necessarily being owner of the collective itself (we have an ltd for tax purposes, but this holds 0 IP or resources)

I don’t work for any company outside of for myself. I do work together with people and companies, through my own collective/company.

I do not own any patents of chaum, xx, or any patents in general. Im not working with any corporate, nor do we own any other businesses. Were people who see value in post quantum security, and want to “invest” through our application of skills and knowledge. Not as much through buying access.”