Monzero nodes: node.monzero.org and the plain-HTTP RPC

The Monzero patch for Cake Wallet connects every Monzero wallet to one default node, node.monzero.org on port 6175, over plain HTTP. A wallet for a Monero-family coin does not keep the whole blockchain on the phone or the computer: it asks a node — a machine that does — for blocks and hands it transactions to send on. Over plain HTTP, that conversation is unencrypted.

The ports

Monzero's chain specification sets three: 6174 for peer-to-peer traffic between nodes, 6175 for the RPC that wallets connect to, and 6176 for ZMQ. The project's README lists node.monzero.org:6174 as its bootstrap node for other nodes and node.monzero.org:6175 as its restricted public RPC.

The default node in the patch

The patch's node list for Monzero has one entry: node.monzero.org:6175, marked as the default, with SSL off and auto-switching on. A settings migration, number 73, adds that list and selects the node. Node addresses for Monzero are built as plain HTTP addresses, as Cake Wallet builds them for Wownero, and the screen for adding or editing a node handles Monzero the way it handles Monero and Wownero, login fields included.

What plain HTTP means

Plain HTTP means every request the wallet makes and every answer the node gives cross the network unencrypted. Anyone on the path — the Wi-Fi, the internet provider, a proxy — can see that the device is talking to a Monzero node, can read what passes between them, including a transaction when it is sent, and could alter an answer on the way. The node itself sees the address the wallet connects from, encrypted or not.

When we queried the node on 6 November 2026, port 6175 also answered over TLS, with a self-signed certificate. That would encrypt the line, but a certificate nobody vouches for does not prove who is at the other end, and the patch does not use it.

What we saw on the node

Our own check, on 6 November 2026, over plain HTTP: the node answered get_info with status OK, on mainnet, synchronised and restricted, at a height of 24,435 blocks with a target of 120 seconds a block. The tests recorded in the pull request text were run earlier, at a height of 15,704.

Restore height from a date

Restoring a wallet means scanning the chain for its coins, and a restore height says where to start. Cake Wallet can estimate one from a date. For Monzero there is no table of dates and heights yet, so the patch estimates it in a straight line from the chain's first block, dated 25 August 2026, at a deliberately slow 400 seconds a block rather than the 120-second target. The reasoning is in the code: guessing too low only makes the scan longer, while guessing too high would skip the blocks that hold the wallet's coins.

Our own arithmetic from the node's answer bears that out. From the first block to the height we saw on 6 November 2026, the chain averaged about 255 seconds a block, so an estimate at 400 lands below the real height, as intended.

A new wallet's first height

A newly created Monzero wallet reports a starting height of about 14.9 million, because the wallet library estimates it from Monero's constants. The chain is far shorter than that, so the wallet simply starts at the tip. The pull request text calls it harmless for new wallets; restores use the height or date the user gives, as for other coins.