Monero- The Privacy Coin
- Tanishq Wadhwani
- May 28, 2021
- 10 min read
Twitter: Monero (XMR) - The secure, private, untraceable cryptocurrency that keeps your money confidential. Grassroots. Open source. Dedicated to privacy & freedom.
Monero is cash for a connected world. It’s fast, private, and secure. With Monero, you are your own bank. You can spend safely, knowing that others cannot see your balances or track your activity.
It is an open-source, privacy-oriented cryptocurrency that was launched in 2014. Its blockchain is opaque, which makes transaction details and the amount of every transaction anonymous by disguising the addresses used by participants. Investors can mine Monero using their own CPUs, which means they don't need to pay for special hardware. Its privacy features make Monero easy to use for illicit activities as well as for use on the dark web.
A participant on the Bitcointalk forum going by the username “Thankful_for_today” forked Bytecoin to create Monero, which was later maintained by the decentralized developer community. Monero is fungible, meaning that involvement in previous transactions does not affect the value of any one coin as all transaction history is completely unknowable. Monero uses senders’ unique ring signatures, confidential recipient addresses and Ring Confidential Transactions to enable privacy and prevent coins being spent more than once at a time.
What Is Monero (XMR)?
Cryptocurrencies are increasing in popularity. These are virtual or digital currencies that are decentralized and can be used to trade or spend using blockchain technology. Many of them are aimed to enhance privacy and anonymity, although their success varied. A few of these currencies allow public viewing of all transactions, while others make privacy optional. And still, others keep the privacy feature strictly implicit.
When most of us think of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is usually the first one that comes to mind. It was one of the first of its kind, using peer-to-peer technology to allow users to make payments with their coins. But there's another currency that has achieved a high level of popularity and acceptance, mainly for its privacy-oriented features. This one is called Monero.
Monero was launched in 2014, and its goal is simple: to allow transactions to take place privately and with anonymity. Even though it’s commonly thought that BTC can conceal a person’s identity, it’s often easy to trace payments back to their original source because blockchains are transparent. On the other hand, XMR is designed to obscure senders and recipients alike through the use of advanced cryptography.
The team behind Monero say privacy and security are their biggest priorities, with ease of use and efficiency coming second. It aims to provide protection to all users — irrespective of how technologically competent they are.
Overall, XMR aims to allow payments to be made quickly and inexpensively without fear of censorship.
Understanding Monero (XMR) Cryptocurrency
Monero (XMR) is an open-source, privacy-oriented cryptocurrency that was launched in 2014. It is built and operates on the concept. These blockchains, which form the underlying technology behind digital currencies, are public ledgers of participants' activities that show all the transactions on the network.
Monero's blockchain is intentionally configured to be opaque. It makes transaction details, like the identity of senders and recipients, and the amount of every transaction, anonymous by disguising the addresses used by participants.
Along with anonymity, the mining process for Monero is based on an egalitarian concept. This is the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal opportunities. Its developers did not keep any stake for themselves when they launched Monero but they did bank on contributions and community support to further develop the virtual currency.
Who Are the Founders of Monero?
Seven developers were initially involved in creating Monero — five of whom decided to remain anonymous. There have been rumors that XMR was also invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin.
XMR’s origins can be traced back to Bytecoin, a privacy-focused and decentralized cryptocurrency that was launched in 2012. Two years later, a member of the Bitcointalk forum — only known as thankfulfortoday — forked BCN’s codebase, and Monero was born. They had suggested “controversial changes” to Bytecoin that others in the community disagreed with and decided to take matters into their own hands.
It’s believed that hundreds of developers have contributed to XMR over the years.
What Makes Monero Unique?
There are several things that make Monero unique. One of the project’s biggest aims is achieving the greatest level of decentralization possible, meaning that a user doesn’t need to trust anyone else on the network.
Privacy is achieved through a few distinctive features. Whereas each Bitcoin in circulation has its own serial number, meaning that cryptocurrency usage can be monitored, XMR is completely fungible. By default, details about senders, recipients and the amount of crypto being transferred are obscured — and Monero advocates says this offers an upper hand over rival privacy coins such as Zcash, which are “selectively transparent.”
Obfuscation is achieved through the use of ring signatures. Here, past transaction outputs are picked from the blockchain and act as decoys, meaning that outside observers can’t tell who signed it. If Ian was sending 200 XMR to Susan, this amount could also be split into random chunks to add a further level of difficulty.
To ensure that transactions cannot be linked to one another, stealth addresses are created for every single transaction that are only used once.
All of these distinctive features have led to XMR being increasingly used for illicit transactions instead of Bitcoin — especially on darknet markets. Governments around the world, especially the U.S., have also offered hundreds of thousands of dollars to anyone who can crack Monero’s code.
How Many Monero (XMR) Coins Are There in Circulation?
Monero is slightly unusual as a token sale wasn’t held for XMR — and no tokens were premined either. At the time of writing, the circulating supply of XMR stands at 17,703,471.
This cryptocurrency is designed to be resistant to application-specific integrated circuits, which are commonly used for mining new Bitcoin. In theory, this means that it can be possible to mine XMR using everyday computing equipment.
Overall, there will eventually be a total of 18.4 million XMR in circulation — and this cap is expected to be reached on May 31, 2022. After this, miners will be incentivized using “tail emissions,” with a small amount of XMR being fed into the system every 60 seconds as a reward. It is believed this approach is more effective than relying on transaction fees.
How Is Monero Different from Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency on the market. It works on a protocol that attempts to shield the participant's identity using pseudo name addresses. These pseudo names are randomly generated combinations of alphabets and numbers.
But this approach offers limited privacy as both Bitcoin addresses and transactions are registered on the blockchain, opening them to public access. Even pseudonymous addresses are not fully private. A few transactions carried on by a participant over time can be linked to the same address, allowing the possibility of others to become aware of an address owner's trends and their identity.
Another advantage of Monero over bitcoin is fungibility. This means that two units of a currency can be mutually substituted with no difference between them. While two $1 bills are equal in value, they are not fungible, as each carries a unique serial number. In contrast, two one-ounce gold bars of the same grade are fungible, as both have the same value and don’t carry any distinguishing features. Using this analogy, a bitcoin is the $1 bill, while a Monero is that piece of gold.
The transaction history of each bitcoin is recorded on the blockchain. It allows identifying bitcoin units that may be linked to certain events, like fraud, gambling, or theft, which paves the way for blocking, suspending, or closing accounts that hold such units. Imagine receiving a few bitcoins today that were previously used for gambling, and they are banned in the future, leading to a loss.
Monero has a non-traceable transaction history, which offers participants a much safer network where they don’t run the risk of having their held units be refused or blacklisted by others.
How Is the Monero Network Secured?
One of Monero’s main goals has to prevent centralization — and this network uses a consensus mechanism called CryptoNight, which is based on proof-of-work. This prevents large mining farms from becoming a dominant force.
How Does Monero Improve Privacy?
Monero alleviates privacy concerns using the concepts of ring signatures and stealth addresses. Ring signatures enable a sender to conceal their identity from other participants in a group. Ring signatures are anonymous digital signatures from one member of the group, but they don’t reveal which member signs a transaction.
To generate a ring signature, the Monero platform uses a combination of a sender’s account keys and clubs it with public keys on the blockchain. This makes it unique as well as private. It hides the sender's identity, as it is computationally impossible to ascertain which of the group members' keys was used to produce the complex signature.
Stealth addresses add additional privacy, as these randomly generated addresses for one-time use are created for each transaction on behalf of the recipient. The use of these stealth addresses enables concealing the actual destination address of a transaction, and it hides the identity of the receiving participant.
Ring Confidential Transactions, or RingCT, also enable hiding the amount of a transaction. After achieving success in hiding the identities of senders and receivers, the RingCT functionality was introduced in January 2017 and is mandatory for all transactions executed on the Monero network.
How to Mine Monero?
Monero runs on all leading OS platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and FreeBSD. The currency supports a mining process where individuals get rewarded for their activities by joining mining pools, or they can mine coins individually.
Monero mining can be performed on a standard computer and does not need any specific hardware such as the application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). An ASIC is a costly form of hardware that is commonly used to mine cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Instead, you can use the CPU or GPU of your own computer to mine the currency. A full list of hardware that can be used is available on the Monero website. Users can also install certain software, which may cost a developer fee.
According to the company's website, Monero relies on proof-of-work mining. This is an algorithm that provides security to certain cryptocurrencies like Monero. This system prevents problems surrounding double-spending, which can skew the supply, showing there's much more than actually available.
Purchasing the currency is as easy as going on an exchange or looking for a seller who's willing to unload their supply. You can also buy Monero through an automated teller machine (ATM) that is enabled for cryptocurrencies.
You don't need any special hardware to mine Monero. The currency runs on all major operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and FreeBSD
Is Monero Illegal?
Monero is not an illegal cryptocurrency. Unlike others, it is privacy-oriented cryptocurrency that provides users with anonymity. This means it is not traceable. This characteristic, however, does make it very popular on the darknet and for use with certain activities such as gambling and the sale of drugs.
Is Monero a Good Investment?
If you're interested in cryptocurrencies, Monero may be a good investment. The price of the currency jumped more than 137% between Jan. 15, 2020, and Jan. 15, 2021. Additionally, it doesn't cost much to start, as you don't need any special hardware. You can actually use the CPU of your own computer to mine it, and Monero works with all major operating systems. This will save you a lot of money in fees and charges.
Where Can I Buy Monero?
You can purchase Monero through a digital or virtual currency exchange. Or you can search for an individual seller or an ATM enabled for cryptocurrencies.
How Long Does It Take to Mine One Monero?
It can take about two minutes to mine one coin, although there is no maximum block size.
Can XMR Be Traced?
Monero, or XMR, is untraceable. Unlike other coins, such as Bitcoin, Monero has a non-traceable transaction history. This characteristic offers participants a much safer network where they don’t run the risk of having their held units be refused or blacklisted by others.
Monero's Challenges
While privacy fuels the rapid adoption of Monero, it also brings with it several challenges. For instance, the non-traceability and privacy features allow them to be used for disreputable purposes and at questionable marketplaces, including those like drugs and gambling. This is one of the reasons why markets that were popular on the dark web, like AlphaBay and Oasis, showed increased use of Monero before they were shut down.
Reports by CNBC cite the case of hackers creating malicious software that infected computers to mine Monero and send it to North Korea. Monero is essentially open to be used for illicit activities and for evading law enforcement, as it remains outside of capital controls with no traceability.
Summary
Monero is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency released in 2014. It uses various privacy-enhancing technologies to achieve anonymity and fungibility. It is an open-source protocol based on the CryptoNote application layer. It uses an obfuscated public ledger, meaning anyone can send or broadcast transactions, but no outside observer can tell the source, amount, or destination. A proof of work mechanism using the hash function RandomX is used to issue new coins and incentivize miners to secure the network and validate transactions. It has attracted users desiring privacy measures that are not provided in more popular cryptocurrencies. Transactions on the Monero blockchain can’t be tracked or traced. Monero uses a proof of work consensus algorithm to issue new coins and secure transactions.
It is a secure, private, and untraceable currency. This open-source cryptocurrency was launched in April 2014 and soon garnered great interest among the cryptography community and enthusiasts. The development of this cryptocurrency is completely donation based and community driven. Monero has been launched with a strong focus on decentralization and scalability, and it enables complete privacy by using a special technique called “ring signatures.”
With this technique, there appears a group of cryptographic signatures including at least one real participant, but since they all appear valid, the real one cannot be isolated. Because of exceptional security mechanisms like this, Monero has developed something of an unsavory reputation—it has been linked to criminal operations around the world. While this is a prime candidate for making criminal transactions anonymously, the privacy inherent in Monero is also helpful to dissidents of oppressive regimes around the world.
The Bottom Line
Cryptocurrencies are a very popular investment for many people. But the popularity—and price—of Bitcoin may be a turnoff. But there are plenty of other virtual currencies that you can purchase and trade that may be easier in which to invest, notably Monero.
The privacy-rich attributes have helped Monero become one of the largest cryptocurrencies in the world based on its market capitalization. Investors can trade in Monero on leading cryptocurrency exchanges like Kraken, Poloniex, and Bitfinex. However, its important to remember that what makes Monero so popular—namely, its privacy features—can also lead to some major challenges, such as its use in illegal activities in darknet markets.
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