What is Monero
Monero is a secure, private, and untraceable currency system.
Monero uses a specific type of cryptography, ensuring that all transactions remain 100% untraceable. In an increasingly transparent world, you can see why something like Monero can become desirable.
Monero’s blockchain is intentionally configured to be opaque. It makes transaction details – such as the identities of senders, recipients, and the amount of each transaction – anonymous by “masking” the addresses used by participants.
Along with anonymity, Monero’s mining process is based on an egalitarian concept – the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal opportunity. Upon Monero’s release, its developers kept no stake for themselves and set about supporting the community to further develop the virtual currency.
Monero is considered one of the simplest coins to mine as it does not require the purchase of expensive and specialized hardware. Therefore, anyone with the appropriate know-how can earn an income by mining XMR. Monero aims to support egalitarian mining in the future.
Origin of Monero
CryptoNote is the application layer protocol that powers various decentralized currencies. Although it is similar to the application layer that runs bitcoin in many aspects, there are many areas where the two differ. In July 2012, Bytecoin, the first real implementation of CryptoNote, was launched.
While Bytecoin was quite promising, people noticed that a lot of questionable things were happening and that 80% of the coins had already been issued.
So, it was decided that the Bytecoin blockchain would be forked, and the new coins in the new chain would be called Bitmonero, which was eventually renamed Monero, meaning “coin” in Esperanto. One block will be mined and added every two minutes in this new blockchain.
The Monero team
Monero is led by a group of 7 developers, 5 of which chose to remain anonymous while two revealed themselves publicly.
Over 500 developers have contributed to the Monero project, including 30 highly skilled professionals.
The forums and chat channels are welcoming and active.
While these privacy benefits have contributed to Monero’s rapid adoption, they have also created many challenges. Monero’s untraceability and privacy characteristics allow the asset to be used for nefarious purposes and in dubious markets, including those for drugs and gambling.
Dark web marketplaces, such as AlphaBay and Oasis, have seen increased use of Monero.
What makes Monero confidential?
Ring Signatures: Over the years, Monero has experimented with changing the number of signatures involved in this blending process, at one time even allowing users to specify the number they wanted. As of 2019, however, Monero’s default transaction is now set to add 10 signatures to each transaction group and blend 11 signatures. That way, if you look at the data, it will look as if each of the signatures sent the transaction.
Stealth Addresses: Another feature contributing to Monero’s privacy is Stealth Addresses, which allow users to post a single address that automatically creates multiple one-time accounts for each transaction. Using a secret “visibility key,” the owner can identify their incoming funds as their wallet can scan the blockchain to identify all transactions with that key.
RingCT: Introduced in 2017, Ring Confidential Transactions hides the amount users exchange in transactions recorded on the blockchain. In practice, RingCT makes it so that transactions can have many inputs and outputs while maintaining anonymity and protecting against double-spending.
