Monero, a Bytecoin fork, is a decentralized cryptocurrency with a strong focus on privacy and security. Based on the Cryptonote, the same open-sourced code Bytecoin is built on, Monero offers unlinkable and untraceable transactions to its users.
The Cryptonote protocol brings three core technologies to Monero: ring signatures, stealth addresses, and zero-knowledge proof networks.
Ring signatures implement digital signatures generated for one-time use that conceals the identities of the sender and receiver. Similarly, stealth addresses are generated for an anonymous activity recording for a single transaction. Zero-knowledge proof technology, Bulletproofs, hides the input and output values while proving their validity.
Monero utilizes a Proof of Work consensus mechanism called RandomX, which is built to be CPU-friendly and inherently resistant to ASIC-device mining. Blocks on the Monero blockchain have dynamic sizes for scalability.
XMR is an ERC-20 token that is fully fungible and does not retain the transaction history, thereby safeguarding user identity.
XMR price and tokenomics
XMR was released without any initial coin offering (ICO), pre-mine, or founders fund. Currently, it has a circulating supply of around 18.15 million tokens. There is no maximum token supply for XMR, meaning Monero block rewards will never be zero.
The primary emission curve was designed to reach approximately 18.132 million coins before switching to the tail emission curve for a fixed miner reward. The fixed amount per block is 0.6 XMR, with a block time of about 2 minutes.
This starkly contrasts Bitcoin (BTC) and other PoW networks that will eventually reach zero mining rewards, causing increased dependency on transaction fees and compromising network security.
The fixed Monero block reward of 0.6 XMR ensures that mining is not rendered unprofitable due to dynamic block size and miner competition. According to a Monero tweet, tail emission means that Monero miners are not entirely reliant on transaction fees and can thus guarantee a certain income regardless of the fee market. This level of security and assurance for miners represents a significant departure from Bitcoin's security model.
Monero's tail emission curve is also deflationary, at less than 1% inflation and decreasing over time to the point where issuance is negligible.
About the founders
Monero's origins can be traced back to Bytecoin, another privacy-focused blockchain. Following disagreements over Bytecoin's token distribution system, a Bitcointalk user using the pseudonym "thankful_for_today" forked the BCN codebase to create BitMonero. In 2014, as the community was coming to terms with these developments, seven community members forked BitMonero into Monero. Riccardo Spagni, known as "Fluffypony," led the Monero founding team. Over the years, it is estimated that more than 100 developers worldwide have contributed to the development of Monero.
Grayscale, a digital investment firm, revealed in March 2021 that it was actively considering launching a trust offering with Monero and other crypto assets such as Filecoin and Decentraland. Grayscale also established a Monero trust in Delaware. Grayscale's "Assets Under Consideration" page currently includes Monero.
In December 2017, Riccardo Spagni, Monero’s core developer, and Naveen Jain launched Project Coral Reef, allowing users to spend Monero at official merchandise shops for 45 musicians, including Dolly Parton, Weezer, Mariah Carey, and the Backstreet Boys.
Monero highlights
The Monero community agreed on a protocol upgrade in April 2022. It will be Monero's version 15 hard fork, and it will be released on August 13, 2022.
One significant change is the increase in the transaction ring size from 11 to 16. Monero enhances its untraceability by expanding the mixins, making transactions even more private and secure. Over the years, Monero has consistently raised the ring size in network upgrades, with the ring size being five back in 2017.
Monero's hard fork will also include Bulletproofs+, allowing for smaller proof sizes, faster proof generation, and faster verification with aggregation of multiple proofs. This could account for a 5% reduction in transaction size, signifying a significant step toward scalability for Monero.
