Monero (XMR) Cryptocurrency Explained (Beginner's Guide)

Monero was founded in 2014 and is known for being the ultimate Privacy Coin in Cryptocurrency. It is designed to be a peer to peer Digital Currency. 

To explain Monero in basic terms, if you go to a shop and buy a coffee paying with your bank card, there is a paper trail to link you back to that coffee shop at that time. HOWEVER, if you pay with cash, there is little to no evidence that you were there and if they handle in cash, that a coffee was even bought. This is basically the foundation of what Monero Cryptocurrency is based on. 

How does this compare to other Crypto Coins like Bitcoin? 

Monero was built on Cryptonote Protocol and yet, has completely different technology to Bitcoin (more on this below). 

As one sending Cryptocurrency to e.g. a merchant, once the funds are received, they can then see the equivalent of your Bank Statement.  

• Where you spend your Cryptocurrency

• Where you receive it 

• How often you use it and with who 

For those concerned with cyber security and anonymity, this is just not a convenient feature. 

“With Bitcoin or Ethereum, once you have transacted anything with your wallet, the person you transacted with can look at your wallet, see how much is in there, see how much you're spending, see which wallet it's going to, [and] see how much you've received.

If your bank provided that information to anybody who wanted it, would you be happy with your bank? I don't think so.
With privacy coins - and I keep saying Monero was the first and I still think the best, certainly the one used the most on the dark web . . . Nobody can see anything.

You can give them your wallet and they can see jack sh!t about what's in yours. They don't know who you are or where you came from. People looking at it don't know what you bought, who you bought it from, or what you sold or who you sold it to”. John McAfee Founder of McAfee Antivirus

How does Monero Privacy Work?  

Introducing Monero’s “Ring Confident Transactions”. RingCT (for short) mixes decoy addresses to scramble the ability to Identify what came from where. This supports the sender of Monero Coin to maintain their privacy. 

Now for the Merchants, Monero has what is called “Stealth Addresses”. Stealth Addresses are a one-time address that cannot be linked to any shared Monero address.  

This gives Monero an untraceable blockchain 

Isn’t all Cryptocurrency Anonymous? 

Technically no! Although your personal details are not on your wallet, everything else can be seen and makes it easier to link you to the address. The moment you give someone your wallet address and your name, your wallet can be linked to you. This is what Monero is designed to avoid. 

There is no access to an outsider with your address seeing your balance, transactions or any other recognisable features. 

With Moneros “One time Public Address” you get a fresh address for every transaction making it completely fungible. 

How do I start with Monero? 

Once you have obtained a complementary wallet for Monero you create 3 things. 

1. Private View Key - to signal incoming payments to your account 

2. Private Send Key - to make payments 

3. Public Address – receive Transactions 

When you are utilising Monero, unlike Z-Cash (do check out thetopcoins blog on this), all transactions ARE PRIVATE and non-optional. 

Who is behind Monero?

While David Latapie is the head of Monero these days, I do feel it’s safe to say, even the Monero team themselves like their privacy. 

Core Monero Team

• Ricardo “Fluffypony” Spagni 

• Luigi1111 

• NoodleDoodle 

• Smooth 

• Tacotime 

• Franciso “ArticMine” Cabanes 

• Other

What are the Key Features of Monero? 

Untraceable 

Adaptive Parameters 

Un-linkable Transactions 

Blockchain Resistant