Monero – Privacy Currency

Happy Saturday, Crypt-o-financers! On my previous post, I provided an overview about Bitcoin. As Bitcoin is one of the first (if not the) cryptocurrency, it has it’s own flaws. One of which is that all the transactions are shown on a public ledger called blockchain. As a result, only the sender’s and recipients identity are hidden, but not the transactions, amounts and wallet addresses themselves. This privacy issue is being addressed by Monero. So here, you’ll have an idea on what’s Monero is all about and how the technology behind this keeps transactions more private (relatively) compared to Bitcoin.

Disclaimers: All images are courtesy of Google, CoinCentral website and Monero website. I'm also the author of similar content found in Wordpress.

Outline:

• About Monero
• Technical Details
• Characteristics
• Monero vs Bitcoin
• How Monero Achieves Privacy
• Monero Fork
• Monero Cons

About Monero:

• fork of Bytecoin
• 3 Key Values: 1) Security 2) Privacy 3) Decentralization

Technical Details:

Launched: April 14, 2014

Total coin supply: Initially 18.4 million coins (After this, there will be a permanent fixed production of 0.3 XMR per minute to balance out lost coins per year)

Algorithm: Proof of Work (PoW) using CryptoNight

Block reward: Smoothly varying

Block time: 120 seconds

Difficulty: Retargets at every block

Reference: https://files.coinmarketcap.com/static/widget/currency.js

Characteristics (courtesy of Monero Website):

1. Private and Censorship-Resistant Transactions

• uses cryptography to hide sending, receiving addresses and amounts transacted
  Cryptography (Wikipedia) – process of converting ordinary information (called plaintext) into unintelligible text (called ciphertext)

Cryptography (Wikipedia) – process of converting ordinary information (called plaintext) into unintelligible text (called ciphertext)

2. Confidential and Untraceable

• Monero will always be accepted without the risk of censorship

3. Open Source

• not owned by a corporation, volunteers all over the work dedicate their time and effort to work on the project

4. Allows Fast, Electronic Payments

• fast transactions, no risk of fraudulent chargebacks

5. Other Features

• Block limit is 0.3 XMR (monero) per minute
• Scalable
• has selective transparency – allows users to make certain transactions visible if desired
• uses ring signatures, ring confidential transactions (RCT) and stealth addresses to keep transactions private to protect both senders and receivers from prying eyes
• variety of desktop wallets, mobile and light wallets available for Monero

Bitcoin vs. Monero Comparison (courtesy of Coincentral)

How Monero Achieve Privacy?:

1. Ring Signatures protect the sender

2. Ring Confidential Transactions (RCT) hide the amount sent

3. Stealth addresses protect the recipient

Monero Forks:

1. Monero Zero (XMZ)

2. Monero Original (XMO)

3. Monero Classic (XMC)

4. Monero-Classic

5. Monero C (CXMR)

6. Monero V (XMV)

Monero Cons:

• Privacy - transaction originating IP addresses can still be tracked
• Mining can't be completely decentralized - currently, there's only 4 mining pools available
• Darkweb negative publicity - as a private currency, most are under the impressions that it's used as an alternative currency for hidden transactions done in dark web
• Network congestion due to large transaction size
• Development Challenges - can't be readily incorporated to multicoin wallets
• Limited Merchant Tools - making this a viable payment option

To conclude this, I can say that Monero is a viable alternative to Bitcoin when it comes to private transaction as it focused on Bitcoin's flaws when it comes to privacy. True enough, due to great innovation put into this, people start to see it's potentials and view this as a convenient digital currency that they can use. Currently, Monero is valued at around $200.00

I would like to thank Coincentral for providing me great material, content and references for this blog posts - an independent publication covering news and information on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and their underlying blockchain technology. They currently have more than 2.7 million visitors/month, after being launched just 5 months ago. If your interested in getting updated cryptocurrency news or information, you can subscribe to their newsletter here.

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For a detailed visual overview, click the links or watch the videos below.

More videos:

Monero Overview:

Monero Essentials:

Monero Stealth Addresses:

References: (for detailed information, click on the links below).

All images courtesy of Google, Coincentral and Monero Website

Coincentral -

https://coincentral.com/monero-vs-bitcoin/

https://coincentral.com/what-is-monero/

Monero Website -

https://getmonero.org/get-started/what-is-monero/