What is Monero?
Monero (XMR) is a cryptocurrency that focuses on privacy. Many of its advocates will say that Monero is what Bitcoin SHOULD have been. Unlike Bitcoin, and most other cryptos, Monero uses advanced technology to conceal the identity of its users and the details of their transactions. Monero is currently the most popular “privacy coin”, and is widely used and trusted on the dark web.
How Does Monero Work?
Monero uses “ring signatures” to conceal the identity of its users. In a ring signature, a group of users each have a public key, and a transaction is signed with a combination of these keys. This makes it impossible for anyone to know which user in the group actually signed the transaction.
In addition to ring signatures, Monero also uses “stealth addresses” to hide the identity of the recipient of a transaction. In a stealth address, the recipient generates a unique one-time address for each transaction they receive, making it impossible for anyone to link multiple transactions to the same person.
Monero may soon implement something called” Kovri” (which uses similar tech to what can be found in the Tor browser) to help mask IP addresses by routing the transactions via I2P (Invisible Internet Project) network, making them even harder to trace. At the time of this writing, Kovri is not currently implemented.
Monero vs Bitcoin
The clear advantage to using Monero vs non-privacy oriented cryptos relates to privacy and anonymity. Monero allows the user to transact without revealing their identity or the details of their transactions. While Bitcoin addresses aren’t always directly linked to your identity, it’s a lot easier to figure out who you are and how much BTC you have when the entire blockchain is transparent.
Who Is Behind The Development of Monero?
Monero was originally launched in 2014 by an anonymous developer using the pseudonym “thankful_for_today”. Since then, a dedicated and decentralized team of developers has taken over the development and maintenance of the project. They have made several upgrades to the protocol over the years to enhance the privacy features.
“I have nothing to hide. Why use Monero?”
There are plenty of reasons to use Monero beyond “dark” market trading.
Just think in terms day to day usage. If Bitcoin saw widespread usage, every time you bought something, the recipient would be able to see your public key.
They could then take that public key, paste it into the BTC blockchain explorer and find out the value of the coins in that particular wallet.
This would be equivalent to revealing your bank balance to every cashier when you swipe your ATM card.
It’s completely impractical, and would raise a lot of safety concerns.
Have a large balance? Maybe you then become a target for robbery.
Privacy is a feature that a currency MUST HAVE to make it suitable for widespread adoption.
The Central Bank Digital Currencies Are Coming
They’re currently in the development and testing phase. Once they’re ready, we’re likely going to see a stronger push to move to a “cashless society”.
They’ll likely provide some sort of inventive at the start to entice people to move into their new system. Either that, or they’ll just attempt to crash the existing one so most people won’t have a choice.
One thing I’m sure of, though, is the fact that they want to have more control over us. A cashless economy with a programmable and centralized digital currency at its core is a dream scenario for them, and by “them”, I’m referring to the bankers who control the governments.
If you don’t want to have all your transactions monitored, and if you don’t like the idea of potentially being shut out of the financial system if you misbehave – well, you’re going to need some alternatives.
Gold will be good. Silver will be good. Barter in general will be good.
However, assuming the internet will still be open and accessible to all (it might not be), then a decentralized digital currency with strong privacy features (like Monero) will certainly be useful.
What partnerships does Monero have?
In addition to privacy and security, mass adoption is a primary goal for the developers. There seems to be a focus on making it easy to purchase everyday items with Monero (XMR).
They have recently released “Cake Pay”, which makes it possible to purchase gift cards directly from within the Cake Wallet or the Monero.com wallet.
Cake Pay provides users with access to gift cards from over 150,000 merchants throughout the United States. Only an email address is required, and the cards can be used in store or online.
Overall Thoughts on Monero
If you couldn’t tell by the tone of this article, I like the project and I feel Monero and similar privacy coins are going to see a lot more adoption over the coming years – mainly due to necessity.
Will governments attempt try to crack down on it? Most likely, but they’re tightening their grip on control and will be trying to ban a lot of things.
A couple years ago in some countries they even banned people from going to church and opening their businesses.
Will they be able to effectively ban private, decentralized currencies like Monero though? That might be a lot harder than they anticipate.
Privacy coins are freedom tools. If you’ve read this article on why decentralized currencies are so important, you understand that the control the ruling class has over us stems from the control they have over the fiat currency system.
With this new technology, we now have the opportunity to take that power back.
