Exchange Monero (XMR)

Monero is an open-source blockchain network and cryptocurrency focused on privacy and censorship-resistant transactions. Most of the popular blockchains — for example, Bitcoin or Ethereum — are transparent, meaning anyone in the world can see the information about transactions on the network. That creates a risk of linking the sender’s or receiver’s wallet address with their real identity. On Monero the anonymity of the user is complete thanks to using various advanced tools to conceal real-world identities. 

On Monero all the information about the sender, receiver or amount send is anonymous. To make it possible the project utilizes three main technologies: Stealth Addresses, Ring Signatures, and Ring CT. Ring signatures mix a user's account key with public keys obtained from Monero's blockchain to make it computationally infeasible to determine the real source of the funds.

The combination of these two privacy-enhancing features makes Monero a very attractive option for those looking for increased confidentiality when conducting transactions.

Monero was launched in April 2014 through a fair pre-announced launch of the CryptoNode. Monero also employs stealth addresses, which are randomly generated one-time addresses created for each transaction. These addresses hide the recipient's identity as well as the amount being transferred.

Monero was originally launched by a group of seven crypto enthusiasts who were all active members of the Bitcointalk forum. The original developers were anonymous but later revealed themselves to be Riccardo "Fluffypony" Spagni, David Latapie, Francisco Cabañas, Lucas Jones, Thomas Porez, Derek Hsue, and NoodleDoodle. 

The initial name of the project was Bitmonero, but the community complained about the rushed launch and the pre-issuance of 80% of the total supply. So five days after the launch, the community insisted on forking the network, and the new blockchain was called just Monero. 

Monero was created as a fork of Bytecoin, which itself was a fork of CryptoNote. The main difference between Monero and other cryptocurrencies is that Monero uses a private ledger to record transactions, meaning that transactions cannot be seen or traced on the public blockchain. This makes Monero a much more private and secure option for those looking to use cryptocurrency.

Monero uses Randomx, ASIC-resistant and CPU-friendly Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism that was created by the Monero community members. It was designed to make the mining hardware infeasible. The blocks on the network are created every 2 minutes. There is no maximum block size: instead, it has a dynamic size and also a block size penalty that ensures the dynamic scalability of the network. 

The team has continued to grow since its inception and is now made up of over 30 core members from all around the world. The project is completely open source and anyone can contribute to it. Moreover, any major development-related decision is made public for discussion, and the development team meetings are published online. 

Monero has been gaining popularity due to its strong focus on privacy and decentralization. In addition, Monero is one of the few cryptocurrencies that has remained relatively stable in terms of price and mining difficulty, making it an attractive option for miners.

The XMR token is the native cryptocurrency of the Monero blockchain. It is used to power all transactions on the network and is also used to pay fees to miners who secure the network. The emission of the XMR token is infinite. There are two main emissions: the main curve, when over 18 million XMR tokens were issued by May 2022, and the tail curve, when miners received 0.6 XMR for a 2-minute block and that started right after the main curve ended. 

XMR can be used to send and receive payments or can be traded on exchanges for other cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies.

Average Fees on the Monero Network

The fees on the Monero network are quite low. The total amount depends on the size of the transaction/amount of the tokens send within the Network. The lowest fee on Monero is around $0.0010 and the highest is $0.98

As Monero has an adaptive block size, users don’t have to pay extra fees to speed up the transaction.

The XMR Wallets 

Monero is listed on most of the major exchanges and platforms, though due to its attribution to illicit markets, some exchanges refuse to list the token. In particular, the exchanges in South Korea and Australia have delisted Monero because of regulatory pressure. At the same time, XMR tokens still can be held in various crypto wallets, including 

Binance, Ledger, Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, Coinsmart, Cex.io, Exodus, Freewallet, etc.

Users can also hold XMR in a Monero wallet, which gives them full control over their funds and allows them to view all past transactions.