Privacy Cryptocurrencies… Checking Out Monero (XMR)

Privacy cryptocurrencies are one of the spaces I like most in the cryptosphere. Privacy is a basic right. More governments than ever are banning cash. So I think when the mainstream catches on to cryptocurrencies, they’ll want to own some cryptos that offer privacy.

The biggest one, a top 10 coin with a $1.3 billion market cap, is Monero (XMR).

A little history, Monero was a fork of Bytecoin, which was the first implementation of CryptoNote.

The development is led by Ricardo Spagni, aka Fluffy Pony, David Latapie, and five other anonymous developers. Definitely follow Fluffy Pony on Twitter. He’s funny is and currently on Barry Silbert’s s**t list… and he wears it like a badge of honor.

Monero has some unique features. One is dynamic scalability. It basically means the Monero blockchain does not have a pre-set limit on the size of its blocks.

It’s also ASIC-resistant. That means you don’t need specialized computer hardware to mine Monero. It can be done, but Monero has made it so it’s not worth the cost. You can mine Monero with a CPU or GPU.

The way it stays private is through the use of multiple keys and a technology called ring signatures. Basically, each transaction creates both multiple sending and receiving addresses and transaction amounts. And that makes it so it’s impossible to figure who sent what to whom and for how much.

As you can see from the chart above Monero is having a nice year. The most recent pop in price happened when it got added to South Korean exchange Bithumb. That’s one of the biggest and it caused XMR to triple in price.

As of right now it has given a lot of that back. But I expect if it got to around $60 some buying would come in.

I read somewhere Monero passes the exchange test. That where you can’t trace a transaction from an exchange to the user’s wallet. An important feature in my opinion. What’s cool though is that LocalMonero is coming. So maybe you can just buy some from a friendly neighbor.

What do you think of Monero?

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