#Monero Unveils #Tari, a Second-Layer Protocol Set to Compete With Ethereum

Monero (XMR) has introduced a brand new second-layer protocol called “Tari.” As a cryptocurrency, it will allow users to create and trade digital assets on top of the privacy-oriented cryptocurrency’s network.

Tari has initially been developed by lead Monero maintainer Riccardo Spagni, Naveen Jain, and Dan Teree. New headquarters have been developed in Johannesburg, South Africa for an initial centralization, which comes in the form of the Tari organization.

Riccardo Spagni revealed he developed the concept for Tari when asking himself about the importance of cryptocurrencies in the world of finance, with the likes of Bitcoin representing the most widely used of them. Tari aims at competing against Ethereum, due to the level of speed, flexibility and power that Ethereum affords for those that use it.

Tari, an open-source project, will reportedly allow developers to program and issue non-fungible assets like in-game items and concert tickets over the blockchain. It will allow users to take verifiable ownership of unique digital assets. Project co-founder Naveen Jain stated:

“Tari will fundamentally change the way we interact with digital assets. We are building an amazing team to steward the most useful decentralized platform in existence, empowering anyone to issue, manage, use and transfer their digital assets.”

Naveen Jain
One of the features that originally made users enamored with cryptocurrency was the fact that privacy and immediate transparency were equally possible using them. With Tari, users are free to decide on the level of privacy that they want for their transactions.

This is possible through Tari's toggle feature and presents a real solution to many of the issues companies currently face with transparency. This is particularly true when considering the controversy surrounding Intel in January, when the CEO sold a large volume of stock as part of an established plan from 2015.

According to Monero's subreddit, while the project will initially be somewhat centralized, the intention is to hand it over to users within the community that seek to collaborate with the Monero team in the future.

The project, according to the subreddit, has received financial backing from various venture capital firms, including Trinity Ventures, Pantera Capital, Blockchain Capital, and Canaan Partners.

As Tari will be structured as a sidechain to Monero’s network, merged-mining will be enabled, meaning users will receive Tari rewards from mining XMR. At present, there’s no timeline or roadmap for the project’s future developments.