With the introduction of cryptocurrencies such as Monero (XMR), or the popular Bitcoin we all know about, digital transactions have changed drastically. The question is: has it been for good?
Although we would love to give a complete answer, we need to focus on a token or crypto at a time to unveil this answer. But if we have to go for a short one: yes, it has been for good.
Now, as is Moreno involved in all this?
Moreno, one of the most well-known cryptocurrencies, is a prominent one that emphasizes privacy and censorship-resistant transactions and provides greater security for its users.
This currency’s main selling point is its simplicity. It is easy to mine and store for anyone who wants it.
It is worth considering, but remember that Moreno is an open-source cryptocurrency that relies on a complex public ledger. Basically, it can be quite hard to understand how it works.
Keep in mind that knowing the basics won’t always be enough to decide whether or not you want to invest in the currency. We will go into detail and explain how the currency works, how to store it, and how it differs from other cryptos on the market so we can be a helping hand in this process.
Basics First: What Is Monero (XMR)?
Although Bitcoin is the most widely used and popular currency on the market, there are many problems with it.
For example, users can be harmed by the privacy implications of every transaction or operation that is made using the currency. Bitcoin is incredible, but it is more a matter of being the first and quite prominent than the actual “few issues” people try to sell you.
It has many problems to solve, and many don’t consider them as they see a token that is worth thousands.
But what if a token is created to cover the main problem? Which is privacy.
Monero is the solution to Bitcoin’s privacy problems. For a long time, people believed that Bitcoin transactions would remain anonymous. This is a false assumption that most people now know since their information can be, believe it or not, easily leaked.
Many tools and services can be used to identify the person responsible for certain Bitcoin transactions.
Monero is introducing a new market approach to make sure this doesn’t happen. Monero places privacy first.
Therefore, it is the most preferred coin in the sector for people who wish to protect their personal information. Monero’s anonymization protocols work so well that many people use them to conceal their ownership of other coins.
Monero’s Story: Starting a New Era for Privacy
Monero’s story began in 2012. At this time, privacy coins were just starting to make a splash on the market. After the initial issues with Bitcoin and the other tokens it followed, it became clear that privacy is freedom in a virtual economy.
Monero’s journey starts with Bytecoin, a completely different project not many know about but is the foundation of the actual coin (which is XMR and Monero is more like the blockchain).
Bytecoin was groundbreaking for many reasons. It was the first digital currency created with a technology called cryptoNote.
CryptoNote combined multiple keys in one transaction, making it more difficult to trace who sent a transaction. The idea of grouping public keys together was not common at the time, but this technology is today the main foundation for most privacy-based cryptocurrencies on the market.
While the Bytecoin concept was a great success, some issues were with the coin’s launch strategy. The distribution of the initial coins was a subject of disagreement between developers.
Bytecoin was able to issue 80% of its coins right away. This led to Bitmonero, which is a privacy coin.
Bitmonero gathered seven top-ranking Blockchain developers. Two identities out of seven are not public. Riccardo Spagni, the principal developer behind this project, is the one most people know about.
The developers removed Bit from its title and chose Monero for the new project name to make the platform easier to use. Monero, which means “coin” (in Esperanto), brings privacy to a whole new level to ensure the quality of the transactions and people’s security.
How Advanced Cryptography Is Involved
Monero uses sophisticated cryptographic functions that make it difficult for anyone to link to any Monero cryptocurrency transactions. This technology sends and receives transactions but does not reveal the data.
Monero’s blockchain, on the other hand, can be monitored in real-time, which is a great benefit in the short and long term as many tokens don’t offer the same, not even close.
This was possible because the developers integrated advanced fungibility protocols. Fungibility is an important feature in most cryptocurrencies, but it is especially important for Moreno because trust can also be built from it.
Fungibility refers to the ability to exchange an asset or good with other assets of the same type.
Many commodities such as wheat, oil, and gold are fungible. You don’t have to exchange the exact same amount as you did before.
Bifurcated ledgers allow any user to send and broadcast transactions in every process, but outsiders can’t see the amount, source, or destination, which takes us back to the privacy feature.
Monero uses a Proof of Work system that is similar to Bitcoin’s. It issues new coins (MXR) and offers incentives to miners to verify transactions and secure the network. It also uses a CryptoNote protocol variant to make it more efficient on CPUs, which is the one we mentioned earlier.
Most cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin or Ethereum, are based on transparently verifiable transactions. This allows anyone to track your money.
The fact that financial records can be linked with personal identities raises privacy and security concerns. Monero employs powerful cryptographic techniques to create an anonymized network. This is how all privacy and security protocols can be achieved.
Principles Behind Monero (XMR)
Monero’s foundations were built on a number of principles that helped it stand out as a cryptocurrency. These principles are how the token and network work.
They can be a bit tricky to understand beyond the concept of “privacy,” and maybe some safety not many know about. However, it is a good approach to learn all this as long as you decide to invest in this coin or are thinking about it.
This is why we find it important to focus on the specific and important characteristics:
Decentralized Network
Monero’s ledger, network, and database can be found all over the world. This is why it is impossible to control or censor any server or database.
If a government tried to close down Monero nodes within their country, these efforts would be unsuccessful.
Financial Safety
Monero cryptocurrency does not have any weak points that could be used to steal funds. It is protected using immutable cryptographic techniques, which removes the need to trust others responsible for funds.
Financial Privacy
To increase security, most blockchain systems compromise privacy. Monero places user privacy first.
Monero ensures privacy by hiding transaction amounts and sender identities from the blockchain. This ensures that you can’t track your spending or storage activities.
Fungibility
Fungibility is the property of a commodity/asset where individual units can be replaced by one another. Monero’s fungibility is due to cryptocurrency’s sophisticated privacy policies.
If there are muddled transactions records, it is difficult to trace the history for any specific XMR.
ASIC Resistance
Monero uses an advanced hash algorithm, and mining is impossible without ASIC chips.
However, if you have these chips, you can mine Monero using CPUs and GPUs, increasing its decentralization potential.
Multiple Keys
Monero uses a unique set of keys that are different from those used by Ethereum or Bitcoin.
These keys are the public view, private see, public spend, and private keys. The public view key can be used to generate a stealthy public address.
You can use the Monero private key to verify that funds have been received. Also, you can check the Monero blockchain.
Public spending keys can be used to verify transaction signatures. Private spend keys are used for generating outgoing transactions.
What About Transactions? – How Do They Work?
Monero’s network transactions include both inputs as well as outputs.
To make this explanation simpler, Monero is sent to the receiver as outputs, and the network is consumed by the sender. It is basically the same concept of buyer and seller, but with some extras.
The transaction is broadcast on the Monero network. It is then grouped with other transactions to create a block. Each block will be validated by miners to ensure authenticity.
Input users are required to pay miners a fee in order to encourage them to join the network.
All transactions are chronologically stored on the blockchain after a block is accepted. The “block reward” is then distributed by the Monero network to miners.
Monero uses CryptoNight Proof of Work, which is a variant of CryptoNote to ensure security.
Four key pillars are used in Monero’s cryptography. These are Ring Signatures, Ring Confidential Transactions, and Stealth Addresses. It is important to understand them to know how you are safe in all this process:
Ring Signatures
They are used to protect the anonymity of the sender. Each signature is generated with the Monero user’s private key and unrelated public keys. A recipient cannot verify a transaction signed by another party if they don’t know which ring member created it.
Monero’s Ring Signatures permit signer-ambiguous transactions that cannot be forged, rendering currency flows impossible to trace.
Ring Confidential Transactions
Ring CT was launched in January 2017. This algorithm was created by Gregory Maxwell, a Core developer for Bitcoin.
This adoption further enhances anonymity in Monero transactions. It hides the amount being transferred, and miners also allow block confirmations to verify transactions.
The miners may not know the amount of Monero in each input or output, but they have to prove that all inputs and outputs are equal.
Stealth Posts
This address makes it impossible for anyone else to identify the destination of a Monero transaction other than the sender and receiver. It protects the identity and anonymity of the receiver.
Stealth addresses are unique and randomly generated for each transaction received by the receiver. All transactions will be sent to Monero addresses, even though a recipient may publish a wallet address.
Kovri
This i2p router is security-focused, written in C++. It is similar to Tor but does not have an entry or exit node and node hierarchy.
Kovri uses I2p garlic routing for a private overlay network that is accessible over the Internet. This network hides all Monero transactions.
Supply & Price: XMR’s Value
Currently, there are over 17.7 million XMR in circulation. You should also know that it has a fixed supply, unlike other cryptocurrencies.
In the first year, developers decided to increase the number of coins by a bit more than .85%. Each year, this percentage drops and makes it harder to have an actual reliable supply.
With this in mind, we can now focus on the part you care about the most: how much is Moreno or XMR worth.
Moreno is at $190 as of this writing. It has a few cents left to go and is quite affordable compared with many other currencies.
It is the combination of the privacy and security it provides and the cost that makes this option popular. If you choose to go for this option, it isn’t bad.
However, investing in it will require that you, somehow, find people who actually accept it, and although this isn’t actually that hard, it isn’t the top currency in today’s market.
It is high in rankings, but always do your research when you decide to invest in it.
Is It Really That Different from Bitcoin?
As mentioned above, Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency, but it is way too far from being perfect.
To protect participants’ identities, it uses pseudo-name addresses. These pseudo-names are random combinations of alphabets and numbers.
This is not the best way to protect privacy as both Bitcoin addresses and transactions are stored on the blockchain, which means they are accessible to anyone. Even pseudonymous addresses are possible to be made public and easily hacked.
On the contrary, Monero is fungible. This allows two currencies to be swapped without making any differences.
If we follow the logic of 1:1, like a $1 or two to be more specific, and the fact they are worth the same, they can’t be fungible as each one has a unique serial number.
Two one-ounce bars in the same grade of gold are fungible; however, because they have the exact same price and have no distinguishing features, this is possible.
The same analogy applies to our comparison, and Monero happens to be the gold bars.
Bitcoin decides to save the history of their transaction because it allows you to identify bitcoin units associated with fraud, gaming, theft, and other events and close, suspend, or block accounts with these units.
Imagine receiving a few bitcoins today that were once used to gamble. The bitcoins are banned, and you lose your money.
Monero’s transaction history cannot be traced, so participants are less likely to have their units rejected or blacklisted. However, you won’t be scammed as the blockchain uses another way to ensure users’ security and money.
What We Prefer Over Cryptos
It is smart to invest in cryptocurrency. However, it is important to consider the potential risks and the other options that could be a bit less volatile and still bring lots of money.
Besides, cryptocurrencies like Moreno take a lot of work because you need to learn the price but also how everything works and go deeper in all the elements we mentioned so far, and even learn more than this.
If you are interested in XMR’s goals and offerings as a private option and network, we believe it to be one of the most valuable digital currencies.
But, is this where you want to put all your money? If so, we suggest that you invest in more than one currency.
However, our current investment and business advice are to go for more tangible options in terms of how you can control them.
Lead generation, for example, is risk-free. It’s easy to learn and is very affordable. If you put in the effort, you can easily make thousands of dollars, and your ROI will be high.
It works as follows: Find clients who require websites and rank them. Next, generate traffic to bring leads (potential customers).
Each lead you generate is a lead that you get paid for. Although it can take much work in the beginning, you can get great results and even forget about future sites you build as this is passive income.
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