The leading privacy-focused cryptocurrency, using ring signatures, stealth addresses, and confidential transactions to obscure sender, recipient, and amount by default.
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Monero is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency launched in April 2014 as a fork of Bytecoin. It is the most widely-used privacy coin and the most studied private digital currency outside of Zcash. Unlike Bitcoin where transaction amounts and addresses are visible on a public ledger, Monero hides senders (via ring signatures), recipients (via stealth addresses), and amounts (via confidential transactions and bulletproofs) by default. Privacy is mandatory, not optional.
Ring signatures mix the actual signer's transaction with several decoy inputs, so observers cannot tell which input is the real one. Stealth addresses generate a unique one-time receiving address for every transaction, breaking the link between the published address and on-chain activity. Confidential transactions encrypt the amount being sent while still allowing the network to verify it does not exceed the inputs. Bulletproofs reduced the size and verification cost of confidential transactions starting in 2018. Monero uses RandomX, a CPU-friendly mining algorithm that resists ASIC dominance.
Private digital cash: payments where the parties want fungibility (the property that one unit is interchangeable with any other). Charity and journalism in oppressive regimes (e.g., Wikileaks, dissident funding). Some illicit use, which has driven law-enforcement scrutiny and exchange delistings. Even in legitimate use, Monero's privacy is a feature, not a workaround.
Privacy by default has come at a cost: many regulated exchanges have delisted XMR (Binance, Kraken in some jurisdictions) due to compliance pressure. Privacy is also computationally expensive: Monero transactions are larger and slower to verify than Bitcoin. Regulatory risk is real and ongoing in multiple jurisdictions. Supporters argue financial privacy is a fundamental right; critics point to the regulatory cost.
For broader privacy context, see the encryption and zero-day glossary entries.