Monero (XMR)

As much as some criticize Monero’s volatility, it offers investors a chance to make a profit by selling when it is high and buying when it is low. Monero offers a permanent block reward which will never go below 0.03 XMR. This gives miners the incentive to mine this currency which keeps the blockchain secure.

Monero is unique and different from other cryptocurrencies in the following ways:

• Security. One of the features Monero boasts about is its security. Every transaction using Monero over its distributed peer-to-peer network is cryptographically secured. As a result, it is impossible to hack this currency making funds secure. This makes the user the only person responsible. Also, each individual account has a 25-word mnemonic seed which is displayed upon creation. This mnemonic seed can be used to backup and restore your account anywhere. Lastly, the encryption of account files ensures files are useless if stolen.
• Privacy and Anonymity. Using a cryptography-based system, Monero allows users to send and receive their funds in private as transactions are not revealed on Monero’s blockchain. By using ring signatures, stealth addresses and ring confidential transactions (Ring CT), Monero hides the transaction sender, receiver and amount respectively making all transactions on the network automatically private which means there is no chance of accidentally performing a transparent transaction.
• Inability to be traced. Another key distinguishing feature of Monero is in its untraceable nature. Through the use of ring signatures, Monero ensures that in addition to transactions being private, they have a measure of ambiguity which makes sure that transactions are nearly impossible to trace back to a particular user or computer. This makes Monero the best currency to use for online transactions as there is no risk of it being traced back to you.
• Fungibility Due to Monero’s high privacy levels, it also offers fungibility. This means that each unit of Monero will always be equivalent to another. As such, there are no differences between two different values of the same currency.

Monero can be gotten by those wishing to use it in two ways:

• Purchase. Just like other cryptocurrencies, those interested in investing in Monero can purchase it through eschanges such as Bitfinex, Poloniex and Krakeen. The first of these exchanges to list Monero was Poloniex, which in July 2014 listed right different currency pairs. Bitfinex and Kraken then followed suit in November 2016 and January 2017.
• Mining. Using a Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm that allows Monero mining to be accessible to a vast array of processors, Monero offers investors the chance to mine blocks either individually or by joining mining pools. Users do not require any specific hardware to mine Monero blocks because mining is open to different parties and not just large mining pools. Some Monero mining sites are supportXMR.com, xmrpool.eu, poolto.be, moneropool.com, minemonero.pro, and mixpools.org amongst others.