What is Monero?

Monero is an open source & decentralised cryptocurrency, with a focus on private and censorship-resistant transactions.

A talk by Richard Jones at Cryptocurrency Chesterfield on 10/09/18

A brief history

  • Launched in April 2014

    It was a fair, pre-announced launch of the CryptoNote reference code. Not a fork of Bitcoin.

  • Security, Decentralisation & Privacy

    Similar values to Bitcoin, but with a focus on privacy.

  • Monero means 'Coin' in Esperanto

    The Monero Project uses Esperanto derived words to name its products.

Monero is different

  • No company
  • No offices
  • No CEOs or employees
  • No premine
  • No fast/instamine
  • No developer taxes

Why Monero when we have Bitcoin?

  • Bitcoin isn't that anonymous

    Bitcoin's blockchain is completely transparent, giving each coin its own history, with addresses that can be linked to real people.

  • Blockchain Analysis

    Exchanges
    Law Enforcement
    Companies

  • Bitcoin privacy is worse than banks

    There is still a level of privacy using electronic banking.

Why does financial privacy matter?

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, right?

  • Personal risk

    People don't want to let other people know how much money they have.

  • Purchasing habits

    People might not want individuals/companies/governments knowing what they legally purchase.

  • Commercial leverage

    If you are a high value individual, you might be presented with higher prices.

  • Business secrets

    Companies require privacy from their competitors.

Bitcoin isn't so good at privacy.

Why does blockchain privacy matter?

Where is Monero stronger in this area?

  • Censorship resistance

    If your addresses/IP are known and broadcasted, your transactions can be blocked.
    Monero improves on this by obsucring addresses.

  • Fungibility

    Good money is fungible. Each unit is indistinguishable from other units of that money.
    Monero improves on this by not recording a traceable history of its units.

Fungibility is simply that it doesn't matter where any given unit of currency came from; one unit is worth as much as any other unit.

The reason we have fungibility is because otherwise the currency wouldn't work; if every time you received a euro, you had to open a database and check the provenance, currency wouldn't work. Not just because you would have to track a database that was perfect and always updated, but because no euro would be worth one euro.

Fungibility is understanding by law, practice, and technology that every unit is treated as indistinguishable. Bitcoin is somewhat fungible. You can trace the provenance of every coin; by custom we don't do that but we are beginning to see some companies do it, which is a problem.

If accounts start being frozen because of where bitcoins came from three transactions ago, that's a problem. Fungibility is tied to privacy and anonymity.

There are systems being made where you can't tell the amount being transacted, who the sender and receiver are. Banning technology, especially open-source technology, because criminals use it only usually affects the people who aren't criminals: the innocent and the idiots. People should be able to protect their money from predators, from corporations, from tyrannical governments.

Andreas Antonopoulos

Why is optional privacy a problem?

  • Infrequent use of privacy features

    When users are given the option to use privacy, they often stick with the transparent default and only use private features when they need it. These private transactions will stand out.

  • Smaller anonymity sets

    With fewer private, compared to transparent transactions, the success of deducible chain analysis increases.

  • Receiving tainted coins

    For example, if you are a merchant, how can you be sure that you aren't receiving money that has already been tainted?

Monero's transactions are private by default. It is currently the most fungible cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin transaction

A standard Bitcoin transaction and data left on the blockchain.

  • 🧑

    Sender: Alice's address

    1FtdheFq6kRmdALPEyg7Yt5jHnFv2MFkvS

  • 1.54 BTC

  • 👱

    Receiver: Bob's address

    1GA56TH2zhCAmTadh6WzXjrAyFp5xi4iHY

How does Monero work?

A standard Monero transaction and data left on the blockchain.

  • 🧑

    Sender: Alison's address

    ?????????????

  • ??? XMR

  • 👱

    Receiver: Bob's address

    ?????????????

  • Ring Signatures

    Obscures the money's origin

  • RingCT

    Hides the amount being sent

  • Stealth Addresses

    Hides the participant's addresses

Monero's other features

  • Kovri

    I2P router to obscure IP addresses

  • Monero Research Lab

    PhD geniuses

  • Bulletproofs

    Reduces transaction size & fees by ~80%

  • ASIC resistant

    Variable POW algo

  • Adaptive blocksize

    More transactions = bigger blocksize + lower fees

  • Tail emission

    2022, disinflationary 0.6XMR per block

  • Optional transparency

    Money received can be audited if required

  • Regular software updates

    Hard fork every six months

Monero's downsides

  • Usability/adoption

    But always improving

  • Scalability

    Bulletproofs, MRL, Tari

  • Ring Signatures

    MRL, ZKStarks

Monero wallets

  • Official CLI & GUI

    Windows, MacOS, Linux, others

  • MyMonero

    Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, Web

  • Monerujo

    Android

  • Cake Wallet

    iOS

  • X Wallet

    iOS

  • Edge Wallet

    iOS, Android

  • Ledger Nano S

    Using the official CLI/GUI

  • Kastelo (soon™)

    Official community made hardware wallet

Monero on exchanges

  • Bisq
  • Kraken
  • Poloniex
  • Binance
  • Bitfinex
  • xmr.to

Questions?

getmonero.org
kovri.org
/r/monero
@monero
monero.stackexchange.com
monero.how