What is Monero?
How does it work?
Is it completely anonymous?
Why would I even need an anonymous coin?
Well stick around,
in this episode of Crypto Whiteboard Tuesday,
we’ll answer these questions and more.
Hi, I’m Nate Martin from 99Bitcoins.com
and welcome to Crypto Whiteboard Tuesday
where we take complex cryptocurrency topics,
break them down
and translate them into plain English.
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Today’s topic is Monero,
a private decentralized cryptocurrency.
But what does “private” actually mean?
First, let’s clarify the difference between privacy and anonymity.
Privacy means that
you don’t want others to know what you’re doing.
While anonymity means that you don’t mind that
people know what you’re doing,
you just don’t want them to know that you’re the one doing it.
For example,
privacy is when you lock the door to a bathroom
because you want to keep what’s going on in there….
well... private.
Anonymity is when you post data that can’t be linked back to you
on the web
in order to bring something to the public’s attention.
If you look at Bitcoin,
it’s certainly not private.
The Bitcoin blockchain is completely public
and all transactions can be viewed by anyone on the web.
If you want to keep your privacy in Bitcoin,
you’ll have to use transaction mixers, VPNs and a variety of other methods.
Bitcoin is also not completely anonymous.
On the one hand,
the blockchain shows how many Bitcoins were sent
from which address and when.
On the other,
without any additional information
it’s impossible to connect a Bitcoin address
to a real life identity
(also known as an IRL).
So Bitcoin is pseudonymous.
Enter Monero.
Monero aims to be a private cryptocurrency
that doesn’t expose who sends how much to whom.
Transactions on Monero are untraceable and unlinkable,
so you can’t tell where they originated from
and you can’t connect any two transactions together.
Now, you might be asking yourself who really needs a private coin?
Isn’t that stuff only for criminals?
Well, while criminal activity can benefit a lot
from a private cryptocurrency,
there are more than enough legitimate reasons for privacy as well.
For example,
with the amount of data being displayed
on blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum,
it's become easier these days
to identify patterns, map real life identities,
connect between addresses
and uncover behavioural information about users.
So, if you don’t like companies analyzing your data
in order to map out your behavioural or purchasing patterns,
you may consider using a private cryptocurrency.
Additionally,
since all address balances are completely transparent,
you may become subject to attacks
if you hold large amounts of Bitcoin.
Another thing to consider is market prediction.
If I know a certain address belongs to an exchange,
I can track it for incoming transactions.
If I see a large amount coming in,
then I can assume that a big sell order may be on its way
and short the currency for profit.
In a truly perfect market, such loopholes wouldn’t exist.
And finally we come to the issue of fungibility.
Fungibility means that currency units
should be completely interchangeable with one another.
Simply put, if I have a $20 bill,
it shouldn’t matter to you where it came from
or when it was made.
A $20 bill is just a $20 bill,
and it’s equivalent to any other $20 bill you can find.
However, in Bitcoin, for example, you can trace each coin back,
even as far as to when it was first created as a mining reward
which is known as the Coinbase transaction.
So, if somewhere along the way this Bitcoin was used for illegal activity,
you may find some law enforcement agency
knocking on your door
as part of some investigation they are running.
While this is all theory for now,
it could happen since Bitcoins are 100% traceable.
So you might have different prices for freshly minted Bitcoins
as opposed to “used” Bitcoins.
For Bitcoin to truly become a currency,
it will have to deal with this fungibility issue.
On the other hand,
a private coin that can’t be traced has complete fungibility.
As you can see,
there are numerous use cases for using a privacy coin such as Monero.
So what is the difference between Monero
and other privacy coins like Dash or Zcash?
Well, while other coins like Dash and Zcash
offer the option for private transactions,
in Monero
all transactions are private without exception.
Monero, meaning “coin” in esperanto, started out in 2014 as a fork of Bytecoin,
the first private cryptocurrency to be created.
The Monero protocol obfuscates
the 3 parts of any cryptocurrency transaction -
the sender, the receiver and the amount sent.
Let’s see how this is done for each part.
To obfuscate the sender’s identity,
Montero uses ring signatures.
When a person signs a Monero transaction,
their signature is combined with past signatures
from the Monero blockchain.
These act as decoys and make it impossible
for an outside observer to determine who actually sent the transaction.
The amount being sent is obfuscated by ring confidential transaction,
or ringCT for short.
I won’t go into the technical aspect of how ringCT works,
but suffice to say that
instead of broadcasting the actual amount being sent,
the user transmits only a small random looking piece of information.
This information is enough to verify that the amount being sent is legit
while keeping the actual amount private.
And finally, we want to obfuscate the receiver.
This is done through the use of stealth addresses.
A public Monero address is a 95 character string
that starts with a 4.
However, when I send funds to that address,
the funds are actually sent to a different address.
So for example, if I’m the recipient,
funds are sent to a one time stealth address
that is derived from my public address.
This creates a separation between my public address
and the funds sent to me so no one is able to know my balance.
Only the recipient’s private key “knows” they can spend funds
from that 1 time stealth address
and each time the Monero wallet launches
it will scan the blockchain for addresses it can spend
in order to know the actual balance.
While all of the transaction data may be obfuscated,
the sender’s IP address can still be tracked.
That’s why there’s one additional feature on Monero’s roadmap:
Kovri.
Kovri reroutes your transaction through multiple virtual nodes
so that your IP address is also obfuscated.
Kovri is not yet integrated with Monero but is in active development.
So there you have it,
a completely private cryptocurrency that hides the sender’s address and IP,
the amount being sent and the recipient's address.
Now let’s talk a bit about Monero’s currency XMR.
Similar to Bitcoin,
XMR is mined through computers
that guess the solution to complex math problems,
also known as Proof of Work.
However, the algorithm used to mine XMR,
called CryptoNight,
is completely different than the SHA-256 algorithm
used to mine Bitcoin.
CryptoNight is an ASIC resistant algorithm.
This means that you won’t be able to mine more XMR
if you have a more powerful computer.
Even with a GPU,
your mining advantage won’t be as substantial as it would be
with other coins.
This makes XMR still open to mining with your personal computer,
something that is completely out of the question
with more popular coins like Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Since CryptoNight allows personal computers to mine Monero,
it quickly became a very popular option for browser mining.
Browser mining occurs when a site that you visit
uses your computer’s CPU to mine in the background
while you’re visiting the site.
You can learn more about it in our Bitcoin mining tutorial.
Also, unlike Bitcoin which is limited to 21M coins,
there’s no limit to how many XMR can be produced.
New XMR is issued each time a block is mined,
every 2 minutes on average.
The actual reward varies and decreases over time.
By May 31, 2022, 18.4 million XMR will be in circulation
and the reward size will become fixed
with 0.6 XMR being distributed with each new block.
That’s it for today’s episode of Crypto Whiteboard Tuesday.
Hopefully by now you understand what Monero is -
A private decentralized digital currency.
I also hope you have a better grasp of why privacy is important
not only for criminals.
You may still have some questions.
If so, just leave them in the comment section below.
And if you’re watching this video on YouTube,
and enjoy what you’ve seen,
don’t forget to hit the like button.
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Thanks for joining me here at the Whiteboard.
For 99bitcoins.com, I’m Nate Martin,
and I’ll see you… in a bit.