Fornite fans and Monero owners rejoice! Merchandise for the hottest online game around is now allowing its customers to purchase their merchandise with Monero.While no official statement has been released, folks on Reddit and Twitter have stated they are capable of purchasing the latest and trendiest merchandise, such as skull trooper pullover hoodie or a durr burger onesie, and pay it all with the help of Monero.If you check out our “Straight Forward Guide To Monero (XMR)“, you’ll understand why Monero has become one of the most popular cryptocurrency in the market at the moment, mainly due to its coveted privacy features that are included to its credibility.At the moment, users based in the United States and Europe are capable of utilizing this option of paying for the merch in Monero.The payment platform is used to facilitate this is the Swiss platform Globee, which has also provided similar options for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Classic, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Decred, and Ripple.This isn’t the first time cryptocurrency and gaming have united to help each other out. Cryptocurrency is incredibly popular among video game players, mainly due to many of them being advocates of cryptocurrencies, so it’s no surprise they’d take to it with open arms.Reaction throughout various social media has been highly positive towards this recent news, with many Monero users cheering this adoption.Too cool: the Fortnite merch store (https://t.co/KNL4IFCFHk) lets you pay in Monero, so now you can purchase that sweet Durrr Burger onesie without your friends / family / coworkers judging you. https://t.co/XYs1NjGvGp— Riccardo Spagni (@fluffypony) January 1, 2019Too cool: the Fortnite merch store (https://t.co/KNL4IFCFHk) lets you pay in Monero, so now you can purchase that sweet Durrr Burger onesie without your friends / family / coworkers judging you. https://t.co/XYs1NjGvGpWith Fortnite merchandise being purchasable with the use of Monero, the cryptocurrency will definitely see a significant boost in adoption during the coming weeks. For those of you who are thinking about adopting Monero into your growing portfolio, this might just be the time to do so!Are you planning to purchase Fortnite merch with Monero? Show less

monero-wallet-cli is the wallet software that ships with the Monero tree. It is a console program, and manages an account. While a bitcoin wallet manages both an account and the blockchain, Monero separates these: monerod handles the blockchain, and monero-wallet-cli handles the account. This guide will show how to perform various operations from the monero-wallet-cli UI. The guide assumes you are using the most recent version of Monero and have already created an account according to the other guides. Since the blockchain handling and the wallet are separate programs, many uses of monero-wallet-cli need to work with the daemon. This includes looking for incoming transactions to your address. Once you are running both monero-wallet-cli and monerod, enter balance. This will pull blocks from the daemon the wallet did not yet see, and update your balance to match. This process will normally be done in the background every minute or so. To see the Balance: 64.526198850000, unlocked balance: 44.526198850000, including unlocked dust: 0.006198850000 In this example, Balance is your total balance. The unlocked balance is the amount currently available to spend. Newly received transactions require 10 confirmations on the blockchain before being unlocked. unlocked dust refers to very small amounts of unspent outputs that may have accumulated in your account. You will need the standard address you want to send to (a long string starting with '4'), and possibly a payment ID, if the receiving party requires one. In that latter case, that party may instead give you an integrated address, which is both of these packed into a single address. Replace ADDRESS with the address you want to send to, AMOUNT with how many monero you want to send, and PAYMENTID with the payment ID you were given. Payment ID's are optional. If the receiving party doesn't need one, just The payment ID is implicit in the integrated address in that case. Specify the number of outputs for a transaction: Replace MIXIN with the number of outputs you wish to use. If not specified, the default is 4. It's a good idea to use the default, but you can increase the number if you want to include more outputs. The higher the number, the larger the transaction, and higher fees are needed. If you have your own Monero address, you just need to give your standard address to someone. You can find out your address with: Since Monero is anonymous, you won't see the origin address the funds you receive came from. If you want to know, for instance to credit a particular customer, you'll have to tell the sender to use a payment ID, which is an arbitrary optional tag which gets attached to a transaction. To make life easier, you can generate an address that already includes a random payment ID: This will generate a random payment ID, and give you the address that includes your own account and that payment ID. If you want to select a particular payment ID, you can do that too: integrated_address 12346780abcdef00 Payments made to an integrated address generated from your account will go to your account, with that payment id attached, so you can tell payments apart. Proving to a third party you paid someone If you pay a merchant, and the merchant claims to not have received the funds, you may need to prove to a third party you did send the funds - or even to the merchant, if it is a honest mistake. Monero is private, so you can't just point to your transaction in the blockchain, as you can't tell who sent it, and who received it. However, by supplying the per-transaction private key to a party, that party can tell whether that transaction sent monero to that particular address. Note that storing these per-transaction keys is disabled by default, and you will have to enable it before sending, if you think you may need it: You can retrieve the tx key from an earlier transaction: get_tx_key 1234567890123456789012345678901212345678901234567890123456789012 Pass in the transaction ID you want the key for. Remember that a payment might have been split in more than one transaction, so you may need several keys. You can then send that key, or these keys, to whoever you want to provide proof of your transaction, along with the transaction id and the address you sent to. Note that this third party, if knowing your own address, will be able to see how much change was returned to you as well. If you are the third party (that is, someone wants to prove to you that they sent monero to an address), then you can check this way: Replace TXID, TXKEY and ADDRESS with the transaction ID, per-transaction key, and destination address which were supplied to you, respectively. monero-wallet-cli will check that transaction and let you know how much monero this transaction paid to the given address. Getting a chance to confirm/cancel payments If you want to get a last chance confirmation when sending a payment: If you received a payment using a particular payment ID, you can look it up: You can give more than one payment ID too. More generally, you can review incoming and outgoing payments: You can give an optional height to list only recent transactions, and request only incoming or outgoing transactions. For example, will only incoming transfers after block 650000. You can also give a height If you want to mine, you can do so from the wallet: This will start mining on the daemon usin two threads. Note that this is solo mining, and may take a while before you find a block. To stop mining: Show less

Monero doesn’t enjoy the popularity that many other cryptocurrencies of similar market capitalization do. Despite this, it has attracted quite a loyal following, and respect amongst the cryptocurrency community. A section of the masses even calls it ‘what Bitcoin was meant to be’ Monero is a decentralized blockchain which allows for complete anonymity of the transactions of its users when they use its network. Its cryptocurrency is denoted by the symbol XMR, with a total supply of 18.4 million coins.The coin was born in April 18th, 2014, originally named ‘BitMonero’, from a hard fork of another coin called Bytecoin – which had been plagued by issues such as hacks and vulnerabilities. Within a week, the name was updated to Monero.Monero uses the CryptoNight algorithm to secure its network and offer privacy to its users. This is different from Bitcoin’s SHA-256 algorithm that its miners use. Monero boasts of a dedicated community of developers who continue to innovate and push new changes to Monero technology fairly regularly. It is not promoted by any single organization, but is instead a community effort from all over the globe.Riccardo Spagni is the most popular amongst its development team.He joined in on Monero development in 2014 and has led the way in many of its updates.Monero’s first transaction was a painting purchase. It sold for 2500 XMR – valued at about $1500-3000 back then, which would be worth USD 325,000 as of June 2018.In 2017, Monero expanded its privacy features when Gregory Maxwell’s algorithm – Confidential Transactions – was implemented in Monero. Now, even the amount value in transactions (and not just sender/receiver details) could be hidden. Monero runs on the CryptoNight algorithm, which is distinct from the SHA-256 algorithm Bitcoin runs on. The algorithm emerged from the CryptoNote protocol, which allows for transactions on the blockchain to be ‘mixed’ with each other, making it difficult to trace where they actually originated from. Since multiple sets of transactions being conducted on the Monero network are mixed with each other (a process called ‘ring mixing), it is fairly difficult to trace the source and origins of funds in them. A real-world analogy would involve multiple groups of senders pooling in their cash into a common pool, and having the receivers take away the amount they are owed. Except that in Monero, even the amount taken away would be hidden. The algorithm is also not compatible with ASICs(Application Specific Integrated Circuit). This allows for more decentralization since people with powerful machines cannot mine Monero and gain a larger control on the network. Monero mining can be done exclusively via Central Processing Units (CPUs) or Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). Privacy: Privacy is Montero’s USP – it allows for truly anonymous transactions that cannot be traced. No one else can also see your wallet balance – which is a much-needed feature for many cryptocurrency users.Fungibility: Monero is truly fungible, unlike many other cryptocurrencies. Fungibility refers to the characteristic of equal units of currency to be valued equally regardless of their source, usage or any other effect. This feature isn’t shared by many cryptocurrencies since blockchains are public, and coins can be blacklisted based on their source. For eg., if you receive bitcoins that were stolen from a hack, exchanges or other receivers could refuse to accept them, for no fault of your own. With Monero being truly untraceable, every unit of Monero has the same value.Decentralisation: Many cryptocurrencies are decentralized, but to a limited degree. With ASIC miners minting a lot of the coins that are produced every day, the supply of these cryptocurrencies is disproportionately controlled by a few people. With Monero mining only possible via CPUs and GPUs, it is a more decentralized cryptocurrency. Despite not sharing the same popularity as other coins, the Monero cryptocurrency has found itself listed and supported on multiple major exchanges – such as Binance, Bittrex, Cryptopia, OKEx and more.It is very often paired with BTC, but has also been introduced to ETH and USDT pairings, and in some cases – even fiat currency like USD. With the XMR cryptocurrency being available with over 80 pairings across nearly as many exchanges, it can get difficult to get the best price for your transactions. Which is where cryptomite steps in? While cryptocurrency exchanges provide you a platform to buy or sell the XMR cryptocurrency, cryptomite comes in to help you make the right decision by providing the prices for XMR on multiple crypto exchanges. It supports more than 140 coins and 45,000 pairs of cryptocurrencies. You can choose whichever pair you want with your token and compare the prices at exchanges. This way you can choose the best deal for you!What’s more – with CoinSwitch, best cryptocurrency exchange you do not rely on a separate XMR wallet from the exchange to store your XMR cryptocurrency. Instead, all transactions happen to and from your own personal private wallets. Monero has a well-supported developer community, with a Monero Original wallet available on multiple platforms, including: WindowsMacOSLinuxAndroidHardware Monero wallet integrations – like Ledger and Trezor. As of June 2018, its market capitalization stands at $2.6 billion, putting it in the top 15 cryptocurrencies of the world. The total supply of the Monero cryptocurrency (XMR) is about 15.42 million, with a value With privacy and anonymity becoming increasingly important in nearly all markets, Monero is very well placed to be at the center of the shift to privacy-centric technology. Monero has a fairly large history amongst the cryptocurrency industry, having launched in 2014. Priced at around $8 during the end of 2016, it rose with rapid pace to touch over $400 – giving its investors an impressive 50x returns in just about a year. As of May 2018, it was trading at upwards of $200 on global exchanges. Many analysts suggest it will eventually touch $1000 as well, with its increasing adoption and use cases being recognized by a wide range of sources. As discussed earlier in this post, Monero has multiple standout features making it unique from most other cryptocurrencies.It is entirely anonymous and private, unlike its counterparts Bitcoin and Ethereum, which lay bare their blockchains for everyone to take a look at.It is also truly fungible – a characteristic every ideal cryptocurrency should have, but is, unfortunately, lacking in many.Monero is also more decentralized since its CryptoNight algorithm helps in keeping ASICs away from Monero mining. This makes it a more equitable technology, and more resistant to power grabs from resourceful miners with powerful machines. Faster: A block is added to Montero’s blockchain every 2 minutes, compared to the far larger 5-10 minutes Bitcoin takes. From an investment perspective, even if you personally do not require privacy and anonymity in your transactions, it is undeniable that a significant chunk of the world’s market desires it. This makes investing in Monero has been gaining wide acceptance in privacy-centric sectors – which also includes controversial platforms such as websites on the dark net. This raises some concerns around Monero’s acceptability in the long term and whether it’ll face regulatory hurdles. Its developers have exhibited solid dedication to the project, with frequent updates and efforts to keep the network thriving and secure. $('head').append( $( '', { id : 'hide-sharre-count', type : 'text/css', html:'.sharrre-container.no-counter .box .count {display:none;}' } ) ); template: '{total}', $('#facebook').sharrre({ template: '{total}', $('#googleplus').sharrre({ template: '{total}', urlCurl: 'https://blog.cryptomite.co/wp-content/plugins/hueman-addons/addons/assets/front/js/sharrre.php', $('#pinterest').sharrre({ template: '{total}', description: 'Monero: Should you invest in Monero?' } $('#linkedin').sharrre({ template: '{total}', description: 'Monero: Should you invest in Monero?' } // Scrollable sharrre bar, contributed by Erik Frye. Awesome! var $_shareContainer = $(".sharrre-container"), startSharePosition = $_shareContainer.offset(),//object contentBottom = $_postEntry.offset().top + $_postEntry.outerHeight(), topOfTemplate = $_header.offset().top, topSpacing = _setTopSpacing(); var scrollTop = $window.scrollTop() + topOfTemplate, stopLocation = contentBottom - ($_shareContainer.outerHeight() + topSpacing); $_shareContainer.css({position : 'fixed'}); $_shareContainer.css( { position:'relative' } ); top: contentBottom - $_shareContainer.outerHeight(), left: startSharePosition.left, else if (scrollTop >= $_postEntry.offset().top - topSpacing){ $_shareContainer.css( { position:'fixed',top: '100px' } ); //top: scrollTop + topSpacing, left: startSharePosition.left, } else if (scrollTop < startSharePosition.top + ( topSpacing - 1 ) ) { $_shareContainer.css( { position:'relative' } ); top: $_postEntry.offset().top, left:startSharePosition.left, Show less

If you like your privacy, then there are a few altcoins on the market that can provide you with this. One of the main altcoins within the privacy sphere is the Monero cryptocurrency. Through Monero, your transactions cannot be traced like they are in Bitcoin, meaning that you can hide yourself from prying eyes. Privacy online is a key facet of crypto anarchy, which explains Monero’s popularity. Beginnings of Monero Monero originally began as a fork of the Bytecoin cryptocurrency. Bytecoin was one of the earliest coins to introduce what are known as ring signatures. This piece of cryptography groups public keys together during transactions, which allows you to hide who sent them. Whilst this new technique was interesting, thereThe post An introduction to Monero appeared first on Coin Rivet.If you like your privacy, then there are a few altcoins on the market that can provide you with this. One of the main altcoins within the privacy sphere is the Monero cryptocurrency. Through Monero, your transactions cannot be traced like they are in Bitcoin, meaning that you can hide yourself from prying eyes. Privacy online is a key facet of crypto anarchy, which explains Monero’s popularity.Monero originally began as a fork of the Bytecoin cryptocurrency. Bytecoin was one of the earliest coins to introduce what are known as ring signatures. This piece of cryptography groups public keys together during transactions, which allows you to hide who sent them. Whilst this new technique was interesting, there were issues with the launch of Bytecoin for some. 80% of all the coins ever to be mined were created when Bytecoin launched, and this led to the fork and creation of Monero.One of the most famous faces of Monero is Riccardo Spagni. Hailing from South Africa, he is also one of the Magical Crypto Friends, a YouTube podcast series featuring Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin; Samson Mow, Chief Strategy Officer of Blockstream; and WhalePanda, a long-time Bitcoin believer and trader. Whilst Spagni has become the face of Monero, there is a clear effort from him to not be seen as the kingpin. Fears of centralisation as a result of Spagni having too much power have been swiftly rebuffed.Monero is unusual in that it performs a hard fork once every six months, generally to perform upgrades on the network. According to Spagni: “Having regular, timed hard forks forces users to update the very sensitive piece of security software they’re running, and benefit from all the patches, bug fixes, and reduced exploit vectors in newer versions. Being able to add functionality, and know that the whole network has access to it in-step with each other, is just icing on the cake.” “Having regular, timed hard forks forces users to update the very sensitive piece of security software they’re running, and benefit from all the patches, bug fixes, and reduced exploit vectors in newer versions. Being able to add functionality, and know that the whole network has access to it in-step with each other, is just icing on the cake.”Such hard forks have another effect other than just upgrades. To ensure the decentralisation of the mining network, Monero has begun to hard fork to stop ASIC mining. The first fork for this was in April 2018, soon after Bitmain released a product suited to mining Monero. Whilst such hard forks can help ensure the decentralisation of the network, one drawback is that due to the loss of power in hashing, the network could become less secure.Monero can also be seen as a testnet for Bitcoin. With the size of the network being much smaller than Bitcoin and with the main focus on privacy, Monero can introduce upgrades much quicker to its blockchain than would be possible on Bitcoin. This allows people to view the technology in real time and see whether such upgrades could be useful eventually for Bitcoin. One such upgrade was the introduction of Bulletproofs, which helped scale the Monero network and reduce transaction fees significantly.With fears over extensive KYC and blockchain tracing companies affecting the privacy of Bitcoin users, the new technology being implemented in the Monero blockchain could prove to be influential for the evolution of Bitcoin in the future.With Monero being a privacy-based cryptocurrency, it is constantly facing backlash from the powers that be. Whilst Bitcoin initially was seen as a tool for money laundering and the purchase of illegal goods, the non-fungibility of Bitcoin has made this more difficult in recent years. With Monero being a fungible cryptocurrency whereby no one can know who is using it, then theoretically the cryptocurrency would be ideal for replacing Bitcoin in this market. This is where much of the criticism for privacy coins comes from. In much the same way that cash is difficult to trace, so too is Monero.The privacy aspect can in effect make it difficult for Monero to be listed on cryptocurrency exchanges, especially exchanges operating in strictly regulated areas. With regulation of the industry still some way off though, it remains to be seen how Monero and other privacy coins will be viewed by states around the world.Privacy coins have an interesting future ahead of them. How the regulators will view them could be a very important moment for the whole cryptocurrency industry. Whilst a ban would be limiting, it might not be enough to kill off the usage of privacy coins due to their privacy features. Also important for Monero is the new cryptographic techniques that it brings to the cryptocurrency industry. Being an open source network, its new implementations can be useful for many other cryptocurrencies. With a solid development team coupled with a healthy community, Monero is well placed to be a leader among privacy coins.As many people argue, privacy is an essential tool of freedom in the ever-creeping surveillance state.The post An introduction to Monero appeared first on Coin Rivet. Show less

The privacy-centric cryptocurrency Monero includes unlinkable transactions in its main offering, meaning that a single coin cannot have its entire transaction history revealed. On Friday, a research called that assertion into question. The research paper, authored by Andrew Miller, Malte Moser, Kevin Lee and Arvind Narayanan, details research into how Monero transactions obfuscate their origins. It reveals how Blockchain analysis could potentially lead to Monero transactions traceable, particularly those taking place before 2017, being linked, showing the transaction history of certain coins. Cointelegraph spoke with Andrew Miller, assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and associate director for the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts, and one of the researchers cited in the Monero link paper, about the implications of these findings. Cointelegraph: What, in one sentence, were the findings of the paper? Andrew Miller: We found that a significant number of Monero transactions, mostly transactions made in 2014 through 2016, can be linked. CT: Can you define “linked” for the layperson? AM: In Bitcoin, each transaction points to a previous transaction, which is the coin that it spends. Monero is designed to obscure this linkage by including a bunch of fake coins, called mixins, along with the real coin. CT: How could this linking be done? Does software exist that could make this possible? AM: Yes, the linking can be done with a really simple algorithm. Anyone with a copy of the Blockchain could run this themselves. But it seems like no one has done it yet. CT: But this is not feasible with current versions of Monero, correct? AM: So to be more clear, we analyzed two ways of linking Monero transactions. The first one leads to “conclusive” linking like we can tell with 100 percent certainty that a particular transaction is linked to another. This method only applies to older transactions. The second way involves some uncertainty. There is a bias in how the “mixins” are chosen. You can guess that the “newest” coin is the real one and be right much more than if you guessed randomly. CT: Say I downloaded a Monero wallet right now and got some and tried to send them for a transaction. How linkable would a transaction be today? AM: I think it’s hard to speculate here, I don’t want to take a guess and say things outside what’s supported by the evidence reported in our paper! If you downloaded a wallet today and withdrew coins from an exchange today and then created a transaction to spend them, you would probably use RingCT and the default number of four mixins. That means that for the transaction you created, you would probably expect that an attacker would have a 1/5 chance of linking your “spend” transaction to the withdrawal. But actually, it’s worse than that, closer to 1/2 instead of 1/5. CT: Not so with old transactions though, right? Say I used Monero for some purchases in late 2015. Those might be linkable? AM: If you made a Monero purchase in late 2015, or even late 2016, there is unarguably a very good chance your transaction could be linked. Whether this de-anonymizes you or not depends on what other information the attacker has, like if they have records from where you received the coins (e.g. an exchange) or if they have records from where you spent the coins (e.g. a merchant). CT: I know hypotheticals are tough, but let’s say I bought some Bitcoin on an AML/KYC compliant exchange, exchanged it for Monero and made a purchase during that time period. One could theoretically track that purchase back to my identity? AM: If one could seize the logs from the merchant, then almost certainly. CT: You’re linked to Zcash, aren’t you? Why should anyone trust this research and not dismiss it as attempts to smear a competitor? AM: A fine question! Yes, I’m linked to Zcash, I’ve been a consultant for them for years, as well as Tezos, I’ve also consulted for Ethereum, and made sure to disclose this on the first page. It’s trite, but I think everyone should be distrustful of every claim and try to reproduce claims as much as possible. In this case, it should be straightforward. Here’s what I think is going on: The reaction I’ve seen from Monero folks is mostly “this is not new, we’ve known this since 2014” with reference to the MRL reports, which discuss the fundamental problems underlying our analysis. But I do not think that anyone yet has actually looked at the Blockchain to see how bad it is. I have not seen any software that does this analysis, nor seen a block explorer that reveals this, until ours. Hot markets… Powered by CryptoCompare Show less

This step-by-step guide on how to buy Monero (XMR) will walk you through the steps on buying Monero with USD on Binance safely and securely. These are the best ways to invest and trade XMR. This cryptocurrency buying guide is meant for for beginners and starting investors. You may also be interested in this Comprehensive Guide to Monero or browsing the Monero section of the site for Mining Monero. About Monero Monero has proven itself to be private, secure, untraceable, and trustless. Monero cant be hacked to steal your funds, due to the power of distributed consensus. This means that you are responsible for your own money, and dont have to trust any entity to keep it safe for you. The power of the blockchain usually increases security at the cost of privacy, but with Moneros sophisticated privacy-centric technology, you get all of the security benefits of the blockchain without any of the privacy trade-offs. By taking advantage of ring signatures, Monero makes it ambiguous which funds have been spent, and thus extremely unlikely that a transaction could be linked to any particular user. Because of its on-by-default privacy technologies, Monero is fungible, which means that one Monero will always be equal to another. This ensures that there will be no discrimination over the origin or history of your coins, lessening the worry of potential blacklisting by exchanges or vendors. This post has been updated for February: How to Buy Monero How to Buy Monero in the US Quick reference instructions, followed by more detailed instructions and screenshots below. Open an account onCoinbase.Open an account onBinance.Buy Ethereum ETH on Coinbase. ETH has a lower exchange and conversion fee and is faster than Bitcoin.Fund your Binance account with the Ethereum you just purchased. Note: Coinbase will charge a $14.25 transfer fee, so make sure you purchase and send enough to make it worth it. I recommend at least $500 at a time.Open the Exchange page on Binance and trade as you will. The reason you must fund Coinbase first is the company accepts FIAT currencies, i.e USD, EUR, etc. From there, you can take your FIAT converted to ETH and purchase Monero, or any other coin at Binance. These two companies are the most reputable I have currently encountered and used. Fees are reasonable compared to other options Ive tried. Fee roundup: Coinbase: $14.25 to transfer to Binance Binance: 0.1% trading fee. Binance: Free to withdraw from Binance back to Coinbase. Coinbase to Bank Account ACH: Free. Total estimated fees on a $500 investment based on January 2018 rates:$19.25 Binance Open an account in Binance. Verify as necessary. The further verifications provided, the more you can deposit and withdraw at a time. Click over to Funds, then Deposits and Withdrawals. You will be presented with a screen showing all of the available cryptocurrencies. Click on Deposit for Ethereum. You will be presented with an address to send your Ethereum to as a deposit. Copy the one time use address from Binance and paste it into the Coinbase accounts page under the Send button. The screenshot below shows BTC, but you will want to click on ETH. Once the fund have finished transferring, head over to the Binance exchange. Binance allows you to set limit, market, and stop-limit orders on buying and selling. You are on your own from here. Good luck! To withdraw from Binance, go back to the Funds Deposits and Withdrawals page and click on the Withdrawal button for whatever currency you have. Step by Step Instructions for using Binance Now that your Ethereum has been successfully added, you can click Funds, then Deposits Withdrawals. Right in front of the coin you transferred, the total balance should reflect the value of Bitcoin or Ethereum you transferred. Click on Exchange, right beside the Binance Logo, then select the Basic option.On the Exchange page, look to the top right corner where you find the market pairs section above Trade History.Look for the market pair you want to exchange. In this case, locate the XMR/ETH pair and click (search for XMR/BTC if you funded your account with Bitcoin).The page loads the XMR/ETH pair, and you are set to exchange your coins for XMR.Beneath the chart, locate Buy XMR section.The first box shows the value of ETH per XMR to be purchased.The second box is for you to enter the amount (number of coins) of XMR you want to exchange for your BTC or ETH you funded.Below the Amount box, you have options to use 25%, 50%, 75%, or all of your deposited funds to buy the XMR cryptocurrency.The total box shows you how much BTC or ETH you are paying to buy the quantity of XMR you entered.Click the Buy XMR button. Within some few seconds, you should have the XMR you have exchanged credited to your XMR wallet on the Binance platform. Your XMR cryptocurrency is now available to be sent out to your wallet outside the exchange. Is Monero (XMR) a Good Investment? Moneros Upcoming Developments Bulletproofs A Reduction in Transaction Sizes and Fees Since the introduction of Ring Confidential Transactions (Ring CT), transaction amounts have been hidden in Monero, albeit at the cost of increased transaction fees and sizes. In order to mitigate this issue, Bulletproofs will soon be added toreduce both fees and transaction size by 80% to 90%. This is great news for those transacting smaller USD amounts as people commonly complained Moneros fees were too high! Not any longer though!More information can be found here. Bulletproofs are already working on the Monero testnet, and developers were aiming to introduce them in March 2018, however it could be delayed in order to ensure everything is tried and tested. Multisig Multisig has recently been merged!Mulitsig, also called multisignature, is the requirement for a transaction to have two or more signatures before it can be executed. Multisig transactions and addresses are indistinguishable from normal transactions and addresses in Monero, and provide more security than single-signature transactions. It is believed this will lead to additional marketplaces and exchanges to supporting Monero. Kovri Kovriis an implementation of the Invisible Internet Project (I2P) network. Kovri uses both garlic encryption and garlic routing to create a private, protected overlay-network across the internet. This overlay-network provides users with the ability to effectively hide their geographical location and internet IP address. The good news is Kovri is under heavy development and will be available soon. Unlike other coins false privacy claims, Kovri is a game changer as it will further elevate Monero as the king of privacy. Mobile Wallets There is already a workingAndroid Wallet called Monerujoavailable in the Google Play Store.X Walletis an IOS mobile wallet. One of the X Wallet developersrecently announcedthey are very, very close to being listed in the Apple App Store, however are having someissues with getting it approved. The official Monero IOS and Android wallets, along with the MyMonero IOS and Android wallets, are also almost ready to be released, and can be expected very soon. Hardware Wallets Hardware wallets are currently being developed and nearing completion. Because Monero is based on the CryptoNote protocol, it means it requires unique development in order to allow hardware wallet integration. TheLedger Nano S will be adding Monero support by the end of Q1 2018.There is a recent update here too.Even better, for the first time ever in cryptocurrency history, the Monero community banded together to fund the development of an exclusive Monero Hardware Wallet, and will be available in Q2 2018, costingonly about $20!In addition,the CEO of Trezor has offered a 10BTC bountyto whoever can provide the software to allow Monero integration. Someone can be seen toalready be working on that here. TAILS Operating System Integration Monero is in the progress of being packaged in order for it to be integrated intoTAILSand ready to use upon install. TAILS is the operating system popularised by Edward Snowden and is commonly used by those requiring privacy such asjournalists wanting to protect themselves and sources, human-right defenders organizing in repressive contexts, citizens facing national emergencies, domestic violence survivors escaping from their abusers, and consequently, darknet market users. In the meantime, for those users who wish to use TAILS with Monero,u/Electric_sheep01has providedSheeps Noob guide to Monero GUI in Tails 3.2, which is a step-by-step guide with screenshots explaining how to setup Monero in TAILS, and is very easy to follow. Mandatory Hardforks Unlike other coins, Monero receives a protocol upgrade every 6 months in March and September. Think of it as aConsensus Protocol Update. Moneros hard forks ensure quality development takes place, while preventing political or ideological issues from hindering progress. Dynamic fees Many cryptocurrencies have an arbitrary block size limit. Although Monero has a limit, it is adaptive based on the past 100 blocks. Similarly, fees change based on transaction volume. As more transactions are processed on the Monero network, the block size limit slowly increases and the fees slowly decrease. The opposite effect also holds true. This means that the more transactions that take place, the cheaper the fees! Monero Research Lab Monero has a group of anonymous/pseudo-anonymous university academics actively researching, developing, and publishing academic papers in order to improve Monero. Seehereandhere. The Monero Research Lab are acquainted with other members of cryptocurrency academic community to ensure when new research or technology is uncovered, it can be reviewed and decided upon whether it would be beneficial to Monero. This ensures Monero will always remain a leading cryptocurrency. A recent end of 2017 update from a MRL researcher can be foundhere. Continue reading at ourComprehensive Guide to Monero Show less

Monero is a privacy-centric cryptocurrency, which provides untraceable and unlinkable transactions. The user’s transaction history cannot be followed on the blockchain, but you can still easily prove your ownership of funds if you need to. Monero uses the CryptoNote protocol which distinguishes it fundamentally from the Bitcoin protocol. The CryptoNote’s transactions cannot be followed through the blockchain in a way that reveals who sent or received coins. In the case of Monero, the transaction sender can’t know if the receiver spent the funds or where they went and the receiver can’t know where the funds came from unless proven by the sender. Second main point for using the CryptoNote protocol is the decentralization. ASIC mining is not profitable in Monero, thus making CPU mining for regular PCs possible. As a further step ensuring full privacy, Monero implements ring signatures. Ring signature is a type of digital signature that can be performed by any member of a group of people. If someone from the group signs a message or a transaction with his/her private key, it should be impossible for someone to determine which group member signed the transaction. Learn more about Monero on the official website. As of 19/07/2017 the market cap of Monero is $550,379,598. For more recent information please refer to coinmarketcap.com. Big thanks to the Monero community for the provided information. Bitcoin 1NFwzutctYkY88Ak8Ybovcypu58fdWvBp5 Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress Show less

Buying Monero isn’t quite as simple as buying Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ethereum but it isn’t complicated either. This article will be a quick guide on buying your first Monero. The way described below may not be the cheapest way but it will be the simplest way to currently go from your fiat currency to Monero if you have access to CoinBase. For other ways to buy Monero and other useful information on Monero, check out this introduction guide here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/5zgail/rmonero_newcomers_please_read_everything_you_need/ Your first step is to buy Litecoin by creating a CoinBase account. Read my article here: How To Buy Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum to get started with Litecoin. You will also receive an extra $10 in Bitcoin by using my link above if you buy at least $100 worth of Litecoin (or Bitcoin / Ethereum). Win win! Now that you have read the above article, you should have Litecoin sitting in your CoinBase wallet. CoinBase loves fees, so now that we have our Litecoin in our CoinBase wallet, we are going to move it from CoinBase to GDAX. GDAX is owned by CoinBase so moving to GDAX is instant and free. GDAX also does not charge any fees to withdraw to an external wallet. Note: We are withdrawing to an external wallet because we are using ShapeShift.io to convert to Monero. CoinBase is notorious for slow transfers and ShapeShift requires a limited window (5 minutes as of writing this) to receive your coins once a transfer is setup. Open up GDAX and choose LTC/USD pairing from the upper left drop down like the image on the left shows. Once selected, you will see a Deposit and Withdraw button. Choose Deposit and then choose the Coinbase account tab. You will now see the amount of LTC you have purchased. Since we are going to use all our LTC to buy Monero, copy and paste the amount of LTC from the left to the right and then hit the Deposit button. (See below) There are many wallets that you can use but I am going to recommend Exodus.io. It is a multi coin wallet so if you decide to branch out to other coins later, there is a good chance Exodus will have that coin as an option. Open up your Exodus wallet and choose Litecoin and click Receive. You should end up on a screen like below with your receiving address displayed (in my case: LP712oU4tVc5k5EyHjm7YCHp818iBdyoGJ Now that you have your receiving address, within GDAX hit the withdraw button and fill out the information like below (using your Litecoin address, obviously). Hit withdraw and your Litecoin is now on your way to your wallet! Now that you have your Litecoin in your Wallet the last step is to send it to ShapeShift.io to convert it to Monero. Open up ShapeShift and choose the setup below (LTC on left, Monero on right and then Precise) and then hit Continue. Once you have hit Continue you will be presented with more fields to fill in. The first thing we need to do is figure out how much Litecoin we will be sending. I am going to assume you want to send all of your Litecoin from your Exodus wallet and change it out for Monero. Bring up your Send window on Exodus and then click the All button. This will auto fill in your LTC amount and take into consideration network fees. Now that you have your LTC amount, copy it into the first field on ShapeShift. ShapeShift will automatically do a conversion for you, showing you how much Monero you will receive for your Litecoin. Now we need to provide ShapeShift with your Monero address. Note: You can get your address from the official Monero wallet or you can setup a wallet on MyMonero. You can refer to the beginning of this article and read the Introduction Guide if you need more info on this step. You do not need to fill in the Payment ID field to receive Monero. Leave this field blank. The last step is to provide your return Litecoin address in case something goes wrong and ShapeShift can not do the conversion for you. You can use any address you like but we will simply use our Exodus wallets Litecoin address that we used to receive Litecoin from GDAX. Once everything is field out you should have something similar to below: Click Start Transaction and then you will see the following: Take the Deposit address given by ShapeShift and paste it into your Exodus wallet. Click send and now your Litecoin is n the way to ShapeShift. It should only take a few seconds before ShapeShift will see the transaction and start monitoring it. Just leave the window open and wait for confirmation. Your Monero should be showing up in your wallet shortly! If any issues arise you can contact ShapeShift support with your Order-ID and they will take it from there. Show less

Monero, a fork of Bytecoin, is a secure, private and untraceable currency, built on the Cryptonote protocol. Monero uses ring signatures to anonymize the sender, ring confidential transactions (RCT) to hide the transaction amount, and stealth addresses to make the receiver incognito. Monero is difficult to develop with making real-world implementation tough. It also has large transactions and more mining centralization than other coins. Originally launched in April 2014 as BitMonero, Monero (symbol XMR), means money in esperanto. Monero, a fork of Bytecoin, is a secure, private and untraceable currency, built on the Cryptonote protocol. Monero uses ring signatures, ring confidential transactions (RCT) and stealth addresses to obfuscate transactions at the protocol level. Total coin supply: Initially 18.4 million coins (After this, there will be a permanent fixed production of 0.3 XMR per minute to balance out lost coins per year) Algorithm: Proof of Work (PoW) using CryptoNight Difficulty: Retargets at every block Cryptonote, the initial codebase and precursor to Monero One of Bitcoin’s big downfalls is the lack of flexibility for the implementation of new features, which require almost complete network updating. (As we are seeing with the blocksize debate) This includes hard-coded constraints and natural elements of the design (such as block frequency, maximum amount of money supply, and # of confirmations required). The traceability of both transaction amounts, as well as the sender/receiver, is publicly viewable automatically with Bitcoin unless specific steps are taken by the user. The proof of work algorithm (PoW) has also violated the original Satoshi vision of “one-CPU-one-vote” with the advent of GPU and Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) hardware. This allows those miners to gain majority control (51%+) over the network and govern changes. (Like a fork, to keep the network going.) Irregular emission refers to the construct where the Bitcoin rewards are halved every 4 years. The original intent was to create limited smooth emission with exponent decay. (More predictable not choppy pattern) Instead, we have a piecewise linear emission (as pictured below) which creates the opportunity for a double spend attack. This is due to the network hash rate decrease at each halving. Note the “stairwell” like moves. Bytecoin is the first known implementation of the CryptoNote protocol with code produced entirely from scratch. But, why was Monero needed if there was already an implementation of this? Well, as always with Crypto, prepare for some drama. As elaborated in this Monero subreddit from 3 years ago, there was not only a Bytecoin premine but also falsifying the blockchain to show a fair distribution. Then, there were 2 years of “crippled” code that could have been improved but was not. Ricardo Spagni aka “Fluffypony” said the Monero team fixed these problems in a few weeks. The main tech behind Monero is a balance of allowing the user to control their keys and operate privately with proven security mechanisms while also allowing malleability and development in the network. (E.g. variable blocksize, integration of Kovri) How a normal (not fully anonymous) transaction works The default set-up for Bitcoin transactions is completely transparent and pseudonymous if steps are not taken to obscure one’s identity and transactions (e.g. a VPN and mixing services). This means your IP address can be connected to your device (i.e. personal identity) with enough resources dedicated to connecting the two. Protecting the sender with Ring Signatures Ring Signatures (shown above) are digital signatures where several signers sign a transaction. (Think: signing with a joint account but with no one knowing the true signer) The sender generates a one-time spend key and the recipient is the only party that can detect and spend the money based on that key. Key images, a cryptographic key, are derived from each output being spent and prevent double spending. This is because there’s one key image per output (expenditure) on the Blockchain. Ring Confidential Transactions (RCT) hide the amount sent The sender can reveal just enough information for the miners to confirm the transaction without disclosing publicly the total amount spent. (Known as a “commit”) This allows the transaction to be validated as authentic without losing the privacy as a user. Stealth addresses make the recipient incognito A stealth address, also known as a one-time public key prevents recipient’s funds being linked with their wallet. That address can be audited by a 3rd party to prove the transaction occurred. (With the sender sharing their public view key) The recipient gets their funds through their wallets private view key which scans the blockchain. Once detected and retrieved by the wallet, a single use private key is created (corresponding with senders public key).  The recipient can now spend those funds using their private spend key. This occurs without the sender, recipient, nor the amount transacted publicly linked.  This process is very succinctly explained in this Monero Bitcointalk thread (numbers go with a picture below): “Bob decides to spend an output, which was sent to the one-time public key. He needs Extra (1), TxOutNumber (2), and his Account private key (3) to recover his one-time private key (4). When sending a transaction to Carol, Bob generates its Extra value by random (5). He uses Extra (6), TxOutNumber (7) and Carol’s Account public key (8) to get her Output public key (9).  In the input, Bob hides the link to his output among the foreign keys (10). To prevent double-spending he also packs the Key image, derived from his One-time private key (11). Finally, Bob signs the transaction, using his One-time private key (12), all the public keys (13) and Key Image (14). He appends the resulting Ring Signature to the end of the transaction (15).” How does Monero compare with alternate privacy-focused solutions? The main point of differentiation with Monero is the CryptoNote implementation, which has been around since 2001 and has received significant peer-review around its functionality. (Traceable Ring signatures for example) Two other implementations of privacy technology include: ZeroCoin/ZeroCash – Using zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) this protocol obscures the sender and the entire economy. Any exploits (such as creating false proofs/spending) wouldn’t be known until much later due to the anonymous nature of the network. One of the biggest risks is the lack of maturity and peer review behind the cryptography. Also, ZKP relied on the initial RSA private key generated to be destroyed by the creators. (As supposedly done in this computer burning ceremony) ZCash transactions which use the Zero-knowledge Security Layer (ZSK) CoinJoin is a mixing protocol that combines transaction but does not mask users, senders or transactions at a protocol level. Originally developed by bitcoin developer Gregory Maxwell, Coin Join is used by Dash, who leverages the Masternode (MN) model where users must possess 1000 DASH to host a MN. Critics say this creates a single point of failure as the individual nodes who provide the mixing service are vulnerable to Sybil attacks. Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, was recently asked by Edward Snowden about Zcash vs Monero: Although it appears Monero has many accolades, what are some of its weaknesses? As discussed in this subreddit there are a few: Monero has been a really steady and innovative player in this fascinating game of not just Cryptocurrency but privacy. The technology aims to pick up where Bitcoin left off and even doesn’t work (i.e. non-ASIC mining, anonymity). Additionally, the technical details for these projects are not simple by any means and that further makes this project that much more fascinating and a great engineering feat. Keep this secure, privacy coin on your radar, its team is a leader in the industry and will be one to watch indefinitely. CoinCentral's owners, writers, and/or guest post authors may or may not have a vested interest in any of the above projects and businesses. None of the content on CoinCentral is investment advice nor is it a replacement for advice from a certified financial planner. How to Buy Bitcoin & Other Popular Cryptocurrency CoinCentral is an independent publication covering news and information on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and their underlying blockchain technology. © 2017 CoinCentral. All Rights Reserved. Show less

BEST MONERO EXCHANGE IN UK Get linkFacebookTwitterPinterestEmailOther Apps BEST MONERO EXCHANGE INUK Monero (XMR) is aprivacy focused cryptocurrency derived from the CryptoNote protocol. The coinis an open source project maintained by a group of dedicated core developersand a community of open source contributors and researchers, XMR has a largenumber of GitHub activity compared to most coins. Moneros aim is quite simple,digital currency that has the anonymity of cash, and privacy by default.Information for traderslooking to Invest in Monero: Once Monero hits 18.4million coins in circulation, the amount of XMR coins supplied will slow downto a rate of 0.3 Moneroy (plural of Monero) a minute. They have chosen to do thisto focus on securing the blockchain, and it isnt that far away. There are currently15,481,770 XMR in circulation. Just to clarify, unlike Bitcoin which will stopmining new coins when the supply reaches 21 million, Monero will change from adecreasing emission rate to a constant one. So there are gradually less coinsbeing created, and this will settle at a rate of 0.3 coins per minute.Investing in Monero(XMR) Using J and B Exchange: If you would ratherbuy Monero directly you need an exchange. I recommend J AND B EXCHANGE becausethat is what I use. It is a U.K regulated exchange with a wide spread ofmarkets. They dont trade fiat for cryptocurrencies, so you will need to sendcurrency to a wallet before trading on their cross chain.Buying Monero on J andB: Other Exchanges only allowsyou to buy four cryptocurrencies on its platform; bitcoin, ethereum, litecoinand bitcoin cash. Meaning there is no room for Monero or other altcoins. Buyingmonero directly with fiat currency is difficult, here at J and B Exchange weare yet to find anywhere that we would recommend. We still feel the safest andmost reliable process to purchasing monero is to buy bitcoin first and then toexchange it for monero. There are plenty of exchanges on the market at the moment,but we feel J and B offers a great deal of value and security. The issue withbuying bitcoin first is that fees can start to rack up in the exchanges betweencrypto coins.How Do You TradeMonero? You can buy andsell Monero like any other cryptocurrency on the market. The easiest way topurchase Monero to create an account on J and B exchange that supports fiatcurrency storage and Monero transfers. Heres how itworks. First, create an account with your J and B exchange. You may need toprovide a bit of personal information (like your address or a scan of yourphoto ID) before you can start buying and selling coins. Then, link a paymentmethod like a bank account or credit card. Take a look at the market and decidewhen you want to buy Monero. Then, submit a buy order for the amount of Moneroyou want. Cryptocurrencyexchanges work in largely the same manner as stock exchanges. The exchange willfill the order on your behalf if someone sells their Monero at the price youspecified. Your order may take some time to fill if no one sells their Monerowhen you place the order.Get linkFacebookTwitterPinterestEmailOther AppsComments Show less

Joe D January 26, 2018 Leave a comment If you made it through the basics of getting your wallet setup, you are probably already hunting for a way to make some Monero. In the early days, it was possible for someone to solo mine and get some rewards. However, with today’s difficulty, it is nearly impossible to get something from solo mining unless you have dropped some serious $$ on hardware and can generate a couple of Megahashes or so. The only option for many of us is to join a pool. Pools work as a collective, a bunch of people “pool” their resources together to help the collective group find a block faster. They are then rewarded on the block based on their contribution. The more you contribute, the bigger your cut. Now, joining a pool is easy, very easy. All you have to do is point your mining application towards their address and you are in. However, the tricky part is getting a mining application, configuring it, and making sure it is working correctly. I couldn’t even begin to tell you the number of mining apps out there for you to choose from, there are a ton. Here are some of the more popular ones. Just as a note: Creating these applications is not easy work, it takes skill and time. With that said, most of these will utilize a developer fee. This means, that if the developer takes a fee of 1% your mining application will mine for 36 seconds each hour for that developer. This is my current “miner” of choice. It operates efficiently and provides both CPU and GPU mining from a single source, while providing a collective total of your hashing. XMR-Stak is a universal Stratum pool miner. This miner supports CPUs, AMD and NVIDIA GPUs and can be used to mine the cryptocurrency Monero and Aeon. While Claymore currently (at least at the time of writing this) doesn’t offer an integrated miner that mines on both your GPU and your CPU their apps are easy to use and require far less tinkering to get the most out of your hardware than the likes of XMR-STAK. Getting them going requires only some modifications to a simple batch file and you are off and running. sgminer is another one of those very easy to use applications. Configure everything within a batch file and the miner will go to work. This is a multi-threaded multi-pool GPU miner with ATI GPU monitoring, (over)clocking and fanspeed support for scrypt-based cryptocurrency. It is based on cgminer by Con Kolivas (ckolivas), which is in turn based on cpuminer by Jeff Garzik (jgarzik). SGMiner: https://github.com/sgminer-dev/sgminer/releases XMRig is a high performance Monero (XMR) CPU miner, with official support for Windows. Originally based on cpuminer-multi with heavy optimizations/rewrites and removing a lot of legacy code, since version 1.0.0 completely rewritten from scratch on C++. DEV FEE: 5% or down to 1% through command line switch (–donate-level) Once you pick the application you want to mine with, you have to decide what pool you want to join. Pools are plenty, but there are some things that set them apart. Some of the considerations to be aware of are the pool fee, the number of miners on the pool and the pool’s overall hashrate. A pool with a high hashrate means that it will most likely be finding blocks pretty quickly. Although this is great for the pool, the individual with a low hashrate will get a very small piece of that pie. If you join a smaller pool, you may find blocks at a slower pace, but your share may be bigger. Overall, it is generally the same, but joining a smaller pool does benefit the community. Smaller pools help to support the community by sustaining “nodes.” Nodes participate in the Monero network and secure transactions by enforcing the rules of the network. Nodes download the entire blockchain to know what transactions have taken place. Nodes assist the network by relaying transactions to other nodes on the network. Nodes may also choose to contribute to the Monero network by participating in crafting blocks (this is called mining). Personally, I have been mining at two different Monero pools and I can recommend both of them highly. Monerohash.com and SupportXMR.com. I have had no issues with payouts and the pools haven’t had any downtime. Some of the more notable and recommended pools: Show less

Moneros transactions are totally anonymous, so it is impossible to track senders or receivers of payments across Moneros network, thanks to the CryptoNote algorithm that was used to code monero. Monero is the only altcoin that is accepted as a payment method on Darknets marketplaces, due to the high levels of anonymity and privacy associated with its transactions. PublishedonByThe most popular privacy coin available, monero (XMR) is an open-source cryptocurrency which was introduced in 2014. What sets it apart from so many other cryptocurrencies is that its secure, private, and untraceable. Its origins stem back to bytecoin, which was born in 2012. Unhappy with a rumoured bytecoin premine, a community member developed a fork of the CryptoNote blockchain. This resulted in the creation of BitMonero, which faltered due to a number of issues, including poor communication. Another hard fork was decided, resulting in the creation of monero. Since then, the monero cryptocurrency has shown impressive growth, taking it into the top 10 of cryptocurrencies by market cap.There are some differences when it comes to monero and bitcoin. While moneros transactions are recorded on the blockchain like bitcoin, monero differs in that it protects the privacy of both parties. The sender is protected with ring signatures, which involves the mixing of the senders address with a group of other addresses. This makes it extremely difficult to establish a link between the sender and their address. Meanwhile the recipient is protected with the use of a stealth address, which is automatically generated and recorded in the transaction. It serves to hide the receiving address.Another difference between monero and bitcoin is that monero is fungible. One monero can be substituted like for like for another, meaning that the history of one coin cannot be traced. In contrast, everyone can see the various transactions and trails within bitcoins blockchain, which means its more about anonymity than privacy. Finally, the Monero CryptoNight hashing algorithm limits the effect of ASIC miners. Again, this is in contrast to bitcoin, which has seen the centralisation of its mining system. Many feel that this is unfair.Its very easy to invest in monero since its available on most major cryptocurrency exchanges. Theres particularly high volume on Bithumb, Bitfinex, and Binance. The most common pairs are with BTC, ETH and USD. Heres how to buy monero based on your location:USA: Both Bitfinex and Kraken offer an XMR/USD pair, which makes it fairly easy to buy and sell monero. However, youll likely have to pay by bank wire, which can take some days. A quicker method to exchange monero is to sign up to Coinbase, buy ethereum or litecoin with a credit or debit card, and then trade it for monero on another exchange, such as Binance. Unfortunately, its not currently possible to buy monero with a credit card.Canada: If youre located in Canada, you have a couple of options available to you when buying monero. One is to wire CAD to Kraken, though this method can be slow. Another is to buy BTC from a Canadian exchange, such as QuadrigaCX and use a service like ShapeShift to quickly change this into monero.UK: In terms of buying monero in the UK, Cryptomate is one of the few exchanges with an XMR/GBP pair. Another option is Kraken, which can accept EUR via SEPA transfer. Otherwise, signing up for Coinbase and purchasing ETH or LTC via credit or debit card is much quicker. You can then transfer the ETH or LTC to an exchange that also lists XMR.Australia: The quickest and easiest option to those of you in Australia is to invest in monero with AUD on Coinspot, an Australian crypto exchange. Another option is with LocalMonero, which lets you buy monero from local sellers. There are a wide range of payment options including cash, bank transfer and PayPal, though fees are higher.Europe: Kraken is the best option when youre buying monero in Europe. It allows you to make a free SEPA transfer in EUR to fund your account. You can then take advantage of the XMR/EUR pair. There arent many better options, other than buying another cryptocurrency by credit card on Coinbase and sending it to another exchange for trading. This is because theres no option to buy monero with a credit card.Where you store your monero cryptocurrency is really down to what you intend to do with it. If youre looking to trade it for another cryptocurrency in the near future, you may prefer the convenience of keeping it on a cryptocurrency exchange. However, you should keep in mind that this isnt the safest choice, since you run the risk of your account being hacked. If you do decide to leave your XMR on an exchange be sure to only do so with a small amount and enable Two-factor Authentication. If this is more of a long-term investment, take a look at the following wallet options, which should provide you with the necessary security and peace of mind.Unfortunately, there isnt a great deal of choice when it comes to monero wallets. Theres hope that this will change in the near future as more wallets offer monero integration.Desktop: The only monero desktop wallet currently available is the official client which can be found on the Monero website. Its available for Mac, Windows and Linux. A desktop wallet provides greater security than a web/online wallet but is still vulnerable to viruses and hacks. Its therefore important to take all of the necessary precautions.Hardware: There are no hardware wallets supporting monero as yet. This is partly due to moneros use of ring signatures which complicates the process somewhat. However, Ledger are said to be working on monero compatibility. A hardware wallet is considered one of the safest ways to store cryptocurrency.Mobile: Unfortunately, there arent many viable options when it comes to mobile wallets for monero. While there are some monero mobile wallets, theyre all from third parties and none of them have established a strong reputation. Official GUI should soon be released for Android and iOS, while Coinomi is said to be working on integrating monero.Web/Online: The main web wallet for monero is MyMonero. As this is not an official monero wallet, it should be used with some caution. It was developed and managed by one of the Monero core team, which does provide some legitimacy. However, web wallets do carry some security concerns so use at your own risk.Paper: A paper wallet is one of the safest ways to store your monero because its offline and not vulnerable to hackers or viruses. However, it is vulnerable to loss, theft, or damage, so its important to keep your paper wallet in a safe place. You can create a monero paper wallet at Monero Address, which is an offline wallet generator.Just as there are many exchanges on which you can buy monero, theres a growing list of merchants and services that accept monero. This cryptocurrency is popular for the privacy it provides to both the seller and their customer. Its well worth knowing that any business that accepts bitcoin can be paid in XMR.to, which converts your monero into bitcoin to send to the merchant. Take a look at some of the following merchants and services that accept Monero:Azur Samui: Surely one of the more exciting purchases you can make with monero is on Azur Samui. There you can buy a luxury apartment, penthouse or villa with monero or bitcoin on the island of Koh Samui, Thailand!The Company of Marionettes: A UK-based marionette puppet shop, The Company of Marionettes accepts monero cryptocurrency. There you can buy handmade string puppets with shipping available worldwide.SilverRound: You can swap your monero for real silver and gold on SilverRound. Based in the US, SilverRound say theyve been in business for 55 years. They also accept bCrypto Games: Offering games such as blackjack, roulette, and video poker, Crypto Games is a bitcoin and altcoin gambling site. Not only do they accept bitcoin and monero, they also a number of other cryptocurrencies.TheBigCoin: TheBigCoin makes it easier for you to spend cryptocurrencies like monero online. They claim that you can use crypto at over 50,000 online retailers, including Amazon.As monero is a proof-of-work cryptocurrency, you dont need to buy expensive monero mining hardware. In fact, monero can be mined with a CPU or GPU. As such, almost anybody with a computer can mine monero. ASICs are not required and are, in fact, ineffective. By having their computer solve mathematical problems, a miner can discover a block and receive a reward in monero as a result.First youll need to consider if you want to mine solo or in a monero mining pool. Whether or not you decide to mine solo will depend on how much computer power you have. Otherwise, pooling your resources with others in a mining pool can result in more regular rewards. Either way, youll need to download some mining software suitable for your CPU or GPU.A monero mining pool can help you receive more consistent rewards. The main monero mining pools are Nanopool and MineXMR. Be sure to compare the size of the mining pool, the reward type offered, and the fees charged (if any). Its also possible to do monero cloud mining, but keep in mind that most cloud mining companies are scams. The most reputable monero cloud mining company is Genesis Mining.Like with many cryptocurrencies, monero mining is less profitable than it used to be. In order to find out if its worth it, you should use a mining profitability calculator or monero calculator. Simply enter your hashing power, power consumption, and cost of electricity in order to estimate of how long it will take for your mining to be profitable.The benefit of accepting monero payment is the privacy it provides to both merchants and their clients. There are several ways of doing this. In particular, you could list your monero wallet address in plain text. This is probably the quickest and easiest way, but there are more professional options. The most popular choice is through a platform, such as CoinPayments or CoinGate. Such payment gateways should allow for easy integration through popular plugins.The main e-commerce services for merchants looking to accept monero are CoinPayments and CoinGate, which make it quick and easy to integrate monero payments on your website. Another option to consider is GloBee, which is a web application that allows you to accept a wide range of payments from card to cryptocurrencies, and settle them in monero.Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment Name * Email * Website Invest in Prime Real Estate in Manhattan with CryptocurrencyCorporate governance underpins DasCoins riseBitcoin price weekly analysis Locking up the bearsThe Cosmos Blockchain is a novel answer to sidechains, which aims to enable users to traverse a galaxy of blockchains with ease. Cosmos wants to offer multiple parallel blockchains to interoperate while retaining their security properties. Previous attempts with proof-of-work were not as successful as expected because a child chain could be attacked when the majority of the mining power was allocated to the parent chain or another child chain. Cosmos is focused on interoperability between blockchains and a low-energy consuming version of a blockchain with great scaling flexibility. The Cosmos whitepaper describes the current blockchain related problems:To date, blockchains have suffered from a number of drawbacks, including their gross energy inefficiency, poor or limited performance, and immature governance mechanisms. Proposals to scale Bitcoins transaction throughput, such as Segregated-Witness and BitcoinNG, are vertical scaling solutions that remain limited by the capacity of a single physical machine, in order to ensure the property of complete auditability. The Lightning Network can help scale Bitcoin transaction volume by leaving some transactions off the ledger completely, and is well suited for micropayments and privacy-preserving payment rails, but may not be suitable for more generalized scaling needs.There is no doubt blockchain will play a key role in our future, however, we have to acknowledge the existing problems. The Cosmos project acquired Tendermint blockchain consensus algorithm as its very efficient and uses the more mature Byzantine Fault Tolerance.Cosmos is using proof-of-stake, which means that there is no computational race for securing the blockchain as with proof-of-work. The larger stake of coins you own, the larger amount of coins you will receive. However, Cosmos uses a slightly different approach as its using a proof-of-stake version of Tendermint blockchain consensus.To put it simply, Tendermint is a software which can be used to achieve Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) in any distributed computing platform. The idea behind BFT is decades old, but the interest has only increased since the blockchain trend has started. Blockchain technology is nothing more than BFT in a modern setting, with an emphasis on cryptography and p2p networks.For a decentralized system, its technically not possible that all nodes communicate through one central node. Therefore, fast enough communication is only possible through a mesh network. However, a mesh network allows the Byzantine Fault where false information is spread and nobody knows whos speaking the truth. This is where Tendermint is needed as it has several mechanisms to determine the trustworthiness of nodes. Tendermint relies on a group of semi-trusted nodes to vote on blocks; as long as more than two-thirds of the voting nodes are honest, the protocol will remain active. In short, Tendermint is responsible for:\Cosmos allows multiple blockchains to run concurrently while retaining this interoperability. The Cosmos Hub is responsible for managing different Zones. Through using Hubs and Zones, Cosmos has created inter-blockchain communication (IBC) which is fairly unique. Each Zone accepts a stream of recent block commits which are forwarded to the Hub. The Hub is responsible for maintaining the world state. Validation occurs by communicating Merkle-proofs between zones to prove to other zones the information was correctly processed.A Hub hosts a multi-asset distributed ledger, where tokens can be held by both users or zones. The cool thing here is that its possible to move tokens from one zone to one another. This is again accomplished through IBC communication of a coin packet. Basically, the Hub is as well a routing mechanism.A Zone is an independent blockchain that is capable of exchanging these IBC messages with the corresponding Hub.We mentioned earlier Cosmos is using proof-of-stake. The Cosmos network requires you to stake Atoms, the platforms internal currency. A validator is tied to one zone of the Cosmos hub for which he is validating transactions. Your voting power is calculated by the amount of staking Atoms. Validators that act maliciously will be penalized and so lose all their staked Atoms and their share of the reserve pool. In addition, he will lose all credibility within the network.When more than one-third of the nodes act maliciously or go down, the network will be halted, because Tendermint prefers the safety property above liveness. The only way to restart the network is by recovering it with a hard-fork reorganization proposal. It is important to know Tendermint limits the number of validators by nature as it was discovered that blockchains become slower when there are more validators, due to the increased complexity of communicating with each other. In the first year, the number of validators is set to 100. This number will increase by 13% each year over a period of ten years, settling at 300 validators.The Atom token is the native asset to the Cosmos Hub, which can be used across the different distributed ledgers of each zone. Atoms give users the right to vote, validate, or delegate to other validators. Like Ethereum, the Atom token is considered to be the gas for paying for transactions. This fee is implemented to mitigate spam.A distributed exchange is one of the cool concepts which is possible with Cosmos. By using the hubs and zones architecture, this mass-replicated ledger is less vulnerable for internal and external hacking attempts. A distributed exchange is not exactly the same as a decentralized exchange (DEX). A DEX makes use of atomic swaps, which are cross-chain transactions. The downside of a DEX is that both users have to be online for the trade to succeed. A distributed exchange doesnt require this as the trade-matching service will take care of the transaction.A distributed exchanges added value is its high transaction throughput and capacity using the zones and Tendermint core. According to the Cosmos whitepaper, the commit latency of a transaction is comparable with those of centralized exchanges.A certain zone can act as a bridge token to be traded for another cryptocurrency, creating a link between a foreign and a Cosmos native cryptocurrency. In order to accomplish this, a bridge zone has to keep up with both the internal zone and the foreign cryptocurrency.If you are held back by the Ethereum performance, there are different approaches to scale your Dapp using the Cosmos stack.The peg zone called Peggy allows users to transfer ERC20 tokens to the Cosmos Hub where they can be exchanged at a much faster rate. In addition, the Cosmos Hub provides special EVM zones for ERC20 tokens. Once users are finished, they can withdraw their tokens back to the Ethereum network.Plasma allows developers to use the Cosmos SDK for developing Dapps while their tokens are staked on the Ethereum network. These projects can rely on much faster transaction times within Tendermint zones.The Cosmos SDK v0.10.0 was announced on the 28th of February, 2018. The Cosmos SDK is providing Dapp developers another way of building secure blockchain applications besides the EVM smart contracts. It is now possible to have different chains with different coins, enabling a true Cosmos Ecosystem.Cosmos provides an example of a coin, called BaseCoin, that makes use of the Cosmos Ecosystem. You see here an example of the code where we set some options for our new coin like a supply and token name.As you can see, the code is written in Golang. The Cosmos SDK shows us as well some code for users, to be used to send messages containing arbitrary information.At this time, the documentation on the Cosmos SDK is not great yet. Lets hope this will change in the future.Github Cosmos SDK: https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk Cosmos SDK Documentation: https://readthedocs.org/projects/cosmos-sdk/downloads/pdf/develop/ SDK Announcement v0.10.0: https://blog.cosmos.network/hello-world-the-cosmos-sdk-is-ready-for-takeoff-b8857b4057db Cosmos Whitepaper: https://cosmos.network/whitepaper Cosmos Official Telegram: https://t.me/cosmosprojectAn initial coin offering (ICO) represents a means of seed funding and crowdfunding, through the issuance of a brand new cryptocurrency, or a cryptographic token (mainly via Ethereums blockchain) to raise capital for a startup or a project. Projects sell their issued coins or tokens in exchange for bitcoin and/or ether. An ICO is somewhat similar to an IPO, or an initial public offering, throughout which investors purchase a companys shares.ICOs represent a relatively new financial procedure that have massively grown to become one of the hottest topics in the cryptocurrency community. Many economists and financial observers consider ICOs a form of unregulated fund raising, while others view them as innovative model for venture funding. Whether or not an ICO token can be considered a security represents a major debate for legislators in many countries across the globe.There are presently more than 1,500 coins available for trading on various cryptocurrency exchanges. Not all cryptocurrencies, and ICO tokens, are issued on new blockchains, as most of them are created using other well-established blockchains. Most of the ICO crowdsales today rely on creating ERC-20 tokens on top of Ethereums blockchain.This basic guide will walk you through the process of building an ICO.Some believe that an ICO can work for any project, enabling its creators to raise capital while avoiding the alternative long, daunting, and complex means of crowdfunding: an IPO.In order for your token/coin to gain popularity among crypto investors, it should be an inseparable part of your projects architecture. Potential investors should clearly envision how the ICOs token is supposed to acquire value as your project grows. Investors should be able to answer the following questions regarding your token:Authenticity and transparency are mandatory to your projects idea, especially that the cryptocurrency ecosystem is currently flooded with ICOs that are launched on an almost daily basis. You have to prove to potential investors that your project is legitimate and that your ICO is not simply a get rich quick scheme. Your ICO token has to have clearly identifiable goals and be able to solve a specific problem.You need to start thinking about having a team that can create and maintain your ICO crowdsale. The team will have to have blockchain developers, content creators, marketing specialists, graphic designers, social media managers, translators, and others. You have to understand that you will have to be able to pay salaries for your staff for at least six months, as they will be working for at least three months prior to the actual launch of the ICO crowdsale.Once you have planned how you will integrate a blockchain-based system into your projects architecture, selected a team capable of launching the ICO, and collected the seed funds, you can start moving on to the next steps.Just like most other business models today, a website is indispensable to enable potential investors reach your product with ease, wherever their location in the world is. To put it plainly, investors wont buy your ICOs tokens, if your project lacks a professionally designed website.As such, it is pivotal that you create an attractive website that includes all the data that potential investors might be looking for. An ICO website should include the following:1- Website LanguagesAs ICO crowdfunding is increasingly becoming a global phenomenon, your website should be translated into a few common languages in addition to English. We recommend translating it into Russian, Chinese, French and Spanish. The more translations the better.2- The HomepageMost successful ICOs websites have an outline that mainly relies on a professionally designed landing page. On most ICO crowdfunding platforms, more than 90% of the data is present on the websites landing page. Before the actual launch of the ICO crowdsale, most ICO campaigns present a countdown timer on the websites landing page that marks the beginning of the crowdsale. Usually, the website also includes an email subscription form to keep investors up-to-date regarding news about the project. After the actual start of the ICO, the landing page occasionally adds a counter that shows the total amount raised via the ICO.3- Detailing the ProjectThe website should include a section that details information regarding the projects goals, technological innovations, roadmap, current status, and other relevant data. Such a section is important for investors as it helps them understand what they are investing in. This section should include infographics, figures, and other illustrative means.4- The ICO TokenThe most important segment of the website is where you describe the details of your ICO token. This section should include:5- DocumentsThe ICOs website should have a section that includes the projects documents such as the whitepaper, legal paperwork, and the projects roadmap. Links to these documents should be clearly visible on the websites landing page. Security ICO tokens are now considered forms of securities that should comply with US Federal Securities laws, as per Section 21(a) of the SECs 1934 Securities Exchange Act. If your tokens will be offered to American investors, your website should include a section that presents the ICOs SEC registration paperwork.6- Social Media ChannelsThe website has to have a section that includes links to the ICOs social media channels. Most successful ICO platforms create Telegram groups to communicate with investors and respond to their queries. Discord and Slack are also used by the best initial coin offerings projects nowadays. Links to all of the projects social media channels should be clearly included in this section.7- The ICOs TeamThere should be a section where all of the projects team members are clearly presented. The name, photo, and LinkedIn profile link of every team member should be included in this section. You should also state the role of every team member.Whitepapers are indispensable parts of ICO ecosystems. A whitepaper is a document that includes the technical properties of the project and token in relative details. Whitepapers are supposed to target professionals, crypto experts, and blockchain developers that can understand the technical details of your ICO token and underlying project. A whitepaper is not supposed to focus on marketing and is more or less a form of educational manual, so it is of great importance to think out the concept of your project and how it is supposed to work before attempting to write a whitepaper. The whitepaper should include the following:There are basic guidelines that you should follow when writing a whitepaper. These include:Now, we will show you how to issue a standard ERC20 token to use for your ICO based project.Note: this tutorial is inspired by Moritz Netos tutorial on Medium.You will need the following:Ethereum addressFor this guide, we will issue an ERC20 token via a test network, so that you dont have to spend real ether. We will utilize the Ropsten Test Network (We will publish another guide soon that will show you how to issue the token on the live network).1- Go to MyEtherWallet website and from the drop down list on the top right corner of the homepage choose Network Ropsten (myetherapi.com) as shown on the below screenshot.2- Now, login to your wallet via your private key, mnemonic phrase, etc. If you havent already created a wallet on MyEtherWallet, create one and choose private key as your login method. Store your private key in a safe place. Remember that you wont be able to access your wallet if you lose your private key.3- Now, click view wallet info on the top menu to be able to view your wallets address (as shown on the below screenshot). You will be prompted to enter your private key again to unlock your wallet.Acquiring Ropsten EtherYou can get some Ropsten ether (not real ether) from this faucet https://faucet.bitfwd.xyz/Just enter your Ropsten address there and the smart contract of the faucet will send you some Ropsten ether.Smart ContractWe will use the smart contract created by BokkyPooBah, where you can download it by clicking here. We will edit this smart contract to create our token.Editing the smart contract:1- Open the smart contract in your code editor e.g. Notepad++.2- Line 4 includes the title of your smart contract. Change (0Fucks) to the title your will use for your smart contract.3- Change line 6 and add your Ropsten address which you created in MyEtherWallet.4- Change Line 7 to add your tokens symbol, instead of (0FUCKS).5- Change Line 8 to add the name of your token, instead of (0 Fucks Token).6- Change line 9 to the required total supply of tokens (100000000 by default).7- ChangeLine 102from FucksToken to (YourTokenName) and do the same thing inLine 115.8- ChangeLine 116and add the symbol name you chose earlier in the comments and do the same changes in line 117.9- Modify line 120 to add the address you used earlier, which is the one you created via MyEtherWallet and do the same thing for line 121.10- For lines 118 and 119, you can just leave them without modification, yet there is an important thing that you have to understand. The standard and maximum option is for tokens to have 18 decimals, which means that a token is split in 18 parts. For instance, if you want to create 100 tokens, within the total supply section, you have to enter 100 followed by the number of decimals you will choose. If you want to emit 100 tokens, you will set the total supply as 100000000000000000000.11- Go to http://remix.ethereum.org/ and in the browser/ballot.sol, add the code that we have just edited. Make sure that no red color appears, which means that there is something wrong with the code you edited.12- Now press the start to compile button and select the name of the token you are creating from the drop-down menu below the button (it should automatically be one of the choices appearing in the drop-down menu).13- A special window will appear after you press the start to compile button, as shown on the below screenshot. Under Bytecode, press the copy to clipboard button. Copy the object ByteCode and add 0x in the beginning, so you would have OxByteCode.14- Now, we will deploy the contract we just created on MyEtherWallet. Go to the Contracts tab and click the Deploy Contract button.15- Now, paste the ByteCode you compiled into the ByteCode box. The gas limit will change automatically.16- After accessing your wallet again via your private key, press Sign transaction, then Deploy Transaction. To make sure that the transaction has been executed, check the Ropsten test blockchain via https://ropsten.etherscan.io/.17- Register the smart contract you created for your token. From MyEtherWallets window, go to the Contract Code Tab, and then click Verify and Publish. You will be prompted by a window such as the one in the below screenshot. Fill in all the fields using the parameters you used in creating your token. Copy the whole code from the code editor, not the Bytecode, and paste it in the appropriate field. Add the code of the compiler you used via getting it from Remixs page.If you are prompted with a Success page, then congratulations, you have done it. However, if you get a red message, then there is something wrong, so try again after checking that you have copy and pasted the code correctly, and also entered all the other parameters correctly.18- Confirm that the token works via going back to https://ropsten.etherscan.io/ and checking your MyEtherWallet address, not the address of the smart contract. If you can find all of your tokens there, then you have done it; you have created your ethereum token successfully.Note: you will need to create a crowdsale contract to start your ICO. We will publish another tutorial to show you how to do a crowdsale smart contract.This was a concise guide to help you understand how to start your ICO project. We walked through the process of planning your project, creating your website, writing your whitepaper, and creating your Ethereum based token. An ICO is meant to be a simple means for crowdfunding to help anyone with limited resources create a project and fund it via issuing cryptographic tokens that will enable investors from any part of the world invest via purchasing them. We hope this guide can help you be part of the new era of ICOs and start your very own project.Various startups have raised around $5.6 billion via ICOs during 2017, according to a recent report published by Business Insider. The year 2017 witnessed a huge boom in projects and startups raising capital via issuing their own cryptocurrencies. Even though the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies values currently around $254 billion, it exceeded $600 billion towards the end of 2017.As such, the ICO market has attracted the attention of thousands of traders from all parts of the globe. Throughout this simple guide, we will help you understand what ICOs are and how to invest in the most promising ICOs available on todays cryptocurrency market.An initial coin offering (ICO) represents a means of seed funding and crowdfunding, through the issuance of a brand new cryptocurrency, or a cryptographic token (mainly via Ethereums blockchain) to raise capital for a startup or a project.There are presently more than 1,500 coins available for trading on various cryptocurrency exchanges. Not all cryptocurrencies or ICO tokens, are issued on new blockchains, as most of them are created using other well-established blockchains. Most of the ICO crowdsales today rely on creating ERC-20 tokens on top of Ethereums blockchain.Democratic funding:ICOs enable projects to bypass the conventional means of seeking loans from banks, and funds from venture capitalists. Such traditional funding means usually require a large amount of time, as well as a large number of personnel and resources. Via an ICO, anyone anywhere in the world can invest in a project, to fund it and earn high returns in a relatively short period, when the ICOs tokens are listed on cryptocurrency exchanges for trading.Huge profit potential:The price of many cryptocurrencies has skyrocketed, rising from cents to dollars in a matter of a few months. As such, many investors are eager to invest in the next booming ICO coin. Even though some ICO coins have no real technical potential, the large number of speculators and investors stepping in to bet on high returns have boosted their prices astronomically during the year 2017.Thoroughly research the upcoming ICO crowdsales. There are several websites out there that list upcoming, ongoing, and completed ICO projects. Sometimes, it is quite profitable to invest in ongoing ICOs, so keep an eye on those too. Cointelligence offers one of the best portals for monitoring initial coin offerings sites.Whitelist ICOs are ICOs that require investors to register prior to the launch of the crowdsale, to be able to buy the ICOs token. Whitelist ICOs are potentially more profitable when compared to ICOs that dont involve a whitelist.There are other websites and portals that list upcoming, ongoing, and even completed ICOs. Some of these sites offer some valuable ICO statistics. These sites include:Coin ScheduleICO RatingsICO BenchICO ListICO WatchlistTop ICO ListApart from ICO listing websites, there are other online communities that offer valuable information regarding various ICO tokens. These include:You should thoroughly research the tokens features to ascertain that the ICO represents a potentially profitable business opportunity. There are numerous key points that have to be considered to properly assess the potential of an ICO project. You have to be able to answer the following questions:You can also check reviews and analyses crafted by others to verify the potential of a specific ICO. Based on our experience, good ICO review resources include:Presuming that youre confident after completing your thorough research and want to actually buy the tokens/coins of an ICO, then you should open a cryptocurrency exchange account to convert your fiat currency into one of the two main cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH). Coinbase, Kraken, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, and Binance are the best exchanges one can use to buy bitcoin or ethereum.It is critical that you have your own crypto wallets. Your exchange account (e.g. Coinbase/Bitfinex/Kraken) is not what we mean by your own wallets, as you do not have any control over your coins private keys there. Taking part in an ICO requires you to transfer BTC or ETH from your personal crypto wallets. If you send them from an exchanges wallets, you wont actually receive the ICO tokens since the transfer originated from the exchanges wallet and technically, you do not own any wallets in the exchange. Blockchain.info offers a wallet that is a user-friendly and perfectly safe wallet to use with your bitcoin, ethereum, and bitcoin cash.I would highly recommend using ETH as the base cryptocurrency for participating in ICOs as many ICO coins are compliant with the Ethereum token standard known as ERC-20. The most convenient wallet is MyEtherWallet (MEW), which you can also use in many cases to store your ethereum based tokens after the ICO is over and the tokens are freely tradable on cryptocurrency exchanges.Each ICO project has an official website, where you can purchase their tokens/coins and store them all through the period of the ICO, and occasionally even for variable durations following completion of the ICO. Usually, you will find detailed instructions on the projects official website, regarding how to participate in their token/coin sale. Almost every ICO project sets up official communication channels via services such as Telegram, Discord, Slack, and even Whatsapp. You can find answers to any questions that you might have by joining the ICOs official channels.There are various strategies adopted by traders participating in ICOs. Some speculate over ICO tokens, i.e. they purchase them and sell them after a predefined period of time, or after price reaches a specific target. Speculating over tokens/coins is referred to as coin/token flipping. Given the fact that the volatility of ICO tokens is extremely high, token flipping represents an extremely risky trading strategy.Others are long term holders. This group includes traders who believe in the long term prospect of the project, and intend to hold tokens for years. Practically speaking, ICOs were meant to be a means for funding a project and distributing its ownership among holders of the ICOs tokens.There are also short term holders, including those who hold the tokens for weeks or months, and then sell them when a target price is reached.After an ICO is completed, the tokens are listed on exchanges for trading. If you didnt manage to participate in the ICO itself, you can still purchase its tokens on exchanges where they are listed for free trading.Cryptocurrency exchanges that list ICO tokens/coins are numerous, yet some are not secure, as some exchanges have been hacked during the past couple of years, while others were shut down after their owners stole traders coins (exit scams). We recommend using the following exchanges:In the end, we can never stress enough how volatile ICO tokens can be. As such, trade wisely and never invest more than the amount you can afford to lose. Follow the charts and the news closely. Always stay in touch with other members of the cryptocurrency community and benefit from the opinions of others. Try to anticipate price movements before they actually occur.Cointelligence is wishing you the best of luck in all your future investing endeavors.ICO 101 All you need to know about creating an ICOCosmos Blockchain Many Chains, Many Tokens, One Ecosystem Show less

Launched on April 18th 2014, Monero is a relatively new open-source cryptocurrency, designed for decentralization, privacy and scalability. Upon initial launch, Monero’s name started as BitMonero (a term designed to combine Bit like Bitcoin and Monero which means ‘coin’ in Esperanto). Monero ultimately changed its name from BitMonero to just Monero five days after the cryptocurrency community asked for a shorter moniker. While Monero is one of the many cryptocurrencies that initially derived from Bitcoin, Monero is based on the CryptoNote protocol and contains multiple algorithmic distinctions from bitcoin relating to blockchain obfuscation. Monero started as the first fork of the CryptoNote-based currency ‘Bytecoin’. While launched under Bytecoin, there are two significant differences. The first difference is the shortening of the target block time from 120 to 60 seconds. The second difference is the deceleration of the emission speed by 50%. Monero is an open-source cryptocurrency that operates purely on proof-of-work. CryptoNight is the AES-intensive proof-of-work algorithm that Monero uses. It is a “memory heavy” algorithm which allows GPU’s advantage over CPU to be significantly reduced. Monero can run on Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD systems. Monero’s primary emission curve will release approximately 18.4 million coins to be mined in about eight years. The closest accurate estimate of this is that Monero will issue 18.132 million coins around the end of May 2022. In 2016 Monero went through a quick growth in market capitalization and transaction volume (specifically, from $5 million to over $185 million). This quick growth was – in part – due to the darknet market AlphaBay’s adoption of Monero at summer’s end in 2016. This year, Monero sits as the world’s most traded next-generation cryptocurrency, with a market-cap resting at over $6 million. While Bitcoin has a block size limit of 1MB that prevents scaling, Monero does not have a hardcoded maximum block size. However, the block size is meant to be curbed from being too excessive by a block reward penalty mechanism, that is directly built into Monero’s protocol. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); In September of 2014, Monero underwent and recovered from an attack. Since then Monero has been strengthening its security network. On the 10th of January 2017, Monero moved to strengthen their transactions by adopting Gregory Maxwell’s, the Bitcoin core developer, algorithm called Ring Confidential Transactions that adds a second layer of confidentiality to transactions by not displaying the amounts of the transaction to parties that did not take part in it. Monero currently uses a three-prong protection policy in order to ensure the privacy of its users. The first way Monero protects users’ privacy is the ring signatures it uses for all transactions on the network that hides the sending address of the user. The second protection measure Monero uses is the RingCT that hides the amount of currency being transacted. This RingCT is currently triggered by default but by the end of 2017 it will become mandatory. The third privacy measure Monero takes is the use of stealth addresses designed to hide the address of the receiver for the transaction. There is a fourth method of protection for users currently in the works which will conceal the origin node for transactions in I2P. The Kovri router that will allow for this to occur is in development right now. With the emergence of an array of new digital currencies – from Nimiq, to Ether and Ripple – Monero is growing in its stature and clout. As the sixth-largest cryptocurrency in the world after only three years of existence, Monero has quickly made its mark on the market, and continues to be a new cryptocurrency worth following closely. Sign up to drive with Uber or Lyft for a cash bonus! Show less

/////Your Guide to Monero, and Why It Has Great Potential///// It’s a dirty word for most members of the Monero community. It is also one of the most divisive words in the Monero community. Yet, the lack of marketing is one of the most frustrating things for many newcomers. This is what makes this an unusual post from a member of the Monero community. This post is an unabashed and unsolicited analyzation of why I believe Monero to have great potential. Below I have attempted to outline different reasons why Monero has great potential, beginning with upcoming developments and use cases, to broader economic motives, speculation, and key issues for it to overcome. I encourage you to discuss and criticise my musings, commenting below if you feel necessary to do so. Bulletproofs – A Reduction in Transaction Sizes and Fees Since the introduction of Ring Confidential Transactions (Ring CT), transaction amounts have been hidden in Monero, albeit at the cost of increased transaction fees and sizes. In order to mitigate this issue, Bulletproofs will soon be added to reduce both fees and transaction size by 80% to 90%. This is great news for those transacting smaller USD amounts as people commonly complained Monero’s fees were too high! Not any longer though! More information can be found here. Bulletproofs are already working on the Monero testnet, and developers were aiming to introduce them in March 2018, however it could be delayed in order to ensure everything is tried and tested. Multisig has recently been merged! Mulitsig, also called multisignature, is the requirement for a transaction to have two or more signatures before it can be executed. Multisig transactions and addresses are indistinguishable from normal transactions and addresses in Monero, and provide more security than single-signature transactions. It is believed this will lead to additional marketplaces and exchanges to supporting Monero. Kovri is an implementation of the Invisible Internet Project (I2P) network. Kovri uses both garlic encryption and garlic routing to create a private, protected overlay-network across the internet. This overlay-network provides users with the ability to effectively hide their geographical location and internet IP address. The good news is Kovri is under heavy development and will be available soon. Unlike other coins’ false privacy claims, Kovri is a game changer as it will further elevate Monero as the king of privacy. There is already a working Android Wallet called Monerujo available in the Google Play Store. X Wallet is an IOS mobile wallet. One of the X Wallet developers recently announced they are very, very close to being listed in the Apple App Store, however are having some issues with getting it approved. The official Monero IOS and Android wallets, along with the MyMonero IOS and Android wallets, are also almost ready to be released, and can be expected very soon. Hardware wallets are currently being developed and nearing completion. Because Monero is based on the CryptoNote protocol, it means it requires unique development in order to allow hardware wallet integration. The Ledger Nano S will be adding Monero support by the end of Q1 2018. There is a recent update here too. Even better, for the first time ever in cryptocurrency history, the Monero community banded together to fund the development of an exclusive Monero Hardware Wallet, and will be available in Q2 2018, costing only about $20! In addition, the CEO of Trezor has offered a 10BTC bounty to whoever can provide the software to allow Monero integration. Someone can be seen to already be working on that here. Monero is in the progress of being packaged in order for it to be integrated into TAILS and ready to use upon install. TAILS is the operating system popularised by Edward Snowden and is commonly used by those requiring privacy such as journalists wanting to protect themselves and sources, human-right defenders organizing in repressive contexts, citizens facing national emergencies, domestic violence survivors escaping from their abusers, and consequently, darknet market users. In the meantime, for those users who wish to use TAILS with Monero, u/Electric_sheep01 has provided Sheep’s Noob guide to Monero GUI in Tails 3.2, which is a step-by-step guide with screenshots explaining how to setup Monero in TAILS, and is very easy to follow. Unlike other coins, Monero receives a protocol upgrade every 6 months in March and September. Think of it as a Consensus Protocol Update. Monero’s hard forks ensure quality development takes place, while preventing political or ideological issues from hindering progress. When a hardfork occurs, you simply download and use the new daemon version, and your existing wallet files and copy of the blockchain remain compatible. This reddit post provides more information. Many cryptocurrencies have an arbitrary block size limit. Although Monero has a limit, it is adaptive based on the past 100 blocks. Similarly, fees change based on transaction volume. As more transactions are processed on the Monero network, the block size limit slowly increases and the fees slowly decrease. The opposite effect also holds true. This means that the more transactions that take place, the cheaper the fees! There will be around 18.4 million Monero mined at the end of May 2022. However, tail emission will kick in after that which is 0.6 XMR, so it has no fixed limit. Gundamlancer explains that Monero’s “main emission curve will issue about 18.4 million coins to be mined in approximately 8 years. (more precisely 18.132 Million coins by ca. end of May 2022) After that, a constant “tail emission” of 0.6 XMR per 2-minutes block (modified from initially equivalent 0.3 XMR per 1-minute block) will create a sub-1% perpetual inflatio starting with 0.87% yearly inflation around May 2022) to prevent the lack of incentives for miners once a currency is not mineable anymore. Monero has a group of anonymous/pseudo-anonymous university academics actively researching, developing, and publishing academic papers in order to improve Monero. See here and here. The Monero Research Lab are acquainted with other members of cryptocurrency academic community to ensure when new research or technology is uncovered, it can be reviewed and decided upon whether it would be beneficial to Monero. This ensures Monero will always remain a leading cryptocurrency. A recent end of 2017 update from a MRL researcher can be found here. ///Monero’s Technology – Rising Above The Rest/// Monero Has Already Proven Itself To Be Private, Secure, Untraceable, and Trustless Monero is the only private, untraceable, trustless, secure and fungible cryptocurrency. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are TRACEABLE through the use of blockchain analytics, and has lead to the prosecution of numerous individuals, such as the alleged Alphabay administrator Alexandre Cazes. In the Forfeiture Complaint which detailed the asset seizure of Alexandre Cazes, the anonymity capabilities of Monero were self-demonstrated by the following statement of the officials after the AlphaBay shutdown: “In total, from CAZES’ wallets and computer agents took control of approximately $8,800,000 in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero and Zcash, broken down as follows: 1,605.0503851 Bitcoin, 8,309.271639 Ethereum, 3,691.98 Zcash, and an unknown amount of Monero”. Privacy CANNOT BE OPTIONAL and must be at a PROTOCOL LEVEL. With Monero, privacy is mandatory, so that everyone gets the benefits of privacy without any transactions standing out as suspicious. This is the reason Darknet Market places are moving to Monero, and will never use Verge, Zcash, Dash, Pivx, Sumo, Spectre, Hush or any other coins that lack good privacy. Peter Todd (who was involved in the Zcash trusted setup ceremony) recently reiterated his concerns of optional privacy after Jeffrey Quesnelle published his recent paper stating 31.5% of Zcash transactions may be traceable, and that only ~1% of the transactions are pure privacy transactions (i.e., z -> z transactions). When the attempted private transactions stand out like a sore thumb there is no privacy, hence why privacy cannot be optional. In addition, in order for a cryptocurrency to truly be private, it must not be controlled by a centralised body, such as a company or organisation, because it opens it up to government control and restrictions. This is no joke, but Zcash is supported by DARPA and the Israeli government!. Monero provides a stark contrast compared to other supposed privacy coins, in that Monero does not have a rich list! With all other coins, you can view wallet balances on the blockexplorers. You can view Monero’s non-existent rich list here to see for yourself. I will reiterate here that Monero is TRUSTLESS. You don’t need to rely on anyone else to protect your privacy, or worry about others colluding to learn more about you. No one can censor your transaction or decide to intervene. Monero is immutable, unlike Zcash, in which the lead developer Zooko publicly tweeted the possibility of providing a backdoor for authorities to trace transactions. To Zcash’s demise, Zooko famously tweeted: ” And by the way, I think we can successfully make Zcash too traceable for criminals like WannaCry, but still completely private & fungible. …” Ethereum’s track record of immutability is also poor. Ethereum was supposed to be an immutable blockchain ledger, however after the DAO hack this proved to not be the case. A 2016 article on Saintly Law summarised the problematic nature of Ethereum’s leadership and blockchain intervention: ” Many ethereum and blockchain advocates believe that the intervention was the wrong move to make in this situation. Smart contracts are meant to be self-executing, immutable and free from disturbance by organisations and intermediaries. Yet the building block of all smart contracts, the code, is inherently imperfect. This means that the technology is vulnerable to the same malicious hackers that are targeting businesses and governments. It is also clear that the large scale intervention after the DAO hack could not and would not likely be taken in smaller transactions, as they greatly undermine the viability of the cryptocurrency and the technology.” Monero provides Fungibility and Privacy in a Cashless World As outlined on GetMonero.org, fungibility is the property of a currency whereby two units can be substituted in place of one another. Fungibility means that two units of a currency can be mutually substituted and the substituted currency is equal to another unit of the same size. For example, two $10 bills can be exchanged and they are functionally identical to any other $10 bill in circulation (although $10 bills have unique ID numbers and are therefore not completely fungible). Gold is probably a closer example of true fungibility, where any 1 oz. of gold of the same grade is worth the same as another 1 oz. of gold. Monero is fungible due to the nature of the currency which provides no way to link transactions together nor trace the history of any particular XMR. 1 XMR is functionally identical to any other 1 XMR. Fungibility is an advantage Monero has over Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency, due to the privacy inherent in the Monero blockchain and the permanently traceable nature of the Bitcoin blockchain. With Bitcoin, any BTC can be tracked by anyone back to its creation coinbase transaction. Therefore, if a coin has been used for an illegal purpose in the past, this history will be contained in the blockchain in perpetuity. A great example of Bitcoin’s lack of fungibility was reposted by u/ViolentlyPeaceful: “Imagine you sell cupcakes and receive Bitcoin as payment. It turns out that someone who owned that Bitcoin before you was involved in criminal activity. Now you are worried that you have become a suspect in a criminal case, because the movement of funds to you is a matter of public record. You are also worried that certain Bitcoins that you thought you owned will be considered ‘tainted’ and that others will refuse to accept them as payment.” This lack of fungibility means that certain businesses will be obligated to avoid accepting BTC that have been previously used for purposes which are illegal, or simply run afoul of their Terms of Service. Currently some large Bitcoin companies are blocking, suspending, or closing accounts that have received Bitcoin used in online gambling or other purposes deemed unsavory by said companies. Monero has been built specifically to address the problem of traceability and non-fungibility inherent in other cryptocurrencies. By having completely private transactions Monero is truly fungible and there can be no blacklisting of certain XMR, while at the same time providing all the benefits of a secure, decentralized, permanent blockchain. The world is moving cashless. Fact. The ramifications of this are enormous as we move into a cashless world in which transactions will be tracked and there is a potential for data to be used by third parties for adverse purposes. While most new cryptocurrency investors speculate upon vaporware ICO tokens in the hope of generating wealth, Monero provides salvation for those in which financial privacy is paramount. Too often people equate Monero’s features with criminal endeavors. Privacy is not a crime, and is necessary for good money. Transparency in Monero is possible OFF-CHAIN, which offers greater transparency and flexibility. For example, a Monero user may share their Private View Key with their accountant for tax purposes. Monero aims to be adopted by more than just those with nefarious use cases. For example, if you lived in an oppressive religious regime and wanted to buy a certain item, using Monero would allow you to exchange value privately and across borders if needed. Another example is that if everybody can see how much cryptocurrency you have in your wallet, then a certain service might decide to charge you more, and bad actors could even use knowledge of your wallet balance to target you for extortion purposes. For example, a Russian cryptocurrency blogger was recently beaten and robbed of $425k. This is why FUNGIBILITY IS ESSENTIAL. To summarise this in a nutshell: “A lack of fungibility means that when sending or receiving funds, if the other person personally knows you during a transaction, or can get any sort of information on you, or if you provide a residential address for shipping etc. – you could quite potentially have them use this against you for personal gain” For those that wish to seek more information about why Monero is a superior form of money, read The Merits of Monero: Why Monero Vs Bitcoin over on the Monero.how website. Something that still rings true today despite the great influx of money into cryptocurrencies was outlined in Nick Tomaino’s early 2016 opinion piece. The author claimed that “one of the most interesting aspects of Monero is that the project has gained traction without a crowd sale pre-launch, without VC funding and any company or well-known investors and without a pre-mine. Like Bitcoin in the early days, Monero has been a purely grassroots movement that was bootstrapped by the creator and adopted organically without any institutional buy-in. The creator and most of the core developers serve the community pseudonymously and the project was launched on a message board (similar to the way Bitcoin was launched on an email newsletter).” The Organic Growth of the Monero Community The Monero community over at r/monero is exponentially growing. You can view the Monero reddit metrics here and see that the Monero subreddit currently gains more than 10,000 (yes, ten thousand!) new subscribers every 10 days! Compare this to most of the other coins out there, and it proves to be one of the only projects with real organic growth. In addition to this, the community subreddits are specifically divided to ensure the main subreddit remains unbiased, tech focused, with no shilling or hype. All trading talk is designated to r/xmrtrader, and all memes at r/moonero. While most contributors have gratefully volunteered their time to the project, Monero also has a Forum Funding System in which money is donated by community members to ensure it attracts and retains the brightest minds and most skilled developers. Unlike ICOs and other cryptocurrencies, Monero never had a premine, and does not have a developer tax. If ANYONE requires funding for a Monero related project, then they can simply request funding from the community, and if the community sees it as beneficial, they will donate. Types of projects range from Monero funding for local meet ups, to paying developers for their work. Monero For Goods, Services, and Market Places There is a growing number of online goods and services that you can now pay for with Monero. Globee is a service that allows online merchants to accept payments through credit cards and a host of cryptocurrencies, while being settled in Bitcoin, Monero or fiat currency. Merchants can reach a wider variety of customers, while not needing to invest in additional hardware to run cryptocurrency wallets or accept the current instability of the cryptocurrency market. Globee uses all of the open source API’s that BitPay does making integrations much easier! Project Coral Reef is a service which allows you to shop and pay for popular music band products and services using Monero. Linux, Veracrypt, and a whole array of VPNs now accept Monero. There is a new Monero only marketplace called Annularis currently being developed which has been created for those who value financial privacy and economic freedom, and there are rumours Open Bazaar is likely to support Monero once Multisig is implemented. In addition, Monero is also supported by The Living Room of Satoshi so you can pay bills or credit cards directly using Monero. Monero can be found on a growing number of cryptocurrency exchange services such as Bittrex, Poloniex, Cryptopia, Shapeshift, Changelly, Bitfinex, Kraken, Bisq, Tux, and many others. For those wishing to purchase Monero anonymously, there are services such as LocalMonero.co and Moneroforcash.com. With XMR.TO you can pay Bitcoin addresses directly with Monero. There are no other fees than the miner ones. All user records are purged after 48 hours. XMR.TO has also been added as an embedded feature into the Monerujo android wallet. Unlike Bitcoin, Monero can be mined using CPUs and GPUs. Not only does this encourage decentralisation, it also opens the door to browser based mining. Enter side of stage, Coinhive browser-based mining. As described by Hon Lau on the Symnatec Blog Browser-based mining, as its name suggests, is a method of cryptocurrency mining that happens inside a browser and is implemented using Javascript. Coinhive is marketed as an alternative to browser ad revenue. The motivation behind this is simple: users pay for the content indirectly by coin mining when they visit the site and website owners don’t have to bother users with sites laden with ads, trackers, and all the associated paraphern. This is great, provided that the websites are transparent with site visitors and notify users of the mining that will be taking place, or better still, offer users a way to opt in, although this hasn’t always been the case thus far. The main Monero subreddit has weekly Skepticism Sundays which was created with the purpose of installing “a culture of being scientific, skeptical, and rational”. This is used to have open, critical discussions about monero as a technology, it’s economics, and so on. Major Investors And Crypto Figureheads Are Interested Ari Paul is the co-founder and CIO of BlockTower Capital. He was previously a portfolio manager for the University of Chicago’s $8 billion endowment, and a derivatives market maker and proprietary trader for Susquehanna International Group. Paul was interviewed on CNBC on the 26th of December and when asked what was his favourite coin was, he stated “One that has real fundamental value besides from Bitcoin is Monero” and said it has “very strong engineering”. In addition, when he was asked if that was the one used by criminals, he replied “Everything is used by criminals including the US dollar and the Euro”. Paul later supported these claims on Twitter, recommending only Bitcoin and Monero as long-term investments. There are reports that “Roger Ver, earlier known as ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ for his evangelical support of the Bitcoin during its early years, said his investment in Monero is ‘substantial’ and his biggest in any virtual currency since Bitcoin. Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, has publicly stated his appreciation of Monero. In a September 2017 tweet directed to Edward Snowden explaining why Monero is superior to Zcash, Charlie Lee tweeted: All private transactions, More tested privacy tech, No tax on miners to pay investors, No high inflation… better investment. John McAfee, arguably cryptocurrency’s most controversial character at the moment, has publicly supported Monero numerous times over the last twelve months(before he started shilling ICOs), and has even claimed it will overtake Bitcoin. Playboy instagram celebrity Dan Bilzerian is a Monero investor, with 15% of his portfolio made up of Monero. Finally, while he may not be considered a major investor or figurehead, Erik Finman, a young early Bitcoin investor and multimillionaire, recently appeared in a CNBC Crypto video interview, explaining why he isn’t entirely sold on Bitcoin anymore, and expresses his interest in Monero, stating: “Monero is a really good one. Monero is an incredible currency, it’s completely private.” There is a common belief that most of the money in cryptocurrency is still chasing the quick pump and dumps, however as the market matures, more money will flow into legitimate projects such as Monero. Monero’s organic growth in price is evidence smart money is aware of Monero and gradually filtering in. A relatively unknown blogger named CryptoIzzy posted three poignant pieces regarding Monero and its place in the world. The Bitcoin Flaw: Monero Rising provides an intellectual comparison of Monero to other cryptocurrencies, and Valuing Cryptocurrencies: An Approach outlines methods of valuing different coins. CryptoIzzy’s most recent blog published only yesterday titled Monero Valuation – Update and Refocus is a highly recommended read. It touches on why Monero is much more than just a coin for the Darknet Markets, and provides a calculated future price of Monero. CryptoIzzy also published The Power of Money: A Case for Bitcoin, which is an exploration of our monetary system, and the impact decentralised cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Monero will have on the world. In the epilogue the author also provides a positive and detailed future valuation based on empirical evidence. CryptoIzzy predicts Monero to easily progress well into the four figure range. Monero Has a Relatively Small Marketcap Recently we have witnessed many newcomers to cryptocurrency neglecting to take into account coins’ marketcap and circulating supply, blindly throwing money at coins under $5 with inflated marketcaps and large circulating supplies, and then believing it’s possible for them to reach $100 because someone posted about it on Facebook or Reddit. Compared to other cryptocurrencies, Monero still has a low marketcap, which means there is great potential for the price to multiply. At the time of writing, according to CoinMarketCap, Monero’s marketcap is only a little over $5 billion, with a circulating supply of 15.6 million Monero, at a price of $322 per coin. For this reason, I would argue that this is evidence Monero is grossly undervalued. Just a few billion dollars of new money invested in Monero can cause significant price increases. Monero’s marketcap only needs to increase to ~$16 billion and the price will triple to over $1000. If Monero’s marketcap simply reached ~$35 billion (just over half of Ripple’s $55 billion marketcap), Monero’s price will increase 600% to over $2000 per coin. Another way of looking at this is Monero’s marketcap only requires ~$30 billion of new investor money to see the price per Monero reach $2000, while for Ethereum to reach $2000, Ethereum’s marketcap requires a whopping ~$100 billion of new investor money. There are numerous Monero technical analysts, however none more eerily on point than the crowd-pleasing Ero23. Ero23’s charts and analysis can be found on Trading View. Ero23 gained notoriety for his long-term Bitcoin bull chart published in February, which is still in play today. Head over to his Trading View page to see his chart: Monero’s dwindling supply. $10k in 2019 scenario, in which Ero23 predicts Monero to reach $10,000 in 2019. There is also this chart which appears to be freakishly accurate and is tracking along perfectly today. Over the past 12 months there have been ongoing rumours that Monero will be one of the next cryptocurrencies to be added to Coinbase. In January 2017, Monero Core team member Riccardo ‘Fluffypony’ Spagni presented a talk at Coinbase HQ. In addition, in November 2017 GDAX announced the GDAX Digit Asset Framework outlining specific parameters cryptocurrencies must meet in order to be added to the exchange. There is speculation that when Monero has numerous mobile and hardware wallets available, and multisig is working, then it will be added. This would enable public accessibility to Monero to increase dramatically as Coinbase had in excess of 13 million users as of December, and is only going to grow as demand for cryptocurrencies increases. Many users argue that due to KYC/AML regulations, Coinbase will never be able to add Monero, however the Kraken exchange already operates in the US and has XMR/fiat pairs, so this is unlikely to be the reason Coinbase is yet to implement XMR/fiat trading. It is likely most of the ICOs which newcomers invest in, hoping to get rich quick, won’t even be in the Top 100 cryptocurrencies next year. A large portion are most likely to be pumps and dumps, and we have already seen numerous instances of ICO exit scams. Once an ICO raises millions of dollars, the developers or CEO of the company have little incentive to bother rolling out their product or service when they can just cash out and leave. The majority of people who create a company to provide a service or product, do so in order to generate wealth. Unless these developers and CEOs are committed and believed in their product or service, it’s likely that the funds raised during the ICO will far exceed any revenue generated from real world use cases. Monero is a working currency, here today. The majority of so called cryptocurrencies that exist today are not true currencies, and do not aim to be. They are a token of exchange. They are like a share in a start-up company hoping to use blockchain technology to succeed in business. A crypto-assest is a more accurate name for coins such as Ethereum, Neo, Cardano, Vechain, etc. Monero isn’t just a vaporware ICO token that promises to provide a blockchain service in the future. It is not a platform for apps. It is not a pump and dump coin. Monero is the only coin with all the necessary properties to be called true money. Some even describe Monero as an online Swiss Bank Account or Bitcoin 2.0, and it is here to continue on from Bitcoin’s legacy. Monero is alleviating the public from the grips of banks, and protests the monetary system forced upon us. Monero only achieved this because it is the heart and soul, and blood, sweat, and tears of the contributors to this project. Monero supporters are passionate, and Monero has gotten to where it is today thanks to its contributors and users. ///Key Issues for Monero to Overcome/// While Bulletproofs are soon to be implemented in order to improve Monero’s transaction sizes and fees, scalability is an issue for Monero that is continuously being assessed by Monero’s researchers and developers to find the most appropriate solution. Ricardo ‘Fluffypony’ Spagni recently appeared on CNBC’s Crypto Trader, and when asked whether Monero is scalable as it stands today, Spagni stated that presently, Monero’s on-chain scaling is horrible and transactions are larger than Bitcoin’s (because of Monero’s privacy features), so side-chain scaling may be more efficient. Spagni elaborated that the Monero team is, and will always be, looking for solutions to an array of different on-chain and off-chain scaling options, such as developing a Mimblewimble side-chain, exploring the possibility of Lightning Network so atomic swaps can be performed, and Tumblebit. In a post on the Monero subreddit from roughly a month ago, r/monero moderator u/dEBRUYNE_1 supports Spagni’s statements. dEBRUYNE_1 clarifies the issue of scalability: “In Bitcoin, the main chain is constrained and fees are ludicrous. This results in users being pushed to second layer stuff (e.g. sidechains, lightning network). Users do not have optionality in Bitcoin. In Monero, the goal is to make the main-chain accessible to everyone by keeping fees reasonable. We want users to have optionality, i.e., let them choose whether they’d like to use the main chain or second layer stuff. We don’t want to take that optionality away from them.” When the Spagni CNBC video was recently linked to the Monero subreddit, it was met with lengthy debate and discussion from both users and developers. u/ferretinjapan summarised the issue explaining: “Monero has all the mechanisms it needs to find the balance between transaction load, and offsetting the costs of miner infrastructure/profits, while making sure the network is useful for users. But like the interviewer said, the question is directed at “right now”, and Fluffys right to a certain extent, Monero’s transactions are huge, and compromises in blockchain security will help facilitate less burdensome transactional activity in the future. But to compare Monero to Bitcoin’s transaction sizes is somewhat silly as Bitcoin is nowhere near as useful as monero, and utility will facilitate infrastructure building that may eventually utterly dwarf Bitcoin. And to equate scaling based on a node being run on a desktop being the only option for what classifies as “scalable” is also an incredibly narrow interpretation of the network being able to scale, or not. Given the extremely narrow definition of scaling people love to (incorrectly) use, I consider that a pretty crap question to put to Fluffy in the first place, but… ¯_(ツ)_/¯” u/xmrusher also contributed to the discussion, comparing Bitcoin to Monero using this analogous description: “While John is much heavier than Henry, he’s still able to run faster, because, unlike Henry, he didn’t chop off his own legs just so the local wheelchair manufacturer can make money. While Morono has much larger transactions then Bitcoin, it still scales better, because, unlike Bitcoin, it hasn’t limited itself to a cripplingly tiny blocksize just to allow Blockstream to make money.” Setting up a wallet can still be time consuming It’s time consuming and can be somewhat difficult for new cryptocurrency users to set up their own wallet using the GUI wallet or the Command Line Wallet. In order to strengthen and further decentralize the Monero network, users are encouraged to run a full node for their wallet, however this can be an issue because it can take up to 24-48 hours for some users depending on their hard-drive and internet speeds. To mitigate this issue, users can run a remote node, meaning they can remotely connect their wallet to another node in order to perform transactions, and in the meantime continue to sync the daemon so in the future they can then use their own node. For users that do run into wallet setup issues, or any other problems for that matter, there is an extremely helpful troubleshooting thread on the Monero subreddit which can be found here. And not only that, unlike some other cryptocurrency subreddits, if you ask a question, there is always a friendly community member who will happily assist you. Monero.how is a fantastic resource too! Despite still being difficult to use, the user-base and price may increase dramatically once it is easier to use. In addition, others believe that when hardware wallets are available more users will shift to Monero. I actually still feel a little shameful for promoting Monero here, but feel a sense of duty to do so. Monero is transitioning into an unstoppable altruistic beast. This year offers the implementation of many great developments, accompanied by the likelihood of a dramatic increase in price. I request you discuss this post, point out any errors I have made, or any information I may have neglected to include. Also, if you believe in the Monero project, I encourage you to join your local Facebook or Reddit cryptocurrency group and spread the word of Monero. You could even link this post there to bring awareness to new cryptocurrency users and investors. I will leave you with an old on-going joke within the Monero community – Don’t buy Monero – unless you have a use case for it of course 🙂 Just think to yourself though – Do I have a use case for Monero in our unpredictable Huxleyan society? Hint: The answer is ?  “One of our readers pointed out a site we linked to was specifically doing Monero cryptojacking, so I did some digging and wrote up my findings…” -Ray Li “Private Digital Currency” designed for blockchain obfuscation. As of this writing (July 7th, 2017) Monero was the 9th largest cryptocurrency by market cap at USD $668,237,283. This was equivalent to 265,532 BTC or 2,718,157 ETH. Monero was priced at USD $45.32 per coin with a circulating supply of 14,745,158 XMR. We’re continuing today with the next issue in my series on cryptocurrencies. As I’ve stated before, I’m not a cryptographer or even a cryptocurrency trader. I’m a researcher and investor in the space where tech innovation leads to industrial disruption. I believe that cryptocurrencies represent the highest level of Fintech innovation, with the potential to disrupt not just financial services, but all sectors of all economies around the world. As such, I research cryptocurrencies in order to draw correlations to other innovations and disruptions in the hunt for great investment opportunities. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is here, and I don’t plan on being replaced by robots… or becoming one. How has Monero made it to the 9th top cryptocurrency? Is there something that makes Monero special and unique, such that it should have lasting power as cryptocurrency ICOs take over Wall Street? Further, does it seem that Monero is undervalued relative to its utility and its crypto cousins? Is the narrative, “Monero 4 The Win” or “No Mo Monero?” Introduction from the CryptoNote Whitepaper: “Bitcoin has been a successful implementation of the concept of p2p electronic cash. Both professionals and the general public have come to appreciate the convenient combination of public transactions and proof-of-work as a trust model. Today, the user base of electronic cash is growing at a steady pace; customers are attracted to low fees and the anonymity provided by electronic cash and merchants value its predicted and decentralized emission. Bitcoin has effectively proven that electronic cash can be as simple as paper money and as convenient as credit cards. Unfortunately, Bitcoin suffers from several deficiencies… Some critical flaws that cannot be fixed rapidly deter Bitcoin’s widespread propagation. In such inflexible models, it is more efficient to roll-out a new project rather than perpetually fix the original.” According to the Whitepaper, Bitcoin suffers from the following five drawbacks: We’re digging into the organization’s website, forums, wiki page, and any other great info sources that pop up. Monero (XMR) is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that is NOT based on Bitcoin’s code. Monero was initially based on the CryptoNote protocol. Monero aims to be a fungible and untraceable digital medium of exchange. It intrinsically has a higher degree of privacy than Bitcoin or any of its various forks. All transactions on the Monero network are private by mandate; there is no way to accidentally send a transparent transaction. This feature is exclusive to Monero. Monero separates itself from Bitcoin with dynamic block size and dynamic fees, an ASIC-resistant proof of work, and a tail coin emission. Monero is said to be “private, optionally transparent”. Monero’s main emission curve will issue about 18.4 million XMR to be mined by the end of May 2022. After that, a constant “tail emission” of 0.6 XMR per 2-minutes block will create a sub-1% perpetual inflation to prevent the lack of incentives for miners once a currency is not mineable anymore. The primary markets for Monero are: Monero coins are listed under the ticker symbol: XMR The next Monero hard fork is September 2017. Monero experienced rapid growth in market cap and transaction volume during the year 2016, partly due to adoption by major darknet market AlphaBay at the end of summer 2016. On Feb 17, 2016, Monero broke through the $10mil market cap for the first time. On Aug 23, 2016, Monero broke through the $50mil market cap for the first time. On Aug 29, 2016, Monero broke through the $100mil market cap for the first time. On May 21, 2017, Monero broke through the $500mil market cap for the first time. As of July 7th, 2017, Monero has never broken through the $1bil market cap. The Monero proof-of-work algorithm, CryptoNight, is AES-intensive and “memory heavy”, which significantly reduces the advantage of GPU over CPU. The CryptoNote whitepaper is an invaluable reference for validating Monero’s unlinkability and untraceability claims: CryptoNote White Paper: https://cryptonote.org/whitepaper.pdf CryptoNote White Paper Review: http://monero.cc/downloads/whitepaper_review.pdf CryptoNote is the technology that allows creation of privacy-centric cryptocurrencies. The level of anonymity provided by CryptoNote isn’t possible with Bitcoin code base by design. Bytecoin (BCN) was the CryptoNote reference implementation, and XMR is based on BCN’s code. Two of the main features of CryptoNote are: Ring Signatures: ring signatures mask sender identities by mixing. One-Time Keys: one-time keys make transactions unlinkable. Little improvements over the Bitcoin protocol abound in CryptoNote: Your password is equivalent to your private keys. There are no transaction collisions. You can give away half of your private keys without fear of lost security. Any user can generate an income-auditable address by deterministically generating half of their keys. Transaction scripts are more simple. Global variables like block size and block reward dynamically adjust so there is no worry of network consensus for infrastructure-like changes to code. The CryptoNote protocol implements a piece of cryptography unseen in cryptocurrencies before, in particular, the idea of using key images to protect against double spending. According to a review of the CryptoNote Whitepaper, there are some critical problems with CryptoNote: The size of the the entire project is enormous. Key sizes are double the usual size. Unspent transaction output sets and key image sets both grow in an uncontrolled way. The elliptic curve constant is undefined. My anonymity depends on your anonymity. In Monero, your degree of anonymity is a choice, rather than decided by the protocol. Do you want to be hidden as one among five or one among fifty? The size of the signature grows linearly as O(n+1) with the ambiguity so greater anonymity is paid for with higher fees to miners. Monero: The smallest resolvable currency unit is 10−12 XMR. January 2017: the privacy of Monero transactions strengthened with the optional use of Bitcoin Core developer Gregory Maxwell’s algorithm Ring Confidential Transactions, starting at block #1220516. The ring signature algorithm introduced an additional layer of confidentiality by not displaying the amounts implicated in a transaction to someone who did not directly take part in it. The Monero.org forum can be found here: https://forum.getmonero.org/ Monero’s underlying cryptography is essentially Daniel J. Bernstein’s library for Ed25519, which is Schnorr signatures on the Twisted Edwards curve. The end result is passive, decentralised mixing based on heavily-tested algorithms. This BitcoinTalk.org forum recommends these Monero mining pools: Monero has no hardcoded maximum block size, which means that unlike Bitcoin it does not have a 1 MB block size limit preventing scaling. Monero features an opaque blockchain (with an explicit allowance system called the viewkey), in sharp contrast with transparent blockchain used by any other cryptocurrency not based on CryptoNote. Monero: “Only you control and are responsible for your funds; your accounts and transactions are kept private from prying eyes.” “With Monero’s sophisticated privacy-centric technology, you get all of the security benefits of the blockchain without any of the privacy trade-offs.” “By taking advantage of ring signatures, Monero makes it ambiguous which funds have been spent, and thus extremely unlikely that a transaction could be linked to particular user.” Monero coin emission uses a smoothly decreasing reward with no block halving (any block generates a bit less monero than the previous one, formula: Emission per 2-minutes block = max(0.6, floor((M − A)×2−19)×10−12) XMR, with M = 264 − 1 and A = 1012 times the amount of XMR already emitted). On 4 September 2014, Monero recovered from an unusual and novel attack executed against the cryptocurrency network. Because of the on-by-default nature of the privacy technologies, Monero is fungible, meaning one Monero will always be equal to another. This means you won’t have to worry about Monero blacklisted by exchanges or vendors. Kovri: The Kovri project uses end-to-end encryption so that neither the sender nor receiver of a Monero transaction need to reveal their IP address to the other side or to third-party observers (the blockchain). This is done using the same technology that powers the dark net, i2p (Invisible Internet Protocol). The project is currently in heavy, active development and is not yet integrated with Monero. Open Alias: The OpenAlias project simplifies cryptocurrency payments by providing FQDNs (Fully Qualified Domain Names, i.e. example.openalias.org) for Monero wallet addresses in a way that ensures everyone’s privacy is secure. The project is well underway and has already been implemented in many Monero wallets. Monero was launched in April 2014. It was a fair, pre-announced launch of the CryptoNote reference code. There was no Monero premine or instantmine. No portion of the Monero block reward goes to development. Monero has made several large improvements since launch: The blockchain was migrated to a different database structure to provide greater efficiency and flexibility. Minimum ring signature sizes were set so that all transactions were private by mandate. RingCT was implemented to hide transaction amounts. Monero continues to develop with goals of privacy and security first, ease of use and efficiency second. “Monero is more than just a technology. It’s also what the technology stands for.” Monero’s modular code architecture has been praised by Wladimir J. van der Laan, a Bitcoin Core maintainer. Monero was originally launched under the name BitMonero. Monero was launched as the first fork of CryptoNote-based currency Bytecoin, however was released with two major differences: The target block time was decreased from 120 to 60 seconds. The emission speed was decelerated by 50%. Later Monero reverted to 120 seconds block time while keeping the emission schedule by doubling the block reward per new block. Shortly after launch there was some controversy in the Monero community. A fallout ensued, and the Monero Core Team forked the project with the community following this new Core Team. This Core Team has provided oversight since. Monero developers are working on implementing a C++ I2P router straight in the code. This would complete the privacy chain by also hiding the IP addresses. Security: Users must be able to trust Monero with their transactions, without risk of error or attack. Monero gives the full block reward to the miners, who are the most critical members of the network who provide this security. Transactions are cryptographically secure using the latest and most resilient encryption tools available. Privacy: Monero takes privacy seriously. Monero needs to be able to protect users in a court of law and, in extreme cases, from the death penalty. This level of privacy must be completely accessible to all users, whether they are technologically competent or have no idea how Monero works. A user needs to confidently trust Monero in a way that this person does not feel pressured into changing their spending habits for risk of others finding out. Decentralization: Monero is committed to providing the maximum amount of decentralization. With Monero, you do not have to trust anyone else on the network, and it is not run by any large group. An accessible “Proof of Work” algorithm makes it easy to mine Monero on normal computers, which makes it more difficult for someone to purchase a large amount of mining power. Nodes connect to each other with I2P to lower the risks of revealing sensitive transaction information and censorship (tba). Development decisions are extremely clear and open to public discussion. Developer meeting logs are published online in their entirety and visible by all. The Monero smart mining feature allows transparent CPU mining on the user’s computer, far from the de facto centralization of mining farms and pool mining, pursuing Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision of a true P2P currency. Thanks for reading! Don’t forget your free subscription to Quotidian Disruption: “Disruption News Daily.” I’ve aggregated all my crypto related articles here: A Growing Cryptocurrency Resource Check out Monero’s live Twitter feed: Show less

Twitter Facebook Google + Monero is a secure, private, untraceable currency and it is open source, freely available to all. Itwas fairly launched on April 18th, 2014, without premine or instamine. The technology behind Monero has already spiked the interest of several established people in the Bitcoin development world and the cryptography community. Monero development is completely donation-based and community-driven, with a strong focus on decentralization and scalability. With Monero, you are your own bank. Only you control your funds, your accounts and transactions are kept private from prying eyes. How to store andearnsome Monero? The fastest way to start using Monero is with a webaccount manager such as MyMonero.Alternatively, if you would like to run a full Monero node, you can download the client and a kick-starterblockchain. To earn it, of course you canmine it throughMinerGateandusing also the possibility to mine 2 currencies at the same rate (e.g. Monero and FantomCoin). Detailed information While most cryptocurrencies align to theoretical principles of decentralization, the reality is that most fall short of such a claim. With Proof of Stake currencies, irregular emission and distribution models cause most of the staking power to end up in the hands of a privileged few. With Proof of Work currencies, of which Bitcoin remains the most significant reference, the mining process remainslargely in a handful of pools. This centralization of mining power, combined with a transparent blockchain, has already lead to various occurrences of transaction censorship. Monero contrasts with these examples in various and meaningful ways. Monero is powered strictly by Proof of Work, but specifically, it employs a mining algorithm that has the potential to be efficiently tasked to billions of existing devices (any modern x86 CPU). This very characteristic has the potential to ensure that for long years to come, the process of mining new Monero coins is within reach of the common individual, not an exclusive opportunity to the owners of large mining operations. One of the problems with cryptocurrencies is scaleability. Most cryptocurrencies are derived from the Bitcoin codebase and thus have a block size limit. This limit has become a big issue in the Bitcoin community and led to fierce discussions. Monero doesnt suffer from this block size debate.It has a dynamic block size limit and implements a permanent block reward. The block reward will never drop below 0.3 XMR, making Monero a disinflationary currency. The inflation will be roughly 1% in 2022 and go down forever. The nominal inflation will stay at 0.3 XMR per minute. This means that there will always be an incentive for miners to mine Monero. Other usefull links Wikipedia HTH, CryptoAddicted team Show less