Privacy is a human right that is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Let’s discover how Monero is protecting your privacy for so many years.
When we are talking about privacy, Monero is hands down the most important coin for any privacy conscious crypto dweller. It’s a proof of work crypto currency that uses ingenious technology to ensure a bullet proof privacy. This coin is rocking stealth addresses, ring signatures and even a constantly changing algorithm that prevents centralisation by the use of ASIC mining machines. Aside from all this amazing technology, Monero can proudly pound its chest as having the most amount of developers tinkering with it on a daily basis ( after Bitcoin and Ethereum off course. ) Let’s put on our invisibility cloak and try to shine a light on this crucial piece of technology that’s vital to the global crypto economy and the future of privacy for everyone.
Fungibility and privacy
It’s not a secret that even before the 2020 worldwide hysteria and lockdowns, the powers that be were gearing up to welcome the whole of humanity into a centralised digital monetary system. The preparations were taking years to complete and even the severely technologically allergic people were comfortable using digital means of payment. Plastic has gone grandma-friendly!
When the world population was shivering from hysteria of the 2020 pandemic, the powers that be didn’t waste a second and promptly started to blacklist cash under the pretence of being “too dirty” and “full of bacteria”. Of course the whole crypto community knows that this argument is as weak as the fiat currency system itself. Regardless of the hypocrisies, the war on cash still goes on and it looks like we will see less and less cash in circulation as time goes on.
This is exactly what the diehard Monero soldiers are trying to explain to the world. In their amazing documentary ( “Monero Means Money” that can be watched on Youtube ) they clearly explain the importance of fungibility. Simply put, fungibility means that your dollar bill is the same no matter if you receive it from a holy guru of the Himalayas, or from a back alley drug dealing thug. Sadly when we examine Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and even the beloved Dogecoin, we’ll quickly notice that these coins run the risk of being “blacklisted”. This means that when you receive a “tainted” Bitcoin ( meaning: if this Bitcoin comes from an address that is known to the authorities for conducting nefarious activities ) this Bitcoin suddenly becomes way less valuable than you imagine. Needless to say, Monero doesn’t suffer from this problem.
If you want to understand Monero, you have to understand fungibility first. You see when we are forced into using a central bank digital currency ( CBDC ), we can wave fungibility goodbye. All transactions will be tracked and money will become programmable. Max Max and Blade Runner eat your heart out! So when we are talking about Monero, we can’t just call it a privacy coin. It’s much more than that! The team behind this colossal project is doing their best to educate the world on what they are actually trying to achieve and we will try to tell their story here. After many years Monero has solidified itself as a veteran of one of the most reliable crypto projects out there, so let’s put on our Guy Fawkes masks and dig right in.
Monero origins
Although we’ll probably won’t ever know the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto ( the father of Bitcoin ), we can pretty much be sure that he would have not imagined that his gift to the world would become so unsafe after just a few years of being in the wild.
Did you really think that Bitcoin was anonymous?! No no no. You see nowadays there are whole companies and government contractors that sniff out Bitcoin’s blockchain and look for anything “suspicious”. While Bitcoin’s idea is amazing, the tech is getting a bit old school.
In 2014 Monero decided to do something about this. Off course lets not forget that back in those days the whole Silk Road ( darknet marketplace specialising in the illegal substances trade ) has soiled Bitcoin’s reputation to the point of driving this incredible innovation to the point of obscurity and ostracism. The adoption of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies that live within it was almost halted completely. The team of Monero has set out to fix so many issues that are plaguing pseudonymous crypto currencies and needless to say, the proof is in the pudding. If you didn’t know what a pseudonymous cryptocurrency is, let’s take a quick look at Bitcoin to clarify a few important points.
Bitcoin’s addresses are not tied to any given identity ( yet! ), so people can transact at their leisure without having to worry about privacy. However if for some reason your IP address is tied to a Bitcoin address, this privacy disappears completely. Edward Snowden has shown us how easy it is to have your data harvested these days. These days some countries are even forcing people to send screenshots of their Bitcoin address in order to purchase their coins ( essentially rendering the use of cryptocurrency completely obsolete ). Pseudonymous means “not quite anonymous”. We hope your brain is starting to simmer with thoughts and you do realise that using cryptocurrency is not so safe as you have imagined.
If we analyse the criteria of a rock solid currency, we will find that privacy and fungibility play a huge role. The Monero wizards have always stayed true to this idea and until this day they remain hard true to their principles. Who can blame them? As long as the printer goes BRRRR and the governments of the world are robbing people through hidden taxes ( like inflation ) we simply have to have a better alternative. For now all spotlight is on Big Daddy Bitcoin and we know it’s not 100% waterproof. When it comes to Monero, the credo is: “Monero is what people thought Bitcoin was when they bought it”. How does it manage to pull it off? Grab your screwdriver and pliers and let’s dig into the tech behind it.
Technology for privacy
If we want to sum up Monero’s selling proposition, it is: Privacy by default and safety in numbers. Meaning that aside from other privacy centric coins ( like ZEC and DASH ) that offer “opt-in” privacy, Monero proudly pounds its fist on the table and offers bullet proof privacy out of the box. If we look at the selling propositions, Monero brings a lot to the table, but most important are: stealth addresses, ring signatures and off course the RandomX mining algorithm.
While it’s prudent to use only safe form of communication when providing someone your Bitcoin wallet address ( if you want to receive a Bitcoin payment ), with Monero you can give your wallet address to the lord of darkness himself without worrying about the repercussions. You see when we take a look at Monero’s blockchain, we will discover … ( are you sitting down? ) … Absolutely nothing! No transactions, no amounts, nothing! If there is no information that can be sniffed out by AI and authorities, there is less to worry about when you decide to share your Monero address with the whole world. Done deal!
The second wickedly amazing tech that’s native to Monero is off course ring signatures. While it’s not really easy to explain how they work in a few sentences, the core idea is safety in numbers. Just imagine that in a full classroom of 30 students, there is 1 prankster who puts a whoopie cushion on the teacher’s chair. After 5 minutes of thundering laughter ( triggered by a well executed gag ), the teacher will try to find the perpetrator and unleash all of his pedagogical wrath upon this poor soul. If we use the concept of Ring Signatures, all 30 students would rise up and declare that every single one of them is responsible for the amazing gag, the teacher will never find the 1 prankster responsible for brightening up the dullness of his entire class. Ring signatures hide the identity of the person who actually signed for any given transaction. Good luck fishing for a needle in a haystack.
Furthermore, the Monero community is extremely passionate about decentralisation. You see, many privacy centric coins like DASH, ZEC, ARRR and even the famous GRIN have become victims of the ASIC miners. These are very fast and powerful specialised mining computers that are usually cracked out by the thousands in huge Chinese factories. Needless to say, these expensive and capricious machines carry a hefty price tag and can easily burn a hole in the pocket of a normal retail mining hobbyist. There is now way a normal guy or a girl can compete with huge Chinese mega mining companies and farms. This presents a huge problem called: centralization. This is exactly why Monero has a special mining algorithm that changes frequently.
Any potential ASIC miner that’s developed by the savvy Chinese engineers is immediately transformed into a very expensive paper weight after Moenro ( yet again! ) changes its mining algorithm. This actually gives the small guys a chance to mine Monero and be profitable, since Monero’s mining algorithm is very friendly towards GPU’s ( Graphic Cards ) and CPU’s ( Processors ). Do you have a PC or a mac? Guess what! You can actually mine Monero on the damn thing! How cool is that?
Now off course we just scratched the surface of the technology that makes Monero one of the most battle hardened and hairy chested crypto projects out there. Off course not all is well in the privacy land and just like a Mexican soap opera, this year has been filled with twists and turns that any prudent investor needs to be aware of.
Then they fight you, then you win
By now you can see that Monero’s technology is pretty damn bullet proof. In fact it’s so bullet proof, that the US government is actually dangling a 650 million dollar bounty in front of anyone who can crack Monero. Many contractors and analytics companies have jumped on the bandwagon and are sweating caffeine while trying to tighten the noose around a ghost.
Realising the futility of this endeavour will take some time, however the governments can indeed put a noose around the neck of the fiat on-and-off ramps that are off course; centralised exchanges. We have seen Monero being kicked off many exchanges last year. The media campaigns against this privacy coin have been nothing less than brutal. Holders of Monero are to this day portrayed as criminals and outcasts and digital ebola carrying lepers. Somehow though Monero has managed to spit a respectable 114% gain into the face of the doubters. It’s also no secret that the developers have actively started to build digital bridges to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency in order to bless their digital child with a decentralised gateway towards many different crypto currencies. For the moment people can still buy Monero directly from the P2P portal called: Local monero.
When we analyse the current trends, we can clearly notice that words like “transparency” and “open architecture” have already rubbed blisters on many ears. Our data is quickly becoming more valuable than black gold and many eager tech giants are building ever larger digital silos for storing this precious new commodity. Rest assured that the Monero developers are “on top of things” when it comes to this battle. After Bitcoin and Ethereum, Monero has the 3rd largest army of seasoned, passionate and dedicated developers who are working non stop to be one step ahead every time.
No doubt that we haven’t yet seen the full wrath of the long arm of the law when it comes to delistings and ostracism of Monero from the “transparent” digital world. However the passionate dudes and gals are ready to defend their values of privacy and fungibility until the very end.
Is monero a good investment?
If you are still shaken up from the fact that your favorite coins are not as private as you believed they were, have no fear. Many people don’t realize it yet, however with time this will become painfully clear to one and all. While privacy is not important to all crypto investors, it certainly is a human right that’s being trampled on left and right under any pretence that suits the powers that be.
So does Monero deserve a place inside your portfolio? The obvious answer is off course: YES! In fact when we analyse the tech, the people and the dedication that’s distilled in this project, it actually deserves a place among the Big Daddies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chainlink, Polkadot and Cardano. With the ever creeping danger of a completely cashless society that’s lurking behind the corner of EMF, WEF and other “global” institutions, we can even say that having Monero is a must.
Let’s face it, we are not going to transact internationally using physical precious metals or any “out of the system” asset any time soon. We are a digital and interconnected world and this trend will only continue to grow no matter if we like it or not. This is why the mere existence of a haven for privacy and fungibility is not just a “nice thing to have”, it will be pretty much the only way to interact with each other “off the record”, just like we still do using cash.
