Monero (XMR) XMR

Monero (XMR) is a cryptocurrency focused on privacy, launched on 18 April 2014. Unlike Bitcoin, where every transaction can be traced on a public ledger, Monero hides the sender, the recipient and the amount of every transaction by default. This makes XMR fungible: one coin cannot be blacklisted because of its history. It also makes Monero the privacy coin most targeted by regulators and exchanges. Here is how it works, its history, its legal situation and its risks.

What is Monero?

Monero grew out of a 2014 fork of Bytecoin, a coin based on the CryptoNote protocol described in a whitepaper published in October 2013 under the pseudonym Nicolas van Saberhagen. The project, first called BitMonero, quickly took the name Monero (“coin” in Esperanto). It has no company or foundation in charge: development is led by an open community of contributors, with the Monero Research Lab working on cryptography.

How Monero works

Privacy by default

Three technologies protect every Monero transaction:

• Ring signatures mix the real sender with decoys taken from the blockchain, so that observers cannot tell who signed.
• Stealth addresses create a one-time address for each payment, hiding the recipient.
• RingCT (Ring Confidential Transactions), introduced in 2017, hides the amounts.

Users who need transparency, for example for an audit, can share a view key that reveals their incoming transactions.

RandomX mining

Monero uses proof of work. Since November 2019, it has used the RandomX algorithm, designed to run efficiently on ordinary processors (CPUs) and to make specialised mining machines less advantageous. A block is mined about every two minutes.

Supply and tail emission

Monero has no maximum supply. Block rewards decreased gradually until the end of May 2022, when the “tail emission” began: a fixed reward of 0.6 XMR per block, forever. The goal is to keep miners paid even if fees remain low. In practice, annual inflation is low and falls slowly over time.

A short history of Monero

• October 2013: publication of the CryptoNote whitepaper.
• 18 April 2014: launch of the network that becomes Monero.
• 2017: RingCT makes amounts confidential.
• November 2019: switch to RandomX mining.
• September 2020: the US tax agency IRS offers up to $625,000 for tools able to trace Monero.
• May 2022: tail emission begins.
• 20 February 2024: Binance delists XMR.
• 31 October 2024: Kraken stops XMR trading and deposits for customers in the European Economic Area.

What is Monero used for?

Monero is used by people who want financial privacy: protecting salaries, donations or business payments from public view, or avoiding surveillance in countries with capital controls. Its anonymity also attracts illicit use, notably on darknet markets, which explains much of the regulatory hostility.

Regulation: EU and United States

European Union. Holding XMR in your own wallet is legal. However, MiCA requires trading platforms to prevent the admission of crypto-assets with built-in anonymisation unless holders can be identified, which Monero’s design does not allow. In addition, Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 on anti-money laundering bans crypto-asset service providers from keeping accounts that allow anonymity-enhancing coins from 10 July 2027. As a result, most regulated European platforms no longer offer XMR.

United States. There is no federal ban on owning Monero, but major US platforms such as Coinbase and Gemini do not list it, and authorities have funded tools to trace it. Exchanges that do serve US customers apply strict anti-money-laundering checks.

Risks and criticism

• Access risk: delistings make XMR harder to buy and sell, and liquidity is concentrated on fewer venues.
• Legal risk: rules may tighten further, and some countries, such as South Korea, already ban privacy coin trading on exchanges.
• Reputation: links with illicit markets weigh on its image and on banking relationships.
• Privacy limits: mistakes by users, such as reusing an exchange account or revealing a view key, can weaken privacy.
• Volatility: XMR remains a speculative asset.

How to buy and store XMR

As of October 2026, among the large platforms covered by Coindaro, only Kraken lists XMR, and not for customers in the European Economic Area. Always complete KYC checks on legitimate platforms and beware of unregulated sites promising anonymity. To store XMR, use the official wallet available on getmonero.org or another reputable Monero wallet, and keep the 25-word seed offline. Some hardware wallets can be used together with the official wallet for self-custody.