Monero (XMR) is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that is not based on Bitcoin's code.

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. It was launched on April 18, 2014 (preannounced and no premine/ICO/etc.).

The official core team members are (in no particular order) - Riccardo "fluffypony" Spagni, luigi1111, NoodleDoodle, smooth, tacotime, Franciso "ArticMine" Cabañas, othe

Announcements

Please visit News, announcements and editorials on the Monero Forum for the latest news.
Visit our StackExchange site, where you can ask, answer, and view technical questions!
Features

Untraceable payments
Unlinkable transactions
Blockchain analysis resistance
Adaptive parameters

Academic and Theory

Monero's functionality is backed up by academic research and cryptographically proven schemes. Much of this research is done by the Monero Research Lab. Since Monero was initially based on the CryptoNote protocol, the CryptoNote whitepaper is also an invaluable reference for validating Monero's unlinkability and untraceability claims.

Specifications

PoW algorithm: CryptoNight [1]
Max supply: Infinite (see note below) [2]
Block reward: Smoothly varying [3]
Block time: 120 seconds
Difficulty: Retargets at every block
[1] CPU + GPU mining (about 1:1 performance for now). Memory-bound by design using AES encryption and several SHA-3 candidates.
[2] Initial number of atomic units is M = 264 - 1. However, once the block reward reaches 0.3 XMR per minute (sometime in 2022) that is treated as the minimum subsidy, which means that Monero's total emission will forever increase by ~157680 XMR annually.
[3] Uses a recurrence relation. Block reward = (M - A) * 2-20 * 10-12, where A = current circulation. Roughly 86% mined in 4 years (see graph).