Monero was launched in 2014, and its goal is simple: to allow transactions to take place privately and with anonymity. Even though it’s commonly thought that BTC can conceal a person’s identity, it’s often easy to trace payments back to their original source because blockchains are transparent. On the other hand, XMR is designed to obscure senders and recipients alike through the use of advanced cryptography.

The team behind Monero say privacy and security are their biggest priorities, with ease of use and efficiency coming second. It aims to provide protection to all users — irrespective of how technologically competent they are.

Overall, XMR aims to allow payments to be made quickly and inexpensively without fear of censorship.

## Who Are the Founders of Monero?

Seven developers were initially involved in creating Monero — five of whom decided to remain anonymous. There have been rumors that XMR was also invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin.

XMR’s origins can be traced back to Bytecoin, a privacy-focused and decentralized cryptocurrency that was launched in 2012. Two years later, a member of the Bitcointalk forum — only known as thankful_for_today — forked BCN’s codebase, and Monero was born. They had suggested “controversial changes” to Bytecoin that others in the community disagreed with and decided to take matters into their own hands.

It’s believed that hundreds of developers have contributed to XMR over the years.

## What Makes Monero Private?

Users shouldn't view all privacy cryptocurrencies as interchangeable or equivalent services because they don't all achieve privacy in the same way. For instance, XMR should be considered a technology that, when used properly, obscures user data on the blockchain, making it harder to identify its users.


## What Gives Monero Value?

The secrecy and anonymity offered by Monero are what most users find valuable. It gives people the freedom to conduct cryptocurrency transactions anytime they want for any purpose without being concerned about being watched by the government, hackers or other outside parties. XMR coins cannot be traced, thus they cannot be blacklisted by businesses for alleged illicit connections.

Investors who think that demand for privacy will rise in the future, raising the price and total market cap of XMR, may find value in Monero in addition to its use as a medium of exchange.

## Mining on Monero

Monero uses a Proof-of-Work algorithm, RandomX, to validate transactions. The method was introduced in November 2019 to replace the former algorithm CryptoNightR. Both were designed to be ASIC-resistant.

Monero can be mined somewhat efficiently on consumer-grade hardware, such as x86, x86-64, ARM and GPUs, a design decision that was based on Monero's opposition to mining centralization that ASIC mining creates. However, it has also resulted in Monero's popularity among malware-based non-consensual miners.

In October of 2021, the Monero project introduced P2Pool, a mining pool running on a sidechain that gives participants full control of their node as with solo mining configurations.