When you mention Monero, most people have little good to say. It is illegal. It is a crypto you can only use on the dark web for unlawful activities. Only criminals use Monero. You will rarely see any celebrity or tech giants endorsing the coin. While Bitcoin, Doge, Ethereum are almost always recognized, Monero is not as identifiable.
Regulatory entities have always seen Monero and other privacy coins as digital currencies that promote illicit behavior. The Internal Revenue Service of the United States offered $625,000 as a reward to anyone who can hack into the blockchain. Anti-money laundering agencies tightened know-your-customer (KYC) laws, which led to some centralized exchanges to delist XMR. Bittrex, OKEx’s South Korean subsidiary, Kraken UK, and Huobi Global took out privacy coins from their offerings. Countries also banned the use of privacy coins, like Japan, Australia, and South Korea. The attention abated a little in 2022 when regulators focused on the collapse of some crypto companies, such as FTX, Terraform Labs, BlockFi, and Celsius.
On the other hand, XMR remains to be the most well-known privacy coin and is THE choice of privacy-oriented cryptocurrency holders. CoinCenter and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) consider anonymous digital transactions as an essential part of civil liberties today. Privacy coins are valuable to those who prefer to maintain their anonymity in their crypto transactions. There are also privacy advocates who want to keep their identities, finances, and personal information away from prying eyes. They use these cryptos as payments, too, because they wish to remain invisible while online. Monero, in particular, was developed to give freedom and security to its users. Privacy coins are just tools and it is not fair to place judgement based on some who misuse them.
What makes Monero different from other privacy coins?
All privacy coins make use of cryptographic technologies to boost the anonymity of users. Those into crypto now know that most blockchains are pseudonymous. You may have heard of some people who post online how much crypto this or that wallet has, or even the name of high-profile persons and how much crypto they have. Monero’s technologies take preserving anonymity a step further by making all transactions private automatically and are not an option. Stealth addresses prevent any transaction to be linked to the wallet address of a recipient. Ring signatures hide the sender’s wallet address. RingCT conceals transaction amounts. Dandelion++, the latest upgrade, hinders linking an IP address with a sender. All these works together to keep everything anonymous, but transactions are validated on the blockchain despite the many layers of privacy.
Outlook for Monero
So far, Monero is doing well in the first month of 2023. The coin is up by 24% with a 24-hour high of $175.56 at the time of this writing. It is consistently in the top 30 coins in terms of market capitalization. Based on technical trends, analysts predict its price will reach between $249-298 by the end of 2023 and as high as $9,000 by 2032, making it an excellent addition to a crypto enthusiast’s portfolio. Its value will also rise as adoption increases. More merchants and individuals are accepting XMR as payments.
Regulations may be an issue, but it is this same thing that will drive Monero’s price. Many in the crypto ecosystem prefer to keep their finances private, and privacy coins are vital in protecting the interest of users. In addition, every person in a free society has the inalienable right to financial privacy.
If you want a diverse portfolio of digital assets and also value privacy, think about adding XMR. Monero will only get better because its very active community, the Monero Project, is continually improving its protocol. Do your own research and weigh the gains and risks before diving, just like you would for any other investment. You can get XMR from both centralized and decentralized platforms. Do not forget to make security a priority, especially when you are online. Ensure your devices are virus and malware-free and your network is secure. For additional security, consider getting both online and offline wallets to store your assets. Store your Monero (XMR) in XMRWallet.com. It is web-based and there’s no need to download any software. You are good to go whichever device you use as long as it has a browser. It has multiple language support, and it is free forever.
