Monero aims to be a secure, private and untraceable cryptocurrency. It was created in April 2014 as an open source project and is currently maintained by seven core developers, the most prominent fabulously calling himself “Fluffy Pony”.
The value of Monero has more than tripled in the last ten days moving from around $2.47 to $8.10 as at the time of this publication.
Described as the new digital currency that online drug-dealers have started to adopt because it enables them to conduct business with more anonymity, the price of two-year-old Monero skyrocketed lately, driven by the announcement of several darknet markets to accept Monero as payment.
AlphaBay, one of the most popular sites for buying drugs like liquid LSD and hybrid cannabis, said last week it has partnered Oasis to begin accepting Monero on September 1.
Whether the factor behind the quick rise is solely due to darknet markets’ adoption is unknown. However, with the report by RAND Europe that says illegal drug transactions on cryptomarkets have tripled since 2013, with revenues doubling, it couldn’t be far from being a major factor.
Trading in Monero has also increased with exchanges such Poloniex recording more than 1,300 Bitcoin worth of its trade in 24 hours.
The growing interest has also drawn the attention of wallets. Bitwala recently added it to the list of accepted Altcoins and Cryptocurrencies for its users to pay bills, send out international bank transfers and use it to top up their debit card.
The main differences between Monero and Bitcoin are its default use of stealth addresses and ring signatures, obfuscating most transaction data like sender, recipient and payment amount. By implementing these features, the currency offers its users full transaction anonymity.
Unlike Bitcoin forks, Monero is based on the CryptoNote protocol whose transactions cannot be traced through the blockchain to reveal its sender or receiver.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
