Today each Monero is worth around $44, compared with just 50 cents at the beginning of 2015, and the collective value of all Monero has grown to close to $650 million.
In August last year, the darknet market site Alphabay (now closed) began offering its thousands of vendors the option to accept Monero as an alternative to Bitcoin.
In future implementations, it is noted that Monero will add the anonymity software I2P to mask not only users' transactions on the Monero blockchain, but also the internet traffic underlying those transactions.
The Monero Market That strict secrecy also helps explain Monero's darknet popularity.
A screenshot from online black market Alphabay showing heroin offered in exchange for either Bitcoin or Monero.
A SCREENSHOT FROM ONLINE BLACK MARKET ALPHABAY SHOWING HEROIN OFFERED IN EXCHANGE FOR EITHER BITCOIN OR MONERO. Spagni says he expects Monero will no doubt be used in other potentially unsavory ways, too, like ransomware, and as currency for the gambling and porn industries.
Monero isn't the first cryptocurrency designed to offer a financial privacy panacea: Dash, formerly known as Darkcoin, integrates the "Coinjoin" technique that allows bitcoin users to mix their transactions with a few other spenders in what Todd calls a weaker form of anonymity than Monero offers.
