Monero (XMR) is a digital asset that was introduced in 2014 with the primary intention of facilitating private and anonymous transactions. Unlike many other digital assets, Monero's design aims to conceal the details of senders and recipients through advanced cryptography, making it challenging to trace payments back to their original source. This emphasis on privacy and security is a fundamental aspect of Monero, with the project striving to provide protection to all users, regardless of their technical competence. Monero seeks to enable quick and inexpensive payments without the fear of censorship.

Monero operates on the principle of decentralization, meaning that a user doesn't need to trust anyone else on the network. It aims to achieve privacy through several unique features. Unlike other digital assets where each coin has its own serial number, Monero is completely fungible, meaning that each individual unit of the currency is interchangeable with any other. By default, details about senders, recipients, and the amount of crypto being transferred are obscured. This obfuscation is achieved through the use of ring signatures, where past transaction outputs are picked from the blockchain and act as decoys, making it difficult for outside observers to identify the real sender. To ensure that transactions cannot be linked to one another, stealth addresses are created for every single transaction that are only used once.

The primary use case for Monero is as a medium of exchange that offers privacy and anonymity to its users. The level of secrecy provided by Monero is highly valued by users who wish to conduct digital asset transactions without fear of being monitored by external parties, including governments and hackers. Monero's untraceability also means that its coins cannot be blacklisted by businesses due to alleged illicit connections. This makes Monero a potentially attractive option for individuals who believe that demand for privacy will increase in the future.

Monero was created in 2014 by a team of seven developers, five of whom chose to remain anonymous. The origins of Monero can be traced back to Bytecoin, a privacy-focused and decentralized digital asset that was launched in 2012. Two years later, a member of the Bitcointalk forum, known only as thankfulfortoday, forked Bytecoin's codebase, leading to the birth of Monero. This was in response to proposed changes to Bytecoin that were controversial and disagreed with by others in the community. Since its inception, it is believed that hundreds of developers have contributed to Monero.