This April 18th, the Monero ( XMR ) privacy coin a significant milestone for the project. The genesis block was mined on this exact date. same day back in 2014.
As with the Bitcoin blockchain's decade milestone earlier in the year, Monero's latest anniversary is an opportune moment for the XMR community to deliberate on its achievements and progression to this point.
Taking a step back, the progress of this privacy-focused cryptocurrency is evident, particularly in terms of its growing popularity and its advancements in technology since it first launched.
Monero Currently, Monero ranks as the 12th largest crypto project by market cap, also holding the title of the largest privacy coin per the same measure. While its recent price hovers around $68 USD, down from its peak of $495 in January 2018, it’s impressive to note a rise exceeding 7,000% over the past three years.
In a more immediate context, Monero's price is showing strength, with recent bullish trends driving up its market value by 31% within the month and 51% over the past quarter.
Monero’s rising prominence is intertwined with growing societal focus on privacy, especially in the realm of digital security. Reflecting on its five-year anniversary, Monero core team member binaryFate emphasized the project's dedication to empowering users with privacy:
\"Monero allows you to maintain the privacy of your digital financial dealings . This privacy is essential as a human right for individuals and a competitive necessity for businesses.\"
Recently, the project has seen remarkable technical advancements. Last autumn, Monero enabled Bulletproofs , an implementation of zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), on its blockchain.
This enhancement reduced XMR transaction sizes by approximately 80%, making them far less expensive. It was also the maiden crypto project to integrate Bulletproofs into its operations.
What Sets XMR Apart?
Unlike its privacy competitors in Zcash (ZEC) and Grin (GRIN), Monero was founded on a fork of Bytecoin , an implementation of the CryptoNote protocol.
Accordingly, Monero leverages ring signatures — a method that blends sender identities to obscure them — along with one-time keys, which prevent transactions from being linked back to the sender.
Together with the activation of Bulletproofs, Monero's privacy capabilities stand out as among the most advanced in cryptocurrency. Nonetheless, this has caught the attention of regulators worried about the potential for money laundering.
Such dynamics have led some exchanges to exclude XMR in favor of other privacy coins like Zcash that offer both shielded and unshielded transaction options.
Yet Monero’s core privacy feature of fungibility makes it akin to cash among cryptocurrencies. Similar to how fiat currency bills are indistinguishable from one another, XMR coins are as well, a contrast to other notable cryptocurrencies.
However, XMR faces increasing competition, especially from crypto projects that did not originally focus on privacy.
For example, the new Zether and Nightfall can be leveraged to obscure transaction details on the Ethereum network. Simultaneously, Bitcoin is adopting Taproot innovations, poised to enable the pioneering blockchain to handle private smart contracts more effectively.
Should these major cryptocurrencies continue to target privacy features, they could encroach upon Monero’s market space. However, this doesn’t imply Monero is without a future; it faces increasing competition, but remains promising.
What Monero indeed benefits from is being the first of its kind and the momentum garnered from five years of achievements.
