Monero
A proof-of-work cryptocurrency designed to hide the sender, receiver and amount of every transaction by default.
LivePrivacy coin
As of 16 October 2026 the mainnet ran the ring-signature design adopted in August 2022, and the FCMP++ upgrade was in public test-network trials with no mainnet date set.
- Market cap
- $10.94BDefiLlama, 18 Oct 2026
- Launched
- 18 Apr 2014
- Token
- XMR
- Chains
- Monero
How it works
Monero is a cryptocurrency with its own blockchain, launched on 18 April 2014 from the CryptoNote reference code with no premine. Miners add a block about every two minutes using proof-of-work, which since November 2019 has run on the RandomX algorithm. Unlike Bitcoin, where addresses and amounts can be read by anyone, Monero applies its privacy features to every transaction by default, so users do not need to opt in.
Three techniques work together. Stealth addresses give each payment a new one-time destination derived from the recipient's published address, so outsiders cannot see who was paid or link payments to the same person. Ring signatures hide which coin is being spent: since August 2022 each input has been signed, using the CLSAG scheme, as one of 16 possible outputs, the real one plus 15 decoys drawn from earlier outputs on the blockchain, while a key image attached to each input lets the network reject double spends without revealing which member is real. Ring Confidential Transactions (RingCT), mandatory since September 2017, hide amounts, and Bulletproofs+ range proofs, used since August 2022, show that each hidden amount is valid without revealing it.
Privacy also depends on how a transaction reaches the network. Since software version 0.16 in May 2020, nodes have relayed new transactions with Dandelion++, which makes it harder to tell which node first broadcast a transaction. Users can also run their node and wallet over Tor or I2P, but this has to be set up by hand, and a wallet that connects to someone else's node (a remote node) has no IP address protection by default.
Monero does not hide everything. Its documentation rates the sender protection from rings as probabilistic, offering plausible deniability rather than certainty, because the real input sits among only 15 decoys. Outputs created before RingCT, which became mandatory only in September 2017, can have visible amounts, and Dandelion++ does not protect against a user's internet or VPN provider or the first node a transaction is sent to. A planned upgrade, FCMP++, would replace ring signatures with full-chain membership proofs that show the spent output is one of all outputs on the chain; in October 2026 it was being tested on a public stress-test network and had no mainnet activation date.
Market cap over time
- $10.94B market cap now
- +5.5% in 30 days
- $13.04B highest daily market cap, 14 Jan 2026
Monero has no TVL: it is a coin with its own blockchain, so the chart shows its market cap. Daily market cap from Coin Metrics Community Data (CC BY-NC 4.0) since 20 May 2014, and the current value from DefiLlama. The latest value is from 18 Oct 2026, 05:57 UTC. The series is in protocol-monero.json, listed on the Data page.
What it hides and what it does not
What it hides
- Who was paid: each payment goes to a new one-time stealth address derived from the recipient's published address.
- Which coin is being spent: each input is signed as one of 16 possible outputs, the real one and 15 decoys.
- The amounts, through RingCT, mandatory for all transactions since September 2017.
What it does not hide
- The real input with full certainty: it sits among only 15 decoys, and Monero's documentation rates the sender protection as probabilistic, offering plausible deniability rather than certainty.
- Amounts of outputs created before RingCT became mandatory in September 2017, which can be visible.
- The IP address of a node or wallet, unless it is set up to use Tor or I2P: a wallet that connects to a remote node has no IP address protection by default.
- Where a transaction came from, to the user's internet or VPN provider and to the first node it is sent to, which Dandelion++ does not protect against.
Drawn from how it works, above; the sources are listed at the end of the page. Where privacy still leaks explains the patterns, such as timing and amounts, that can give users of any design away.
Audits
Eight security reviews, oldest first, with what each covered and found. Dates are when each report was issued, unless the entry says otherwise.
| Date | Firm | Scope and findings |
|---|---|---|
| Kudelski Security | Monero's Bulletproofs range-proof implementation before activation; the review found the code largely clean, with four low-severity bugs that were patched and several informational issues. Sponsored by the Monero Research Lab, the Monero community, Private Internet Access and OSTIF, which published the results. Source: The QuarksLab and Kudelski Security audits of Monero Bulletproofs are Complete |
|
| Quarkslab | Monero's Bulletproofs implementation, audited from 18 April to 17 July 2018; the report described four major and three medium issues, and publication was held back until the 0.13.0 release of 18 October 2018 shipped a denial-of-service fix. |
|
| Not dated | Trail of Bits, X41 D-Sec, Kudelski Security and Quarkslab | RandomX proof-of-work algorithm before its November 2019 activation; four independent audits carried out between May and August 2019 (the README gives no single completion date), coordinated by OSTIF and three of them funded by Monero community donations, found no critical vulnerabilities but led to several changes in the algorithm and code. Source: RandomX README: Audits |
| JP Aumasson and Antony Vennard (with OSTIF) | CLSAG ring signature scheme in two stages, first its security model and proofs, then the implementation; no security issues were found, two security proofs were revised and the code was described as secure and well written. Funded through the CCS. Source: CLSAG audit results |
|
| ZenGo X researchers | Peer review of the Bulletproofs+ paper and review of Monero's Bulletproofs+ code, about 1,500 lines of C++, funded through the CCS with 90.3 XMR; the date is the milestone completion date on the CCS page, which does not link the final report. |
|
| Cypher Stack | Carrot, the address scheme planned for the FCMP++ upgrade, reviewed in the paper An Audit of the FCMP++ Addressing Protocol; the date is when the final paper was added to Cypher Stack's repository. Sources: carrot-audit: Review of CARROT address scheme for Monero full-chain membership proofs ; carrot-audit commit history (Add Carrot-final.pdf, 23 November 2024) |
|
| Veridise | FCMP++ membership-proof circuit code (the src, circuit-abstraction and ec-gadgets folders), reviewed from 7 April to 2 May 2025 for MAGIC Grants. |
|
| Trail of Bits | Incremental changes to Monero's core cryptography libraries for FCMP++, two engineer-weeks funded by community donors through MAGIC Grants; six informational findings and none of low, medium or high severity, with one finding on a Rust FFI function only partly resolved. Source: Monero FCMP++ Cryptography Implementation Audited by Trail of Bits |
Incidents
14 incidents, oldest first: flaws, exploits, sanctions, prosecutions and other events that affected the project or its users.
-
A flaw in CryptoNote key images that could allow unlimited coin creation, undetectable to an observer, was patched without public disclosure on 21 February 2017 and disclosed on 17 May 2017; the developers said a scan of the chain showed it had never been exploited on Monero.
Source: Disclosure of a Major Bug in CryptoNote Based Currencies
-
Coincheck in Japan ended trading, deposits, withdrawals and holding of XMR, ZEC, DASH and REP, citing the need to strengthen anti-money-laundering controls after Japan's Financial Services Agency issued it a business improvement order over an unauthorised transfer of NEM; remaining balances were sold and converted to yen.
Source: 一部仮想通貨の取り扱い廃止のお知らせ (Notice of discontinuation of some crypto-assets)
-
Upbit in South Korea ended XMR trading on its KRW, BTC, ETH and USDT markets, three weeks after designating XMR an investment-warning asset and stopping deposits with reference to FATF standards on virtual asset transfers.
Sources: [Market] Designation notice of Monero(XMR), Dash(DASH), ZCASH(ZEC), Haven(XHV), BitTube(TUBE), PIVX(PIVX) as Investment Warning Crypto-asset (notice 984) ; [Market] Notice of Ending Support for Transactions (Ends September 30, 19) Monero(XMR), Dash(DASH), ZCASH(ZEC), Haven(XHV), BitTube(TUBE), PIVX(PIVX) (notice 995)
-
getmonero.org briefly served a malicious build of the command-line wallet; the project moved downloads to another source and told anyone who downloaded the wallet between 02:30 and 16:30 UTC to check file hashes and not run mismatching files.
Source: Warning: The binaries of the CLI wallet were compromised for a short time
-
The Block reported that Bittrex would delist XMR, ZEC and DASH on 15 January 2021 and had not said why; no Bittrex notice was found to confirm the date.
-
Huobi Global delisted XMR with six other privacy coins after ending trading in them on 6 September 2022; HTX's API shows an XMR/USDT market reopening on 30 December 2022.
Sources: Huobi Global to Delist DASH, DCR, FIRO, XMR, XVG, ZEC, and ZEN (Internet Archive copy of 2022-09-13) ; HTX spot API: all supported trading symbols (v2)
-
The Community Crowdfunding System's main donation wallet was drained of its whole balance of 2,675.73 XMR; the Core Team disclosed the theft on 4 November 2023, said it had not found the cause and covered the loss from the General Fund.
-
OKX delisted all XMR spot pairs, saying they did not meet its listing criteria, after removing XMR perpetual swaps and margin pairs in December 2023.
Sources: OKX to delist several spot trading pairs ; OKX to delist several margin trading pairs and perpetual contracts
-
Binance ended trading on all XMR pairs at 03:00 UTC, two weeks after announcing the delisting, and supported withdrawals until 20 May 2024.
Source: Binance Will Delist ANT, MULTI, VAI, XMR on 2024-02-20
-
Kraken stopped XMR trading and deposits for clients in the European Economic Area, saying regulatory changes left it no choice, after doing the same in Ireland and Belgium on 10 May 2024; remaining EEA balances were converted to BTC after 31 December 2024 and credited by 6 January 2025.
Sources: Support for Monero (XMR) in Europe ; Notice of asset delisting in Ireland and Belgium for Monero (XMR)
-
As the Qubic mining pool publicly claimed a majority of Monero's hashrate, Kraken paused XMR deposits as a security precaution while keeping trading and withdrawals open, according to Cointelegraph; when deposits resumed was not found, but Kraken's public asset API listed XMR with status enabled on 16 October 2026. A preprint published in December 2025 found elevated orphaning and deeper reorganisations during Qubic's campaign but no sustained majority control.
Sources: Kraken pauses Monero deposits after 51% attack ; Kraken public API: Assets (XMR, status enabled) ; Inside Qubic's Selfish Mining Campaign on Monero: Evidence, Tactics, and Limits
-
The project disclosed that wallet versions 0.12.0.0 to 0.18.4.1 sent the IDs of a wallet's outgoing transactions to the connected node whenever the wallet was loaded, even when that node was an untrusted remote node, which a malicious operator who knew the recipients could use to infer later spends. Version 0.18.4.2, released the same day, fixed the bug.
-
Kraken disabled XMR trading for clients in Canada, citing recent Canadian compliance requirements, after pausing their deposits with immediate effect in a notice last updated on 21 August 2025; withdrawals stayed open.
-
An 18-block chain reorganisation starting at height 3,499,659 invalidated more than 100 transactions, and The Block reported that responsibility had not been established. Temporary rolling DNS checkpoints, which the Monero Research Lab had urged developers to consider and which were proposed on GitHub on 31 August 2025, remained an open proposal with no linked code in October 2026.
Sources: Temporary rolling DNS checkpoints (issue 10064) ; Monero shaken by block reorg, reviving tensions with Qubic
Milestones
Ten milestones, oldest first.
-
Ring Confidential Transactions (RingCT), which hide amounts, became available at block 1,220,516.
Source: Monero README: scheduled software and network upgrades
-
RingCT became mandatory for all transactions, with a minimum ring size of 5.
Source: Monero README: scheduled software and network upgrades
-
Bulletproofs range proofs were enabled and the ring size was fixed at 11.
Source: Monero README: scheduled software and network upgrades
-
Mining switched to the RandomX proof-of-work algorithm at block 1,978,433.
Sources: Monero README: scheduled software and network upgrades ; RandomX README: Audits
-
Monero 0.16.0.0 added Dandelion++ transaction relay to the node software.
-
The CLSAG ring signature format replaced MLSAG, which was forbidden from the following day.
Source: Monero README: scheduled software and network upgrades
-
The ring size rose to 16 and Bulletproofs+ range proofs and view tags were introduced at block 2,688,888.
Source: Monero README: scheduled software and network upgrades
-
An alpha stress-test network for FCMP++ and the Carrot address scheme hard forked from testnet at block 2,847,330.
Sources: FCMP++ & Carrot alpha stressnet v1.1 (v0.19.0.0-alpha.1.1) ; FCMP++ & Carrot alpha stressnet v1.2 (v0.19.0.0-alpha.1.2)
-
Monero 0.18.4.3 changed how nodes pick peers, deduplicating addresses in the same /24 subnet to disadvantage spy nodes.
-
The beta 3.0 FCMP++ and Carrot stress-test network was scheduled to fork from testnet at block 3,102,800, while no mainnet fork height or date had been set.
Sources: FCMP++ & Carrot beta stressnet v3.0 (v0.19.0.0-beta.3.0) ; fcmp++ hf (milestone) ; Monero README: scheduled software and network upgrades
Funding
Two sources of funding, oldest first. Amounts are in US dollars; a dash means the sources give no US dollar figure.
| Date | Round | Amount | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
Community Crowdfunding System proposal: FCMP++ research, proofs and audits (goal 2,000 XMR) Source: Full-Chain Membership Proofs + Spend Authorization + Linkability Research CCS |
– | Community donors (61 contributors) | |
Community Crowdfunding System proposal: FCMP++ development (920 XMR over seven milestones) Source: Full-Chain Membership Proofs + Spend Authorization + Linkability Development CCS |
– | Community donors (18 contributors) |
Risks
Sender privacy rests on decoys: each input hides among 15 others, and Monero's own documentation rates this protection as probabilistic, offering plausible deniability, rather than strong; FCMP++ is meant to remove this limit but had no mainnet date in October 2026. Wallet software can also leak information, as when a bug fixed in August 2025 sent the IDs of a wallet's outgoing transactions to whichever node it used, including untrusted remote nodes. Network privacy depends on setup, because a wallet using a remote node has no IP protection by default and Dandelion++ does not shield users from their internet or VPN provider or the first node that receives their transaction. The proof-of-work chain has also come under pressure: orphaned blocks increased during the Qubic pool's 2025 selfish-mining campaign, and an 18-block reorganisation on 14 September 2025, for which responsibility was not established, invalidated more than 100 transactions and was deeper than the 10-block lock on newly received funds, while a proposed defence using temporary DNS checkpoints remained open in October 2026. Access through regulated exchanges has narrowed: Coincheck, Upbit, OKX and Binance have delisted XMR, Kraken has withdrawn it in the EEA and Canada, and from 10 July 2027 the EU's Anti-Money Laundering Regulation will bar crypto-asset service providers from keeping accounts that allow transactions to be anonymised or obscured, including through anonymity-enhancing coins, which it defines as crypto-assets with built-in features designed to make transfer information anonymous.
Sources
The documents this profile rests on. Each audit, incident, milestone and funding round above also links its own sources.
- What is Monero (XMR)?
- About Monero
- Monero README: scheduled software and network upgrades
- Monero Technical Specification
- Monero Docs
- Ring Signature (Moneropedia)
- Ring CT (Moneropedia)
- Monero 0.16.0.0 'Nitrogen Nebula' released
- Disclosure of a Major Bug in CryptoNote Based Currencies
- Community Crowdfunding System
- Community Crowdfunding System wallet incident
- Full-Chain Membership Proofs + Spend Authorization + Linkability Research CCS
- Full-Chain Membership Proofs + Spend Authorization + Linkability Development CCS
- fcmp++ hf (milestone)
- FCMP++ & Carrot beta stressnet v3.0 (v0.19.0.0-beta.3.0)
- Monero FCMP++ Cryptography Implementation Audited by Trail of Bits
- Post-Mortem of find_and_save_rings() bug
- Inside Qubic's Selfish Mining Campaign on Monero: Evidence, Tactics, and Limits
- Temporary rolling DNS checkpoints (issue 10064)
- Monero shaken by block reorg, reviving tensions with Qubic
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 May 2024 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing
