How to Buy Monero (XMR)

Monero is a privacy coin that’s lost significant value because of crypto’s bear market. Read on to discover if XMR is a good buy now.

How to Buy XMR

1. Create a Coinbase account - We recommend using Coinbase as it offers $5 in free Bitcoin when you sign-up.
2. Add a payment method - Add your payment method and fund your account.
3. Research the coin - Search for the coin by name or ticker symbol - XMR.
4. Decide the amount of coins - Now it is time to decide how many coins you want to buy of Monero.
5. Purchase coins of XMR - Buy the amount of coins you want with at the current price on Coinbase.

Monero is currently trading at around $179, down over 50% from its all-time high of $517.62 and making it a potentially lucrative option for investors.

So, it might get you wondering—will XMR go up? Or will you lose money on it?  Opinions are divided when it comes to investing in Monero.

The privacy that Monero allows is a double-edged sword: it makes the investors feel safe, but it may also attract illegal activities like money laundering. 

I’ll help you understand a bit more about this coin and what the future might bring.

What is Monero (XMR)?

Monero, which goes by the ticker XMR, is a cryptocurrency that focuses on secure and private transactions. It does this by disguising the crypto wallet addresses through a 3-step process. 

Holders of Monero can also mine this coin for passive income using basic software.

Who Are the Founders of Monero?

Monero is a project founded in 2014 by seven blockchain enthusiasts, including the lead maintainer, Riccardo Spagni. South African native Spagni has a background in software development, informatics, and logistics. 

He co-founded Tari Labs, which contributes to the Tari blockchain protocol. Spagni made the news of being arrested in the U.S., although the charges were unrelated to crypto.

Interestingly, Nicolas van Saberhagen is Monero’s whitepaper author. Several people suspect that this person, who used a pseudonym, might be the person or group of people who founded Bitcoin.

The crypto space widely accredits Bitcoin to the alias Satoshi Nakamoto.

Monero (XMR) Price Today

How Many Monero (XMR) Coins Are in Circulation?

There are currently around 18 million XMR coins in circulation, and there isn’t a fixed maximum limit of Monero coins. Instead, people generate these coins via high-powered computers through a process called mining.

Mining works by using a graphics processing unit (GPU) or central processing unit (CPU) to solve cryptographic equations. These can require a high amount of energy to run, so you must consider electricity costs along with pool maintenance fees and mining hash rates.

You’ll also need a Monero wallet, mining pool address, and one of the following systems to mine XMR:

• Windows OS
• Mac OS
• Any Linux-based system

To get started with mining Monero, you’ll have to connect your Monero wallet so that you can receive your earnings via XMR. You’ll then need to install graphics cards (either for AMD drivers or Nvidia drivers).

Finally, install and activate your mining software. I recommend using a GPU, as CPUs are bulkier, take up more energy, and are less profitable than GPUs.

As of now, Monero offers a 1.26 XMR reward for every block you mine. A random algorithm assigns the mining blocks, helping to make it a fairer environment among all miners.

How is Monero Secured?

Monero is one of the most secure and anonymous cryptocurrencies. It even trumps Bitcoin (BTC), given that anyone can view Bitcoin transactions on the blockchain, potentially discovering users via BTC wallet addresses.

There are three ways that Monero works to secure its network:

1. Stealth addresses
2. Ring signatures
3. Ring confidential transactions

In the case of stealth addresses, whenever a sender initiates a transaction, the network creates a key that’s available for use only one time to determine the recipient.

However, no outsider can use the key, adding to its security.  The ring signature’s purpose is to use the valid signature of the XMR sender while pulling from signatures from previous transactions on the blockchain.

As a result, no one can figure out who the sender was.  Ring confidential transactions (Ring CTs) ensure that the input and output amounts remain the same on the blockchain.

By doing so, it prevents anyone from being able to trace how many XMR moved through the network.  As a result of these three strategies, and especially because a range proof monitors that transactions exceed zero, you can feel at ease knowing that Monero is one of the safest and most anonymous projects for sending untraceable cryptocurrency transactions.

What Makes Monero Unique?

Monero is unique because it’s impossible to trace on the blockchain. People recognize this value, with XMR gaining a massive 2,760% in 2016 alone.

Although Monero is currently in a downtrend, it’s following the bear market of the cryptocurrency market as a whole. Some of the most significant benefits that Monero offers to the blockchain include:

• Disguising sender and receiver addresses
• Doesn’t require special hardware for mining
• Open source, so anyone can check the code

There are many other ways that Monero stands out as a unique cryptocurrency in the blockchain world. Let’s explore some of them, which could help you determine whether it’s a coin you want to invest in.

Equal opportunities

It’s common for a cryptocurrency’s developers to keep some stake for themselves upon launching a coin. But instead, the developers don’t own a stake, relying on the support from the XMR community to continue to help support the coin’s future development.

Fungible properties

Fungibility is the concept of being able to replace one asset with another without there being a difference between them. Monero works this way, as each virtual coin is the same, without any defining features attached to them. 

However, cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is non-fungible since anyone can see every BTC transaction ever made on the blockchain.

Outstanding privacy

Privacy is the cornerstone of Monero’s goal, and it achieves this via stealth addresses and ring signatures. Therefore, it’s impossible to trace a sender’s identity because it uses one-time keys. 

Depending on the viewpoint, Monero has such robust privacy features in place that some people see it as a downside, given that law enforcement suspects that some people use it as an avenue for illicit activities like money laundering.

Monero Alternatives

Should I Invest in Monero?

If Bitcoin is the “king of crypto,” then Monero is the king of privacy. So, a bear market like the one we’re in now is a good time to assess investing in historically high-performing cryptocurrency coins like XMR. 

However, past results aren’t indicative of future price movements. So, I encourage you to continue doing due diligence before investing in Monero and investigating mining opportunities for passive income.