### What Is Monero? Monero (XMR) is a private, secure and untraceable cryptocurrency that was launched April 18, 2014 as a fork of ByteCoin. It is an open-source, privacy-oriented digital currency built on a blockchain that is designed to be opaque. With Monero, it is said you are in complete control of your funds and privacy, as no one else can see anyone else's balances or transactions. Monero works as a privacy-oriented cryptocurrency by using ring signatures and stealth addresses. A ring signature is an anonymous digital signature that does not reveal who signed the transaction. They are generated on the Monero platform through a combination of a sender's account keys and public keys on the blockchain. Stealth addresses are randomly-generated addresses that are created during each transaction for a one-time use, and they hide a transaction's destination address, as well as the receiver's identity. Ring confidential transactions (RingCT) also hides the amount of the transaction; this feature was added in January 2017 as a mandatory feature of all Monero network transactions. Monero is based on the CryptoNote protocol, and has a dynamic block size and fees, as opposed to Bitcoin. ### How Do You Mine Monero? Monero mining can be done solo or by joining a mining pool. Unlike some proof-of-work cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, mining Monero does not require application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), even though it is based on a proof-of-work algorithm. Monero mining can be done on any CPU or GPU, on a Windows, Mac, Linux and Android, as the Monero mining algorithm specifically supports "little" nodes. A popular Monero miner, Coinhive, shut down in March 2019. The service had worked by generating a Monero mining script as an alternative to advertisements, as website visitors' CPU would be used to mine Monero, with the site getting a percentage of Monero mined in the place of ad revenue. ### How Do You Use Monero? Monero is used as a cryptocurrency that offers a high level of anonymity and privacy. ### How Do You Buy Monero? You can buy Monero on any exchange that supports the currency and is available in your region. For the latest list of exchanges and trading pairs for this cryptocurrency, click on our [market pairs tab](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/monero/).