Monero is a quiet sort of cryptocurrency. While its siblings ride the rollercoaster of value spikes and valleys, Monero sits in the background serving its purpose as a useful and private digital currency.
That dedication makes Monero an appealing coin to keep track of, but it’s the future of the currency that makes me want to jump on the investment wagon and ride into the sunset.
Here are 6 reasons I’m investing in Monero:
Monero Provides Actual Privacy
Not all cryptocoins are private by design. They’re better than credit cards or PayPal, of course, but since currencies like Bitcoin rely on public ledgers, it’s easy to take a peek at a wallet’s contents and history or even keep tabs on future transactions. Public ledgers are like sticking a copy of your bank statement on a park bench. Not everybody’s going to take a look, but it’s still not the brightest of ideas.
A public transaction history means that anyone you exchange wallet addresses with can tell how much you’ve spent and when you made your purchases. That can lead to all sorts of nasty privacy breaches. The stakes are even higher if you use cryptocurrency to conduct business. Imagine losing a bidding war because a supplier discovered your holdings, calculated your previous contract expenses, then determined you could afford more than you offered. And if your competitors get a hold of the same data, well, you’re gonna have a bad time in business land.
Monero ditches public ledgers in favor of one-time addresses assigned to each transaction. Only the receiver knows where the money went, providing just enough information to get the job done.
Better still, all Monero transactions are private by default, yet they’re optionally transparent, too. If you need transaction histories to be seen, read-only keys are available. This is perfect for general auditing, charities that need public oversight, or even parents who want to monitor their children’s spending.
Monero Offers Fungibility
You can’t sneeze in the Monero community without someone bringing up fungibility. It’s worn like a first prize ribbon from the county crypto fair, and for good reason, too.
Fungibility refers to a commodity whose individual units are functionally interchangeable – a fancy way of saying “a dollar’s a dollar”. One ounce of gold is worth as much as any other ounce of gold, for example. The same isn’t true for diamonds of the same weight, which is one of the reasons they aren’t used as currency.
Fungibility in the cryptocurrency world boils down to privacy and reliability. A single Bitcoin isn’t identical to another because it carries a traceable history in the blockchain. Research can uncover all sorts of dirty secrets about a particular coin. Maybe it was stolen from an exchange or used in a black market trade. Payment providers can blacklist undesirable coins to prevent them from being spent, rendering their purchasing value to nothing.
Keeping fungibility ensures a cryptocurrency’s ongoing reliability. With Monero, there’s no need for coin mixers or other crazy privacy workarounds. One unit is guaranteed to spend just like any other unit, making an investment in Monero a little bit sounder then the competition.
Monero is Easy to Mine
Bitcoin mining has gotten out of hand. Due to the way the algorithm is structured, miners have to build custom rigs with dedicated ASIC chips in order to turn any kind of profit. These chips are far from inexpensive, and they’re notoriously power-hungry to boot.
A single Bitcoin transaction consumes about as much electricity as 1.6 American households do in a day. By the year 2020, Bitcoin mining operations could eat up as much energy as the entire country of Denmark. That’s a nation of 5.7 million people, by the way, all to fill up cryptocurrency wallets so people can keep hodling.
Monero’s mining algorithm was designed with real world use in mind. You don’t need to mortgage your house to begin, you can run a mining program on a regular PC and meaningfully contribute to the community. This ease of entry is far more sustainable and will help boost adoptability as time goes by.
And the more people who get in on the action, the more a Monero investment will be worth.
Monero is for Transactions
Did you hear that rumor about North Korea hacking servers to steal Monero? How about the fact that one of Monero’s biggest value boosts came when a black market trading service adopted it as their official coin? At first glance these seem like stains on the cryptocurrency’s reputation, but really they’re badges of honor.
If a cryptocoin is secure enough that illegal markets are scrambling to use it, it must be doing something other currencies are failing at.
Monero wasn’t designed as a value storage coin. It’s a private digital currency made to be spent. Fees have stayed low since its launch, between $0.60 and $6.70 per transaction compared to $3.30 to $33.10 for Bitcoin. Those are set to get even lower with future milestones, as well. When you pile on all of the security features the coin deploys by default, you’ve got the perfect platform for a usable currency.
With online marketplaces dropping cryptocoins due to price volatility, Monero’s steady value makes it all the more appealing.
Monero’s Community is Supportive
One area you should always look into when researching an investment is the project’s core community. What do they spend their time talking about: profits or progress? How do they treat uninformed newcomers? The more stable the community is the more likely the currency will survive in the long run.
Monero’s community is active, friendly, and dedicated to the success of their favorite altcoin. You won’t find a lot of people bemoaning every dip in value. Instead, these people sniff out and alert others to possible scams and talk about ways to improve the health of the network. Questions from newbies are generally met with patient responses, making it a surprisingly welcome environment for first-time investors.
Another plus for the Monero community is they are solely responsible for funding the currency’s development. There’s no organization or angel investor sitting behind the scenes, it’s all kept afloat by people who believe in the project. Contributors work in their spare time or live off donations from mining pools, the Forum Funding System, and individual holders, some of whom have donated as much as 20,000 XMR to the cause.
Monero Has a Dedicated Development Team
Monero is entirely open-source. Over 350 people have made contributions since the currency’s launch, with 192 of those active in 2017. This makes it one of the largest open-source teams in the world, and in the top 2% on Open Hub.
An estimated 148 years of effort have gone into creating Monero’s 556,000 lines of code. 22% of that is nothing but comments, suggesting it’s well-documented, organized, and created by a disciplined team.
Having a reliable team of developers means Monero’s foundations are solid. You know the currency will continue forward at a steady pace, rolling out new usability features and adapting to changes in the industry as they arrive. Even though Monero doesn’t have a detailed roadmap, its contributors consistently deliver the upgrades they promise. This isn’t some flash in the pan cryptocoin. Monero and its team are here to stay.
The Future Looks Bright for Monero
It sounds like a contradiction, but Monero’s quiet, stable, spendable nature makes it an excellent coin to invest in.
The more I dig into the details, the more I realize it was built for a future where cryptocurrencies are as common as dollars or euros. The altcoin rollercoaster ride will end one day, and people will turn to the currencies with the most practical design.
Privacy will be at the top of their list, and in that respect, Monero is the undisputed king.
Related: What Cryptocurrencies to Invest In: 4 Investors Weigh In