What is Monero (XMR)?
Monero (XMR) fact sheet with live price · reviewed November 4, 2026
Monero is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency launched in 2014. Unlike Bitcoin, where anyone can see every payment's addresses and amounts, Monero hides the sender, receiver and amount by default. It's mined with ordinary computer processors and run by an open-source community, with no company in charge. Its privacy has led many major exchanges to delist it.
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Key facts
| Launched | April 18, 2014 |
|---|---|
| Created by | A pseudonymous developer ("thankful_for_today"), then taken over by the community |
| How it's secured | Proof of work (RandomX, designed for ordinary CPUs) |
| Supply | No hard cap: a permanent "tail emission" of 0.6 XMR per block since May 2022 |
| New blocks | About every 2 minutes |
| Privacy | On by default: ring signatures, stealth addresses and hidden amounts (RingCT) |
| Smallest unit | 1 piconero = 0.000000000001 XMR |
Who runs it
Nobody owns Monero. An open-source team of volunteer and donation-funded developers maintains the software, a community fund pays for work, and anyone can mine. Its founders were anonymous, and the project deliberately avoids a foundation or company in charge.
What it's used for
Private payments and saving where the user doesn't want balances and payment history to be public. That's useful for ordinary privacy, such as not revealing your salary or savings to everyone you pay, but it has also made Monero popular on darknet markets and with ransomware gangs, which is why regulators watch it closely.
How it works
Each payment mixes the real sender with decoys (ring signatures), sends to a one-time address that only the receiver can recognize (stealth addresses), and hides the amount (RingCT). Network nodes can still verify that no coins were created from nothing. Miners use normal CPUs, which keeps mining open to individuals. After the main emission ended in 2022, a small fixed reward of 0.6 XMR per block continues forever, so supply grows by under 1% a year.
Where things stand (November 2026)
Many large exchanges have dropped Monero because their regulators require them to trace customers' transactions: Binance delisted it in February 2024, and Kraken stopped offering it in the European Economic Area in late 2024. Coinbase has never listed it. The EU's anti-money-laundering regulation will ban regulated crypto firms from handling "anonymity-enhancing" coins like Monero from July 10, 2027. Holding Monero isn't illegal in the US or EU, but buying it now usually means smaller exchanges or peer-to-peer trades. In August 2025 a mining pool, Qubic, briefly controlled a majority of Monero's mining and caused a six-block reorganization, raising concerns about 51% attacks.
Risks to know
- Delistings make it harder to buy, sell and cash out, and more could follow before the EU's 2027 ban.
- Regulators and banks may treat Monero transactions as suspicious.
- Smaller mining networks are more exposed to 51% attacks, as the 2025 Qubic episode showed.
- Fake Monero wallets and "mixing services" are common scams; use the official site getmonero.org.
- Price is volatile and liquidity can be thin.
Buying and storing it
If you decide to buy, use a regulated exchange you reach directly, check fees with the true cost calculator, and store long-term holdings in a wallet you control, with the seed phrase written down offline. Read how to buy crypto safely. This page isn't a recommendation to buy.
Questions
Is Monero illegal?
Not in the US or the EU to own. Some countries, such as Japan and South Korea, have pushed exchanges to drop privacy coins, and EU-regulated firms must stop handling them from July 2027.
Is Monero completely untraceable?
It's far more private than Bitcoin, but no system is perfect: mistakes like reusing exchange accounts, timing analysis or a compromised device can reveal who you are.
Why did exchanges delist Monero?
Anti-money-laundering rules require exchanges to trace where funds come from and go to, which Monero's design prevents.
Can you mine Monero on a normal computer?
Yes. RandomX is designed for ordinary CPUs, though profits are small after electricity.
Where to next
Sources
- About Monero (getmonero.org)
- Moneropedia: tail emission (getmonero.org)
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 on anti-money laundering, Article 79 (EUR-Lex)
- EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027 (Cointelegraph)
- Kraken joins Binance in delisting Monero (Benzinga)
- Monero faces reorganization fears after Qubic claims 51% of hashrate (The Block, August 2025)
Facts checked against the sources listed, as of November 4, 2026. Live price data by CoinGecko. Educational only; not financial advice. How we write and check pages.