Monero Price Today

The current real-time Polygon price is $159.33 . MATIC price has plummeted by 1.06% in the last day and increased by 2.84% in the last seven days. It’s important to note that the current Polygon market capitalization is $2,939,203,621. The maximum supply is coins, with a circulating supply of 18,446,744.07. MATIC is ranked #30 in terms of market cap.

The Basics

Monero (XMR) is an anonymous cryptocurrency that obfuscates transaction data, such as the sender and receiver. The project has grown popular among privacy-centric crowds who believe cryptocurrency transactions should be immutable, untraceable, and entirely secure. Monero was created through a 2014 fork of Bytecoin, a crypto project focused on anonymity. 

The Monero development has stated that its most significant priorities are maintaining privacy when transacting on the network and increasing its security. These goals align with the core premise that has made Monero so popular: complete transaction anonymity. People cannot view another user's wallet balance, transaction history, or addresses they've interacted with.

Like Litecoin and many other cryptocurrencies, Monero was created from a hard fork, in this case, of Bytecoin, another privacy-centric project. The fork was necessary because controversial changes to Bytecoin were proposed, which many community members disagreed with. 

Seven developers were responsible for the initial creation of XMR, although their identities haven't been revealed.

How Monero Works

Monero refers to the anonymous, decentralized network, while XMR is its proprietary token used to pay transaction fees and miners on the network. On average, an XMR transaction costs around 0.000006 XMR or $0.0010 and takes approximately 26 minutes to confirm fully, making the crypto faster to transfer than Bitcoin transactions that require more than three confirmations. 

Much like Bitcoin, Monero utilizes the Proof-of-Work consensus solution to secure the network and validate transactions. However, Monero utilizes the randomx algorithm designed to support CPU-based XMR mining on consumer PC hardware while making specially-tailored ASIC miners inefficient. 

Monero’s Unique Privacy Features

While the Bitcoin network and many other cryptocurrencies are commonly thought to be anonymous, transaction data like volume and the sender/receiver address are viewable to anyone. Moreover, each Bitcoin effectively has a unique serial number, making it possible to track across the blockchain. 

Monero, on the other hand, ensures complete fungibility between XMR tokens. There is no unique identifier for any one token, making it impossible to track where a specific XMR token ends up. 

While Monero was created from a fork, the project has become unique in its direction. The project utilizes ring signatures, which pull past transactions from the blockchain and put them alongside the current transaction. Only one transaction will match the recipient account's keys, making it impossible for an outside party to see which was the legitimate transaction. 

On top of ring signatures, Monero has introduced the concept of stealth addresses to its network. A recipient can provide one address to a sender, but Monero will ensure that every transaction is sent to a unique, one-time-use wallet address. Utilizing this transaction structure, Monero makes it so that only the sender and receiver can determine where a transaction goes. 

Monero Price History From Launch To Today

Monero was released in 2014, and XMR traded for around $1.58, a 98.95% discount compared to today's prices. Initially, adoption was slow, and XMR dropped in price to around $0.75, hovering there until late 2016. 

As XMR adoption on darknet markets grew alongside demand for a privacy-centric cryptocurrency, the asset skyrocketed, hitting around $9.65 in late 2016. It surged throughout 2017, hitting $56 in June, $141.35 in September, and ending the year at $422.51. Going into 2018, XMR achieved an all-time high, hitting $458.35. 

The next few months were rough for XMR as investors took profit and scrutiny fell on privacy coins. XMR was in a near-constant downtrend in 2018, ending the year at $48.01. While there were a few surges causing XMR to hit $115.21 in 2019 and $86.10 in 2020, the asset struggled to build momentum for a substantial move upward. 

However, XMR exploded in 2021, climbing to $441.25 in May due to market-wide price increases resulting from the bull run. However, the asset was volatile in the months following due to the bear market and investors securing a profit, causing XMR to drop to around $145 in 2022 despite some brief surges. 

Since then, XMR has traded in a range between $123 and $170. While the asset enjoyed a breakout to $180 in early 2024, and now trades at $159.33 .