A cryptocurrency noted for its privacy. Introduced in 2014, Monero (XMR symbol) completely hides the parties' identities. Because of Monero's extreme privacy, it has been banned in certain countries.
Other Cryptos Publish the Transactions
With Bitcoin and most other cryptos, the public cryptographic keys of sender and recipient are published, and anyone can look up transaction history such as "on June 20, 1996, sender sent 5 BTC to recipient." However, sender and recipient are long alphanumeric public keys, not actual names. Although they are not identified, with sufficient detective work, names can be matched to the public keys.
Monero Is Different
In contrast, Monero, which means "coin" in Esperanto, uses multiple digital signatures ("ring signatures") that hide the origin of the sender and one-time "stealth addresses" for the recipient. Even transaction amounts are hidden. Nevertheless, government agencies have developed methods to trace Monero transactions.
In 2019, Monero's new RandomX proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm ensures that ordinary computers can be used for mining. See
crypto glossary.