Current Trends Around Monero

1-year ago, Monero ranked among the worst-performing cryptocurrencies. The privacy coin dropped from $500 to $180 within only a few months. Thereby pulling all main support levels downwards due to a strong bearish momentum. The coin would suffer an even bigger loss after Bittrex announced it would delist it from the exchange. Monero alongside other cryptocurrencies were placed under one group and removed from Bittrex.

XMR all-time high of $517 dates from 2-years ago. Since then, Monero has undergone violent volatility. The privacy coin started the journey above the $100 mark during the 2017 bull run. Monero had been trading steadily around the $70 and $90 marks between July and August of the same year. Then BTC began its famous bull run to $20K, and almost all altcoins traded in sync. Monero price action managed to cross the $124 mark at the end of August and set a then ATH of $413.

Currently, Monero (XMR) is trading between a tight range of $125 - $130. The FTX saga does not seem to have placed an impact on the price action of the XMR/USD pair. Some advantages that usually pull investors towards Monero include the following:

1. It is impossible to link an XMR transaction to any person or identity.
2. Monero is non-static, hence fees never skyrocket to exorbitant levels. This is despite an increase in user traffic or network congestion. The Monero blockchain employs zero limits when processing transactions.
3. It is possible to select or personalize the people you want to see or access a transaction. This makes it difficult and costly for external parties to monitor any single transaction.
4. No one can trace a Monero transaction.

There are a few negative implications of running a private-focused blockchain. The pattern for securing the network is much more difficult in comparison to other blockchains. This is one of the reasons why there has been a lag in wide adoption by developers - Monero is very hard to secure. Furthermore, Monero does not rely on Bitcoin's operational level to exist. Hence why most developers feel building and deploying applications on the Monero blockchain might make those apps unfeasible.

The reason why Bittrex and a few other exchanges delisted Monero; is due to the coin's challenge in conducting Anti-money laundering (AML) checks and Know-your-Customer (KYC). The best storage for your XMR coins includes the Ledger and Trezor hardware wallets. Both of them fully support Monero.

Monero (XMR) is a digital currency with a focus on privacy, which it achieves by leveraging cryptography to secure all transaction details, including identities of senders and receivers as well as the amount. It boasts of a secure, private and untraceable method to transfer payments digitally, keeping all transactions on its network completely unlinkable and untraceable.Its unique features that allow for complete anonymity have contributed to its rising popularity - something that other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are unable to offer as they feature the use of complete transparency on their blockchains.

As of February 2021, Monero is ranked as the 21st largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of over $3 billion, and is among the strongest performers in the crypto market. From January 2017 to January 2018, the Monero price went up from $10 all the way to $494, giving investors a return of nearly 5,000% over the period of one year. From January 2020 to January 2021, the XMR rate has spiked by over 137%.

While it is a popular investment option among cryptocurrency traders, the Monero rate experiences considerable volatility and should be traded with ample expertise and care.

Monero Breakdown

Monero's blockchain is configured with an objective to maintain obscurity and it features a mining process based on the principle of giving equal opportunities to all users. With this in mind, the developers of Monero kept no stake for themselves upon its launch but have welcomed contributions and support from the community towards developing the network further.

Just like other cryptocurrencies, it is based on an open-source and completely permission-less philosophy. Where it differs from other popular digital currencies is its focus on complete privacy and provides absolutely no transaction history that will allow users to trace back what kind of payments were made using each XMR coin.

Monero also has another distinct advantage over Bitcoin as it has no pre-set limit on the size of each block. Instead, it uses the concept of a block reward-penalty system which discourages spam transactions through the use of large penalties to prevent the addition of too much data into each block when mining XMR.

Monero History

Monero was initially launched back in 2014 under the name 'BitMonero' with the intention to permit completely anonymous and secure transactions. The original team of creators behind Monero consisted of seven developers, of which five have chosen to remain anonymous. Rumors attribute Monero's invention to Satoshi Nakamoto - the person credited with inventing the original cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.

The origin of Monero can also be linked to Bytecoin - a digital currency with a focus on privacy, which was launched back in 2012. Monero originated from a fork of BCN's codebase by a Bitcointalk forum member, and since then, hundreds of developers have contributed to improving the XMR network.

While things mostly remained quiet for the first two years, Monero started to gain traction by mid-2016 when a market on the Dark Web - Alphabay, began accepting payments in XMR coins. The level of anonymity it offered then came into the spotlight, catapulting a rise in XMR price between August and September 2016 by as much as 2700%. The next significant spike in the Monero rate was observed a year later, in August 2017, when Bithumb allowed trading of Monero on its exchange.

Monero Price Factors

From the price history, we can see that XMR price moves based on a number of factors, especially updates to Monero's technology, its adoption rate and media coverage.

Adoption

While it remained largely under the radar for the first two years since its launch, Monero suddenly shot to popularity when it started gaining acceptance as a payment method and was allowed for trading on exchanges. This drove adoption rates higher and in turn, sent its value soaring. Going forward, when Monero gains a larger user base willing to make transactions on its network, it will turn more valuable, sending the XMR rate higher.

Technological developments

Monero's network is still a work in progress, with its team of developers constantly innovating to add new features to the cryptocurrency and blockchain platform. In the immediate future, one aspect under development is titled "Kovri", a project that will improve the privacy aspect of Monero and even make it more scalable. Greater privacy and scalability, as well as the addition of new features can make it even more appealing and drive the XMR price up going forward.

Media coverage

In the highly volatile and unpredictable world of cryptocurrencies, a significant portion of the moves are dictated by news coverage. Positive news that reveals how its adoption is on the rise serves to drive the Monero price higher, as we have noticed in the past. On the other hand, negative news related to XMR and cryptocurrencies in general can make investors wary and drive the Monero rate lower.

Regulations

Monero's greatest strength - privacy, can also potentially become its greatest weakness if and when regulators turn their focus towards the crypto market. In most parts of the world, cryptocurrencies remain unregulated, although they have received considerable interest from governments and regulatory authorities.

Trading Monero

Several leading brokers permit trading of Monero against other leading cryptocurrencies as well as fiat currencies, with XMR being one of the most popular options. Trading Monero (XMR) requires greater care as it is more volatile and its adoption rate is significantly lower than other, more popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

As a result, trading XMR will require you to have more fundamental knowledge about developments that can have a direct impact on Monero price. Do your research well and garner an understanding of its adoption and usage before investing in Monero. In addition, ensure that you keep yourself up to date with all the latest developments in the crypto market overall as well.

Lastly, keep an eye on the performance of the larger cryptocurrencies. While there may not be a direct and obvious correlation, many times, moves in the Monero chart can be dictated by price trends in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as well.