Learn Monero

Properly. From first principles.

Toggle Beginner for plain-English analogies, or Advanced for the real cryptography. Test yourself with the quizzes when you're ready.

🎯 Take a quiz📖 Start reading
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🕵️

The Problem with "Crypto"

Imagine every coffee, donation, salary and gift you ever paid for was tattooed on your forehead — for life. That's Bitcoin. 😬

📡
Public ledger
Anyone can scrape every transaction, forever.
🪪
KYC chains it to you
Exchanges link wallets to your real identity.
🧠
Chain analysis
Firms cluster wallets and sell scoring to governments.
🏦 Banks see it→🪙 Bitcoin shows it→🥷 Monero hides it
📜

A Quick History

Monero was born in 2014 from a community of cypherpunks who wanted real digital cash — no premine, no CEO, no boardroom. Just code.

2014
Launch
Forked from Bytecoin. Fair launch — no premine, no ICO.
2016
Adoption
Becomes the dominant currency on darknet markets.
2017
RingCT
Hides transaction amounts. Privacy becomes the default for everyone.
2022
Tail emission
~0.6 XMR/block forever — miners always paid.
2025+
FCMP++
Anonymity set jumps from 16 to potentially 100M+.
✉️

Sealed Envelopes (RingCT)

Bitcoin sends payments on a postcard. 📮 Monero seals the amount inside a tamper-proof envelope. 🔒

📮→✉️

Anyone can see an envelope was passed. Nobody can read what's inside.

👥

A Crowd of Decoys

Monero hides you in a crowd of look-alikes. Watchers see "someone in this group paid"… but never which one. 🫥

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16 possible spenders. Pick the right one. Good luck. 🤷

📬

A Fresh Mailbox, Every Time

Every payment to you lands in a brand-new mailbox only you can open. 📭 No one — not even the sender — can link your payments together.

📬📭📫📪📬📭

tx#1 → 4A6e…9k2  ·  tx#2 → 8Bc2…h7p  ·  tx#3 → 3F1d…m4q

🛡️

Three Things, All Hidden

Privacy isn't a checkbox in Monero — it's the default for every transaction, every wallet, every user.

🥷
Sender
Ring signatures hide who sent it.
📬
Receiver
Stealth addresses hide who got it.
✉️
Amount
RingCT hides how much moved.
🚀

It's About to Get Stronger

Right now your decoys are 15 strangers. Soon, they'll be everyone who ever used Monero. 🌍

today
16
→
FCMP++
100M+
🚫📸

No Selfie. No ID.

You shouldn't have to hand over your passport to send your friend $20. With Monero, you don't have to. 🙅

🔄
Atomic Swaps
Trustless XMR ↔ BTC swaps with no third party.
BasicSwap · Haveno
⚡
No-KYC Swappers
Quick on-the-fly conversions. Rates vary, no account needed.
TradeOgre · Trocador · Exolix
💵
Cash & OTC
Mail or in-person. Maximum privacy, more counterparty risk.
OpenMonero · Dread · trusted contacts
⛏️
Mine It
RandomX is CPU-friendly. Your laptop can earn satoshis-worth of XMR.
P2Pool · solo mining

Reference list: kycnot.me

👛

Pick Your Wallet

Your XMR lives in a wallet that only you control. Pick the right one for the job.

📱
Cake Wallet
Mobile + desktop. Beginner-friendly. Multi-coin.
📱
Monerujo
Android-only. Lean, powerful, very Monero-native.
🖥️
Feather Wallet
Desktop. Clean UI, advanced features, Tor-friendly.
🧊
Hardware (Ledger / Trezor)
Cold storage for the long term. Pair with Feather or Monero GUI.
📝 The 25-word rule
Your wallet's seed is 25 words. Write it on paper or steel. Never type it into a phone, email, cloud doc, or screenshot. If someone gets the seed, they get the money.
🖥️

Run Your Own Node

When you use someone else's node, they can see what you're looking at on the chain. Your own node = your own privacy. 🔒

🥧
Raspberry Pi 4
+ 500GB SSD. Quiet, cheap, plug-and-forget.
☁️
VPS
Paid in XMR via Mullvad-style providers. Fast bootstrap.
💻
Old laptop
Anything with 4GB RAM and a stable connection works.
🌀

Pro Moves

For really sensitive moves, advanced users bounce funds through their own wallets a few times first. Think of it as walking through a crowd before meeting someone. 🚶‍♂️🚶‍♀️🚶

🔁
Self-send churning
Send to yourself 1–3 times before a big spend.
⏱️
Random delays
Don't churn back-to-back. Spread it out over hours/days.
✂️
Split outputs
Break large sums into varied chunks.
🌐
Tor or VPN at every step
Don't undo on-chain privacy with network leaks.
🛡️

Don't Snitch on Yourself

Monero protects your money. You have to protect your phone, your passwords, and your mouth. 🤐

🧅Use Tor or a no-logs VPN
🖥️Run your own node
📝Write the seed on paper, not in the cloud
🔁Churn before large or sensitive spends
📵Don't post your wallet address publicly
🧊Cold storage for savings, hot wallet for spending
🔐Encrypt your devices (LUKS / FileVault / VeraCrypt)
🤐Don't tell people how much you hold
🗽

Why It Matters

Privacy isn't about hiding bad things. It's about not letting governments, banks, or random analysts decide whose money is "allowed" today. 🏴‍☠️

🏧Banks freeze accounts for political reasons.
🔍Chain analysis firms sell your data to anyone with a budget.
📈CBDCs put a programmable kill-switch on every dollar.
🌍Across borders, currencies and regimes, XMR just… works.
🎓

You Did It!

You now understand Monero better than 99% of people. 🤯

✉️ Amounts hidden by RingCT
👥 Sender hidden in a ring of decoys
📬 Receiver hidden by stealth addresses
🚫 No KYC required to obtain it
🚀 FCMP++ makes the anonymity set massive
🖥️ Run your own node, use Tor, hold your own keys
🛡️ OpSec is your job — keep it tight

Ready to test what you've learned?

🥋 Basics quiz🔐 Privacy tech🥷 OpSec

Private. Fungible. Unstoppable. 🥷