Monero

XMR CMC #12 in the snapshot

A payment network that makes transaction privacy part of ordinary protocol use.

Profile checked 14 Nov 2026Asset ranks captured 14 Nov 2026Snapshot & methodology ↗

01 / THE PURPOSE

What is Monero for?

Monero focuses on private electronic cash. Its design obscures the sender, recipient and amount, rather than exposing a public account history for every ordinary payment.

02 / THE ARCHITECTURE

Three questions about the machinery.

How does it agree?

Consensus & security

RandomX proof-of-work is optimized for general-purpose CPUs and memory-heavy execution. It aims to discourage specialized mining advantages; that goal is not proof that mining power is evenly distributed.

Where do instructions run?

Execution model

Stealth addresses, ring-based authorization and confidential amounts combine to hide different parts of a transfer. It is a payment protocol rather than an EVM smart-contract chain.

What is the token for?

XMR in the system

XMR is the native payment and fee asset. Mining rewards compensate block production; the asset is not a claim on a custodian or a stablecoin reserve.

03 / THE DESIGN CHOICES

What comes with the design?

Each architecture makes choices about security, performance, coordination, and who can participate.

Protocol privacy does not eliminate endpoint compromise, network metadata or information a user discloses.
Privacy functionality and ecosystem access can vary across wallets and services.

04 / IN PRACTICE

Follow one use.

Illustrative: a public observer can verify that a transfer follows network rules without seeing the same recipient and amount information available in a transparent account ledger.

05 / CHECK THE EXPLANATION

Sources & snapshot.

Network descriptions use the references below. The CoinMarketCap snapshot determines which assets are in scope and their captured rank; it does not assess the quality of a network.

Monero · What is Monero? Monero
Monero · RandomX Monero
CoinMarketCap top 100 snapshot Captured 14 Nov 2026 · See the complete scope audit
Monero (XMR) on CoinMarketCap Captured asset rank #12

Profile checked 14 Nov 2026. Network designs and ranked positions can change.