FAQ

The terminology used in Monero can be quite complex, for this reason we have the Moneropedia. A comprehensive list of terms that you often see and their explanation. If you don't know what a word means or you would like to have more info about it, just visit the Moneropedia. Some example of often searched terms are: node, fungibility, view key, pruning.

Monero is an open source community project. Meaning that there is no company who runs it and there is no CEO who hires people. Everything is built by volunteers or community-funded contributors who dedicate their time to the project. There are many ways to contribute:

Translations. It's easy and anybody speaking a language beside English can help. Translations happen mostly on Weblate.

Contact a Workgroup. Almost everything in Monero is managed by workgroups, which are groups of contributors (often lead by a coordinator) working on some specific aspect of the development. Some examples are: the localization workgroup (translations), the community workgroup, the GUI workgroup, the Outreach workgroup and so on. Workgroups are mostly independent and have their own structure. Contact the workgroup that interests you and ask how you can help. For a list of contacts see the Hangouts.

Do what you can do best. Are you a designer? Create Monero related images and spread them around. Are you a writer? Write about Monero. The only limit is your imagination. Find what you like to do and do it for Monero!

The Outreach workgroup wrote a useful article to help newcomers: Getting started with Monero.

More Info: Migliorare Monero

Monero ha valore perché le persone sono disposte a comprarlo. Se nessuno fosse disposto a comprare Monero, Monero non avrebbe alcun valore. Il prezzo di Monero aumenta se la domanda è superiore all'offerta; diminuisce, invece, se l'offerta è superiore alla domanda.

Puoi acquistare Monero da un "exchange" (cambiavalute) o da un privato. Alternativamente puoi provare a minare Monero per ottenere monete come ricompensa in seguito alla risoluzione del blocco.

In past, you needed Bitcoin to buy Monero, but that's not the case anymore. You can directly trade Monero for national currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, etc) or other cryptocurrencies on many exchanges. Some require KYC (proof of identification); others do not, like decentralized exchanges. On this website is available a list of exchanges where it's possible to buy/sell Monero (XMR): Commercianti & Servizi.

More Info: How to Buy Monero (Monero Outreach)

Monero utilizza tre differenti tecnologie mirate alla privacy: "ring signatures" (firme ad anello), "ring confidential transactions" (RingCT, transazioni confidenziali ad anello) e "stealth addresses" (indirizzi stealth). Queste tre tecnologie mascherano rispettivamente il mittente, l'ammontare ed il destinatario della transazione. Tutte le transazioni sulla rete Monero sono private: non c'è alcuna possibilità di effettuare, neanche accidentalmente, una transazione trasparente. Questa caratteristica è tipica solo di Monero. Non hai bisogno di dare fiducia ad alcuno per mantenere la tua privacy.

More Info: Riguardo Monero

Monero non è basato su Bitcoin. E' basato sul protocollo CryptoNote. Bitcoin è un sistema completamente trasparente, in cui le persone possono vedere esattamente quanto denaro viene inviato da un utente all'altro. Monero offusca queste informazioni al fine di proteggere la privacy degli utenti in ogni transazione. Inoltre, Monero ha una dimensione dinamica dei blocchi e prevede commissioni variabili, un algoritmo di mining proof-of-work resistente agli ASIC ed un'emissione monetaria di coda. Questi sono alcuni esempi fra i tanti per cui Monero è diverso da Bitcoin.

ASICs are basically special computers created to do only one job, contrary to normal computers, which are made for general purpose. This characteristic makes ASICs very efficient for mining.

The problem is that these devices are very expensive and can be afforded by few. This leads to few entities owning a big amount of the hashrate of the network, which is a serious threat to the security of the network itself. For example, if big ASIC operators collude and manage to gain the majority of the hashrate of the network, they could arbitrarily reject transactions.

Monero fixes this problem by being ASIC-resistant: it uses an algorithm (randomx) that strongly reduces the efficiency of ASICs, making them not profitable to build. Miners can use common consumer hardware, which allows them to compete fairly. The Monero network is currently protected by thousands of miners using 'regular' computers. This results in a network much harder to attack, no miner having significant advantage over other miners (they all use more or less the same hardware).

La fungibilità è una semplice proprietà di una moneta secondo cui non esistono differenze fra due unità monetarie. Se due persone si scambiano una moneta da 10 per due da 5, nessuno perde nulla. Supponiamo però che tutti siano a conoscenza del fatto che la moneta da 10 è stata usata precedentemente in un attacco ransomware. La persona che cede le due monete da 5 per quella da 10 sarebbe ancora disposta ad effettuare il cambio? Probabilmente no, anche se la persona che possiede la moneta da 10 non ha nulla a che vedere con l'attacco ransomware. Questo è un problema, dal momento che chi riceve denaro deve costantemente controllare che il denaro ricevuto non sia "segnato". Monero è fungibile, il che significa che chi lo utilizza non ha bisogno di effettuare questi controlli.

Monero non è magico. Se usi Monero ma dai il tuo nome ed indirizzo all'altra parte, l'altra parte non dimenticherà magicamente il tuo nome ed il tuo indirizzo. Se rendi pubbliche le tue chiavi segrete, gli altri sapranno cosa hai fatto. Se vieni compromesso, gli altri saranno in grado di vedere le tue attività. Se utilizzi una password debole, gli altri saranno in grado di scoprirla con un attacco di forza bruta. Se fai il backup del tuo seed nel cloud, presto diventerai povero.

Non esiste nulla che sia anonimo al 100%. Il tuo set di anonimato è il set delle persone che usano Monero. Alcune persone non usano Monero. Monero potrebbe contenere dei bug. E anche se così non fosse, potrebbero esistere dei metodi per inferire alcune informazioni attraverso gli strati di privacy offerti da Monero, e se non ora magari in futuro. Gli attacchi sono sempre più sofisticati. Anche se indossi la cintura di sicurezza, questo non esclude che tu possa morire in un incidente stradale. Usa sempre il buon senso e la prudenza.

The Monero community has created a series of videos called "Breaking Monero", where potential Monero vulnerabilities are explored and discussed. There are 14 videos, with each exploring a different subject. Check out the videos on monerooutreach.org.

More Info: Available on Spotify as podcast

After you have downloaded the Monero software (GUI and CLI alike), your antivirus or firewall may flag the executables as malware. Some antiviruses only warn you about the possible menace, others go as far as silently removing your downloaded wallet / daemon. This likely happens because of the integrated miner, which is used for mining and for block verification. Some antiviruses may erroneously consider the miner as dangerous software and act to remove it.

The problem is being discussed and solutions are being elaborated. In the meantime, if you get a warning from your antivirus, make sure the software you downloaded is legitimate (see the guides linked below), then add an exception for it in your antivirus, so that it won't get removed or blocked. If you need assistance, feel free to contact the community.

More Info: Verificare i binari su Windows (neofita), Verificare i binari sulla riga di comando Linux, Mac, or Windows (avanzata)

Monero is an Esperanto word which means 'coin'. Initially Monero was called 'Bitmonero', which translates to 'Bitcoin' in Esperanto. After the community decided to fork from the original maintainer, 'bit' was dropped in favour of simply 'Monero'.

Monero used to have 2 network upgrades (hard forks) a year, but this is not the case anymore. The choice of the biannual hard forks was taken in order to be able to introduce important consensus changes, which added privacy features and network-wide improvements (For example bulletproofs and CLSAG both required a hard fork) and avoid the ossification of the protocol. Recently, the biannual hard forks included changes to the PoW algorithm, to preserve ASIC-resistance.

The dev community and the Core Team agree that the protocol is stable and mature enough and biannual hard forks are not necessary anymore. Furthermore, the ecosystem around Monero has grown exponentially during the years and frequent protocol changes would be increasingly hard to coordinate, could be detrimental to the growth of the ecosystem and to the user experience. Cherry on the top, the new algorithm RandomX is ensuring long term ASIC-resistance, so regular changes are not needed anymore. Network upgrades will still be used to add important protocol improvements and consensus changes, but at a lower and less strict frequency (every 9-12 months). The last hard fork was on October 18th 2020.

More Info: A note on scheduled protocol upgrades

During the years the community has created a vast amount of informative content like articles and videos. Most of these videos are publicly available on platforms like YouTube. On this website we host a few videos that explain the fundamentals of Monero. To optimize their effectiveness, they should be viewed in sequence:

1. Introduction to Monero (also available in Russian and Brazilian Portuguese)
2. The Essentials
3. Stealth Addresses - More info on the Moneropedia entry: Stealth Addresses
4. Ring Signatures - More info on the Moneropedia entry: Ring Signatures
5. Ring Confidential Transactions - More info on the Moneropedia entry: RingCT

In Monero, ogni output della transazione è associato in modo univoco con un'immagine chiave (key image) che può essere generata solamente dal detentore di quell'output. Immagini chiave che sono usate più di una volta vengono rigettate dai minatori in quanto ritenute tentativi di double-spending e non possono essere aggiunte ad un blocco valido. Quando la rete riceve una nuova transazione, i minatori verificano che l'immagine chiave associata alla transazione non esista già e non sia già stata associata ad una transazione precedente per assicurarsi che non si tratti di un double-spend.

E' anche possibile verificare la validità dell'ammontare della transazione anche se il valore degli input che si stanno spendendo ed il valore degli output che si stanno inviando sono cifrati (offuscati per tutti tranne che per il destinatario della transazione). Poiché l'ammontare è cifrato mediante l'utilizzo dei "Pedersen commitment", gli osservatori, seppur non in grado di risalire all'ammontare della transazione, tramite la matematica alla base dei "Pedersen commitment" sono in grado di verificare che non vengano creati Monero dal nulla.

Fintanto che la somma degli output cifrati è uguale alla somma degli input cifrati che vengono spesi (la somma degli output include un output per il destinatario, il resto verso chi ha iniziato la transazione e la commissione non cifrata per la transazione), la transazione è considerata legittima e nessun Monero viene creato dal nulla. I "Pedersen commitment" consentono la verifica di uguaglianza delle somme in ingresso e in uscita della transazione senza conoscere i valori che singolarmente sono indeterminabili.

More Info: About supply auditability

In un portafoglio leggero, consegni la tua chiave di visualizzazione ad un nodo remoto, che scansiona la blockchain e cerca transazioni in ingresso al tuo conto. Questo nodo è in grado di sapere quando ricevi denaro, ma non sa quanto denaro ricevi, da chi lo ricevi e a chi lo stai inviando. A seconda del software che gestisce il tuo portafoglio, puoi decidere di usare un nodo di tua proprietà al fine di evitare problemi di privacy. Per avere il più alto grado di privacy, utilizza un portafoglio normale, che può essere associato al tuo nodo locale.

No, Monero non ha un limite sulla dimensione dei blocchi. Al contrario, la dimensione dei blocchi può aumentare o diminuire nel tempo a seconda del numero di transazioni da validare. Esiste un limite sulla velocità di crescita della dimensione del blocco al fine di evitare tassi di crescita eccessivi.

No. Monero uses a completely non-interactive, non-custodial, and automatic process to create private transactions. By contrast for mixing services, users opt-in to participate.

Yes, you can, but you probably shouldn't. Importing an external blockchain is very resource intensive and forces you to trust the entity providing you with the blockchain. It's usually faster to download it the normal way: running a node and letting it synchronize with the other nodes in the network. If you really need to import an external blockchain, you can download one in the 'Downloads' page of this website. Follow the guide below if you are using Windows. If you are a linux user, you can use the tool "monero-blockchain-import", which is included in the archive when you download the GUI or CLI wallets. Start syncing the imported blockchain with this command: "monero-blockchain-import --input-file blockchain.raw".

More Info: Importa Blockchain

Monero has a fixed emission rate, not a set maximum supply. Around May 2022, Monero's emission will drop to and permanently remain at 0.3 XMR per minute (0.6 XMR per block). This is approximately 1% inflation for the first year and will approach 0% inflation in future years. This tail emission allows for permanent incentives to secure Monero, even in the far future, while keeping inflation at a very low percent.

There are multiple wallets available for a vast number of platforms. On this website you'll find the wallets released by the Core Team (GUI and CLI) and a list of widely trusted and open source third party wallets for desktop and mobile.

More Info: Downloads

You probably didn't. It's very hard to simply 'lose' your coins, since they are technically nowhere. Your coins 'live' on the blockchain and are linked to your account through a system of public and private keys secured by cryptography. That's why if you don't see your funds, it's probably because of a technical issue. Take a look at the 'Resources & Help' section at the top of this page for a list of useful resources that will help you identify and fix your problem.

Don't worry, your coins are safe. To be able to spend them you only have to download and run the latest Monero software. You can use the mnemonic seed you previously saved to restore your wallet at any time. Note that hard forks in Monero are scheduled and non-contentious. Which means no new coin is created.

Support for Tor is still in its infancies, but it's already possible to natively send transactions through the network and to run a Monero daemon on the Tor network. Better Tor and I2P integrations are in progress.

More Info: Connecting your local wallet to your own daemon over Tor

Se stai facendo girare un nodo locale, il nodo ha bisogno di copiare l'intera blockchain sul tuo computer. Questo processo può durare parecchio tempo, specialmente se il computer ha un disco rigido datato o non può contare su una connessione internet veloce. Se stai usando un nodo remoto, anche se il tuo computer non deve scaricare la blockchain, ha comunque bisogno di richiedere una copia di tutti gli output, azione che può richiedere diverse ore. Sii paziente, e se sei disposto/a a sacrificare un po' di privacy a fronte di tempi di sincronizzazione ridotti, valuta l'utilizzo di un portafoglio leggero (lightweight wallet).

A full node requires a considerable amount of storage and could take a long time to download and verify the entire blockchain, especially on older hardware. If you have limited storage, a pruned node is recommended. It only stores 1/8th of unnecessary blockchain data while keeping the full transaction history. If plenty of storage is available, a full node is recommended but a pruned node still greatly contributes to the network and improves your privacy.

The Monero blockchain is always growing so there is no fixed size. As of 2021, the full blockchain is around 95-100GB. A pruned blockchain is about 30GB. Check out Moneropedia entry pruning to learn the difference between a full and a pruned blockchain.

When you download the blockchain, you are downloading the entire history of the transactions that happened in the Monero network since it was created. The transactions and the related data are heavy and the entire history must be kept by every node to ensure it's the same for everybody. Pruning a blockchain allows to run a node which keeps only 1/8 of not strictly necessary blockchain data. This results in a blockchain 2/3 smaller than a full one. Convenient for people with limited disk space. Check out the Moneropedia entries node and remote node for more details.

Yes. You don't need to download the blockchain to transact on the network. You can connect to a remote node, which stores the blockchain for you. All the most common wallets (including GUI and CLI) allow to use remote nodes to transact on the network. There are multiple ways to take advantage of this functionality. For example GUI and CLI offer a 'bootstrap node' feature, which allow people to download their own blockchain while using a remote node to immediately use the network. Ways to improve the usability of the Monero network are constantly being explored.

More Info: Come connettersi ad un nodo remoto con il portafoglio GUI

Because new transactions have been recorded on the blockchain from the last time you opened your wallet, which needs to scan all of them to make sure non of those transaction is yours. This process is not necessary in a mymonero-style (openmonero) wallet, a central server (which could be managed by you) does this work for you.

Running a personal node is the safest way to interact with the Monero network, because you are in full control and you don't need to rely on third parties. From a general point of view running a node is not dangerous, but keep in mind that your ISP can see you are running a Monero node.

It's always advisable, especially for privacy-conscious users, to use a personal node when transacting on the network to achieve the highest rate of privacy. Some people for convenience prefer to use remote node which are not under their control (public nodes). The convenience of not having to deal with a personal copy of the blockchain comes at a cost: lessened privacy. A remote node operator is able to see from what IP address a transaction comes from (even if cannot see the recipient nor the amount) and in some extreme cases, can make attacks able to reduce your privacy. Some dangers can be mitigated by using remote nodes on the Tor or I2P networks or using a VPN.