Privacy coins are coming back into favor after seeing the meltdown of lots of KYC-based centralized operators in this market. And looking at what’s happening around the world, you are not imagining things. Governments and companies are becoming more authoritarian. They are taking away this essential right on almost a daily basis. But privacy coins help us take back some of our privacy over our holdings or who we transact with. So today we are going to talk about XMR. More specifically, how to buy XMR.
What is XMR?
XMR is the symbol for Monero. One of the oldest privacy coins in crypto. And as a result, going from fiat but especially USD to XMR or XMR to USD is more difficult than with other coins. After all, governments don’t like privacy if they can’t take it away from you.
Monero uses technology like ring signatures and zero-knowledge proofs to maintain privacy. It’s through these features that you can do confidential transactions. We’ve talked about zero-knowledge proofs many times here at Altcoin Buzz but we know it can be confusing.
A Zero Knowledge Proof Example
One good way to think of it is the old game Where’s Waldo? The basis of zero-knowledge (ZK) is showing that you know the answer to a question without revealing the answer itself. Not revealing the answer is important because, for us, the answer is equal to the transaction that we don’t want others to see. That must be secret or the transaction isn’t private. So back to Where’s Waldo? Imagine a huge board where you have to find him. In a ZK-proof environment, you have to show you know where he is without revealing the spot on the board where he is. The asker is asking for proof that you know.
So how do you do that?
One way is if you cut him out of the game board and show Waldo to the asker while not showing him the game board. You clearly know where Waldo is if you cut him out and have him in your possession. That’s how zero-knowledge works. You have not revealed how you found him or where he is on the board. But you did show proof that you know where he is because you have him. Others like Polygon have ZK features too but no one uses them on all transactions as Monero does.
Monero Tokenomics
Monero has a fixed block reward of 0.6 XMR per block. There is a new block every 2 minutes. This fixed block reward is in place for the foreseeable future. Supply will increase but inflation will decrease as the fixed rewards are part of a larger stock of Monero tokens.
Here are some other important stats:
Circulating Supply: 18.1 million
Total Supply: Unlimited
Price: $160.25
Market Value: $2.9 billion
Market Value Rank: #29 project in crypto
Also, Monero is a PoW chain that you can mine that uses the UTXo model and Mempool for transactions that Bitcoin uses.
CEX Options for XMR to USD or USD to XMR
Now, onto how you can buy it if you like what you’ve seen so far.
As we’ve said fewer options exist for Monero due to its privacy. And if we really wanted to, we could just exchange our fiat for a stablecoin or a liquid top project coin like Bitcoin, Ethereum or BNB and exchange that for Monero. And this is the most popular way to get Monero.
But we want to consider direct options too. Options that don’t require the extra step of buying and selling another crypto. Since we are looking at either XMR to USD or USD to XMR, we are looking for exchanges that accept US Dollars. Coinbase, which is by far the largest exchange in the US, does NOT allow for the direct purchase of Monero with dollars. In fact, Coinbase doesn’t even offer it for a crypto-to-crypto swap. So if you use your dollars to buy on Coinbase, you will have to move your coins to another CEX or a DEX to swap for XMR.
Here are 6 centralized exchanges where you can buy Monero directly:
- Binance (in some jurisdictions)
- HitBTC
- MEXC
- Bitfinex
- Kraken
- Gate.io
For Americans either Kraken or MEXC are the easiest to get set up and approved for accounts. And Kraken lets you send dollars from an American bank account to the exchange to buy it. Bisq, hodlhodl, and Local Monero for p2p trades can help you get the XMR you need too.
Is Direct or Indirect Buying Better from XMR to USD?
Some believe as one redditor points out on this thread that it’s safer and more private if you don’t go directly from XMR to USD or USD to XMR. They believe going into Bitcoin or a stablecoin first is a way to control how much of your private information is out there. We can never be sure that the USD purchase won’t be private or go unnoticed.
Many of you, but not Americans, can get Binance accounts. And almost everyone can get a no-KYC account at MEXC, our recommendation is to get an account at one of these CEXes if you want to add Monero to your portfolio. You may be able to go directly and you definitely can send any crypto to these exchanges once your account is active and swap them for XMR.
We have both direct and indirect ways that you can get the Monero you are looking for to add to your portfolio.
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