How to Explain Monero to your Grandmother

Reading Time: 2 minutes Monero is a digital currency. Have you heard of Bitcoin? Well, it’s like Bitcoin but your activity while using Monero is kept private. Much like Bitcoin you will need a wallet to store it in, but it will be a special Monero wallet. Each wallet has a receiving address which starts with a 4 (this is a good way to know whether you are sending your Monero to another Monero wallet). With this receiving address you can give it to other people who have Monero and they can send it to you. Remember, you can only send Monero to another Monero wallet. If you try and send it to a Bitcoin wallet it will be lost forever. Once funds are sent, you won’t be able to know who sent you the funds. Similarly, people who receive funds from you, won’t be able to tell it was from you. Unless you want them to know! And because funds are kept private, no one will know how much money you have! This is all due to the privacy focus of Monero. This is different from Bitcoin, where all transactions and wealth are a matter of public record. The privacy focus of Monero is shaped so people won’t know how rich you are! Therefore, prevents people from spying on you so they can figure out a way to spend your money. Monero keeps all of your transactions confidential. Since all Monero is untraceable you do not have to worry that the funds you received have been used for anything suspicious. Thanks to all of this, you can also avoid targeted advertisement as no one will know how and what you spend your money! With Monero privacy is always an option! Monero is completely decentralized. Meaning that it has no central point of authority. When funds are sent to someone, a worldwide network of computers come to an agreement among themselves that the ownership of the funds have been moved. Therefore, no one person, or country can shut down Monero. This aforementioned network of computers are called miners. They are called miners because they are rewarded with a small amount of funds in exchange for the work they do to verify transactions. This shared network is called a blockchain. Now all you need to do to get started is download a Monero wallet and buy some Monero using a currency of your choice!