The Early History of Monero in 500 Words

Many different cryptocurrencies have come and gone over the years. Most of them failed to provide privacy and anonymity features cryptocurrency users have been looking for. Monero is one of the main currencies delivering the goods in this respect. Now is a good time to take a closer look at how this currency came to be and why it matters so much to thousands of enthusiasts.

A Brief History of Monero

Most people will know that Monero has been around for quite some time now. It uses the CryptoNote protocol, which dates all the way back to 2012. However, Monero was only created on April 18th of 2014. Although Monero is pretty unique in many ways, the original project came to be with the help of Bytecoin. In fact, both currencies are a lot more similar than one might think at first.

Back in 2014, Bytecoin suddenly started gaining traction. No one knows who its developer was, but given the strong focus on anonymity, it didn’t matter all that much. One thing that became obvious immediately was how the Bytecoin code was pretty well optimized, indicating the project had been around longer than most people realized. It is possible this was merely a research project first and foremost, but no one knows for sure. In fact, to this very day, there are still some unanswered questions as far as Bytecoin is concerned.

What is clear is that this currency suffered from one issue: around 80% of all coins had been minted by the time people started paying attention to it. Some people then took the existing code, created a hard fork of it, and labeled it Monero. As it happens, the original plan was to call it Bitmonero. After some back-and-forth took place between supporters and developers, this new currency was created. On April 17th, the Bitmonero launch was to have happened. However, without proper wallets for either Windows or MacOS, things quickly derailed.

Despite these challenges, the launch only had to be pushed back one day. Bitmonero was launched on April 18th, which was when the member known as Tacotime made his first appearance. The decision was then made to hard split Monero from BitMonero and create a new development team altogether. On April 23rd, the official Monero launch occurred, and a new ecosystem was created. We have seen great interest in this project ever since, to say the very least. However, it is evident this currency heavily revolves around cryptography, which makes it one of the more advanced currencies to date.

Fluffypony, also known as Riccardo Spagni, entered the picture in May of 2014. He has become the main public figure associated with Monero and was responsible for some major progress made at that time. He was not alone in this regard, as Monero has received a lot of support from multiple developers over the years. It is also worth noting that the Monero ticker was MRO up until June of 2014, before it was renamed to XMR. Its first real-world transaction involved a painting purchased for 2,500 XMR. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Monero; that much is certain.