The Full Time Crypto Field Guides
MONERO
For the People!
The Full Time Crypto Field Guides
A Full Time Crypto Field Guide
The Monero Field Guide
Private digital cash by default—and its limits.
Full Time Crypto
For the People! — Knowledge. Ownership. Freedom.
Before you start
What this is
Privacy is the normal mode. Invisibility is not.
Monero is built so a public observer cannot read senders, receivers, and amounts the way they read Bitcoin. That is the product.
This book will not call Monero “anonymous” as a slogan. Devices, exchanges, network metadata, and your own mouth can still identify you.
This chapter is not a crime cookbook. It will not teach you how to evade a lawful process. It will teach you what the protocol hides on-chain—and what it does not.
Educational information only. Not financial, investment, legal, tax, or trading advice. Dates, supply figures, and court records in this book are taken from the sources listed at the back. If a fact is not sourced, it is not printed as a fact. Unverified items stay open.
How this book is built
Contents
Every Full Time Crypto Field Guide uses the same spine of parts, in this order. Extra pages appear only when this coin actually has them.
The birthday
Day the coin was born
18 April 2014 (launch)
getmonero.org and the Bitcointalk ANN date the launch to 18 April 2014, from CryptoNote reference code, with a new genesis block. Initially named Bitmonero.
| Event | Date | What that date is |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-announcement | 9 April 2014 | thankful_for_today, Bitcointalk: launch date 18 April, 10:50 GMT. |
| Launch | 18 April 2014 | Official: fair, pre-announced launch of the CryptoNote reference code. Renamed from Bitmonero to Monero. |
Monero launched from CryptoNote technology via Bytecoin’s codebase, with a new genesis block. Official: “Monero is not based on Bitcoin.”
The founder, thankful_for_today, proposed changes the community disagreed with. Official: the Monero Core Team forked the project; that Core Team has provided oversight since. There is no company and no CEO to name — which is the answer to “who is behind it,” not an absence of one.
Privacy features were built in stages. RingCT landed January 2017 and became mandatory after September 2017. “Private by default since 2014” is wrong. Official: “All transactions on the network are private by mandate; there is no way to accidentally send a transparent transaction.” That mandate is not how it shipped on day one.
People and projects
Who is behind it
Monero is an open-source community project. Official FAQ: no company, no CEO. Core teams and researchers publish under the project.
RandomX miners and independent node operators secure and relay the network. An exchange that lists XMR is not “the Monero company.”
The official no-premine claim is theirs: “There was no premine or instamine.” This book reports the claim. It does not audit genesis.
Place and lineage
Where it came from
Monero came from CryptoNote (Nicolas van Saberhagen paper, October 2013) and a Bytecoin-lineage codebase, then a community fork away from the original Bitmonero maintainer. Monero is Esperanto for “coin.”
Do not call it a mixer. FAQ: non-interactive, non-custodial, automatic. Mixing services are opt-in.
Do not equate it with Litecoin MWEB. MWEB is optional. Monero’s standard payment is confidential. getmonero.org pages fetched for the pack do not name MWEB; this book will not invent a getmonero.org MWEB article.
Keep these separate
What it is and is not
It is
- A proof-of-work private payment network (RandomX).
- A chain where typical payments hide sender, receiver, and amount on the public ledger.
- A monetary policy that moved to a tail emission after the main emission schedule.
It is not
- Anonymous in the slogan sense. getmonero.org: “There is no such thing as 100% anonymous… Attacks only get better.” Devices, exchanges, network metadata, and your own mouth can still identify you.
- The same thing as Litecoin MWEB. MWEB is optional. Monero’s privacy is default.
- Unseizable as a legal fact. Custodians and courts still exist in the real world.
The machine
How it works
- Agreement method
- RandomX proof of work, aimed at general-purpose CPUs.
- Units
- XMR.
- Issuance
- No Bitcoin-style hard cap. Official: “fixed emission rate, not a set maximum supply.” Tail emission started at block 2,641,623 on 2022-06-09 00:29 UTC per the FAQ (prefer this stamp; About/Moneropedia say “end of May 2022”). 0.6 XMR or less per block because of block-size penalties. About page: main curve ~18.132 million coins by the end of May 2022, then tail emission, <1% inflation trending toward 0.
Stealth addresses create one-time destinations so the public ledger does not show a reused receiving address the Bitcoin way.
Ring signatures mix the real spent output with decoys so an observer cannot tell which input was spent.
RingCT hides amounts while still letting nodes check that the math balances.
A view key can let someone see incoming payments without giving spend authority. Giving away a spend key or the seed is still giving away the money.
A payment, in order
- A wallet builds a one-time destination from the recipient’s published address.
- It constructs a ring and confidential amounts.
- Miners include valid transactions in a block.
- The recipient’s wallet scans with its view key to find outputs it can spend.
Keys, not cookbooks
How you send and hold it
The coins are recorded on the network. The wallet holds the secret that can move them. If someone else has that secret, they can usually move the coins.
A recovery phrase is a list of ordinary words that can rebuild the keys. Nobody who is helping you should need it. A support chat, a giveaway, or a “wallet check” that asks for it is trying to take the coins.
Custodial accounts (an exchange or app that holds the keys for you) can freeze, limit, or lose access. Self-custody gives you control and the full job of backup. Neither choice is magic.
This chapter is not a crime cookbook. It does not teach mixing, tumbling, fake identities, or how to hide funds from a lawful process. It teaches you not to donate your keys to a stranger.
Use official wallet software from getmonero.org. Fake wallets are a common theft method.
A view-only wallet is for watching, not for spending. Know which keys you exported.
This book will not walk through mixing services, fake KYC, or “how to stay off a list.”
Safer habits
- Download wallet software only from a site or store listing you found yourself, not from a message.
- Write the recovery phrase on paper or another offline backup. Do not photograph it, email it, or type it into a website.
- Send a tiny test first. Confirm the network, the asset, and the destination.
- For a company account, turn on a second factor that is not only a text message if you can.
- Stop if anyone asks for the phrase, a remote-control app, or a “verification deposit.”
- Verify hashes of official downloads.
- If you use a remote node, understand that it can learn some network metadata.
This book does not tell you how to hide funds, evade a law, or defeat an investigation. A wallet lesson is about not losing your own keys—not about becoming invisible.
Read this twice
What can go wrong
Fake wallets
A cloned site that asks for a seed is theft.
Exchange records
Buying or selling XMR on a custodial platform creates records the chain does not need.
Device compromise
Malware can steal keys no matter how private the ledger is.
Talking
Telling someone a payment ID, a screenshot, or a timing story can undo on-chain privacy.
United States readers only
Law and tax notes
These notes are for United States readers only. Other countries have different rules.
The Internal Revenue Service treats convertible virtual currency as property for federal tax purposes. That is the starting point in IRS Notice 2014-21. Later IRS pages, including the virtual-currency frequently asked questions, expand on reporting. They do not turn this book into tax advice.
Selling crypto, trading one crypto for another, or using crypto to pay for goods or services can be a taxable event. Receiving crypto as wages, as a trade or business payment, or in some airdrop or hard-fork situations can also create income. See Notice 2014-21 and Revenue Ruling 2019-24 for the IRS’s own words on forks and airdrops.
Keep records: date, amount in U.S. dollars, what you received or spent, and which service or wallet you used. A lost key is not automatically a deductible story you can invent later.
A listing, an exchange product, or a court remark about someone else is not your tax result.
Privacy on a ledger does not cancel U.S. tax reporting duties if they apply to you. This book does not tell you how to hide income.
This is not legal or tax advice. Rules change. Read the linked primary pages and talk to a licensed professional about your own facts.
This coin’s extra pages
Default privacy, not Litecoin MWEB
Litecoin’s MWEB is an optional extension. Monero’s standard payment is already confidential.
Do not say “Monero is MWEB” or “Litecoin is Monero if you flip a switch.” The cryptography and the social defaults differ.
A tail emission is a permanent miner incentive. It is not a bug in a 21-million story. Monero chose a different monetary design on purpose.
Write it down
NOTES
Write where you downloaded the wallet and how you checked it was official. Do not write your seed.
More room
NOTES
Words used in this book
GLOSSARY
Read these before the check-the-terms pages. A word is only useful if you can say it back in your own words.
- XMR
- Monero’s native asset.
- Atomic unit
- The official name of Monero’s smallest unit. piconero is its name in the wallet source, not the official term.
- Stealth address
- One-time on-chain destination data derived from a published address.
- Ring signature
- A signature that hides which ring member was the real spend.
- RingCT
- Confidential amounts with balance proofs.
- View key
- A key that can detect incoming outputs without spending them.
- Spend key
- The authority to spend. Guard it like the money.
- RandomX
- Monero’s CPU-oriented proof of work.
- Tail emission
- Ongoing 0.6 XMR or less per block after the main emission, from block 2,641,623 (2022-06-09 00:29 UTC per the FAQ).
Check yourself
CHECK THE TERMS
Circle one answer. The answer key is on the next pages. Do not peek until you have tried.
-
Monero’s launch date in this book?
- April 18, 2013
- April 18, 2014
- October 13, 2011
-
Is Monero “anonymous” as a complete slogan?
- Yes
- No. On-chain privacy is not invisibility
- Only with MWEB
-
MWEB equals Monero.
- True
- False
- True after 2022
-
Does Monero have a 21-million-style hard cap?
- Yes
- No. It has a tail emission
- Only in the glossary
-
A view key lets someone spend your XMR.
- Always
- No. Spending needs the spend key or seed
- Only on exchanges
-
Who should get your seed?
- Official support
- Nobody
- A remote node
-
This book teaches how to evade the law.
- Yes
- No
- In the notes pages
-
RandomX is…
- A stablecoin
- Monero’s proof of work
- A bridge
After you try
ANSWER KEY
- B. April 18, 2014 April 18, 2014.
- B. No. On-chain privacy is not invisibility Devices, exchanges, and behavior still leak.
- B. False Different designs. MWEB is optional on Litecoin.
- B. No. It has a tail emission 0.6 XMR per block continues.
- B. No. Spending needs the spend key or seed View is not spend.
- B. Nobody Nobody.
- B. No No crime cookbook.
- B. Monero’s proof of work PoW algorithm.
Check our work
Sources
Primary pages first. In-repo research packs under docs/field-guides/ were used as source wells. Payhip product blurbs were not used as facts. If a pack left a gap UNVERIFIED, this book leaves it open.
