What’s the difference?

[Thukk Serien]

Hi, I have a question about bitcoin and monero. I am new to the cryptocurrency world and I don’t quite understand how these two coins are fundamentally different from each other. Yes, it’s clear that both are cryptocurrencies, but I’ve heard that there are important differences between them. For example, in terms of anonymity or scalability. Wondering about this question because I’m thinking whether I should invest in monero, or whether it’s better to continue holding bitcoins. Also wondering why monero is considered an “anonymous crypto” and bitcoin is not, if bitcoin also has a certain degree of anonymity? Could I run into problems using monero in the future if, say, I wanted to sell it on an exchange? I would be grateful for clarification!

[Tobias Dorian]

Great question, I was in that position too when I first started figuring it out, https://tradebrains.in/features/whats-the-difference-between-bitcoin-and-monero/ helped me with that. I’ll try to explain in more detail. To begin with, bitcoin and monero are two cryptocurrencies with completely different philosophies and technologies, although they both use blockchain. At a basic level, bitcoin (BTC) is essentially the first cryptocurrency designed to be a decentralized, digital currency for exchange. That said, in bitcoin, despite its decentralization and theoretical anonymity, transactions are still traceable. That’s because every transaction is recorded on a public blockchain, and anyone can see the addresses of the sender and recipient, as well as the amount of the transfer (though, of course, bitcoin isn’t directly tied to a user’s personal data). But due to its public data, bitcoin transactions don’t offer complete privacy. Unlike bitcoin, monero (XMR) was designed with an emphasis on anonymity and privacy. It is essentially a cryptocurrency focused on hiding all the details of transactions. Monero utilizes several technologies such as Ring Signatures, RingCT (Ring Confidential Transactions), and Stealth Addresses. Thanks to these mechanisms, a monero transaction can hide not only the amount of the transfer, but also the identity of the parties to the transaction.

[Evan Duke]

Interesting discussion! I’ve been looking into these two cryptocurrencies recently too. In my opinion, in general it all depends on what you want from a cryptocurrency. If the goal is just to preserve capital and not worry about anonymity, bitcoin is fine. But if privacy is important to you, for example, if you want your transactions to remain hidden, then monero is a great choice.

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