What is Monero? Monero (XMR) is the top privacy-centric cryptocurrency based on the CryptoNote protocol, a secure, private and untraceable currency system. Monero uses a special kind of cryptography to ensure that all of its transactions are remain 100% unlinkable and untraceable. In an increasingly transparent world, you can see why something like Monero can become so desirable. Origins of Monero In July of 2012, Bytecoin, the first real life implementation of CryptoNote, was launched. While Bytecoin had promise, people noticed that 80% of the coins were already published. So, it was decided that the bytecoin blockchain will be forked and the new coins in the new chain will be called Bitmonero, which is was then renamed Monero, meaning “coin” in Esperanto language. In this new blockchain, a block will be mined and added every two minutes. Why Monero? #1: Unlinkability - Your identity is completely private You have complete control over your transactions. You are responsible for your money. Because your identity is private no one will be able to see what you are spending your money on. When you send funds to someone’s public address, what happens is that you actually send the funds to a randomly created brand new one-time destination address. This means that the public record does not contain any mention that funds were received to the recipient’s public address. In Monero, your public address will never appear in the public record of transactions. Instead, a 'stealth address' is recorded in a way that only you, the recipient, can recognize the incoming funds. #2: Fungibility Fungibility is interchangeability between one asset and another asset of the same type. Suppose you borrowed $50 from your friend, you can even return the money in the form of 1 $50 bill or 5 $10 bill, It is still fine. This shows that the dollar has fungible properties. However, if you were to borrow someone’s car for the weekend and come back and give them some other car in return, then that person will probably punch on the face. Cars, in this example, are a nonfungible asset. What is CryptoNote? CryptoNote is the application layer protocol that fuels various decentralized currencies. While it is similar to the application layer which runs bitcoin in many aspects, there a lot of areas where the two differ from each other. CryptoNote features an entirely new code base and is not a fork of Bitcoin. More info about CryptoNote can be found at their website. CryptoNote uses Ring Signatures to conceal sender identities via mixing and it also has unlinkable transactions that is achieved using 1-time keys for each individual payments. Ring signatures enable ‘transaction mixing’ to occur. Transaction mixing means that when funds are sent, the sender randomly chooses several other users’ funds to also appear in the transaction as a possible source of the funds being sent. The cryptographical nature of the ring signature means that no one can tell which of the funds were really the source of the transaction – not even the person that gave the funds to the sender in the first place. A system of ‘key images’ associated with each ring signature ensures that although no one can tell the true source of the funds, it can be easily detected if the sender attempts to anonymously send their funds twice.
Aion is a revolutionary multi-tier blockchain platform that has been created to solve the pressing issue of limited operability between existing blockchains while still remaining capable of handling its own applications. It supports custom blockchain architectures, and it provides cross-chain interoperability. The Aion project comes at a very appropriate period, in a time where there’s an ever-growing number of blockchains.Thus, interoperability is more important now that it ever has been. Interoperability will expand the horizons of multiple other blockchain platforms, not to mention those of enterprise-oriented companies. The project is led by Matthew Spoke, the CEO of Nuco and board member on the EEA. Other big names include Jin Tu, Nuco’s CTO, who has more than 15 years of experience in enterprise engineering and more than four years in the blockchain industry, and Peter Vessenes who has co-founded the Bitcoin Foundation. The token is the blockchain’s power-source. It’s used for securing the network, for creating new blockchains, as well as for monetizing inter-chain bridges. AION token is actually an ERC-20 token. In fact, the token is first offered as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, and only then it can be changed to the official AION network token. When that happens, the token can freely stream between two blockchains. The best thing about this is that investors are not required to change their Aion Ethereum token (ERC-20) for the Aion-1 token, as they will always be interchangeable. In order to buy AION, you will need to first purchase another cryptocurrency, preferably Bitcoin or Ethereum. Fortunately, AION is supported by some very popular crypto exchanges out there such as BitForex, Binance, Ethfinex, Liqui, and Bancor Network. There's a good chance that Aion, with its unique approach of solving interoperability issues, will become somewhat of a necessity for the cryptosphere in the following period.