DYOR: MONERO (XMR)

Elevator Pitch: Monero is a popular privacy coin specializing in quick, peer-to-peer anonymous transactions.

Raise your hand if you like everybody all up in your business! Yeah – didn't think so. Monero is the type of cryptocurrency built for discretion, anonymity, and maintaining your personal privacy. 

Monero's popularity also lay in the fact that it works: As a one-time Bitpetite victim, I can attest to how well this privacy coin was used. The con artists behind that lending platform debacle exchanged users' Bitcoin for Monero, exit-scammed, and haven't been found since. Well played, mini-Madoffs – you got me. 

Let's take a quick look at some of Monero's features from our accompanying Digital Asset Evaluation score sheet, courtesy of SPACESUIT X.

Coin Characteristics: At a rather svelte 18.4M total supply, Monero is designed to keep producing blocks in perpetuity, however slowly. After ~18 million are produced, on or about May 31, 2022, the coin emission rate slows down to a constant 0.3 XMR per minute indefinitely. In the age of 100B coin supplies like Ripple, Monero's 15 millionish circulating supply is attractive for its combination of scarcity and price; it takes a lot less volume to increase the price than with larger supplied cryptocurrencies. The supply and demand seem to be perfectly balanced right now with respect to the Relative Strength Index (RSI) technical momentum indicator.

Security: Have you found the Bitpetite scammers yet? Didn't think so. If security = privacy, then this coin is as secure as it gets.

Participation: Everyone's heard of Monero, everyone trades Monero. Their Github has over 5400 commits.

Accounting & Legal: Yep, it gets a big fat 0. Not a single lawyer or compliance advisor to be found on their site. No wonder Monero is the privacy coin of choice among crypto-crooks.

Community and Team: Although there seems to be a robust social media community for Monero, their development team lacks recognizable crypto starpower.

Earnings: How's 7035% ROI since late 2014 strike ya?

Industry/Institutional Backing: You wouldn't expect a coin whose primary feature is anonymity would attract much institutional backing. Still, it's a top 20 coin in market cap, listed on all the top exchanges. 

Technical – WP: Although a whitepaper does not exist on the site as a complete document for Monero, there are several resources to get your tech nerd on. This includes its origins from the CryptoNote protocol, with an annotated version from Monero Research Lab. Confusing? Yes – but probably not if you're into this kind of stuff. 

X-Factor: Did I mention that this thing really works?!? While its competition ostensibly includes the slickly rebranded and packaged Dash as well as the pump-and-dump friendly Verge, Monero honey badgers away as one of the top privacy coins in market cap. It's also cheaper than "The Coin Formerly Known As Darkcoin" Dash, which sounds good to me.

With crypto poised for institutional adoption and an extended close-up in 2018, don't take my word for it. DYOR (do your own research)!