Monero history: a timeline from 2014 to 2026
Monero launched on 18 April 2014 as a community fork of BitMonero, built on the CryptoNote technology used by Bytecoin. Since then it has added hidden amounts (2017), smaller transactions (2018), CPU-friendly mining (2019), a permanent tail emission and larger rings (2022), while facing waves of exchange delistings from 2018 to 2026.
Origins: CryptoNote, Bytecoin and BitMonero (2013 to 2014)
Monero's privacy ideas come from the CryptoNote white paper of October 2013, published under the pseudonym Nicolas van Saberhagen. It described ring signatures and one-time stealth addresses. Bytecoin was the first coin to use it. A Bitcointalk forum user known as "thankful_for_today" launched BitMonero from that code, and when other community members disagreed with the direction, they forked it. The result went live on 18 April 2014 and was soon renamed Monero, Esperanto for "coin". There was no premine or instamine.
In an early hard fork the block time was doubled from 1 minute to 2 minutes. The project had a core team of maintainers, some pseudonymous, with Riccardo Spagni ("fluffypony") as a well-known former lead maintainer.
Building privacy (2016 to 2018)
Early Monero allowed transactions without decoys, which later research showed could be traced by elimination. The protocol tightened step by step:
- January 2017: RingCT launched at block 1,220,516, hiding transaction amounts.
- September 2017: RingCT became mandatory for all transactions.
- 29 March 2018: the Monero Project published its response to the Möser et al. traceability paper, noting that most issues it found affected pre-2017 transactions.
- 18 October 2018: a network upgrade introduced Bulletproofs, which shrank transactions and cut fees sharply, fixed the ring size at 11 and moved fees to per-byte pricing.
Fighting mining chips and malware (2018 to 2019)
Monero changed its proof-of-work algorithm several times to keep specialised mining chips (ASICs) out, then switched to RandomX on 30 November 2019 at block 1,978,433. RandomX favours ordinary CPUs, keeping mining open to home users. See how to mine Monero.
On 19 November 2019 the official site served malicious command-line wallet binaries for about 24 hours. The incident made checking hashes and signatures standard advice for every download (see Monero scams).
Regulators and the first delistings (2018 to 2021)
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 18 June 2018 | Japan's Coincheck completed delisting XMR, DASH, ZEC and REP |
| 30 September 2019 | South Korea's Upbit delisted XMR |
| 1 June 2020 | Bithumb permanently delisted XMR |
| 29 July 2020 | Coinbase's CEO said it would not list Monero because of regulatory concerns |
| 30 September 2020 | The IRS awarded contracts to Chainalysis and Integra FEC for Monero tracing tools |
| 15 January 2021 | Bittrex removed XMR markets |
| 25 March 2021 | South Korea's amended Special Financial Transactions Act took effect, barring exchanges from "dark coins" |
| 26 November 2021 | Kraken ended XMR trading and deposits for UK customers after this date |
Tail emission and ring size 16 (2022)
In June 2022 (block 2,641,623, around 9 June) the main emission of about 18.132 million XMR ended and the permanent tail emission of 0.6 XMR per block began (see Monero supply). On 13 August 2022, at block 2,688,888, a network upgrade raised the ring size from 11 to 16 and added view tags, Bulletproofs+ and multisig improvements.
Squeezed out of exchanges (2023 to 2025)
- 7 February 2023: Dubai's VARA prohibited activities related to anonymity-enhanced cryptocurrencies.
- June 2023: Binance restricted XMR in France, Italy, Spain and Poland.
- 5 January 2024: OKX delisted XMR.
- 20 February 2024: Binance delisted XMR worldwide.
- 14 May 2024: LocalMonero, the largest P2P marketplace for XMR, stopped trading.
- 19 June 2024: the EU's AML Regulation was published, with its ban on CASP accounts using anonymity-enhancing coins applying from 10 July 2027 (see EU 2027 ban).
- October 2024: the Haveno project declared its P2P software ready for mainnet on 26 October, used by independent networks such as RetoSwap; Kraken ended XMR trading and deposits for EEA clients on 31 October.
- 1 May 2025: the swap service eXch shut down.
- August and September 2025: the Qubic pool claimed majority hashrate; the network suffered a 6-block reorg on 12 August and an 18-block reorg on 14 September.
- 18 August 2025: Exodus ended XMR support.
- 18 September 2025: Canada's RCMP announced it had dismantled TradeOgre and seized about CA$56 million.
All dated delistings are on the delisting tracker.
2026: the end of web wallets and the road to FCMP++
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 6 January 2026 | MyMonero, the best-known Monero web wallet, went offline after a sunset announced on 6 October 2025 (see MyMonero) |
| 14 January 2026 | XMR reached an all-time high near $797 |
| 22 January 2026 | India's FIU reportedly told registered platforms to stop handling privacy coins |
| 11 May 2026 | Monero 0.18.5.0 released with SOCKS5 support and UPnP removed |
| June 2026 | Philippine central bank barred licensed providers from listing privacy coins |
| 5 October 2026 | FCMP++ and Carrot stressnet v3.0 forked on a test network; no mainnet date |
| 16 October 2026 | Point release 0.18.5.4 |
The next chapter is FCMP++, which would replace ring signatures altogether. For today's practical picture, see what is Monero? and Monero web wallet.
Frequently asked questions
When was Monero created?
Monero went live on 18 April 2014, as a community fork of BitMonero based on CryptoNote code. It had no premine.
Who founded Monero?
BitMonero was launched by a forum user called thankful_for_today, and the community forked it to create Monero. The underlying CryptoNote paper was published under the pseudonym Nicolas van Saberhagen. Riccardo Spagni was a well-known former lead maintainer.
When did Monero hide transaction amounts?
RingCT launched in January 2017 and became mandatory for all transactions in September 2017.
When did Binance delist Monero?
Binance removed all XMR pairs worldwide on 20 February 2024, after adding a monitoring tag in January 2024.
What is next for Monero?
The FCMP++ upgrade with the Carrot address protocol. It was on a test network in October 2026 with no mainnet date announced.