# Monero Technical Specs

## Live

* Monero blockchain is live since 18 April 2014

## No premine, no instamine, no ICO, no token

* Monero had no premine or instamine
* Monero did not sell any token
* Monero had no presale of any kind

## Proof of Work

* CryptoNight
* may change in the future

## Difficulty retarget

* every block
* based on the last 720 blocks, excluding 20% of the timestamp outliers

## Block time

* 2 minutes
* may change in the future as long as emission curve is preserved

## Block reward

* smoothly decreasing and subject to penalties for blocks greater then median size of the last 100 blocks (M100)
* ~6 XMR as of Dec 2017; for the current reward check the coinbase transaction of the [latest block](https://moneroblocks.info/)

## Block size

* dynamic
* maximum of two times the median size of the last 100 blocks (2 * M100)
* ~150KB as of Dec 2017; check [the latest block size](https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/monero-size.html#3m)

## Emission curve

### Main emission

* first, the main emission is about to produce ~18.132 million coins by the end of May 2022
* as of Dec 2017 the emission is about 30 XMR per 10 minutes
* see [charts and details](https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/512kwh/useful_for_learning_about_monero_coin_emission/)

### Tail emission

* the tail emission kicks in once main emission is done
* it will produce 0.6 XMR per 2-minute block
* this translates to <1% inflation decreasing over time

## Max supply

* ~18.132 million XMR + 0.6 XMR per 2 minutes
* technically infinite
* practically might be deflationary if accounted for lost coins

## Sender privacy

* ring signatures

## Recipient privacy

* stealth addresses

## Amount privacy

* ring confidential transactions

## IP address privacy

* not built in - please use TOR or I2P
* there is an ongoing effort to integrate I2P into Monero - the Kovri project