monero-docs/docs/technical-specs.md

Monero Technical Specs

Live

• Monero blockchain is live since 18 April 2014

No premine, no instamine, no ICO/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

• ~6 XMR as of Dec 2017, see the latest block coinbase transaction amount for current reward
• smoothly decreasing and subject to penalties for blocks greater then median size of the last 100 blocks (M100)

Block size

• dynamic, maximum of two times median size of the last 100 blocks (2 * M100)

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.

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

• infinite

Sender privacy

• Ring signatures

Recipient privacy

• Stealth addresses

Amount privacy

• Ring confidential transactions

IP address privacy

• not built in
• use TOR or I2P
• there is an ongoing effort to integrate I2P into Monero: the Kovri project