monero-docs/docs/technical-specs.md

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

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

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

• ~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