The way digital transactions are conducted has changed dramatically with the advent of cryptocurrencies like Monero (XMR) or the so popular Bitcoin. But focusing on the first one since we all know about Bitcoin at least to a certain degree, Monero is one of the most prominent cryptocurrencies that significantly emphasizes privacy, censorship-resistant transactions, and guarantees more security for its users.
The main reason this currency is booming is the market is especially for the reasons above, but also how simple it makes it to mine and store it for whoever decides to access it.
If you’re considering it, you just need to remember (above anything else) that Monero is an open-source cryptocurrency that uses a convoluted public ledger. It was launched in April 2014, and it is relevant to your possible investment and saving goals.
But keep this in mind: knowing the basics isn’t usually enough to determine whether you invest in the currency or not. This is why we will dive into the details and make sure you are well aware of how it works, how you can store it, and what makes it different from other big cryptos in the market.
What Is Monero?
Although Bitcoin is the most popular and big currency in the market, it has many flaws, including how privacy is affected for users in every transaction and operation used with the currency. In other words, Bitcoin is amazing… but mostly on price and because of being the first in the market.
However, it has many issues to fix that don’t seem to be important for most people.
Monero is the cryptocurrency market’s solution to Bitcoin’s privacy issues. People believed that Bitcoin transactions could be anonymous for a long time. Most people now realize that this is false.
In reality, there are a plethora of tools and services one could employ to unmask the person responsible for specific Bitcoin transactions.
Monero has a new approach to the market to ensure this doesn’t happen. Monero makes privacy the main component.
Thus, it is the most popular coin in the sector for those who want to keep their private information secure. Monero’s anonymization protocols are so effective that people will use them to hide their ownership of other coins.
So, basically, it works like every other token and blockchain. Still, you get more privacy since it focuses its efforts on this, just like other tokens decide to pay attention to smart contracts like Ethereum.
Monero’s History: When It All Started
Monero’s history began in 2012. The concept of privacy coins was just beginning to hit the market at this point. The realization that in a virtual economy, privacy equals freedom began to sink in after most issues with Bitcoin and other tokens that followed it not long after.
Thus, Monero’s journey begins with an entirely different project, Bytecoin; we must learn to have the entire picture in mind of how it works and why it started.
Bytecoin was revolutionary because of multiple reasons. It was the first digital currency to be created using a technology called cryptoNote.
CryptoNote combined multiple keys into one transaction, making it harder to trace who sent what. At that time, the idea of grouping public keys together wasn’t common. The technology of this system today is the backbone of most privacy-based cryptocurrencies on the market.
Although the Bytecoin concept was a huge success, some aspects of the coin’s launch strategy did not go so well. There were differences between developers about the distribution of the coin’s initial coins.
Bytecoin was able to issue 80% of its coins at launch. This split the Bytecoin group and led to Bitmonero, a privacy coin.
The Bitmonero project gathered seven top-ranking blockchain developers. Only two identities of these seven are public. Riccardo Spagni is the main developer behind this project. David Latapie, a long-time crypto enthusiast, was also part of the development team.
The developers dropped Bit from the title to make the platform more user-friendly and went with Monero as the project’s new name. Notably, Monero means “coin” in Esperanto and brings a brand-new world in privacy.
Learn About Advanced Cryptography
Monero uses advanced cryptographic functions that make it impossible for anyone to link you to any Monero cryptocurrency transaction. This technology allows sending and receiving transactions but not revealing the data to anyone.
On the other hand, Monero’s blockchain can also be subject to real-time monitoring, similar to Bitcoin via block Explorers.
The developers were able to accomplish this enormous task by integrating advanced fungibility protocols. Fungibility is an essential feature of most cryptocurrencies but especially for Monero, as trust is also built from this.
In case you’re not familiar with it, fungibility refers to the ability of an asset or good to be exchangeable with other assets or goods of the same type.
Most commodities, such as oil, gold, and wheat are fungible. When exchanging, you don’t need to get the same amount as before.
A bifurcated ledger allows any user to send and broadcast transactions in all these processes, but outsiders cannot see the amount, source, or destination.
Monero uses a Proof of Work system similar to Bitcoin’s to issue new coins (XMR) and provide incentives for miners to validate transactions and secure the network. It uses a variant of CryptoNote protocol to make it more CPU-friendly as well.
Keep in mind that the entire blockchain is what you usually know as “Monero,” but the token or currency is actually XMR in terms of the exact name.
That being said, we can continue with the general aspect. Openly verifiable transactions are the basis of most cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. This allows anyone to track your money.
Privacy and safety concerns arise from the fact that financial records can be linked to personal identities. Monero uses powerful cryptographic techniques in order to create an anonymous network, which is how the entire privacy and security protocols are possible.
Behind Its Principles: Main Features to Keep in Mind
Monero’s foundations are based on several principles that make it stand apart as a cryptocurrency. You can take these principles as how the network and token work. Though, there’s more we will need to cover later with this.
For now, let’s focus on the main features:
- Decentralized network.
Monero’s network, ledger, and database are distributed worldwide. Therefore, it is impossible to censor or control any server or database. These efforts would fail if a government attempted to shut down Monero nodes in their country.
Other users will continue to contribute to the network and will process valid transactions.
- Financial Safety.
Monero cryptocurrency doesn’t have a weak point that could be hacked to steal funds. It is protected by immutable cryptographic methods, which eliminates the need to trust others with responsibility for funds.
Monero users can independently verify the validity of the ledger.
- Financial Privacy.
Most blockchain systems sacrifice privacy to increase security. Monero prioritizes user privacy instead.
Monero protects user privacy by hiding the blockchain’s sender and recipient identities and transaction amounts. This means that your spending and storage activities cannot be tracked.
- Fungibility.
The characteristic of a commodity/asset whose individual units can be substituted by each other is called fungibility. Monero’s fungibility can be attributed to the cryptocurrency’s sophisticated privacy practices.
It is impossible to trace the history of any particular XMR if there is a muddled transaction record. An asset cannot be used as a currency unless it is fungible.
- ASIC Resistance.
Mining Bitcoin requires specialized equipment. These systems use Applications Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) chips and are very costly and therefore out of reach for most people.
Monero uses a different hash algorithm that includes advanced features. It is therefore impossible to make ASIC chips suitable for mining Monero.
This means you can mine Monero with CPUs and GPUs, increasing its potential to be decentralized.
- Multiple keys.
Monero has a unique set of keys that is different from the ones used by Ethereum and Bitcoin.
These keys include the public view, private view, public spend, and private key. To generate a stealth public address, you can use the public view key.
The Monero private view key can be used to verify funds have been received and check the Monero blockchain. The public spending keys are used to verify transaction signatures, while private spend keys are used to generate outgoing transactions.
Mining Monero: How Do People Do It?
The “mining” process is used to create new Monero coins. This is the incentive that cryptocurrencies use to encourage participants to record blockchain transactions. One block takes about two minutes to mine. Monero allows you to mine coins, but there are some notable differences.
Monero mining doesn’t require any special hardware. All major operating systems are supported, including Windows, Linux, and Android. Monero’s Proof of Work algorithm is accessible on a variety of processors.
Miners receive a “permanent reward block,” which means that they are always entitled to a minimum of 0.3 XMR.
This is a lower percentage of total XMR, and Monero is disinflationary crypto. The inflammation is expected to be less than 1% by 2022 and will likely continue decreasing after that.
But How Do Transactions Work?
Monero’s network transactions involve both inputs and outputs. The sender consumes the network as inputs, while Monero is transferred to the recipient as outputs.
The transaction is authorized by the sender when the sender digitally signs it.
The transaction is broadcasted on the Monero network, where it is grouped together with other transactions to form a block. To ensure that the signatures are authentic, miners will validate each block.
To encourage their participation in the network, input users must pay miners a fee.
Once a block has been accepted, all transactions are stored on the blockchain chronologically. The Monero network then distributes new Monero to miners in the form of the “block reward.”
Monero uses the CryptoNight Proof of Work algorithm, which is a variant of CryptoNote during these operations as well to guarantee security. This is in contrast to Bitcoin and other derivative cryptocurrencies. This protocol is significantly different from other cryptocurrencies in terms of blockchain obfuscation.
Monero uses four key pillars in cryptography. These are Ring Signatures and Ring Confidential Transactions, Stealth Addresses, and Kovri (I2P router).
- Ring Signatures
They protect the sender’s anonymity. Each signature is generated using the Monero user’s private key and a group of unrelated public keys. When a recipient is verifying a transaction signed, they cannot determine which ring member corresponds to the sender’s key that created it.
The origins of ring signatures can be traced back to 1991. They were previously known as “Group Signatures.” Monero’s Ring Signatures allow for signer-ambiguous transactions which cannot be forged and render currency flows impossible to trace.
- Ring Confidential Transactions.
Ring CT was introduced in January 2017. Gregory Maxwell, a Core developer of Bitcoin, created this algorithm.
The anonymity of Monero transactions was further enhanced by this adoption, which hides the amount being transacted. Miners verify transactions and block confirmations.
Although the miners don’t know how much Monero each input or output contains, they must prove that the sums of all input and output amounts are equal.
- Stealth Posts.
These addresses make it impossible for anyone to identify the destination address of a Monero transaction other than the sender or receiver. It protects the anonymity and identity of the receiver.
Stealth addresses are unique that are randomly generated for every transaction received on behalf of the receiver. Although a receiver may publish a wallet address, all transactions received will be sent to a Monero address.
To address the transaction cryptographically, the sender uses the receiver’s public keys to see it on the blockchain.
- Kovri.
This is an i2p router that is security-focused and written in C++. Although it is very similar to Tor, it does not have entry or exit nodes and node hierarchy. Kovri uses i2p garlic routing to create a private overlay network over the Internet. This network obscures all Monero transactions.
Garlic routing uses data packets that are well encrypted for each hop. This is similar to Russian dolls or letters inside letters. The packet’s destination is unknown to the receiver until the packet is decoded.
How to Store Monero – More than Storing or Mining
You will need a “wallet” to be able to store, receive, and spend XMR. Monero wallets manage the complicated cryptographic aspects for you.
Only manage your seed and address. Your wallet also handles other vital information such as the public and private keys. Your wallet uses a Monero seed to find and spend XMR. It is usually converted to a series of words for convenience.
Your seed must be stored and generated with care. Anyone who has access to it can potentially get your wallet.
Your address will be generated using the seed, and it can be shared with others. There are many Monero wallet types, including mobile and software wallets as well as paper wallets and web wallets.
Supply & Price: How Much Is Available?
There are currently 17,669,037 of XMR in circulation, and you must learn it has a fixed supply, unlike most other cryptocurrencies.
Developers decided to increase the total number of coins by .87% in the first year. This percentage decreases each year. It will be another 115 years until Monero doubles its supply at the current rate. They have set.
How does this influence you? Simple. You don’t get to access more, and it is very similar to just set a specific amount due to the rate creators have decided to use.
But with this in mind, we need to access the main part you must be interested in: price.
As of the moment of writing this, Monero has hit the $190 mark (with a few cents), and it is very affordable when compared to many other currencies.
In fact, the security and privacy it offers + the price are what make most people go for this option overall. Thus, you aren’t making a bad decision if you decide to go for it.
The Pros of Monero: Should You Buy It?
- It is one of the most private cryptocurrencies.
- Due to ASIC resistance, it is more decentralized than other cryptocurrencies.
- Transactions cannot be linked to individuals.
- Transactions are not traceable.
- Due to dynamic scaling, the blockchain has no limit.
- You can choose the parties that can view your transactions (convenient for tax purposes).
- Dedicated developers support the project.
- Monero, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency, allows you to instantly transact anywhere in the world without requiring permission from any authority.
- It eliminates the need for physical currency, which can be lost, centralized, inconvenienced, and less secure.
What About the Cons?
- Monero wallets are very rare.
- Storing Monero safely can be more difficult than other coins.
- It is hard to create applications that can interact with Monero’s Blockchain.
- More people prefer digital and virtual currencies to physical fiat currencies for their transaction channels.
What People Expect from Monero in the Future
Despite governments not being big supporters of anonymous transactions, this cryptocurrency is still very popular.
In an interview with Peter McCormick, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong revealed that US regulators had prevented the exchange listing XMR.
Armstrong stated that other non-US-based exchanges like Binance offer the coin.
Every industry has a platform that puts the user’s needs first. XMR is the cryptocurrency industry’s coin.
Monero provides a secure and anonymous way for the world to protect their privacy, even though the powers that be would prefer it otherwise. It takes real risks in order to give its users more freedom.
Therefore, people expect it to grow quite properly and ensure everyone can have top privacy with the benefits of cryptocurrencies overall.
What Is Different from Bitcoin?
Bitcoin, as mentioned, is the most widely used cryptocurrency. But it isn’t perfect.
It uses pseudo-name addresses to protect the participant’s identity. These pseudo names are random combinations of numbers and alphabets.
This approach is not ideal for privacy because both Bitcoin transactions and addresses are stored on the blockchain. Anyone can access them. Even pseudonymous addresses can be made public.
Monero has fungibility, which is another advantage over bitcoin. This means that two currencies can be substituted without any difference.
Two $1 bills have the same value, but they cannot be fungible because each one has a unique serial number. However, two one-ounce bars of gold in the same grade are fungible because they have the same price and don’t have any distinguishing features.
Using the same analogy, a Bitcoin is the $1 bill, and a Monero is the piece of gold.
The blockchain records each bitcoin’s transaction history. This allows you to identify bitcoin units that could be linked with certain events such as fraud, gaming, or theft. It also makes it possible to close, suspend, or block accounts that have these units. Imagine that you receive a few bitcoins today, which were once used for gambling. They are then banned, resulting in a loss.
Monero’s transaction history is not traceable, so participants are less likely to have their units refused or blacklisted.
Is Cryptocurrency Investment What You Should Aim for?
While it is a smart idea to invest in cryptocurrency, you should also consider the risks. It is important to remember that cryptocurrency markets can be volatile and difficult to follow.
You can’t simply follow general volatility. You need to understand how the currency or token you purchase fluctuates.
We believe XMR is one of the best digital currencies to invest in if you’re interested in its goals and offerings as a network and private option.
However, is this market what you need? If it is, we recommend that you don’t only invest in one currency. This is our best financial advice.
On the other hand, while we have invested in cryptocurrency, local lead generation has been more profitable than this volatile investment option. This is especially true since it is a business and not a bet on the market.
Lead generation is a risk-free investment. It is easy to do, and anyone can learn. You can easily make thousands of bucks if you work hard, and your ROI will be secure.
It works like this: Locate clients who need websites and rank them. Then generate traffic to convert leads into customers.
Every lead you generate is a paid lead, and you can build as many websites as you wish.
What are the steps? This training program will answer all your questions!
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.