What Was MoneroV (XMV)?
MoneroV was a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that forked from the Monero blockchain to address specific problems some developers thought were holding Monero back. Developers believed that Monero took the wrong approach regarding specific aspects, namely scalability, coin supply, and rising transaction fees.
Learn more about MoneroV and what it was designed to address.
Key Takeaways
- MoneroV (XMV) was a cryptocurrency fork of the Monero blockchain that attempted to address specific issues.
- The issues MoneroV (XMV) tried to address were scalability, inflation, and transaction fees.
- MoneroV is only available on TradeOgre, a decentralized exchange. It had a trading volume of $302 on Dec. 24, 2023.
Understanding MoneroV (XMV)
While it shared several design characteristics, MoneroV differed from its parent. It had a limited supply and claimed to be more scalable than Monero. The governance and decision-making process for MoneroV was advertised as less centralized, and the project attempted to address these shortcomings by using different protocols and limiting the supply of its coins.
MoneroV was introduced in February 2018 to take Bitcoin's place as the most popular cryptocurrency. Developers wanted it to become the first to be 100% private with endless scalability and utility.
Monero Issues
Some developers believed that Monero had too many issues that were not being addressed. They thought a fork was required that would let them implement the changes to programming they felt were keeping Monero from reaching its full potential.
Monero's infinite supply of coins was one of the most significant causes for developers' concern. It was felt that a limitless supply available to users might induce inflation in the coin's price. The cryptocurrency's governance framework was also criticized for not being decentralized enough. Like many minable cryptocurrencies, Monero's mining ecosystem was dominated by a few entities with substantial assets and mining power.
Another problem Monero faced was that it suffered from the same scale problems as those that affected Bitcoin. For example, when MoneroV was launched, Monero's median transaction size was 51.2 times larger than that of Bitcoin's transaction size. Thus, Monero's blockchain was thought to be susceptible to the same problem as Bitcoin's at the time: it was believed that rising popularity and an increasing number of transactions would cause higher fees per transaction and slow down processing times.
Many of the coins developed after Bitcoin followed the same scheme and thus had the same scaling and other problems. This requires a large effort to overcome, as witnessed by the amount of time it took for Bitcoin to become scalable through implementing many layers.
How Was MoneroV (XMV) Different From Monero (XMR)?
Since it was forked from Monero, MoneroV shared several design similarities with XMR. Both used ring signatures and stealth addresses—also called temporary addresses—to mask user identity. They also had block intervals of 120 seconds each and adjusted difficulty levels for each block.
But there were significant underlying differences between their blockchains. According to the development team behind MoneroV, the cryptocurrency’s design was aimed at garnering mass adoption and scale. It was developed to compete with Bitcoin and incorporated Monero’s privacy features in the hopes that it would also be quick and easy for anyone to use.
In the buildup toward releasing MoneroV, the team outlined problems with Monero’s blockchain and their proposed solutions. “In the same way central banks around the world print money out of thin air, Monero’s infinite coin supply is a tax in the form of inflation for all XMR [Monero] holders,” they wrote in their roadmap document.
Coin Supply
The supply of MoneroV was capped at 256 million. About 158 million of those coins were distributed to new investors and existing owners of Monero coins when MoneroV was launched. All Monero coin holders received 10 MoneroV coins for each Monero coin.
Blockchain Protocols
Another critical difference between the two cryptocurrencies was their use of protocols. A significant reason for Monero’s problems with scalability was the blockchain protocol CryptoNote, which appends additional information to each transaction to preserve privacy.
MoneroV used Mimblewimble, a privacy-oriented protocol that was supposed to be scalable. It is a trimmed version of the Bitcoin protocol that preserves privacy while grouping transactions, similar to Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, to ensure faster processing. Its use was expected to result in lower transaction costs and a smaller blockchain size.
What Happened to MoneroV?
The developer community behind MoneroV remained largely anonymous, and the blockchain became susceptible to the same issues it was created to avoid. The coin used a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, which rewards miners with coins. Like all cryptocurrencies that use the PoW mechanism, they attract industrial-sized mining firms that attempt to control the mining network with hashing power.
Most significantly, MoneroV ended up having no utility other than being used as payment or speculation. According to the users in the Bitcoin Talk forum where it was announced, the founders abandoned the project, and others picked it up, but active development appears to have ceased.
MoneroV's launch may also have privacy implications for Monero users. A new wallet with the same address, private keys, and mnemonic phrase that a user had on the Monero blockchain was generated for MoneroV users. Thus, any transaction by a user on their blockchains produced duplicate keys, which are used to confirm outputs from a particular address. This could have compromised user privacy and left a transaction trail that spanned MoneroV and Monero blockchains.
Additionally, MoneroV didn't experience much in the way of trading or reaching its intended audience. This created a situation where the coin had extremely thin liquidity, where it was hard for coin holders to exchange their XMV for other cryptocurrency or fiat currencies.
As of Dec. 24, 2023, XMV is no longer supported on major exchanges or found on any decentralized exchanges. There was also no recent activity on the project's Github page.
What Was MoneroV?
MoneroV was a privacy-focused cryptocurrency, a hard fork of the Monero blockchain. It shared several design characteristics with Monero but was also different from its parent in that it had a limited supply and used different protocols.
Can I Buy MoneroV?
MoneroV is only available on TradeOgre in small amounts, so in general, you can't purchase it anymore.
Where Can I Trade MoneroV?
MoneroV can be found on TradeOgre, but activity is very low.
The Bottom Line
MoneroV was a failed attempt to address issues some developers believed were present in Monero's blockchain design. Its last release was in January 2020.
The comments, opinions, and analyses expressed on Investopedia are for informational purposes only. Read ourwarranty and liability disclaimerfor more info. As of the date this article was written, the author does not own cryptocurrency.
