Monero XMR

As a result the chain has no publicly readable ledger of balances: an outside observer can neither trace the path of funds, nor reconstruct holdings, nor tell a clean coin from one that passed through a tainted address — every unit is interchangeable by construction. Its proof of work is deliberately awkward for specialised chips and tuned to ordinary processors, so that mining does not concentrate in the hands of a few hardware makers. Block size is not fixed and expands with demand.

Issuance never stops: once the main emission is exhausted a small permanent reward remains to keep miners interested when fees alone are thin. No company stands behind the project: the work is done by a community and paid for by open funding drives for specific tasks.

The very property that makes the network valuable to some closes doors elsewhere: regulated venues in many countries have delisted the coin precisely because it cannot be traced.