Monero vs Bitcoin: the comparison

by James · March 3, 2023

Monero (XMR) is the main privacy-focused cryptocurrency, and Bitcoin, needless to say, is the quintessential crypto symbol of privacy, but which one will be the most secure?

The diatribe over which digital currency is the most secure has been going on for a while, at least since Monero has been around, let’s take a look at the strengths of each.

Traceability in the Monero network

Monero’s traceability is the most secure of cryptoassets for privacy and allows for unprecedented levels of privacy, but now the debate rages on who is more secure between XMR and BTC.

Andy Greenberg, Cybersecurity Guru talks about that pressure by journalist Laura Shin.

Taking Alphabay, a darknet marketplace, as an example, Greenberg said:

“Alphabay is back online and now only accepts Monero.”

Essentially on the darknet, payments can be accepted in a very secure way thanks to Monero.

The block explorer hides information about each and every transaction involving the Monero security token.

Although some Bitcoin transactions have been traced over time, the sender and receiver could never be traced except in overt cases.

Transactions are recorded in an ad hoc list that can be revealed on the block explorer, but this is so difficult to trace that it is considered almost impossible.

Andy Greenberg believes that Monero has privacy standards that are “much, much harder” to breach than its ancestor Bitcoin.

XMR hides transactions better by cloaking them in ad hoc cryptographic paths to make it harder to trace the source of the data.

This makes the same job for hackers and law enforcement agencies very tough.

“It may seem like this golden age of cryptocurrency tracking is coming to an end and people are getting educated, but I think it’s maybe fair to see it as a new phase, a new step in this cat and mouse [cryptocurrency tracking ] game.”

Greenberg continues.

While XMR appears to be ahead of digital gold in terms of the difficulty of tracking transactions, the consensus view was not always this.

Greenberg himself on another occasion, pressed by Paul Ducklin, had stated that in the case of both Monero and Bitcoin if desired it is possible to trace transactions, but with difficulty.

Greenberg, at the time relying on research from Chainalysis, had stated that transactions with Monero are detectable 60% of the time.

This report showed that Monero is not completely untraceable and just like Bitcoin can have bugs that leak sensitive information.

In Chainalysis’ report, law enforcement could take solace in the fact that it was shown that anything is possible with the right tools and given enough time.

Although transactions in XMR are very difficult to trace, this is not impossible.