Monero Shared Node

First-ever mainstream privacy-focused cryptocurrency, Monero (XMR) was deployed to mainnet in 2014. Technically, it was introduced as a fork of ByteCoin (BCN), an early cryptocurrency based on a CryptoNote transaction protocol. CryptoNote addressed the transaction's traceability as the most dangerous bottleneck of all first-gen cryptocurrencies.

Despite Monero (XMR) is largely developed and maintained by the open-source community of anonymous developers and privacy enthusiasts, Riccardo ‘Fluffy Pony’ Spagni is well-known as its first lead maintainer and one of the key figureheads; he curated the progress of Monero (XMR) for five years before stepping down in 2019.

Just like other blockchains and DLTs, Monero (XMR) relies on a distributed ecosystem of nodes. Its architecture includes so called ‘full’ nodes that store the blockchain ‘state’ in its entirety and ‘pruned’ nodes (‘Pruning’ feature was added in Jan., 2019) that saves 2/3 of storage space while keeping the full transaction history.

As per Moneropedia, in Monero (XMR) protocol, a node that is running remotely from a local machine with Monero (XMR) wallet is called ‘remote node’.

In order to ensure maximum obfuscation of transaction details of Monero (XMR) users, the protocol implemented a number of techniques to avoid disclosing sensitive data. Namely, Monero (XMR) harnesses Ring Confidential Transactions (RingCT), ZK-proofs, ‘Stealth addresses’ and IP obfuscation methods to make all XMR tokens equally indistinguishable.

Monero leverages the RandomX Proof-of-Work algorithm, which is set to prevent the network from being dominated by the owners of high-end application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining equipment.

In 2022, the protocol will implement a new XMR issuance (emission) mechanism dubbed ‘tail curve’; 0.6 XMR will be added to liquid circulating supply per every block mined - which is equal to roughly two minutes in modern Monero (XMR).

Ring Signatures and Stealth Addresses are two crucial privacy features of Monero (XMR) design. With Ring CT, transactions are signed by multi-layered, anonymous group signatures.

In turn, Stealth Addresses function allows privacy geeks to utilize randomly generated, one-time addresses in order to avoid sharing ‘real’ accounts’ addresses with counterparties. Ideologically, this function works not unlike Litecoin’s MimbleWimble and ZCash ‘Shielded Addresses’ instruments.

As such, no third-party watcher (peer, competitor, criminal, or watchdog) can track the addresses of recipient and sender, amount of XMR transferred, transaction details (time, block height) and so on.