A lot of top cryptocurrencies will roll out some major features in the coming weeks and months. In the case of Monero, a lot of exciting developments are on the horizon for 2018. Although there is no official timeline for some of these developments, certain features and integrations have been in development for several months. Below are some of the things to look forward to relating to Monero in 2018.
5. Darknet Adoption
Although this is not something most people would necessarily agree with, darknet adoption will be a major catalyst for Monero. It is evident Bitcoin or any of the other supported cryptocurrencies make no sense for darknet use. The lack of fungibility, privacy, and anonymity make them all less suited for the darknet than one would expect. Monero checks all of the right boxes in this regard. If all darknet markets implement XMR support in 2018, things will get very interesting for this currency, to say the least.
4. Multisignature Support
The adoption of Monero as a top cryptocurrency will largely hinge on its implementation of multisignature support. This matters a lot to exchanges, brokers, and other service providers. Even darknet market operators prefer multisignature solutions for Monero over normal wallets. In fact, the lack of multisig has held back XMR adoption on the darknet, but that will come to change with the next client release. With the code now merged into the main branch, it is only a matter of time until Monero multisig becomes the new normal.
3. Kovri
Depending on how one wants to look at things, Monero is either “private enough” or still needs some improvement in this regard. The Kovri project is a major development, as it introduces I2P technology to Monero. This allows all transactions and communication over the protocol to adhere to the highest standard of anonymity. It is also an alternative to Tor, which will undoubtedly shake things up quite a bit.
Kovri will be the first C++ implementation of I2P technology through user-friendly interfaces. Additionally, it will help increase Monero’s market value. Combined with RingCT – or RuffCT – technology, every transaction will have guaranteed confidentiality, privacy, and anonymity. Moreover, Kovri will have its own interface, which means you won’t need Monero to use it. This is a very interesting development people have been looking forward to for quite some time now.
2. Bulletproofs
Although we have touched upon the concept of Monero bulletproofs before, it is important to reiterate how important this development is. It will reduce transaction fees and Monero’s block size by up to 80%. This feature will be released in two stages, with the first stage implementation already living on the testnet. All of this will be provided without sacrificing privacy or anonymity, which only makes it more important to Monero.
1. Hardware Wallets
When it comes to properly storing Monero, there is no hardware option available just yet. That situation will come to change in the future, as two different implementations are currently in development. Ledger has been working on XMR support for the Nano S over the past few months. There is also the community-funded Monero hardware wallet, which will hopefully be ready at some point in 2018. It is good to see hardware wallet support finally arrive for this popular currency.
