Monero is a private, secure and untraceable cryptocurrency. The project is open-sourced and accessible to everyone. The currency allows you alone to control and be responsible for your funds. Monero keeps your accounts and transactions private. Other currencies such as Bitcoin record transactions publicly on the blockchain, which allows everyone to see the transaction addresses and the amounts.It should be noted that Monero, from it's inception in 2014 did not reward any founders, advisers and it did not have any pre-mining. A similar privacy currency project, ZCash's founders rewarded themselves and advisers with millions of dollars worth of coins by contrast. The Monero project is crowdfunded on their forum. It is for these reasons that the project has so much trust in the cryptocurrency space.
Monero is a decentralized cryptocurrency, meaning it is digital cash operated by a network of users.
Transactions are confirmed by distributed consensus and then permanently recorded on the blockchain. Third-parties do not need to be trusted to keep Monero safe.
Monero uses ring signatures, ring confidential transactions, and stealth addresses to obfuscate the origins, amounts, and destinations of all transactions. Monero provides all the benefits of a decentralized cryptocurrency, without any of the typical privacy concessions.
Sending and receiving addresses as well as transacted amounts are obfuscated by default. Transactions on the Monero blockchain cannot be linked to a particular user or real-world identity. Units of Monero cannot be blacklisted by vendors or exchanges due to their association in previous transactions.
For a list of exchanges to purchase Monero visit the project website at: https://getmonero.org/community/merchants/
Riccardo Spagni, a public core developer for Monero's presentation about the project: