Why Monero?
Pick what you'd compare Monero against, then walk through 14 features — privacy, fees, speed, mining, adoption and more — one honest row at a time. Monero doesn't win every row. That's the point.
Monero vs …
Every comparison follows the same 14 features, in the same order. Each row names a winner — including when it isn't Monero.
The original — hardest money, transparent ledger LN Lightning Network
Bitcoin's second layer — instant, cheap, more private than on-chain ETH Ethereum
The world computer — programmable, transparent accounts ZEC Zcash
Zero-knowledge privacy — mathematically elegant, opt-in practice LTC Litecoin
Bitcoin's silver — fast, cheap, transparent (MWEB optional)
The 14 features we compare
Privacy by default
Are sender, receiver and amount hidden without any user action?
Fungibility
Is every coin interchangeable — can coins be blacklisted or tainted?
Confirmation speed
How fast is a payment practically safe to rely on?
Fees
What does a normal payment cost right now?
Throughput & scaling
How much traffic can the network handle, and at what cost to decentralization?
Mining / validation decentralization
Who can mine or validate profitably? How concentrated is power?
Supply policy
Issuance schedule, cap, and can the total supply be audited?
Self-custody UX
How easy is it to hold your own coins safely?
Adoption & liquidity
Where can you actually spend, buy and sell it?
Censorship resistance
Can transactions, coins or users be blocked or blacklisted?
Programmability
What can be built on top of it?
Security track record
Incidents, bugs, audits — how has it held up?
Interoperability
How easily does it bridge to other chains — including Monero?
Governance & funding
How is development funded and who decides the roadmap?
Our honesty policy
What we promise
Every claim links to a primary source. Every row names a winner — Monero, the competitor, a tie, or "it depends". Numbers carry an "as of" date. If we can't verify something, we say so instead of guessing.
What we are not
This is not financial advice and not a shill piece. Monero loses rows on this site — Lightning is faster, Ethereum is more programmable, Bitcoin is more liquid and its supply is simpler to audit. Read the rows and weigh what matters to you.