January 07, 2019 | AtoZ Markets-Temporary instability has reached Monero (XMR) - the 9th cryptocurrency based on market capitalization. Last weekend, the head of the Epic Games, the gaming company said that on January 5 they accidentally began to accept privacy-oriented altcoin.
Monero Confidentiality Attracts Criminals
Monero is an open source cryptocurrency, created in April 2014 and focused on interchangeability, confidentiality and decentralization. This digital asset works on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android iOS and others, uses an open ledger to record transactions, while new units are created by mining. Monero uses the Proof of Work mechanism to issue new coins and encourage miners to protect the network and verify transactions. Open ledger means that anyone can broadcast or send transactions, but no external observer can indicate the source, amount or destination of the transaction. Confidentiality of Monero attracts people who are interested in evading the law. Certain illegal events involving this cryptocurrency, such as WannaCry ransomware attack, or shopping of the illegal substances in the dark net have become widely known. Despite this, Monero does not lose its popularity. Those who seek financial privacy are interested in using this cryptocurrency, because payments and account balances remain completely hidden, which is not the standard for most cryptocurrencies.
What Was Epic Games Role?
In December, Epic Games, which developed the popular video game Fortnite, opened the official merchandise store, Retail Row. According to the company CEO Tim Sweeney, Monero presented a set of payment options for the store “somewhere on the road”. As the executive explained, it was unintentional, and the company's staff subsequently took it off on weekends. Sweeney wrote in his Twitter account on Saturday that the company had worked "with a partner to open a store of goods, and somewhere along the way, payment was included Monero". The company's CEO explained that many Epic Games team members are big fans of the decentralized computing technology underlying cryptocurrency. However, Sweeney added that they needed to work a lot on users' protection against volatility and fraud, before bringing the cryptocurrency "to such a wide audience that includes young players."
Epic Games and Monero Surrounded by Rumors
Fans and one of the Monero developers Ricardo Spagni reacted positively to Epic’s decision to refuse to make Bitcoin payments (BTC) due to the relative lack of cryptocurrency confidentiality. According to other rumors, Epic has entered into a partnership agreement with the GloBee cryptocurrency payment processor in agreement with Monero. However, Sweeney denies such conjectures. "There are a lot of rumors here, Epic Games has no cryptocurrency partners, and they do not participate in any discussion of cryptocurrency" he added. According to CoinMarketCap, XMR / USD increased by more than 10 percent on the background of the aforementioned rumors, but lost some of the benefits, after rumors were denied.
Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments section below