Bitwala is now accepting Monero!

We’re happy to highlight yet another addition to the list of accepted Altcoins and Cryptocurrencies: Monero! Welcome to the family! You can now use Monero to pay for your bills, send out international bank transfers and use it to top up your Bitwala Debit Card. It’s fast, cheap and convenient.

Monero? What exactly is that?

Monero aims to be a secure, private and untraceable cryptocurrency. It was created in April 2014 as an open source project and is currently maintained by seven core developers, the most prominent fabulously calling himself "Fluffy Pony". While it's undeniably inspired by Bitcoin, Monero is based on a different protocol, called CryptoNote. The main differences between Monero and Bitcoin are Monero's default use of stealth addresses and ring signatures, obfuscating most transaction data like sender, recipient and payment amount. By implementing these features, the currency wants to offer its users full transaction anonymity.

Little by little, Monero builds its base

The price of Monero has skyrocketed lately, driven by the announcement of several darknet markets to accept Monero as payment. This led to increased media coverage, attracting more speculators towards the currency. Even though the currenct price (around 10 USD at the time of writing) is probably overvalued, Monero has a solid userbase and the developer team has made steady progress over the years. Further improvements are on the roadmap, most importantly a wallet with a graphical interface and multi signature transactions.

So how do I use Monero with Bitwala?

Easy. Simply sign up at Bitwala, fill out your payee details and the other required information. Click “Confirm Details” and then choose “Pay With Altcoins”. Now you can select Monero. Follow the further instructions on the screen and you’re done. We’ve released a step-by-step guide over here (scroll down a little).