Keeping Your Own Records
General concepts of personal record-keeping and cost basis at a high level only — with the reminder that what matters legally depends entirely on your country.
#basics
16 lessons with this tag.
Avoiding Common Mistakes
A consolidated checklist: verify the address, test small, back up first, set the restore height, keep a refund address, and beware scams.
Locked vs Unlocked Balance
The 10-block unlock on received outputs, balance vs unlocked balance, change outputs, and the longer lock on mined coins.
I Restored My Wallet but the Balance Is Zero
The classic restore-height mistake that skips your funds, how to rescan from an earlier height, and confirming your primary address.
My Wallet Won't Sync
How syncing works, remote node vs your own node, common connection and 'daemon busy' issues, and how to fix a slow or stalled sync.
My Transaction Is Pending or Stuck
What 'pending' really means, the mempool, block time and the 10-block lock, fees and priority, and why a broadcast Monero tx isn't 'lost'.
Ways to Spend Monero
The three main paths: pay XMR-accepting merchants directly, buy gift/prepaid cards, or swap to another coin to pay non-XMR merchants.
What Gives Monero Value?
Why Monero is worth anything: utility, scarcity and trust — private fungible cash, sound issuance, decentralization, network effect and censorship resistance, and the honest difference between price and value.
Payment Methods Compared: Cash, Cards, Banks & Monero
How cash, debit cards, credit cards, bank transfers and Monero really differ — fees, settlement speed, privacy, reversibility and who is in control.
What Is Monero?
Monero (XMR) explained: private, fungible digital cash that's untraceable by default.
What Is a Crypto Wallet?
A wallet doesn't hold coins — it holds keys. The mental model that makes everything else click.
Centralized vs Decentralized
The core difference between a bank or exchange holding your money and you holding it yourself.
What Is a Blockchain?
How a blockchain works as a shared, tamper-resistant ledger that no single party controls.
What Problem Does Crypto Solve?
Why cryptocurrency exists: censorship, inflation, gatekeepers, and trusting third parties with your money.
What Is Cryptocurrency?
A plain-English introduction to cryptocurrency: digital money you can hold and send without a bank.
What Is Money?
Money explained from first principles — what it is, the properties of good money, and why sound money matters.