This Year in Monero - 2021

Posted by: sethsimmons

Introduction

As a way to celebrate and show the growth that has happened for Monero across the past year on this, the 7th anniversary of the Monero project, I wanted to take a snapshot of statistics and social media posts to highlight this growth.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of ways in which Monero grew, and some of the most important growth came in increased acceptance and adoption of Monero for donations and payments:

Statistics

One of the most important ways we can deduce what has been happening in Monero is to look at the (thankfully, sparse) blockchain data available publicly.

Each section will highlight the previous year (04/2019 through 04/2020) as well as the current year (04/2020 through 04/2021) to give year-over-year comparisons and perspective.

Transactions

04/2019 through 04/2020:

  • Monero transactions grew from ~7,000tx per day to ~10,000tx per day
  • There were 2,811,244 total transactions, for an average of 7,702 transactions per day for the year.

04/2020 through 04/2021:

  • Monero transactions grew from ~10,000tx per day to ~23,000tx per day
  • There were 5,868,096 total transactions, for an average of 16,076 transactions per day for the year

Year over Year Growth

Monero's on-chain usage grew 208% YoY! Every one of these transactions was done via private-by-default transactions that protect sender, receiver, and amounts.

Blockchain Growth

04/2019 through 04/2020:

  • Monero's blockchain grew 7.41GB in a year.
  • There were 292,651 total blocks, for an average size of 29.56KB per block for the year.
  • There were 2,811,244 total transactions, for an average of 2.76KB per transaction.

04/2020 through 04/2021:

  • Monero's blockchain grew 13.34GB in a year.
  • There were 262,588 total blocks, for an average size of 53.30KB per block for the year.
  • There were 5,868,096 total transactions, for an average of 2.38KB per transaction.

Year over Year Growth

Monero's blockchain size grew 180% faster YoY while the average transaction size dropped 13.76% YoY (thanks, CLSAG)!

Emissions

04/2019 through 04/2020:

  • Monero's block subsidy (emission) created 599,105.65XMR.
  • There were 292,651 total blocks, for an average block subsidy of 2.04XMR per block for the year.
  • Monero's emission per day dropped from ~2,000XMR to ~1,200XMR over the course of the year.

04/2020 through 04/2021:

  • Monero's block subsidy (emission) created 362,406.83XMR.
  • There were 262,588 total blocks, for an average block subsidy of 1.38XMR per block for the year.
  • Monero's emission per day dropped from ~1,200XMR to ~750XMR over the course of the year.

Year over Year Change

Monero's inflation decreased 39.5% YoY and is steadily approaching the tail emission of 0.6XMR per block!

Fees

04/2019 through 04/2020:

  • Monero's participants spent 1,101.07XMR on fees in a year.
  • Monero averaged 3.016XMR in fees spent per day.
  • There were 262,651 total blocks, for an average total fees to miners of 0.00419288XMR per block for the year.
  • There were 2,811,244 total transactions, for an average of 0.000391666XMR per transaction.

04/2020 through 04/2021:

  • Monero's participants spent 1,884.77XMR on fees in a year.
  • Monero averaged 5.16XMR in fees spent per day.
  • There were 262,588 total blocks, for an average total fees to miners of 0.00717767XMR per block for the year.
  • There were 5,868,096 total transactions, for an average of 0.000321189XMR per transaction.

Year over Year Growth

Monero's fees spent increased 71.11% YoY while the average transaction fee dropped 17.99% YoY (thanks, CLSAG)!

Mining

12/2019 through 04/2020:

NOTE: This time range begins with the implementation of RandomX in the November 30th, 2019 network upgrade.

  • Monero's network hashrate increased from 0.682GH/s to 1.21GH/s over the year.
  • Monero forked to the ASIC-resistant mining algorithm known as RandomX.
  • Monero started after the RandomX upgrade with ~27,000 miners.
  • Monero unique miners increased from 27,247 to 37,380 over the year.

04/2020 through 04/2021:

  • Monero's network hashrate increased from 1.21GH/s to 2.29GH/s over the year.
  • Monero broke 100,000 miners for the first time in it's network history!
  • Monero unique miners increased from 37,380 to 102,163 over the year.

* Disclaimer: These miner numbers are the lower bound, as they are the numbers visible via API of public pools where the API is reachable and provides miner count. There are likely many more miners that are solo, use private pools, or are on pools that do not expose miner count.*

Year over Year Growth

Monero's network hashrate increased 89.25% YoY and network miners increased 173.30% YoY and 274.95% since the introduction of RandomX!

Reddit

04/2019 through 04/2020:

  • Monero's main subreddit, r/Monero gained ~11,000 subscribers, going from ~157,000 to ~168,000 subscribers over the year.

04/2020 through 04/2021:

  • Monero's main subreddit, r/Monero gained ~43,000 subscribers, going from ~168,000 to ~211,000 subscribers over the year.

Year over Year Growth

Monero's subreddit subscriber count grew 25.59% YoY and grew 290% faster than the previous year!

Top Ten Reddit Posts

Twitter

04/2019 through 04/2020:

  • Monero's main Twitter account, @monero gained 3,502 followers.
  • The @monero Twitter account went from 317,010 to 320,512 followers.

04/2020 through 04/2021:

  • Monero's main Twitter account, @monero gained 69,209 followers.
  • The @monero Twitter account went from 319,884 to 389,093 followers.

Year over Year Growth

Monero's Twitter follower count grew 21.63% YoY and grew 1,870% faster than the previous year!

Top Ten Tweets

Highlighted CCS Campaigns

Major Upgrades

Something Missing?

If you see something missing from this post that was a major highlight of the year, please feel free to reach out via Twitter, Matrix, or email and I'll work to get it added ASAP.

Resources Used

Here is a quick list of the sources and tools I used to gather these statistics:

Disclaimer: I am the author of https://sethsimmons.me/posts/this-year-in-monero-2021/ and the content for this blog post was originally shared there first.


Post tags : Community