IRC: [#monero-dev on Freenode](irc://chat.freenode.net/#monero-dev)
## Introduction
Monero is a private, secure, untraceable currency. You are your bank, you control your funds, and nobody can trace your transfers.
**Privacy:** Monero uses a cryptographically sound system to allow you to send and receive funds without your transactions being easily revealed on the blockchain (the ledger of transactions that everyone has). This ensures that your purchases, receipts, and all transfers remain absolutely private by default.
**Security:** Using the power of a distributed peer-to-peer consensus network, every transaction on the network is cryptographically secured. Individual wallets have a 24 word mnemonic that is only displayed once, and can be written down to backup the wallet. Wallet files are encrypted with a passphrase to ensure they are useless if stolen.
**Untraceability:** By taking advantage of ring signatures, a special property of certain types of cryptography, Monero is able to ensure that transactions are not only untraceable, but have an optional measure of ambiguity that ensures that transactions cannot easily be tied back to an individual user or computer.
## About this Project
This is the core GUI implementation of Monero. It is open source and completely free to use without restrictions, except for those specified in the license agreement below. There are no restrictions on anyone creating an alternative implementation of Monero that uses the protocol and network in a compatible manner.
As with many development projects, the repository on Github is considered to be the "staging" area for the latest changes. Before changes are merged into that branch on the main repository, they are tested by individual developers, merged to the staging repo, and then subsequently tested by contributors who focus on thorough testing and code reviews. That having been said, the repository should be carefully considered before using it in a production environment, unless there is a patch in the repository for a particular show-stopping issue you are experiencing. It is generally a better idea to use a tagged release for stability.
Anyone is able to contribute to Monero. If you have a fix or code change, feel free to submit is as a pull request directly to the "development" branch. In cases where the change is relatively small or does not affect other parts of the codebase it may be merged in immediately by any one of the collaborators. On the other hand, if the change is particularly large or complex, it is expected that it will be discussed at length either well in advance of the pull request being submitted, or even directly on the pull request.
## Supporting the Project
Monero development can be supported directly through donations.
Both Monero and Bitcoin donations can be made to donate.getmonero.org if using a client that supports the [OpenAlias](https://openalias.org) standard
The Monero donation address is: 46BeWrHpwXmHDpDEUmZBWZfoQpdc6HaERCNmx1pEYL2rAcuwufPN9rXHHtyUA4QVy66qeFQkn6sfK8aHYjA3jk3o1Bv16em (viewkey: e422831985c9205238ef84daf6805526c14d96fd7b059fe68c7ab98e495e5703)
The Bitcoin donation address is: 1FhnVJi2V1k4MqXm2nHoEbY5LV7FPai7bb
Core development funding and/or some supporting services are also graciously provided by sponsors:
There are also several mining pools that kindly donate a portion of their fees, [a list of them can be found on our Bitcointalk post](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583449.0).
