We've heard a lot of questions over the years and have compiled a thorough and varied FAQ. Don't worry, if your questions are not in there, you can always ask the community.
The community has put together a vast amount of resources and documentation. Users can find useful info and guides about common configurations andtips in the 'User Guides' section. Developers can find everything they need to build a service based on Monero or simply communicate with the networkin the 'Developer Guides'. The Library offers publications and books downloadable for free, including the full 'Mastering Monero' and 'Zero to Monero' books.
The MRL (Monero Research Lab) is a very important part of Monero. Researchers and cryptographers from all over the world meet to find new ways to improve Monero. Read their papers and join them!
The Monero community is diverse and varied. We come from all over, but we definitely have some places we like to hang out together. You'll find most of them below. Join us!
You are strongly advised to verify the hashes of the archive you downloaded. This will confirm that the files you downloaded perfectly match the files uploaded by the Monero development workgroup. Please don't underestimate this step, a corrupted archive could result in lost funds.
In past, you needed Bitcoin to buy Monero, but that's not the case anymore. You can directly trade Monero for national currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, etc) or other cryptocurrencies on many exchanges. Some require KYC (proof of identification); others do not, like decentralized exchanges. On this website is available a list of exchanges where it's possible to buy/sell Monero (XMR):
