The one-paragraph answer

XELIS is an open-source, privacy-focused Layer 1 blockchain. Balances are stored on-chain in encrypted form using homomorphic encryption. Transactions are confidential — amounts, sender, and receiver are hidden by default — and validated using zero-knowledge proofs. The network is secured by a CPU-friendly proof-of-work algorithm called XelisHash v2, and its native coin is XEL, with a fixed max supply of 18.4 million.

Why "encrypted balances" matters

On Bitcoin or Ethereum, every wallet's balance is public forever. Anyone can paste an address into an explorer and see exactly how much you hold and where it came from. Monero hides the amounts inside transactions, but balance state isn't a first-class on-chain concept the way it is on account-based chains.

XELIS stores balance state directly on-chain — but encrypted. The chain knows your account exists and proves your transactions are mathematically valid, without anyone (including miners) ever seeing what you actually hold.

How XELIS works, in plain English

Homomorphic encryption

A type of encryption that lets you do math on encrypted values without decrypting them. XELIS uses it so the chain can verify "send 5 XEL from A to B" results in valid arithmetic — without ever learning what A or B's balance is.

Zero-knowledge proofs

A cryptographic proof that something is true without revealing why. Every XELIS transaction includes a ZK proof that the sender has enough balance and that the amounts add up — but the proof doesn't leak the numbers.

Stealth addresses

Receivers can publish one address and have every payment land at a different one-time on-chain destination. So even if you share your address publicly, an outside observer can't link multiple incoming payments together.

XelisHash v2 proof-of-work

A memory-hard, CPU-friendly mining algorithm. The goal is to keep mining accessible to people with normal hardware instead of letting ASIC farms dominate. Read more on the XELIS mining page.

What XELIS is for

Private value transfer. Send and receive XEL without publishing your finances to the internet.
Confidential savings. Hold a balance no one can scrape from a public ledger.
A foundation for private smart contracts. The XELIS roadmap includes smart-contract tooling on top of the confidential base layer.

What XELIS isn't

It isn't a privacy tool bolted on top of a transparent chain — privacy is structural.
It isn't a token on another network — XEL is the native coin of its own Layer 1.
It isn't trying to be anonymous-by-deception — view keys let you share your own history voluntarily (with an accountant, an auditor, a court).

How do I actually use XELIS?

Download a self-custody XELIS Wallet for Windows, macOS, or Linux.
Create a wallet, write down the seed phrase, and back it up offline.
Receive XEL into your address — from an exchange, a friend, or mining rewards.
Send privately. The chain handles the encryption for you.

XEL tokenomics in one minute

Max supply: 18.4 million XEL — fixed, no inflation tail.
Emission: smooth decay over decades, no pre-mine, no ICO, no founder allocation.
Block time: ~15 seconds, with fast confirmations in normal conditions.
Consensus: proof-of-work, XelisHash v2 — CPU-friendly and ASIC-resistant by design.
Fees: tiny, paid in XEL, calculated automatically by the wallet.

That structure makes XEL behave more like a hard-capped store-of-value asset than an inflationary utility token. Combined with native privacy, it's closer in spirit to "private digital cash" than to a programmable platform token.

How XELIS compares to other privacy approaches

Privacy on a blockchain can be implemented in several ways. The main techniques in production today:

Ring signatures (Monero). Mix your transaction inputs with decoys. Strong sender privacy, large transaction sizes.
Shielded transactions (Zcash). zk-SNARK proofs hide sender, receiver, and amount — but shielding is opt-in, and historically most Zcash use has been transparent.
Mixers / CoinJoin (Bitcoin). Add-on tools that pool transactions. Work, but require active use and have a smaller anonymity set than native privacy chains.
Encrypted balances + ZK proofs (XELIS). Balances live encrypted on-chain; ZK proofs verify each transfer arithmetically. Confidentiality is the default and the anonymity set is the entire user base.

See XELIS vs Monero for a deep head-to-head.

BlockDAG and the XELIS consensus

Where a traditional blockchain is a single chain of blocks, a BlockDAG is a directed acyclic graph of blocks — multiple blocks can exist at the same height and the protocol orders them deterministically. This lets the network confirm transactions faster and tolerate more parallel mining without orphaning honest work.

For a wallet user this is invisible — you see confirmations the same way. Under the hood, it means XELIS can target short block times and high throughput without the "orphan rate" problems that plague chains using only the longest-chain rule.

The XELIS threat model

What does XELIS actually protect against, and what does it not?

Protects against: on-chain surveillance, balance scraping, transaction-graph analysis, address clustering, supply-chain analytics firms.
Doesn't protect against: IP-level surveillance (use Tor or a VPN), KYC exchange records of your deposits and withdrawals, compromised endpoints (use the security guide), legal compulsion to reveal a view key.

View keys are an important design choice: you can voluntarily share a key that lets a specific third party (an accountant, an auditor) see your transaction history without giving them spending control. Privacy by default, transparency on demand.

Use cases for XELIS

Personal savings. Hold a balance the public internet can't see.
Salary / freelance income. Receive payments without publishing your earnings.
Cross-border transfers. Move value globally without a transaction trail attached to your identity.
Merchant settlement. Accept payments where the customer's payment history isn't broadcast to every other merchant.
Treasury operations. Hold and move organisational funds without exposing your runway to competitors.

The XELIS roadmap (high level)

Beyond the confidential base layer, XELIS is working toward smart-contract tooling that preserves the same privacy properties, hardware-wallet support, and reproducible builds so anyone can independently verify a release. Active development happens in the open on GitHub.

Frequently asked questions

Is XELIS the same as XEL?

XELIS is the blockchain and project. XEL is the ticker for the native coin. People often use them interchangeably; technically the chain is XELIS and the coin is XEL.

Can I mine XELIS at home?

Yes. XelisHash v2 is CPU-friendly and ASIC-resistant. See the mining guide for hardware requirements and pool recommendations.

Where can I see the XEL price?

CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, and most major exchange tickers list XEL. We also keep a short tokenomics summary on the price page.

Is XELIS a Bitcoin fork?

No. XELIS is an independent Layer 1 written in Rust from scratch, with its own consensus (BlockDAG + XelisHash v2) and its own cryptographic design (homomorphic encryption + ZK proofs).

Privacy wallets explained — how XELIS compares to other privacy approaches.
XELIS vs Monero — head-to-head with the most established privacy coin.
XEL coin tokenomics — supply, emission, where to check the price.
XELIS mining — how to mine XEL with CPU or GPU.

What is XELIS? The privacy Layer 1, explained