The State of the Monero Economy: What 1,556 Services Tell Us

Short answer: The Monero economy is larger and more ordinary than its reputation suggests. Across 1,556 services we track, the biggest categories are everyday businesses (352) and exchanges (348), followed by non-profits (220) and web hosting (162). Services are registered across 93 countries, with the United States, Russia and Germany most represented.

Key findings

• 1,556 services accept or trade Monero in our directory as of July 2026.
• 198 are verified; 44 are flagged as scams and 77 as questionable — roughly 1 in 13 carries a warning.
• 134 services publish a Tor onion mirror — about 9%, far above the web average.
• Exchanges skew overwhelmingly non-custodial: 207 instant swaps versus 64 centralized exchanges.
• Only 7 listings are true decentralized/atomic-swap venues — the smallest and most trust-minimised segment.

Where is the Monero economy concentrated?

The headline is that ordinary commerce is the largest single category. Monero's public image is dominated by exchanges and privacy tooling, but in raw counts, businesses selling normal things narrowly lead.

The second observation is infrastructure-heavy: hosting, VPNs, utilities and merchant services together account for roughly 295 listings. Monero's strongest commercial fit is with vendors who already sell to privacy-conscious customers — people buying a VPS or a VPN are not a hard sell on paying privately.

How much of it can you trust?

We think the honest presentation of this is the important part. Only 12.7% are verified. The large "admitted" majority means listed but not independently confirmed — not endorsed. Anyone publishing a directory where every entry is "trusted" is telling you something about their standards rather than their data.

The 7.7% carrying a warning (questionable or scam) is a floor, not a ceiling: it counts the ones we know about, usually because someone reported a loss.

Where are these services based?

Across 93 countries in total. Two patterns stand out. First, the US leads despite the regulatory climate — self-custody commerce is not the same thing as exchange licensing. Second, the presence of Seychelles in the top eight reflects a familiar offshore-incorporation pattern among exchange operators, and is worth factoring into your own risk assessment.

What does the Tor data say?

134 of 1,556 services (8.6%) publish a Tor onion mirror. For comparison, onion mirrors are vanishingly rare on the web at large. Within Monero-accepting services they are close to a norm in some categories — particularly hosting, exchanges and privacy tooling.

This is a useful signal when evaluating a service: publishing and maintaining an onion mirror is a small but real operational commitment, and it correlates with operators who take the rest of their security posture seriously.

Method

Figures are drawn from the XMRList directory database as of July 2026, covering every listing regardless of status. Listings are sourced from public directories, operator submissions and our own research. "Verified" means we or a trusted source confirmed the service accepts Monero; "admitted" means listed but not independently confirmed. Country reflects stated or registered operating location and is self-reported in many cases. We re-run these counts periodically and update this page.

Browse the full dataset at xmrlist.com, or start with recently added services.

Frequently asked questions

How many businesses accept Monero?

Our directory tracks 1,556 services accepting or trading Monero as of July 2026, of which 352 are general businesses and 348 are exchanges. The true total across the web is certainly higher.

What percentage of Monero services are scams?

2.8% carry a scam flag and a further 4.9% are marked questionable — about 1 in 13 listings. That reflects reports we have received and verified, so treat it as a minimum.

Which country has the most Monero-accepting services?

The United States, with 198 listings, ahead of Russia (88) and Germany (54). Services span 93 countries in total.

Do most Monero services offer a Tor mirror?

No — 134 of 1,556 (8.6%) publish one. It is a minority, but a far higher share than the web generally, and concentrated in hosting and exchange categories.

Is the Monero economy growing?

Listing counts have grown steadily as we expand coverage, but that measures our directory rather than the whole market. We publish absolute counts and the method above so you can judge the number rather than take a growth claim on faith.

Data as of July 2026. We refresh these figures periodically; the method section describes exactly what each number counts.