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Dero

DERO · Field entry
PrivacySmart contractsPrivacyCaution flagNot on major US exchanges

A proof-of-work chain with encrypted account balances and private smart contracts

By

$0.008420—Snapshot · October 20, 2026 · updates live
Market cap
$106,742
24h volume
$8,249.64
Rank
—
Circulating
12.68M DERO
Max supply
21.00M DERO
All-time high
$27.29 October 9, 2021

DERO price chart

7-day snapshot. Chart data from CoinGecko.

Read this first — caution flag. Trading is extremely thin after most exchanges dropped DERO, and the project's lead developer has been absent since January 2024, leaving a small volunteer team in charge. How to evaluate a project.
Not on major US exchanges. As of October 2026 Coinbase does not offer DERO, CoinEx delisted it in June 2026, KuCoin says it does not support it, and the TradeOgre exchange was shut down by Canadian police in 2025. How to buy crypto safely.

What is Dero?

Dero is a proof-of-work blockchain, started in 2017 and rebuilt around encrypted accounts, where balances stay encrypted on-chain and only the owner can read them. It also supports smart contracts whose balance data is encrypted, though trading in DERO has become very limited.

Utility Lens

What Dero actually does

Lets users hold, send and use smart contracts on a chain where balances and transfer amounts stay encrypted.

Real-world usage
earlyThe network and its private smart contracts work, but use is small and centralized trading has largely disappeared.
Token necessity
essentialDERO is the coin miners earn and the asset whose encrypted balances the chain tracks and moves.
Decentralization
limitedMining is open to ordinary CPUs, but the lead developer, known only as Captain, has been absent since January 2024 and a small volunteer group now maintains the code.
Track record
longLaunched in December 2017 and moved to its encrypted-account design by 2022; we found no reported major hack, but the founder's absence since 2024 is a lasting concern.

How we rate

What it’s used for

People mine DERO with ordinary processors, send it privately and experiment with smart contracts on the network. Volunteer developers keep releasing node software, including a 2026 hard fork. Buying DERO has become hard: KuCoin says it does not support the coin, and TradeOgre was shut down by Canadian police in 2025.

Role of the DERO token:

paymentsgas

Evidence of real use

Privacy: what’s hidden, what isn’t

Privacy model
default (every transaction)
What it hides
Account balances, transfer amounts and which account in the ring is the real sender or receiver; balance data held inside smart contracts.
What stays visible
That a transaction occurred and when, the set of ring members it involves, fees, and the code of every smart contract.
Reality check
Senders are hidden among a ring, often 8 or 16 accounts, rather than among every account on the chain, and a small ring offers less cover. Thin liquidity and the EU's planned ban on regulated providers handling privacy coins from July 2027 leave few places to trade it.

Privacy coins, explained

How Dero works

Most blockchains publish every balance in plain view. Dero instead stores each account balance in encrypted form using homomorphic encryption, a type of math that lets the network add and subtract encrypted numbers without decrypting them. Only the account owner can read the true figure. Because Dero tracks accounts rather than a long list of past outputs, a wallet can look up its balance quickly instead of scanning the entire chain.

To hide who is paying whom, each transfer is mixed into a ring of other accounts. Ring sizes come in powers of two, such as 8 or 16, and a bigger ring gives more cover but makes the transaction slightly larger. Dero says it uses many-out-of-many proofs with Bulletproofs so the network can confirm a transfer is valid without learning the parties or the amount.

Smart contracts run in the DERO Virtual Machine. The contract code is public, but balances tied to assets inside a contract are encrypted like the native coin. New coins come from proof-of-work mining with AstroBWT, an algorithm built so that phones and everyday processors stay competitive with specialized hardware. A mini-block system lets several miners share in the reward for a single block, rather than one winner taking it all.

Key moments

  1. 2017Dero launches in December as a CryptoNote-based privacy coin.
  2. 2018The network moves to a new Go codebase, and later that year to the Atlantis upgrade.
  3. 2020The team releases its homomorphic encryption protocol, DERO-HE, for public testing.
  4. 2022Stargate RC2, the encrypted-account version with smart contracts, goes live on mainnet.
  5. 2024The lead developer, known as Captain, posts his last message on New Year's Day and then goes silent; community developers carry on.
  6. 2026Release 152 schedules Hard Fork 3 at block 7,504,640, and node operators are told to upgrade before it activates.

Supply

DERO has a maximum supply of 21 million coins. New coins are created only through mining, and the block reward halves every four years.

Risks to understand

  • Trading is extremely thin: Coinbase does not offer DERO, CoinEx delisted it in June 2026, KuCoin says it does not support it, and the TradeOgre exchange was shut down by Canadian police in 2025.
  • The founder and lead developer has been absent since January 2024, so the project depends on a small group of volunteer developers.
  • Encrypted balances and private contracts are complex, and bugs in this kind of system can be hard for outsiders to spot.
  • From July 10, 2027 EU-regulated crypto service providers may not handle anonymity-enhancing coins, which further limits where DERO can trade.

Dero FAQ

Is Dero still being developed?

Yes. Community developers published a new node release in August 2026 that scheduled Hard Fork 3, although the original lead developer has been absent since early 2024.

Can I buy DERO on a US exchange?

As of October 2026, no. Coinbase does not offer it, and offshore options have shrunk too: CoinEx delisted DERO in June 2026, KuCoin says it does not support the coin, and TradeOgre was shut down.

What does homomorphic encryption do in Dero?

It lets the network update encrypted balances without ever decrypting them, so only the account owner can see how much they hold.

Is there a supply cap?

Yes. DERO is capped at 21 million coins, with block rewards halving every four years.

Sources

  1. What is DERO — DERO Documentation
  2. derohe: DERO Homomorphic Encryption blockchain — DERO Project (GitHub)
  3. Release 152: Hard Fork 3 — DERO Project (GitHub)
  4. Captain Archive: DERO in his own words — derod.org (DERO community)
  5. How to buy DERO — KuCoin
  6. RCMP disrupts major illicit crypto hub and seizes $56M in TradeOgre takedown — TRM Labs
  7. Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 (Anti-Money Laundering Regulation) — EUR-Lex, Official Journal of the EU
  8. CoinEx Will Delist DERO and SYS — CoinEx

Last reviewed October 20, 2026. Written by . Utility Lens ratings are editorial judgments, not investment advice. Market data from CoinGecko. Spot an error? Request a correction.

About the author

Dave McNaught has worked in IT since 1999 and founded All Business Technologies (ABT) in 2003, a Boston-area firm providing Managed IT, Cybersecurity, Managed AI, Web Design and App Development. He publishes The Crypto Guide.

Full bio